Are western lifestyles causing a rise in autoimmune diseases?
Science Weekly
English - January 20, 2022 05:00 - 11 minutes - 19.5 MB - ★★★★ - 315 ratingsScience Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
Previous Episode: Covid-19: the Omicron wave is slowing - what lies on the other side?
Next Episode: Are animals the future of human organ transplantation?
Could the food we eat and the air we breathe be damaging our immune systems? The number of people with autoimmune diseases, from rheumatoid arthritis to type 1 diabetes, began to increase around 40 years ago in the west. Now, some are also emerging in countries that had never seen the diseases before. Ian Sample speaks to genetic scientist and consultant gastroenterologist James Lee about how this points to what western lifestyles might be doing to our health, and how genetics could reveal exactly how our immune systems are malfunctioning. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod