Word: rheumatoid
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...curators and anthropologists are worried that a sweeping national policy would empty museums across the land. Scholars argue that preserved skeletons and other human artifacts, particularly those of great antiquity, provide essential information on problems ranging from the organization of tribal societies to the origin of certain diseases, like rheumatoid arthritis...
...medical application, doctors are beginning to time medication to match biological cycles. Some experts believe the effectiveness + of cancer treatments can be boosted -- and the harmful complications of the often toxic drugs lessened -- by taking advantage of daily rhythms in the immune system and cell division. Painful bouts of rheumatoid arthritis occur most frequently in the morning, when natural anti-inflammatory agents are least active; aspirin affords the best relief when taken the night before. On the other hand, the time to take medication for osteoid arthritis is midday; joints become inflamed with movement, and pain occurs later...
...errors of the immune system involves its failure to distinguish between self and nonself, resulting in so-called autoimmune diseases, which can be crippling and sometimes fatal. Dozens of disorders that once mystified doctors are now thought to be autoimmune. Among them: Type 1 diabetes, myasthenia gravis, multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus. In these and other autoimmune diseases, the immune system mounts a selective and ferocious assault against parts of the body, destroying cells or cell components that it mistakenly identifies as alien...
...spite of prevailing theory, Tonegawa found that the "cars" did indeed rearrange themselves in a multitude of different configurations to make the antibodies that fight off diseases. His work has led to discoveries of how some cancers form and could help in understanding such immune disorders as AIDS or rheumatoid arthritis. To appreciate why the immune system goes wrong, notes Tonegawa, researchers must first understand what happens when it is going right...
Call it the Great Impostor. Like rheumatoid arthritis, it painfully inflames knees and ankles. Sometimes it masquerades as heart disease, provoking arrhythmias so severe that a pacemaker may be required. It can strike the brain, inciting blinding headaches, memory lapses and even chronic depression. Muscular coordination can become so shaky that doctors suspect multiple sclerosis. Walt Dabney, 41, of Herndon, Va., suffered for more than two years with many of these symptoms and ran up $4,000 in medical bills before his problem was correctly diagnosed: he had Lyme disease, a bacterial infection spread by ticks. Says Dabney, chief ranger...