In January, Mariah Carey took to Twitter to report that her husband, "America's Got Talent" host Nick Cannon, had been hospitalized in Aspen, Colorado with "." Cannon had been taken to the hospital for abdominal pain.In addition, only a few weeks later, Cannon had a second hospitalization due to blood clots in his lungs.
Cannon is now telling that the cause of that kidney failure was an autoimmune disease similar to lupus:
They kind of say [my] autoimmune [disease] is – like a lupus type of thing, but no one else in my family has it.A couple of weeks ago, Cannon from his New York-based talk radio show to concentrate more on his health. Cannon says he's grateful to be alive and plans on spending more time with his wife and their twins, Moroccan and Monroe.
The Scope of Autoimmune Disease
- The National Institutes of Health estimates that up to 23.5 million Americans suffer from autoimmune disease, and that the prevalence is rising.
- Researchers have identified 80-100 different autoimmune diseases and suspect at least 40 additional diseases of having an autoimmune basis. These diseases are chronic and can be life-threatening.
- Autoimmune disease is one of the top 10 leading causes of death in female children and women in all age groups up to 64 years of age.
- A recent shows 32 million Americans have auto-antibodies that target their own tissues.
Examples of autoimmune (or autoimmune-related) disorders include:
- – sprue (gluten-sensitive enteropathy)
- Dermatomyositis
- Hashimoto’s thyroiditis
- Myasthenia gravis
- Pernicious anemia
- and Psoriatic Arthritis
- Rheumatoid arthritis
Autoimmune Diseases and Kidney Failure
Autoimmune diseases can affect almost any part of the body, including
the heart, brain, nerves, muscles, skin, eyes, joints, lungs, kidneys,
glands, the digestive tract, and blood vessels.
A few types are more likely to target the kidneys, and can lead to kidney failure. These include:
Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE)
SLE affects many parts of the body: primarily the skin and joints, but also the kidneys.
Because women are more likely to develop SLE than men, some researchers believe that a sex-linked genetic factor may play a part in making a person susceptible, although viral infection also has been implicated as a triggering factor.
Lupus nephritis is the name given to the kidney disease caused by SLE, and it occurs when autoantibodies form or are deposited in the glomeruli, causing inflammation. Ultimately, the inflammation may create scars that keep the kidneys from functioning properly.
Conventional treatment for lupus nephritis includes a combination of two drugs, , a cytotoxic agent that suppresses the immune system, and prednisolone, a corticosteroid used to reduce inflammation.
A newer immunosuppressant, (MMF), has been used instead of cyclophosphamide. Preliminary studies indicate that MMF may be as effective as cyclophosphamide and has milder side effects.
Goodpasture's Syndrome
Goodpasture's syndrome involves an autoantibody that specifically targets the kidneys and the lungs.
Often, the first indication that patients have the autoantibody is hemoptysis. But lung damage in Goodpasture's syndrome is usually superficial compared with progressive and permanent damage to the kidneys.
Goodpasture's syndrome is a rare condition that affects mostly young men but also occurs in women, children, and older adults. Treatments include immunosuppressive drugs and plasmapheresis which removes the autoantibodies.
IgA Nephropathy
IgA nephropathy is a form of glomerular disease that results when immunoglobulin A (IgA) forms deposits in the glomeruli, creating inflammation.The most common symptom of IgA nephropathy is blood in the urine, but it is often a silent disease that may go undetected for many years.
This disease is estimated to be the most common cause of primary glomerulonephritis. It appears to affect men more than women. Although IgA nephropathy is found in all age groups, young people rarely display signs of kidney failure because the disease usually takes several years to progress to the stage where it causes detectable complications.
No treatment is recommended for early or mild cases of IgA nephropathy when the patient has normal blood pressure and less than 1 gram of protein in a 24-hour urine output.
When proteinuria exceeds 1 gram/day, treatment is aimed at protecting kidney function by reducing proteinuria and controlling blood pressure. Blood pressure medicines-angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACE inhibitors) or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs)-that block angiotensin are most effective at achieving those two goals simultaneously.
The Path Forward for Treatment of Autoimmune Disorders
In 2012, the U.S. National Institutes of Health will spend .Research is focusing on understanding the genetics of autoimmunity, elucidating the mechanisms of self-tolerance, developing approaches to induce self-tolerance, and characterizing pathways of immune-mediated tissue destruction. Knowledge gained from these research studies provides the rationale for clinical strategies to diagnose autoimmune diseases and to develop novel treatments for ongoing disease.
In 1998, Congress commissioned the Autoimmune Diseases Coordinating Committee (ADCC) to develop a comprehensive strategic Research Plan for National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded autoimmune research with the goal of reducing the impact of autoimmune disease.
For clinical trials involving autoimmune disorders, click .