PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) — Lupus affects more than 1.5 million people nationwide, and until now its underlying cause was unknown, but an intriguing new discovery from Northwestern Medicine has pinpointed one possible cause and provided a little more clarity.
This month, a molecular defect was discovered that could help reverse the disease and pave the way for a potential cure. While this is certainly a step forward, Dr. Seth Barney, chief rheumatologist at Eastern Virginia Medical School, believes there’s still a long way to go before a cure is found.
“This research should give lupus patients enthusiasm and hope,” Barney said. “Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but certainly in the future it will help medical science understand some of the causes of lupus and identify targets for it and develop treatments.”
Lupus causes the immune system to overreact and attack the body’s tissues. Researchers have tried for centuries to understand what causes this reaction, but recent studies suggest that environmental factors are a major culprit.
“I don’t think it’s that simple,” he says. “It also means that there are factors other than genetics that contribute to the onset. If it was purely genetic, then if one identical twin had lupus, the other identical twin would also have lupus because they are genetically identical. So if we see that difference, we have to take environmental factors into account.”
According to Barney, the Northwestern study actually identified one abnormality, but essentially it’s just one of many, which was found in a certain number of patients and is said to boost the immune system’s activity or keep it from being inactivated, which may help heal the immune system.
“So ultimately, I think we’ll see lupus referred to as type 1, type 2, type 3 and type 4. They’re all similar diseases,” he says. “There’s an underlying defect in the immune system that causes type 1, type 2 and type 3 to develop, and they’re all treated differently.”
There is still no cure for lupus, but patients with the disease can expect a normal life expectancy, Barney said.
