It is a timeworn sign of old age and frailty.
Yet arthritis often (1) ______ the young. (1) ______
This disease of the body also has a (2) ______ impact on the mind. (2) ______
"got very (3) ______. I couldn’t sleep. (3) ______
When pain is (4) ______ like that, it changes your personality. (4)______
And it affected everyone around me," says Nora Baldner, who had arthritis in both hips. "I’d pour (5) ______ milk
on my kids’ cereal because I didn’t want to walk to the back of the supermarket where the real milk was." (5) ______
Joint problems are now hurting and crippling 43 million Americans, and they’re more (6) ______ than cancer or
diabetes. (6) ______
The most common form, osteoarthritis, affects about 21 million. Rheumatoid arthritis, another common type, hits
slightly more than 2 million. (There are 95 or so other forms, often affecting fewer people.)
And the numbers are going up (7) ______. (7) ______
By 2025, the total is expected to top (8) ______ million, (8) ______
as an obese population pounds more heavily on its joints and an active generation of baby (9). ______ grinds them
down. (9) ______
What’s worse, these people will be fighting the disease without medicines that had become staples of treatment: The
drugs Vioxx and Bextra have just been yanked off the market because they appear to (10) ______ the risk of heart disease,
(10) ______
and that same shadow of fear has been cast over remaining drugs like Celebrex and even ibuprofen-- a medicine that
had already worded doctors because heavy use can cause bleeding in the stomach.