. Why do auto immune diseases like psoriasis only target certain parts of the body or skin and not everything?
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Good question! Med student and immunologist here.
First of all, you should know that there definitely are systemic autoimmune diseases that target many organs (lupus, for example).
Each cell within your body is made up of different building blocks (proteins). During the development of your immune system, it learns how to recognize self from foreign, so it can kill all the bad stuff without damaging your own body. In cases of autoimmune diseases, this process didn’t go perfectly. As a result, your immune system attacks one of these self building blocks, and the type of disease and the symptoms you get depends on which one.
Now, because the cells in your body are different (your lung cells are different from your skin cells or your nerve cells etc), the pattern of symptoms will depend on which protein your immune system attacks and in which cells it is present.
I’m afraid it’ll very quickly get over the ELI5 level if I were to go deeper 🙂
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