Mordern Health and Diseases

Modern Health and Disease

1.1 What is meant by health and disease?

Disease can be defined as 'a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity'. There are three are three dimensions to this definition, namely physical, mental and social. Health may not necessarily involve disease, and the term disease is rather more difficult to define than health. One possible definition is that it is a ' bodily disorder' or a 'disordered state of an organ or organism'. This may be suitable when describing a person with tuberculosis, a liver affected by alcohol, or a lung with a tumor, but what of a broken arm? The arm is certainly in a 'disordered state', but it not normally be described as diseased. In fact, it is arguable that the term 'disorder' is sometimes to be preferred to disease, as perhaps in the case of genetic disorders/diseases. Disease is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes pain, dysfunction, distress, social problems, or death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person. In this broader sense, it sometimes includes injuries, disabilities, disorders, syndromes, infections, isolated symptoms, deviant behaviors, and typical variations of structure and function, while in other contexts and for other purposes these may be considered distinguishable categories. Diseases usually affect people not only physically, but also emotionally, as contracting and living with a disease can alter one's perspective on life, and one's personality.

What is Disease?- Video

The term disease broadly refers to any condition that impairs the normal functioning of the body. For this reason, diseases are associated with dysfunctioning of the body's normal homeostatic process. Commonly, the term disease is used to refer specifically to infectious diseases, which are clinically evident diseases that result from the presence of pathogenic microbial agents, including viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoa, multicellular organisms, and aberrant proteins known as prions. An infection that does not and will not produce clinically evident impairment of normal functioning, such as the presence of the normal bacteria and yeasts in the gut, or of a passenger virus, is not considered a disease. By contrast, an infection that is asymptomatic during its incubation period, but expected to produce symptoms later, is usually considered a disease. Non-infectious diseases are all other diseases, including most forms of cancer, heart disease, and genetic disease. A better understanding of what we mean by disease can be obtained by considering how diseases may be classified.

Classification of Disease

It is convenient to classify diseases into the following six main groups.

1. Diseases caused by other living organisms. Disease-causing organisms typically include viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoans, flatworms and roundworms. These organisms live as parasites in or on the human body and interfere with its normal working. Diseases which are caused by bacteria, viruses and fungi are commonly referred to as infectious diseases or communicable diseases, such as cholera (caused by a bacterium) and measles (caused by virus). Diseases caused by other organisms are more commonly referred to as parasitic diseases, such as malaria (caused by a protozoan).

2. Diseases that are 'human-induced' or 'self inflicted'. These diseases are brought by humans on themselves, either as individuals or collectively as a society. They could also be described as social diseases. Many are particularly associated with modern industrialized societies and include coronary heart disease, alcoholism, drug abuse, lung cancer, domestic and industrial accidents, industrial diseases such as asbestosis, and pollution-related disorders. The latter include brain damage brought on by lead or mercury poisoning, some cases of asthma and possibly some cases of cancer found in people living near nuclear power stations.
3. Deficiency diseases. These are related to the absence of certain nutrients in the diet. They may be due to the absence of certain nutrients in the diet. They may be due to the absence of one of the main food groups such as protein which results in Kwashiorkor and Marasmus. The absence of specific vitamins may result in a number of diseases such as pellarga (vitamin B1), scurvy (vitamin C) or rickets (vitamin D). Deficiency of minerals in the diet may also result in disease, such as calcium and phosphate deficiency causing rickets or lack of iodine causing thyroid goiter.
4. Genetic and congenital(present at birth) disorders. These disorders are raising increasing concerns in the medical services and society in general. Examples of genetic disorders are cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease and Down's syndrome. Advances in medical science ensure that many children who would in the past have died in infancy from such disorders are surviving and living to adulthood. This means that as a society we must provide the information before birth whereby babies with genetic disorders can be aborted. This may raises various social and ethical issues which provoke controversy in society.
5. Ageing and degenerative diseases. Degeneration of the body tissues can also cause disease. For example, weakening of the eye muscles causes long-sightedness in many older people, and diseases of the circulatory system, such as arteriosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) result from ageing. Ageing of the joint and bone tissues often leads to arthritis.
6. Mental illness. Mental illness covers a wide variety of disorders. Examples are schizophrenia, senile dementia and depression. Certain drugs have been developed that control or reduce various forms of mental illness. The treatment of these illnesses changed dramatically during twentieth century from life-long confinement in 'lunatic asylums' to 'care in the community'.

1.2 Global Distribution of Diseases

Disease	Deaths per year(mortality)

Respiratory disease	10000000
(e.g. pneumonia, bronchitis, influenza, diphtheria)
Diarrhoea	4300000
Measles	2000000
Malaria Tetanus Tuberculosis(TB) Hepatitis B Pertussis(whooping cough) Typhoid Schistosomiasis(blood fluke) HIV	1500000 1200000 900000 800000 600000 600000 250000 20000