Grave’s disease most commonly develops in women as well as people with family history of thyroid disorders, people with other autoimmune conditions, and women during pregnancy or who recently went through childbirth. Studies show that 1 in 200 people suffers from Graves’ disease. Due to hormonal factors, women are more prone than men into suffering from it.
What is Graves’ disease?
According to the American Thyroid Association, Graves’ disease is an autoimmune disease that leads to a generalized overactivity of the entire thyroid gland or “hyperthyroidism”. It is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism. It is named after Robert Graves, an Irish physician, who described this form of hyperthyroidism about 150 years ago and it occurs 7 to 8 times more commonly in women than men.
More specifically, Graves’ disease is triggered by a process in the body’s immune system, which normally protects us from foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses. The immune system destroys foreign invaders with substances called antibodies produced by blood cells known as lymphocytes. Sometimes the immune system can be triggered into making antibodies that cross-react with proteins on our own healthy cells. In many cases these antibodies can cause destruction of those cells. In Graves’ disease these antibodies (called the thyrotropin receptor antibodies (“TRAb”) or thyroid stimulating immunoglobulins (“TSI”) do the opposite which cause the cells to overwork. The antibodies produced due to Graves’ disease bind to receptors on the surface of thyroid cells and stimulate those cells to overproduce and release thyroid hormones, which results in an overactive thyroid (hyperthyroidism).