Hi Everybody
I just started reading a book called "The Autoimmune Epidemic: Bodies Gone Haywire in a World Out of Balance and the Cutting Edge Science That Promises Hope," by Donna Jackson Nakazawa, Foreword by Dr. Douglas Kerr, Director, Johns Hopkins Transverse Myelitis Center. This is a relatively new book, my library had just received it. The author expresses her concern about the increasing environmental toxins that people are exposed to that trigger autoimmne illness. She says that autoimmune is about 30% genetic predisposition, and 70% environmental. It is also a book about advocacy. She points out that better know diseases that affect fewer people are getting huge amounts of research grant money, while autoimmune illnesses receive much less, although the number of people getting autoimmne illnesses is rising very quickly. She feels it is a health/environmental crisis that deserves as much attention as global warming. I'm only up to page 100, but she was just discussisng a neighborhood that, unbeknownst, to residents had a toxic site in the middle of it, and the large number of residents that developed lupus and other autoimmune illnesses.
From the book jacket: "Heartbreaking personal accounts are supported by groundbreaking research from twenty of today's top scientists and studies from leading universities and hospitals including Harvard University, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, and the National Institutes of Health."
Further into the book (I have another 200 or so pages to go) she writes about ways to protect your immune system and current research. She is a good writer and the book is very engrossing and easy to follow (even with brain fog--trust me I know).