The immune system can recognize, assimilate or reject self and non-self components. Indeed, immunological activities vary in a spectrum that goes from total tolerance (assimilation of self and non-self) to intolerance (rejection of self and non-self).

Thyroid autoimmunity may manifest clinically as chronic autoimmune or Hashimoto’s thyroiditis (HT) and its variants (postpartum/sporadic thyroiditis) or as Graves’ disease (GD) and atrophic thyroiditis.

It is now well recognized that preventive health care requires going beyond the immediate causes of diseases and understanding their fundamental socio-economic determinants.

Urbanized societies are suffering an epidemic of chronic inflammatory disorders such as allergies, autoimmunity and inflammatory bowel disease.

Galen (129 – 210 or 216 AD) first described an organ located behind the sternum and named it ‘thymus’ because of its close resemblance with a leaf of the thyme plant.

The general meaning of the systemic response in inflammatory diseases is not well understood.

Recently, more than 10 studies [see References 1-11], published in the last 3-4 years indicate the presence of high intratumoral concentrations of catecholamines and that these neurohormonal mediators affect key components of tumor biology such as tumor growth, angiogenesis, and migration or invasion [for details see References 12-13].

The brain and the immune system, or the “supersystems”, a term coined by Tada (1997), are the two major adaptive systems of the body.