Word: chronics
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Kennedy's quest for employment will encompass the spectrum of issues surrounding chronically ill people in the workplace: the need for flexibility and special accommodations, the high hurdles of re-entry and the challenges that precarious health places on people with a passionate drive to perform but a body that can't always cope with the stress of job performance. According to a Johns Hopkins University study called "Partnership for Solutions: Better Lives for People with Chronic Illness," about 40% of the U.S. working-age population has some form of chronic condition, defined as any that persists for a year...
...group of more than 40 disorders that arise when the immune system launches a sustained attack against the body. Ailments as diverse as psoriasis, multiple sclerosis and Type I diabetes are all caused by an immune system run amuck. No one knows what initiates any of these chronic diseases or how they might be cured, but researchers have lately made significant headway in developing drugs to treat them--drugs that arguably represent the first substantial advancement in the field in 50 years...
...diseases. Steroids, for example--a mainstay of lupus therapy--shut down the immune system and suppress inflammation, but they can also promote hardening of the arteries, bone loss, obesity and even psychosis. Steroids are, in fact, among the leading causes of death and morbidity for patients with chronic lupus...
Many of the new therapies also happen to be incredibly potent. Last month, for example, pharmaceutical giant Novartis reported spectacular results in a clinical trial of Glivec, a drug that disables a uniquely aberrant protein produced inside cells of chronic myelogenous leukemia, which afflicts 4,400 new patients in the U.S. each year. In the drug's very first test, every patient went into remission. In the most recent results, 30% showed no sign of the chromosomal damage that marks the disease and appeared to have been cured. "This drug is amazing," says Richard Stone, an oncologist at the Dana...
...better idea of what could be in store, it helps to know what physicians believe lies at the root of most heart attacks. The trouble begins decades earlier, when the inside of a coronary artery becomes damaged--usually as a result of chronic high blood pressure, high cholesterol or the deleterious effects of smoking. The body tries to repair the damage, and a kind of internal scab is formed. Years go by, and the scab develops into a fatty deposit, filled with cholesterol, proteins and bits of cellular detritus. Sometimes the plaque is quite stable, and nothing much happens. Other...