Over the past 10 years, it’s been my personal goal to bring chronic illness and, in particular, autoimmune disease (AD) into conversation and public consciousness.  Having lived with multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases for 30 years, it’s clear to me that the lack of public recognition of these diseases is a big problem.

I’m continually surprised by how little the average person — or for that matter some of my own health care providers — knows about autoimmune (AD) disease.  Compare that to public awareness, understanding and acceptance of heart disease or cancer.

Did you know that 1 in 12 Americans —  1 in 9 American women! — live with AD?  Now, compare that with 1 in 20 Americans who will have coronary disease and 1 in 14 who will have cancer (read the book and you will know these statistics and more).

So the question begs:  Why is so little money, research and general interest devoted to autoimmune diseases (100 at last count) when they are pervasive?  The big idea here is that the enviroment is a major factor in the growing numbers and as long as we ignore this, we’re held hostage.  Jackson Nakazawa explores this issue and others, including the medical research and the researchers who are at the forefront  and what we can do to protect ourselves.

Jackson Nakazawa has wrapped this information in a highly readable account interspersed with stories about the effect autoimmune diseases have on real people —  people like you, me and your next door neighbor. What’s so startling is that this book hadn’t been written already.

Make reading this book your top priority.  You owe it to yourself.