What is clearly evident in the Swedish health care registers is the fact that those who lack a thymus have an increased incidence of
autoimmune diseases in which the immune system attacks the body's own tissue; Type 1 diabetes; thyroid
disease;
rheumatic disease; and hypersensitivity to gluten.
In their search for such a trigger in people who had become narcoleptic, Mignot's group found elevated levels of antibodies to Streptococcus pyogenes, a bacterium that causes strep throat and has been implicated in other
autoimmune diseases, such as
rheumatic fever.