Selena Gomez and Why Lupus Is the Women’s Health Issue You Should Know About

Selena Gomez has a refreshing habit of addressing her personal health conditions head-on, and this morning, with the reveal of a major new development in her lupus treatment on Instagram, was no different. The 25-year-old “Fetish” singer received a kidney transplant earlier this summer and today revealed post-op shots of herself alongside her close friend and kidney donor, actress Francia Raisa. Gomez spoke of her transplant and the autoimmune condition, which Toni Braxton and Michael Jackson also suffered from, bringing attention to a complex disease—and women’s health issue, as a staggering 90 percent of the 1.5 million affected Americans are female.

Lupus is a chronic inflammatory condition that causes the body to attack itself, targeting organs—often kidneys—joints, or skin, explains Dr. Janos Peti-Peterdi, a kidney expert and professor of physiology and biophysics at USC’s Keck School of Medicine. “[The body] thinks certain cell types are foreign and triggers a reaction,” Peti-Peterdi says of the condition, which many believe is caused by a combination of factors, including certain sex hormones as well as environmental factors. What’s worse, he continues, is organ problems are often intense in younger patients and “African Americans and Latinos usually have a more severe outcome from the disease.”

And while the long-term chronic disease, which can remain quiet or dormant for months before a sudden flare-up, is often misunderstood, writes the singer, organizations like the Lupus Research Alliance are working towards a cure. For the lucky few, like Gomez, lupus can become more mild or even inactive after a transplant, says Peti-Peterdi. As for the other, mainly young women? In addition to anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressant drugs and steroids, which help to treat conditions, Peti-Peterdi is using noninvasive imaging to study how certain cell types are behaving in affected kidneys, with hopes to one day silence the condition in that organ. “We’re working to identify patterns in the disease, find different markers in the blood and treating patients individually, based on subtypes.” Until then, young women everywhere continue to look to Gomez, who has promised to share more from her journey towards beating Lupus.



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