All Roads Lead to RUNX
Several autoimmune diseases share one bad actor
By Ben Harder
“On a good day, it feels like you’re trying to move through a pool of Jell-O.” That’s how Venetia Thompson of Middletown, Del., describes the exhaustion that she’s known most of her life. There have also been periodic headaches and, accompanying each of her three pregnancies, painful lung inflammation. But it wasn’t until she developed a whitening of her fingers 6 years ago, at age 40, that Thompson received a diagnosis of lupus. The whitening is one characteristic of the disease, in which the immune system can attack the skin, joints, lungs, kidneys, blood, and other tissues. Thompson now takes drugs to keep her overactive immune system from running entirely—perhaps fatally—amok.
Lupus is just one among scores of recognized autoimmune diseases. In total, the conditions affect an estimated 14 million to 22 million people in the United States. Many of the disorders, including lupus, strike a disproportionate number of women and tend to run in families.