Tuesday, June 16, 2009

The Many Causes of Diseases

By Musarrat Althaf

Diseases are the harmful changes that occur in the body or any specific body part, affecting the functions, appearance and structure of the body. The causes of many diseases are different in situation and associated problems. The common problems which cause this condition are like wars, the economy, and natural disasters. An outbreak of a great magnitude can cause serious effects to the people, greater that any calamity created by man or is natural.

If an outbreak occurs and then there is an epidemic, especially a viral one, it could be very hard to contain because the virus keeps on mutating and at a very high rate, leaving a wake of destruction behind. There was a situation in 1918 where between 20 million people to 50 million were killed by an outbreak of influenza. After a few months later, over 500,000 people in America alone died of the Spanish flu.

There are two broad classes that can be used in the division of disease causes because of their nature of being numerous. They are classified as either infectious or noninfectious diseases. The infectious diseases are those types of diseases that are communicable and involve the invasion of microscopic organisms in the body. The noninfectious diseases are not communicable which means that the disease cannot be passed from an individual to another.

There are diseases, like the common cold which is acute and it appears suddenly and is capable of lasting for several weeks. There are other diseases like arthritis which is a chronic ailment that may persist for months and even years. This condition may recur frequently. All the diseases that are known, and also those that are unknown have certain effects to the body which make them characteristic and identifiable. These effects are referred to as signs and symptoms. They may include inflammation, fatigue, nausea, fever, pain, rashes and dizziness among other symptoms.

The symptoms are used to tell the professionals in health-care and physicians what the condition is so that they may be able to make a diagnosis. On the other hand, the symptoms at times point out a few possible disorders. In a case such as this, the doctor needs to rely on medical tests like X-rays and blood tests to ascertain the diagnosis. The treatment that an individual and the individual him or her self will determine which cause the disease will take.

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