What Are Autoimmune Diseases?

The immune system is in charge of protecting us against the attack of foreign substances or parasitic bacteria, neutralizing their activity and preserving the balance of the body. This function is what makes transplants difficult, since by not recognizing a tissue as their own, they have rejection reactions.
However, there are times when it suffers an abnormality and begins to attack the cells and tissues of the body itself. This abnormal situation is generically called Autoimmune Disease. When it is of genetic origin, it is an autoimmune disease, properly speaking, and when it is an acquired factor or has a triggering cause, it is called an autoimmune disease.
Autoimmune diseases are divided into systemic and local.
Systemic autoimmune diseases attack the entire body or various organ systems. Some of these are rheumatoid arthritis, which begins in the joints, and attacks the skin, eyes, lungs, digestive system, and heart muscle; Fibromyalgia, which attacks fibrous tissues, muscles, tendons and ligaments; Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, which affects the nervous, hematopoietic, renal and skin systems; Sarcoidosis, which is the formation of tissue balls called granulomas in different organs; Guillian Barré syndrome in which the nerve connections lose their covering, affecting muscle strength and sensitivity.

Localized autoimmune diseases are those that attack a certain organ in particular, among which are: Type I diabetes, in which the Islets of Langerhans, producers of Insulin, Myasthenia gravis, which attacks the muscles, Pernicious anemia, which attacks the marrow that produces hemoglobin.
In addition to genetic causes, autoimmune diseases can be reactions to a factor trigger such as drugs, toxins, viruses, cross-reaction caused by another disease, some food or cancer.