question_answer 47)

  What is a disease? How many types of diseases have you studied? Give examples.

Answer:

  Human health gets negatively affected due to physiological malfunctioning, psychological reasons or pathogenic organisms. The term disease means without ease or comfort. Disease can be defined as an impairment (malfunctioning) of the normal state of the living organism that disturbs or modifies the performance of the vital organs and hampers their function. Disease may' be a response to (i) Environmental factors (as malnutrition, industrial hazards or climate) (ii) Specific infective agents (as worms, protozoans, fungi, bacteria or viruses).  (iii) Inherent defects of the organism (as genetic anomalies). (iv) Combination of these factors.(Also, refer to Q. 19)  

Different Type of Disease	Causes of Diseases	Examples
1. Physical	Temporary or permanent damage to any body part	Bone fracture, leprosy, strain or sparin
2. Infectious	Invasion of the body by microorganisms (viruses, bacteria, fungi, protozoans, nernatodes, insects, etc.)	Typhoid, diarrhoea, malaria, hepatitis, AIDS, TB, polio, influenza, cholera
3. Deficiency	Inadequate diet or lack of balanced diet.	Kwashiorkor, marasmus, scurvy, rickets, anaemia, qoitre, beri-beri.
4. Inherited	Defective genes are passed from parents to their offspring.	Haemophilia, sickle-cell1 anaemia, diabetes.
5. Degenerative	Organs and tissues wear away and do not work well with the age	Arthritis, hearing and sight defects, gout.
6. Mental	Brain damage or psychological illness	Depression, paranoia.
7. Social	Social interaction with family, friends and strangers.	Drug addiction alcoholism, smoking unhealthy life-styles social isolation.

A table listing various types of diseases, their causes and examples