Health

It’s an unheralded fact: Of the 24 million to 50 million Americans with an autoimmune disease, like lupus or multiple sclerosis, 80% are women. And a disproportionate number of them are Black.

Ikechi Ojore, a musician, educator and social media influencer, recently posted, “I love being Black. It’s dangerous AF, but it’s dope.”

A study of life expectancy trends in the U.S. released Thursday has found that the gap between Black and white lifespans has nearly doubled over the last two decades, exacerbated by geographic and racial health disparities — and reversing decades of a slow but gradual narrowing of the gap.

From the top floor of 1010 Massachusetts Ave., where she heads the Boston Public Health Commission, Dr. Bisola Ojikutu is a long way from the South Side of Chicago, where she grew up surrounded by a distrust of the medical system.

Carissa Juarez knew she was a silent carrier of the sickle cell trait. But when her newborn daughter, Jalyssa Batista-Juarez, was diagnosed with the SS genotype of sickle cell, a severe form of the disease, Juarez’s relationship with the illness transformed.

Ebony Holmes, 40, attributed those pains in her stomach to something she ate. After all, she was 38 and in relatively good health. But the symptoms persisted and worsened.

It’s pretty safe to assume that one’s colon is not a typical topic of conversation at the dinner table. Nor generally at any other time, for that matter. Perhaps it should be.

Medicare’s open enrollment period, which extends from October 15 to December 7, allows participants to choose plans for the following year.

Lung cancer is the third most common cancer in this country, but the most deadly. It is the leading cause of cancer deaths in both men and women. According to the National Cancer Institute, an estimated 237,740 new cases will be diagnosed in 2022 and over 130,000 deaths.

The first Monday in May is Melanoma Day. In all probability, most people of color completely ignored it. That’s understandable. Melanoma, the most dangerous form of skin cancer, is more common in Whites. But Black people do not escape the disease altogether. Actually, a rare form of melanoma is more prevalent in Blacks.

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in this country exceeded only by heart disease. According to Cancer Facts & Figures 2021 published by the American Cancer Society, in 2021, there were an estimated 1.9 million new cancer cases and 608,570 deaths.