[Immunoendocrine interactions and autoimmune diseases]

Communications between the immune and endocrine systems are bidirectional. A number of reports have demonstrated that many hormones have profound effects on the immune system. Cytokines produced by cells of the immune system cause changes in the neuroendocrine function. It is shown in various animal models with experimentally induced and spontaneously occurring autoimmune diseases that alterations of the immunoendocrine interactions are involved in the breakdown of self tolerance. This review discusses the role of disturbances along the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal and lactotrophic axes in the development of autoimmune diseases. This finding of the defective immuno-endocrine communications may lead to more specific therapy of autoimmune diseases in man. (Fig. 1, Ref. 51.).