Fig 4. Age association of acute conditions with concurrent chronic diseases
The trend was similar to that in the chronic group, i.e., with increasing age, the incidence of concurrent acute and chronic inflammatory disease was reduced. Additionally, the same three chronic diseases emerged as those most associated with acute concurrent pathology in this group.
When both these samples were pooled and the chi-squared test was conducted to assess the prevalence of a single inflammatory state as opposed to concurrent states, the analysis showed a strong prevalence of single inflammatory states (chi-squared statistic 60.65; p< .00001).
Twenty-one chronic conditions that improved considerably under treatment were mapped for the pattern of acute and chronic inflammatory conditions (supplementary material). For this mapping, the frequency (episodes of acute inflammatory diseases) and relative severity (e.g., fever temperature, severity of chronic symptoms, and the Childhood Autism Rating Scale – as applicable) of these conditions were analysed over the course of the individual’s history. In 18 cases, there was a clear increase in acute inflammatory conditions as the chronic disease showed improvement; however, prior to the onset of chronic disease, many cases showed repeated acute inflammatory diseases, which did not occur while the chronic disease was active. There was another interesting pattern in two cases, where previously suppressed skin conditions re-emerged as the chronic neurological conditions improved. According to homeopathic principles, this is the best evidence for improvement of a condition that is considered to be deeper than the skin (such as neurological conditions) [1, 9, 10]. The discussion of this phenomenon, however, is not within the scope of this paper.