#39 Arinola Dada, MD: Understanding Autoimmunity

We are blessed in this episode with the brilliant and joyful rheumatologist, Dr Arinola Dada. Through her insightful metaphors, Dr. Dada explains the nuances of the immune system, including the innate and adaptive immune responses, and how and why autoimmunity occurs. She walks us through the multiple cellular check points that our system has to gauge and respond to judge threats and then reviews some of the different ways autoimmune disease presents when these checkpoints fail. The cells 'under attack' can be localized to a tissue- as in the central nervous system with multiple sclerosis (MS)- or can be disseminated throughout the body- like the nuclear material attack of lupus. Then, the conversation turns towards how to think about medicines and treatments, of course including an anti-inflammatory diet, lifestyle, and avoiding toxicity and other infectious triggers as able. We spent the rest of the episode discussing medications: NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), steroids, and then the biologic monoclonal antibody pharmaceuticals that all together constitute the treatments for autoimmune disease.