 The
Autoimmune Epidemic
Bodies Gone Haywire in a World out of Balance and the Cutting Edge Science that
Promises Hope
(Simon and Schuster/Touchstone, February 5, 2008)
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Praise & Reviews
23.5 million -- that's
one in twelve --
Americans suffer from autoimmune disease,
making it more prevalent than cancer or even heart disease.
Multiple sclerosis, lupus, Type 1 diabetes,
rheumatoid arthritis, and nearly a hundred other chronic autoimmune illnesses
are part of this devastating epidemic, in which the human body, acting on
misread signals, literally begins to destroy itself. Alarmingly, the occurrence
of many of these diseases has more than doubled in the last three decades,
signaling a disturbing trend that can be directly tied to environmental factors
in everyday modern life—including our daily exposure to a dizzying array of
toxic chemicals.
In THE AUTOIMMUNE EPIDEMIC: Bodies Gone
Haywire in a World Out of Balance—and the Cutting Edge Science that Promises
Hope, Donna Jackson Nakazawa, herself afflicted with Guillan Barre syndrome
(an autoimmune disease), and other autoimmune diseases, lays forth the disturbing ways that “autogens” -- a
term Nakazawa coined to denote chemical and other triggers of autoimmune disease
-- are wreaking
havoc with the human immune system. She offers a clear course for hope,
detailing the personal, political, and economic choices that can help curb this
epidemic before it is too late.
THE AUTOIMMUNE EPIDEMIC combines
up-to-the-minute research emerging out of dozens of today’s cutting-edge
scientific labs with the frontline perspective of
autoimmune sufferers. Nakazawa explores vital topics including:
- What role chemicals, heavy metals, viruses,
diet, and genes play in developing autoimmune disease
- How our modern lifestyles and environmental
contamination have created a “perfect storm” – the ripest possible conditions
for today’s autoimmune epidemic to take hold
- The connection between autoimmune disease
and allergies, the rates of which are likewise skyrocketing
- The disturbing fact that 75% of autoimmune
sufferers are women—and one in nine women will be afflicted with these
diseases
- The fact that the average American woman is
eight times more likely to have autoimmune disease than breast cancer
- How industrial byproducts interface with the
immune systems of our bodies on a cellular level, sabotaging an
extraordinarily fine-tuned blueprint for healthy cellular communication
- Ways in which readers can lessen the
multitude of exposures that threaten their immune systems and their overall
health
- Why scientists now believe that even people
who are not genetically predisposed to autoimmunity may fall ill
- The groundbreaking interventions from
today’s top labs -- from Harvard to Hopkins -- that promise to help halt the disease process
As Nakazawa’s personal accounts show, anyone
is susceptible to autoimmune disease—from an athletic doctor in her 40s to an
entire neighborhood of teenage girls to small children. However,
surveys reveal that nine out of ten people cannot specifically name an
autoimmune disease. More disturbingly, many general practitioners lack in-depth
knowledge of these diseases and their diagnoses, and the average autoimmune
disease patient sees six doctors—over an average of four years—before being
diagnosed and treated correctly.
THE AUTOIMMUNE EPIDEMIC calls for a halt
in the proliferation of these debilitating, and often fatal, diseases—and
provides the knowledge and the means to make a difference.
As Dr. Douglas Kerr, the director of the Johns
Hopkins Transverse Myelitis Center states in the book’s foreword, “The
Autoimmune Epidemic is astounding… It is the kind of book that will scare
you. It will make you angry. It will amaze you with the courage of some of the
people described in the book… The Autoimmune Epidemic is every bit as
compelling as Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and every bit as necessary as
An Inconvenient Truth … Reading The Autoimmune Epidemic is a
necessary first step. Reading The Autoimmune Epidemic is a life-altering
event. It needs to be.”
Order The
Autoimmune Epidemic
Amazon.com
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Booksense.com (your favorite local bookstore)
Borders.com
February 2008
Published by Touchstone/Simon and Schuster
hardcover / 352 pages
Hardcover ISBN: 0743277759 |
