The National Institutes of Health, the
Lupus Foundation of America, and the Rheumatology Research Foundation funded the study.
The company has worked with such non-profit as Easterseals, the
Lupus Foundation of America, the Urban Institute and Breaking Ground.
*
Lupus Foundation of America. Neuropsychiatric Lupus Research Program, http://www.lupus.org/research/neuropsychiatriclupus-research-program.
Lupus Foundation of America.[Online] [cited 2009 may 20].Available from: URL: www.lupusorg.com.
"Lupus is the prototypical autoimmune disease, and medical research on lupus may provide clues to the causes of this immune dysregulation and ultimately find cures for people with lupus as well as other autoimmune diseases," comments Sandra Raymond, president and chief executive officer of the
Lupus Foundation of America. "We've made great progress with the help of biopharmaceutical researchers, and we remain committed to working with all stakeholders to find new treatments that will improve the overall health and well-being of patients with lupus."
Nonetheless, lupus can develop in an individual with no family history; however, in such cases there is a family history of other autoimmune disease (
Lupus Foundation of America, 2012).
According to the
Lupus Foundation of America, 1.5 m Americans have the disease with more than 16,000 new cases diagnosed each year.
In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions can be made to:
Lupus Foundation of America, Inc., P.O.
Partners in this initiative --which include major drug makers such as Merck and GlaxoSmithKline, along with nonprofits such as the Rheumatology Research Foundation, the
Lupus Foundation of America, the American Diabetes Association, and the Alzheimer's Association--are expected to invest more than $230 million over 5 years in the first projects, which will focus on rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus (total funding of $41.6 million), type 2 diabetes ($58.4 million), and Alzheimer's disease ($129.5 million).
Research that compared a group of women with lupus to a group of healthy women found that lupus patients were more likely to have traditional risk factors for heart disease, such as diabetes and hypertension, according to the
Lupus Foundation of America. Additionally, these women had an earlier onset of menopause, and had higher levels of triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, or the bad cholesterol.
Approximately 1.5 million Americans have some form of lupus, and according to the
Lupus Foundation of America, because some cases go undiagnosed, that number is probably higher.