The Early and Late Manifestations of Lupus

Risk factors like gender, ethnicity, and genetics are non-modifiable. They put us at increased risk of certain diseases, but there is not much we can do about them. But still, there are ways to prevent the development of autoimmune diseases, even if we have weak genes. Studies have shown disease pattern among people with similar genes, gender, ethnicity may vary greatly (eg. Identical twins). This is because apart from genes, environmental factors play important role in the disease development. Thus we cannot avoid all the environmental risk factors, but knowing more about them can help. Following is a list of some of the environmental factors that could be associated with the development of autoimmune diseases (1,4).