Butterfly effect in celiac research

​It has been said that something
as small as the flutter of a
butterfly's wing can cause
a typhon halfway across the world.
                                 - Chaos Theory

It must be a butterfly year. I think I have seen them everywhere, lots of them. Maybe the butterfly is very present in my consciousness this year. It sounds drastic when you hear the description of the butterfly effect. That the flutter of wings from this delicate creature could create catastrophic consequences on the other side of the earth. It´s easy to compare this effect with lupus. A small mismatch in some immune cells creating chaos and major consequences for the rest of the body. So major that you have to weaken the entire immune system so that  it doesn´t  kill you.

The mystery of the "switch" for lupus and other auto-immune diseases  is not yet solved, but researchers are working on it. Some believe the solution can be found in Celiac Research. While in lupus, sclerosis, arthritis and other autoimmune diseases they do not know what is recognized as dangerous, in celiac disease they know it´s gluten. Researchers at the University of Oslo have found a special type of T-cell that recognizes gluten in patients with celiac disease. T cells are immune cells that recognize and distinguish between what is dangerous and harmless in the body. The researchers found that the same type of T cell recurs in patients with other autoimmune diseases, including lupus. The hope is that by doing further research on these, they can find out what it is that is recognized as dangerous in, for example, lupus patients. The potential of the research is to eventually find treatment methods that take out only these cells instead of weakening the entire immune system. Now that would a positive butterfly effect! Go University of Oslo!

Sources:
https://forskning.no/celler-immunforsvaret-partner/cellene-som-er-sentrale-for-coliaki-koblet-til-andre-autoimmune-sykdommer/1335291
https://www.med.uio.no/klinmed/forskning/aktuelt/aktuelle-saker/2019/felles-celletype-for-autoimmune-sykdommer.html
https://sml.snl.no/T-celler