While the manifestations of autoimmune disease vary according to the tissues attacked and whether cell-mediated or antibody excess dominates (and the particular signalling molecules activated), as immunologists know they are all ‘variations on a theme’. This interesting paper published in the German journal Der Nervenarzt (The Neurologist) details how difficult it is to discriminate “systemic diseases such as lupus erythematosus, sarcoidosis, Behçet’s disease, and Sjögren’s syndrome“ that involve the nervous system. “Neither clinical signs nor additional analyses such as serological findings or cerebrospinal fluid analysis are able to differentiate between the diseases with certainty.” That’s how similar they are. However, it can be done and, most importantly, the functional medicine approach using the latest lab investigations can profile the underlying factors that are specific to each person. This is how we get science-based treatment of the causes rather than suppression with steroids.

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