Thread by @nathalie_conrad

Our latest research is out in @TheLancet today

We sought to answer:
1. Are autoimmune diseases on the rise as has been suggested?
2. Can we identify clues as to their causes (genetic or environmental)?
3. Do different autoimmune diseases cluster together & what might this mean?

Here's what we found:

1. Trends over the past 20 years and across a broad range of autoimmune diseases do not support the idea of an epidemic of autoimmunity (at least not pre covid and in the UK).

2. We found evidence of socioeconomic, seasonal, and regional disparities for several autoimmune diseases (particularly Graves’, pernicious anaemia, rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and type 1 diabetes).

We believe such variations are unlikely to be attributable to genetic differences alone and suggest involvement of potentially modifiable risk factors in the development of autoimmune diseases.

3. We observed that some autoimmune diseases tend to co-occur with one another more commonly than would be expected by chance (ie. one person with a first autoimmune disease is more likely to develop a second autoimmune disease than someone without autoimmune disease).

This could mean that some autoimmune diseases share common risk factors, such as genetic predispositions or environmental triggers. This was particularly visible among rheumatic diseases and among endocrine diseases.

But this phenomenon was not generalised across all autoimmune diseases - multiple sclerosis for example, stood out as having low rates of co-occurrence with other autoimmune diseases, suggesting a distinct pathophysiology.

Together, the 19 autoimmune diseases we investigated, affected about 10% of the population – 13% of women and 7% of men.
As of today, we do not know how to prevent autoimmune diseases and there is a real need for more research into understanding underlying disease mechanisms

Full paper: authors.elsevier.com/a/1h1U2V-4XL1MZ

Thank you to absolutely amazing co-authors : @IainBMcInnes1, @kamleshkhunti, @ShivaniM_KC, @GMolenberghs, @DrPeteTaylor and others not on twitter

and to supporting institutions: @KU_Leuven, @dphpckuleuven, @DoM_UCL, @uclmedsci, @UofGSCMH, @UofGlasgow, @OxfordMedSci, @Ox_wrh, @LDC_tweets, @imperialcollege, @cardiffuni

Also - first, second and senior authors all women on this paper!!
#WomenInSTEM #WomenInScience
@ShivaniM_KC

and of course many thanks to the study funder: @FWOVlaanderen !