Donna’s Blog

 The Autoimmune Epidemic
Bodies Gone Haywire in a World out of Balance and the Cutting Edge Science that Promises Hope

23.5 million, or 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), lays forth the disturbing ways that “autogens,” a term Nakazawa created for chemical and other environmental triggers, are wreaking havoc with the human immune system. She also 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 from Harvard to Johns Hopkins 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 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 a breast-feeding infant. 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 seven 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.”

Reviews

“In this important book, Donna Jackson Nakazawa sounds the alarm about the rise of autoimmune disorders, and the too-often unexamined evidence of linkages to the environmental contaminants we encounter on a daily basis in our homes, schools and workplaces. I encourage every American to read this book and learn about the choices you can make to reduce the spread and impact of this growing epidemic.”
–U.S. Senator John F. Kerry

“An insightful exploration of one of the greatest medical mysteries of our time.”
–Fred Miller, MD, Ph.D. Chief of the Environmental Autoimmunity Group, National Institutes of Health

“The Autoimmune Epidemic is astounding… It is the kind of book that will scare you. It will make you angry. 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 life-altering event. It needs to be.”
–Douglas Kerr, MD, Ph.D., director of the Johns Hopkins Transverse Myelitis Center

“For the first time sufferers from the epidemic of autoimmune disease are offered a ray of hope and understanding about why their bodies have rebelled against themselves. Seriously asking the question “why,” Donna Jackson Nakazawa provides answers and a roadmap for recovery which just doesn’t exist with conventional medicine.”
–Mark Hyman, MD, author of the New York Times bestsellers UltraPrevention and UltraMetabolism

“Everyone with a friend or family member with an autoimmune disease will find this a must read.”
–Publisher’s Weekly