Man, what heartbreak to learn this week that Venus Williams had to pull herself out of the US Open Tennis championships due to health issues. In researching her reported health condition, I found out that as many as four million Americans are living with the same disease, and 90% of them are female. The name for it is called Sjogren’s (pronounced show-grins) syndrome and thus far there is no known cure for it, but it can be treated and controlled.
Here we are yet again, highlighting an ailment that primarily affects women and the medical community is lacking complete understanding of how to prevent or cure it. We are talking over 3 million American women with the condition and because the symptoms vary widely from patient to patient, doctors are slow to discover it, especially since each symptom mimics a host of other conditions. Some patients say that it can seem like multiple sclerosis, stroke, fibromyalgia, Lyme disease, chronic fatigue, reflux, dry mouth and other more familiar conditions. Doctor’s diagnosis leads them to explore the possibility of osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, bursitis and even chronic depression.
Anytime I see these more familiar diseases I am alerted to the fact that too many people ignore the amount of processed sugar and continually feed these degenerative diseases with this inflammatory sweet chemical. A really bad disease that can cause fatigue and joint pain is Lupus. Nonetheless, there is a mounting number of people suffering from all these aformetioned diseases. In some cases proper dietary practices are ignored and when you observe so many folks downing such a large variety of processed foods it makes you wonder are these diseases trying to spell out major change in eating practices.
The fastest growing supplement/medicine relief is for joint pain and fatigue. The common name is Glucosamine, and modest studies have been able to show evidence that Glucosamine reduces the symptoms of osteoarthritis and possibly slows the long-term progression of the disease as well. Even the mildest of research is enough for the Federal Food and Drug Administration because their only concern about drugs is whether or not if the body can tolerate taking it with minimal adverse side effects or bad interactions with other drugs.
This joint inflammation is nothing to mess around with as it can negatively affect the autoimmune of the thyroid, kidney, liver, lung, skin organs and even change nerve functions of the upper or lower limbs. Maybe since Venue Williams has brought some attention to this terrible disease more medical attention can be applied for possible remedies. It is basically a rheumatic disease that causes inflammation in joints, uscles, skin, and other organs. This is why I think we have to arrest the amount of processed sugar we unconsciously consume every day.
Mr. Jones, is a marketing strategist with the Southland Partnership Corporation (a public benefit organization), sharing his view on mismanagement practices of packaged foods & beverages.
