People have warned about "putting the cart before the horse" since at least 1520 — that's the earliest written record of the saying. It may be time for a new version.

These days, it looks like it's very smart to "put the CAR T before the immune system."

Car T-cell therapy is a new cancer treatment that works by extracting, modifying, and then reintroducing disease-fighting T cells from your immune system so they're programmed to attack specific targets. It's used to treat recurrent, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and a few other cancers.

Now researchers have found that CAR T-cell therapy can trigger sustained remission in lupus patients.

This is huge. There are more than 80 identified autoimmune diseases, such as Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis, affecting 24 million Americans of all ages. Unfortunately, we don't really know why they happen or how to cure them. But that may be changing.

The new research, published in the journal Nature Medicine, describes the amazing outcome when researchers gave CAR T-cell therapy to a small group of people with difficult-to-manage lupus. After three months, they went into remission and were still symptom-free eight to 17 months later.

The next step: trying the therapy on other autoimmune diseases. 

If you have an autoimmune disease that's difficult to manage, ask your physician to keep an eye out for clinical trials you might be qualified for. This could be a revolutionary way for millions of people who struggle with these conditions to live longer and younger.