Chronic Inflammation and Disease

Our Nation is suffering from an epidemic of inflammatory diseases.  And, despite the best health care system in the world, it is getting worse, not better!

Dr. Chilton wrote about the epidemic of inflammatory diseases in his first book, Inflammation Nation, which was published in 2005.  Even since then, the statistics have become more alarming.

Consider the following statistics for these diseases, each of which has an inflammatory component:

• Current figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) put the prevalence of obesity among adults at about 66 percent. A recent study from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine concluded that if we were to continue at the present rate, “by 2048, all American adults would become overweight or obese.”
• Allergies now rank sixth among chronic human diseases.
• There has been a 100 percent increase in the prevalence of hay fever in developed countries in each of the past 3 decades.
• Almost 10 percent of young children are affected by allergic dermatitis, triple the rate in 1960.
• Today, more than 25 million Americans have asthma—twice as many as in 1990. And the severity of the disease appears to be on the rise as well: More people died from asthma in 2000 than in 1970.
• Nearly 24 million Americans—8 percent of the population—have diabetes, according to statistics released by the CDC in 2008. Even more shocking have been the data from individual states. In 1991, only nine states had diabetes rates of 7 to 8 percent, with none higher. By 2001, 43 states had diabetes rates of at least 7 to 8 percent, with Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida exceeding 10 percent. Estimates are that by 2025, the number of Americans with the disease will be close to 50 million.
• Arthritis and joint disease affect 43 million people in the United States, almost 20 percent of the population. This number is expected to surpass 60 million by 2020.
• More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s disease, with the direct and indirect costs of Alzheimer’s and other dementias topping $148 billion annually, according to the Alzheimer’s Association.
• Depressive disorders occur in approximately 18.8 million American adults, or about 9.5 percent of the US population age 18 and older.