Читать книгу Arthritis For Dummies - Barry Fox - Страница 30

Statistically speaking, the typical arthritis victim (if there were such a thing) would be a middle-class Caucasian woman between the ages of 65 and 74 who has a high-school education, is overweight, is a city-dweller in the southern United States, and has osteoarthritis.

But arthritis isn’t all that picky and doesn’t worry too much about statistics. It strikes young and old, male and female, and rich and poor and doesn’t seem to care where you live. Arthritis, in one form or another, can affect just about anybody.

However, arthritis does seem to hit women particularly hard. Nearly two-thirds of those who get the disease are women — an estimated 41 million Americans. Some facts about women and arthritis:

 About 26 percent of the female population have been diagnosed with some kind of arthritis compared to 19.1 percent of males.Some 16 million women are currently affected by osteoarthritis, a disease that strikes nearly twice as many females as males. Additionally, women are 40 percent more likely to develop knee osteoarthritis and 10 percent more likely to develop hip arthritis compared to men.Three times as many women as men develop rheumatorid arthritis, a disease in which the immune system attacks joint linings causing pain and disability.Females make up about 80 percent of those diagnosed with lupus.

 About 90 percent of those with Sjögren’s are female.

 Of an estimated 5 million U.S. adults with fibromyalgia, only about 10 percent are men.

 Girls are generally more than twice as likely as boys to develop juvenile idiopathic arthritis.