World Lupus Day: what it is and symptoms of the disease
Today, May 10, we celebrate WorldDay against Lupus, a disease still little known, but widespread, especially among the female population.
On the occasion of this anniversary, various initiatives are organized to raise public awareness and to raise funds to supportscientific research, essential to find a cure for rare diseases like this.
Establishing a world day against Lupus has been a need felt by several associations that deal with autoimmune diseases precisely because this disease can really affect anyone in a completely unexpected way, often with unpredictable consequences and life changes. Thecausesof Lupus are in fact still unknown and it has not yet been possible to understand how much genetic or environmental factors weigh. But let’s now find out more aboutLupus, what it is, what are thesymptomsand prognosis of this disease.
What is lupus?
Lupusis a disease shrouded in a veil of mystery, although widespread. It mainly affects thefemale population (about 90% of patients are women) and consists of an alteration of the immune system that instead of affecting harmful agents for the body, attacks healthy organs and causes a stronginflammationthat over time can also cause the death of the patient.
There are varioustypes of lupus, some more common others rarer. Surely the best known issystemic lupus erythematosus, achronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseasethat occurs when the immune system affects connective tissue (connective tissue) at a systemic level, causing inflammation of almost all organs.
There are also some forms of lupus completelyasymptomatic, particularly difficult to prevent and recognize because they do not have any symptoms, but attack vital organs, such as the heart, lungs and liver.
Finally, we mentiondiscoid lupus erythematosus, which is immediately recognizable because in this case the body attacks the skin, the largest organ of our body, and causes redness andskin inflammation.
Symptoms of lupus
As we have already mentioned, there are different forms oflupusand therefore symptoms can occur that vary from person to person. Symptomscan appear all at once or at different times and are called outbreaks. These outbreaks can be mild or severe and, as already mentioned, the causes of their occurrence are not known. Here are the most common symptoms of lupus:
- Fever and chronic fatigue
- Pain or swelling in joints and muscles
- Pain in the chest when breathing deeply
- Hair loss
- Sensitivity to sunlight
- Concentration deficit, epilepsy and in the most serious cases psychosis
- Canker sores and mouth ulcers
- Swollen and inflamed lymph nodes
Prognosis of the disease
At the moment there is no Prognosis for treating lupus , despite the fact that this disease affects a large portion of the world population (just think that 60,000 people in Italy are affected by this disease) and causes the death of many patients who do not receive adequate treatment.
Obviously it depends on the seriousnessof the disease and on the state of the organs that are affected by the attack of the immune system, but if it is possible to develop a suitable therapy for the patient, the life expectancy lengthens considerably. However, it is important to support research to ensure that an effective universal cure for all forms of lupus is found in the not too near future.
She defines herself as curious by nature. In 2006 she graduated with honors in Biotechnology at the Sapienza University of Rome. Between 2005 and 2009, she carried out a university internship and research activity in the field of tumor immunotherapy. She is a co-author of three scientific publications. Since 2007 you have associated your passion for science with that for the web, starting the management of the FitnessEquilibrium.com project.