Causes of lupus

What is lupus?

Lupus is a disease that is the different from other diseases in a sense that bacteria or viruses attack healthy tissue. The outcome of that may be very serious, causing damage of kidneys, joints, skin, heart, lungs, blood vessels and brain. It is still not discovered what causes the development of lupus, but there are beliefs that the cause is related to genetics and the environment that we live in. According to doctors, we may inherit predisposition to lupus, but the disease itself may develop when we get into contact with something that may be the cause of lupus.

Types of lupus

There are four types of lupus that don’t differ very much, but the treatment is different for each one of them. The first type of lupus is called systemic lupus. and when it appears, it can damage almost every part of your body. The second type is called discoid lupus, and it attacks skin. It is not so often that people with discoid lupus develop systemic lupus, but this possibility is not excluded. Drug-induced lupus develops only in cases where people take particular prescription medications, and the symptoms disappear when people stop taking those medications. The fourth type of lupus, neonatal lupus, develops in newborns, and it is a very rare condition, which appears due to mother’s antibodies that are passed on to the child. The usual sign of neonatal lupus is a rash that appears in the first week of life of a newborn. In cases that are more serious, condition such as congenital heart block may appear.

Causes of lupus

Since the cause is still unknown, there are certain factors that can increase the risk of developing lupus. Those factors include a sex of a person, since lupus is rarer with men. People of age between 15 and 40 are more likely to develop lupus, and people from Europe have fewer reasons for worry, because lupus attacks black people more often.

Sun can also be one of the triggers that may wake lupus up, and according to the doctors, sunlight expresses proteins of the skin to the surface and therefore lupus develops. Drugs that may also be a trigger for lupus development are antipsychoticchlorpromazine, medications for high blood pressure, drug isoniazid, certain heart medications and several others. Lupus can be developed after the infection of the Epstein-Barr virus and from being exposed to chemicals, too. Smoking is a risk factor for many diseases, and also for lupus.