Graves' disease is one of the most common forms of hyperthyroidism. It occurs when your immune system mistakenly attacks your thyroid gland and causes it to overproduce the hormone called thyroxine. It's thought to be an autoimmune disease.

Since the thyroid is responsible for maintaining a normal metabolism, over-activity of the thyroid gland can have some dramatic effects on your body's metabolism when too much hormone is released. Metabolism is the process by which digested nutrients are converted into energy and used for the body's cells to do their work.

Causes

Graves' disease involves the immune system of the body. Normally, the immune system protects you from infection and abnormal body cells by recognizing and destroying cells using antibodies, which are produced by blood cells known as lymphocytes. In Graves' disease, the lymphocytes in the body's immune system produce antibodies that actually attack the body's own tissue instead of protecting. Due to a result of this attack, the antibodies cause the thyroid gland to overproduce thyroid hormones.

Mostly women are likely affected than men to develop the disease. And smokers who develop Graves' disease are more prone to eye problems than nonsmokers with the disease. Here I would like to say that there are no single causes of Graves' disease. It is thought to be triggered by both genetics and environmental factors, such as stress.

Symptoms

The common symptoms are :-

Nervousness

Increased sweating

Double vision

Eye irritation

Breast enlargement in men (possible)

Tremor

Frequent bowel movements

Eye complaints, such as redness and swelling

Hair changes

Erratic behavior

Distracted attention span

Decrease in menstrual cycle

Increased frequency of stools

Treatment

Currently there is no treatment available to stop production of the antibodies that cause hyperthyroidism. However, there are three courses of treatment available to help Graves' disease patients have more normal levels of thyroid hormone and to control their symptoms. Anti-thyroid drugs are used to decrease the production of thyroid hormone. This treatment will result in prolonged remission of the disease in about 20 to 30 percent of patients and usually those with milder disease at the beginning of treatment.

To confirm a diagnosis of Graves' disease, your doctor may conduct a radioactive iodine uptake test, which shows whether large quantities of iodine are collecting in the thyroid. The gland needs iodine to make thyroid hormones, so if it is absorbing unusually large amounts of iodine, it obviously is producing too much hormone.