I came across an enlightening article this morning in Scientific American magazine, August 2009 issue, called Surprises from Celiac Disease.

A new study by Dr. Alessio Fasano may reveal means of delaying or preventing celiac disease and offer help for other autoimmune disorders.

Vitiligo carries a strong association with other autoimmune conditions, such as type 1 diabetes, pernicious anemia, Addison’s disease, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, and polyglandular autoimmune disease.  Histological evidence further supports an autoimmune etiology. Vitiligo lesions have an infiltrate of inflammatory cells, particularly cytotoxic and helper T cells and macrophages.  This infiltrate is most prominent in the perilesional skin just prior to the clinical appearance of vitiligo. Additional studies have shown that patients with vitiligo often have elevated levels of antibodies against melanocyte antigens such as tyrosinase and tyrosinase-related proteins …

Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen and thinking what nobody has thought. Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
A while back I came across an article in a medical journal which detailed research being done to cure melanoma (skin cancer) using plasma of donors with Vitiligo because studies have shown that this “enriched” IgG formulation contains potent anti-melanoma activity (read the original blog).
I spent the morning trolling the internet for more on this subject and I found so much to share with you. There is no way that I can condense all …