Curated playlist
Autoimmune diseases
- Autoimmune diseaseIn autoimmune disease, the body's immune system attacks healthy tissue it should protect.
- Rheumatoid arthritisRheumatoid arthritis is a long-term autoimmune disease, and as of 2020 it affected about 17.6 million people. In the developed world, it touches between half of one percent and one percent of adults. Each year, between 5 and 50 people in…
- Coeliac diseaseCoeliac disease can sit unrecognised for more than a decade after the first symptoms appear, and an estimated 70% of the people who have it never receive a diagnosis. North Americans spell it celiac. It is a chronic autoimmune disease,…
- LupusLupus, formally called systemic lupus erythematosus or SLE, takes its name from the Latin word for wolf. The disease was named in the 13th century, when its rash was thought to resemble a wolf's bite. Yet the real story lies beneath the…
- Ulcerative colitisUlcerative colitis can stay active inside a body that feels perfectly fine. Among people with a history of the disease who report no symptoms, up to 45 percent still show objective signs of inflammation. The condition is one of two forms…
- Hashimoto's thyroiditisIn 1912, a Japanese physician named Hakaru Hashimoto, working at the medical school of Kyushu University, published a paper of 30 pages with 5 illustrations. His evidence came from only four women. In each of them, the thyroid gland was…
- Guillain–Barré syndromeGuillain, Barré syndrome is rare, striking only 1 or 2 people in every 100,000 each year, yet it can turn tingling in the hands and feet into paralysis. The weakness can build over a matter of hours, or it can take a few weeks. At the…
- Raynaud syndromeRaynaud syndrome is a condition in which the smallest arteries in the body clamp down and starve a patch of tissue of blood. It is also called Raynaud's phenomenon. About 4% of people have it, which makes it far more common than most…
- Graves' diseaseGraves' disease is the autoimmune condition behind the dark sunglasses that became part of German folk singer Heino's trademark look. He wore them to hide his symptoms, and the disguise ended up defining him. Behind that image sits a…
- Sjögren's diseaseFatigue, not dryness, topped the list when Sjögren's disease patients were described in a 2021 article. Fatigue was named by 79%, dry eyes by 75% and dry mouth by 73%. Joint pain followed at 65%, trouble sleeping at 64%, eye discomfort at…
- Alopecia areataAlopecia areata, also called spot baldness, often announces itself with a single bald patch about the size of a coin. The skin underneath is unscarred and looks perfectly ordinary. The person is generally otherwise healthy. Yet hair is…
- Kawasaki diseaseKawasaki disease left its mark on a child's heart long before anyone gave it a name. The preserved heart of a seven-year-old boy who died in 1870 was examined many years later. It held three aneurysms in the coronary arteries, with clots…