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Autoimmune Diseases
No GROUP OF DISEASES is more insidious than autoimmune diseases. They
are difficult to treat, and progressive loss of physical and mental func-
tion is a common outcome. Unlike heart disease, cancer, obesity and
Type 2 diabetes, with autoimmune diseases the body systematically at·
tacks itself. The afflicted patient is almost guaranteed to lose.
A quarter million people in the u.s. are diagnosed with one of the
forty separate autoimmune diseases each year. I. 2 Women are 2.7 times
more likely to be afflicted than are men. About 3% of Americans (one in
every thirty-one people) have an autoimmune disease, a staggering total
of 8.5 million people; some people put the total at as many as 12-13
million people.^3
The more common of these diseases are listed in Chart 9.1.^2 The first
nine comprise 97% of all autoimmune disease cases.^2 The most studied
are multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Type 1 diabetes
and rheumatic heart disease.^2 These are also the primary autoimmune
diseases that have been studied in reference to diet.
Others not listed in Chart 9.1 include inflammatory bowel disease,4
Crohn's disease,4 rheumatic heart disease^3 and (possibly) Parkinson's
disease.s
Each disease name may sound very different, but as one recent re-
view points out,2 " ... it is important to consider ... these disorders as
a group." They show similar clinical backgrounds,3.6. 7 they sometimes
occur in the same person and they are often found in the same popula-
tions.^2 MS and Type 1 diabetes, for example, have "near(ly) identical
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