Celebrity Selena Gomez cracked open the door on lupus in her recently released documentary on Apple TV+, “My Mind & Me.” Focused largely on her mental health, which includes a bipolar disorder diagnosis, snippets in the film show the actor and superstar singer being checked and treated for lupus, which resulted in the need for a kidney transplant for Gomez in 2017.
Most common in women of childbearing age and more likely in African American, Hispanic and Asian populations, lupus affects an estimated seven out of every 100,00 persons. Patients with lupus can experience a myriad of manifestations, including arthritis, rashes and organ dysfunction. A relatively uncommon disease, lupus is generally not high on the public radar.
See related story on Selena Gomez’s mental health struggles.
Below, JoAnn Zell, MD, associate professor in the Division of Rheumatology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who watched the highly publicized documentary, talks about the disease that she specializes in and the advancements in treatment.