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It is a timeworn sign of old age and frailty. Yet arthritis often strikes the young. This disease of the body also has a terrible impact on the mind. "I got very depressed...I couldn’t sleep. When pain is constant like that, it changes your personality. And it affected everyone around me," says Nora Baldner, who had arthritis in both hips. "I’d pour evaporated milk on my kids’ cereal because I didn’t want to walk to the back of the supermarket where the real milk was."
    Joint problems are now hurting and crippling 43 million Americans. and they’re more costly than cancer or diabetes. The most common form, osteoarthritis, aftects about 21 million. Rheumatoid arthritis, another common type, hits slightly more than 2 million. (There are 95 or so other forms, often affecting fewei people ) And the numbers are going up steadily. By 2025, the total is expected to top 60 million, as an obese population pounds more heavily on its joints and an active generation of baby boomers grinds them down.
    What’s worse, these people will be fighting the disease without medicines that bad become staples of u’eatment: The drugs Vioxx and Bextra have just been yanked off the market because they appear to raise the risk of heart disease, and that same shadow of fear has been cast over remaining drugs like Celebrex and even ibuprofen-- a medicine that had already worried doctors because heavy use can cause bleeding in the stomach.