How long can autoimmunity develop before diagnosis, as stated in the video?

Robert Whitfield MDAmerica's Breast Implant Illness Expert™

Immune System: Passport Control in Your Body Explained #shorts

9 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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1:12

A short YouTube explainer by Robert Whitfield MD using the analogy of passport/border control to describe how the immune system distinguishes self from non-self. The speaker explains that when this 'border control' malfunctions, the body can lose tolerance and attack its own cells (autoimmunity); they note autoimmunity can develop years ("for seven years") before a formal diagnosis.

Questions this video answers

For seven years before diagnosis.

Chapters

One of the ways I think about it, especially since I'm traveling too much right now, is that it's your immune system is like passport control. So it's like you've got this country that's your body. You've got all these cells that you want to easily get through passport control. So you want to recognize your cells and pass them through the process at. At the border. And what happens with autoimmune disease or the development of autoimmunity, which can be for seven years before you get diagnosed with a disease, is that the system of passport control goes awire and you no longer can tell the difference between these cells that belong to you and these other cells. So border control is the immune system. It's the way that you're supposed to tell your normal healthy cells from these foreign invaders like bacteria or viruses. And if that border control becomes haywire, you then lose this ability to tell the difference. And that's the loss of tolerance as you're describing it.