More and more people are suffering because their immune systems can't tell the difference between healthy and invading cells. Disease defences are attacking their tissue and organs.
Two world experts, James Lee and Carola Vinuesa, have set up separate research groups at the Francis Crick Institute in London to help find the causes of autoimmune disease.
The number of autoimmune cases began to increase in the west about 40 years ago. Some diseases that had never been seen in other countries are now showing up.
The Middle East and east Asia have seen the biggest increase in inflammatory bowel disease cases. They had not seen the disease before.
There are a number of autoimmune diseases, including type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease and multiplesclerosis. The immune system crosses its wires and turns on healthy tissue.
At least 4 million people have developed such conditions in the UK alone. It is thought that the number of cases of autoimmune diseases will rise by between 3% and 9% a year. Environmental factors are believed to be a key factor in the rise.
Lee said that human genetics hasn't changed over the past few decades. Something must be changing in the outside world that is increasing our susceptibility to autoimmune disease.
Vinuesa was previously based at the Australian National University. As more and more countries adopted western-style diet and people bought more fast food, there was a change in diet.
The collection of micro-organisms that we have in our gut and which play a key role in controlling various bodily functions is affected by the alterations to the fast-food diet.
More than 100 types of autoimmune diseases have been discovered because of the changes in our microbiomes.
Both scientists stressed that individual susceptibility was involved in contracting diseases such as celiac disease, which can cause inflammation and swelling and can cause damage to various organs, including the heart.
Vinuesa said that if you don't have a certain genetic susceptibility, you won't get an autoimmune disease, no matter how many Big Macs you eat. There isn't much we can do to stop the spread of fast-food franchises. We are trying to understand the genetic mechanisms that underpin autoimmune diseases and make some people susceptible but not others. We want to address the issue at that level.
Thanks to the development of techniques that allow scientists to identify tiny DNA differences among large numbers of individuals, this task is possible. It is possible to identify common genetic patterns among people with an autoimmune disease.
Lee said that the power to sequence DNA on a large scale has changed everything. We knew about half a dozen genetic variations that were involved in triggering inflammatory bowel disease. We know of more than 250.
Lee and Vinuesa are trying to find out how the different genetic pathways operate and how they can be used to treat many different types of disease. It has become clear that there are many different versions of the disease, that may be caused by different genetic pathways. It has a consequence when you are trying to find the right treatment.
We don't know which patients to give new therapies to because we don't know which version of the disease they have. That is now a key goal for research. We need to learn how to group and assign patients so we can give them the right therapy.
New treatments and drugs were needed more than ever before because of the increasing cases of autoimmune diseases. He said that there are no cures for diseases that develop in young people while they are trying to complete their education, get their first job and have families.
Many people will have to have surgery or have injections for the rest of their lives because of that. It can be difficult for patients and health services. The need to find new, effective treatments is urgent.
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