The Blind Spot

Intriguing characters, puzzling investigations, absorbing memories and some surprising turns of events or resolutions are at the centre of these fourteen short stories recommended to everybody interested in health literacy as well clinical practices and research into the many wicked issues posed by autoimmune diseases. Patients, medics and researchers will find in "The Blind Spot" the opportunity to learn and understand more about the aetiology and the development of autoimmune diseases through immersive storytelling. The imaginative yet instructional tales of science, hope and self-care are always accompanied by trustworthy information and medical references, carefully selected and reviewed by the author from the most up to date and reliable scientific publications. "The Blind Spot" aims at communicating the best available scientific knowledge connecting adverse childhood experiences to autoimmune diseases and inborn errors of immunity. There is no endorsement of theories, products, disciplines, brands or campaigns in these stories: instead, every story emphasises the positive impact on our health of deeply personal journeys into self-care, conveying the need to preserve trust in conventional, functional and lifestyle medicine and to welcome and support research and advances in life sciences. "We are born with some innate, polygenic predisposition to autoimmune diseases, also called genetic susceptibility" Brunella Longo explains in the Postface "but we actually develop an active disease only if we go through highly variable, subjective experiences of injury, loss, trauma, abuse, infections, stress or other damage to the body and the mind. In a nutshell, the accidents we survive in our life may, hopefully, with time, fade away but traces of their legacy very likely remains on our immune system, causing impairments, chronic diseases or disabilities, particularly if they occur in childhood or in other vulnerable periods of life". Hence the importance of preventing adverse childhood experiences, ideally eliminating food and health poverty and trauma in the life of children. Brunella Longo is an informed patient with four decades of experience as an information consultant across several industries. All the stories of "The Blind Spot" are works of fiction hybridised with non-fiction insertions for the purpose of science communication. They do not constitute medical advice.