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BehindTheMedspeak: There are over 10,000 distinct rare diseases

From the RareShare website's December 2024 newsletter:

Rare diseases, while individually infrequent, collectively affect a significant portion of the global population.

A disease is typically defined as rare if it affects fewer than 1 in 2,000 people.

Despite the low prevalence of each disease, the total number of rare diseases is substantial.

It is currently estimated that there are over 10,000 distinct rare diseases, taking into account known genetic variants and many unnamed diseases.

Over 400 million people worldwide are living with a rare disease, and in the United States alone, about 30 million people are affected — equivalent to nearly 10% of the population.

These startling numbers highlight the paradox of rare diseases: individually rare, but collectively common.

Rare diseases can be genetic, infectious, autoimmune, or cancer-related, and they span nearly all medical disciplines.

Some well-known rare diseases include cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease and muscular dystrophy, but most remain largely unfamiliar to the general public.

Rare diseases consequently deserve more attention through increased research, patient assistance, and greater public awareness.

Rare disease patients often must overcome the broad and often misunderstood spectrum of these conditions.

Many patients go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed for years, as healthcare providers may be unfamiliar with their disease.

More:

RareShare Taps Into AI

To accelerate providing more disease-specific information for our users, RareShare has begun tapping into AI resources to produce community page disease summaries for our communities.

With over a thousand disease communities, the task of producing disease summaries for all of them is a very large one for our small volunteer staff, and nearly impossible to do using an entirely manual information gathering process.

Unlike raw data obtained directly from various generative-AI sources, our posted summaries will include information that has been vetted for scientific accuracy and edited for a non-expert audience by our team.

As we have only begun transitioning to our new process recently, it will take many months to update most of our community disease summaries.

Nevertheless, we have posted new summaries for the communities above.

Streamin — Where to watch anything anywhere

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Free, the way we like it.

Woodless Graphite Pencils

From the website:

Introducing Karst woodless graphite pencils, a quintessential set of 5 solid graphite pencils crafted for the discerning artist, writer, and everyone in between.

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Composed entirely of 100% pure graphite of 2B hardness, Karst woodless graphite pencils — each 5.5" long x 0.25" in diameter — promise an unparalleled writing and drawing experience.

They have been precision-engineered to offer the best lead grade to complement our Karst paper products, thus ensuring harmony between your pencil and paper.

These pencils possess a matte coating, providing a comfortable and slip-resistant grip while also maintaining the cleanliness of your fingers.

It's the thoughtfully designed solution that makes your creativity process free-flowing, unhindered by any uncomfortable stains or smudges.

Bypassing the traditional wooden barrel, the woodless graphite pencils have been created with a no-waste philosophy.

With the entirety of the pencil made usable, you get five times more pigment, amplifying the richness and depth of your expressions.

Set of 5: $22.