Hypersensitive Reactions and Autoimmune Diseases

In the process of antigenic removal, the body sometimes develops abnormally excessive immune response that causes damage to tissues and organs, and this abnormal overreaction of immune system is called a hypersensitive reaction, or allergy. Autoimmune disease is a disease in which the immune system is unable to tolerate self tissues and organs and produces an immune response that causes damage to self tissues and organs. The immune damage caused by hypersensitive reaction is due to overreaction, i.e. the damage caused by immune response is “unintentional”, while the immune damage caused by autoimmune disease is due to intolerance to self tissues, i.e. the immune system actively recognizes and attacks self tissue antigens, and the damage caused by this immune response is “intentional”. The main cause of hypersensitive reactions is a problem with the regulation of the immune response, whereas in autoimmune diseases, immune tolerance is broken. Both hypersensitive reactions and autoimmune diseases are pathological damage processes caused by abnormal immune responses.