Why does the body starts attacking to itself and why is cortisol is used as a medication in many of them?
In: Biology
Very generally speaking, a failure of tolerance or self-recognition must occur at some point, e.g. autoreactive T/B cells don’t get destroyed as they should be or some protective factor like complement FH is missing. The different ways in which these mechanisms fail gives rise to different diseases.
Cortisol, and corticosteroids/glucocorticoids more generally, are broad-acting anti-inflammatory drugs. That makes them useful in a lot of autoimmune diseases. However, they also come with a ton of bad side effects, so it’s preferable to avoid them if possible.
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