The Myth of Normal 64

between 1999 and 2010, giving my country among the highest rates of this disease in the world.[5] Such trends immediately rule out that go-to of medical explanations, genetic causes. Whatever effect genetics may exert—and no doubt they figure in some cases—logically they cannot account for the rise in prevalence of autoimmune disorders. “Genes do not change in such a short period of time,” Virginia Ladd, chief executive of the American Autoimmune Related Diseases Association, told Medical News Today in 2012. “The rapid increase in autoimmune diseases . . . clearly suggests that environmental factors are at play.”[6] In other words, something in our environment—or a combination of somethings—is inflaming our bodies. For most of us, when we hear “environmental factors” in conjunction with disease, our minds tend to go to well-publicized, material factors such as air pollution, lead paint, and cell phone radiation. One interesting but unproven theory has it that the rise in junk food consumption is responsible for the globally increasing prevalence of autoimmunity.[7] Studies have not yet identified such a link.[8] Either way, a complete understanding of health and disease requires a far more encompassing view of the word “environment”: a biopsychosocial one. The second mystery is the highly skewed gender distribution of autoimmune diseases. About 70 to 80 percent of sufferers are women, among whom such conditions are a leading cause of disability and death. Rheumatoid arthritis, for example, is three times more likely to strike women than men; lupus affects women by a disproportionate factor of nine. Mee Ok’s condition, systemic sclerosis, is three times more common among females.[9] Even more of a puzzle is why the gender imbalance is increasing in, for example, multiple sclerosis, a chronic, highly debilitating, potentially lifelong disease of the nervous system. In 1930s Canada, the gender ratio was about equal; nowadays more than three women are diagnosed with MS for every man.[10] The trend is reflected internationally. “There is an increasing incidence of multiple sclerosis in women in Denmark. Danish women’s risk of developing MS has more than doubled in twenty-five years, while it has remained virtually unchanged for