• Question: What properties does something have to have to be classed as a disease?

    Asked by hellotherehowreyou to Lyn, Paul on 28 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Ee Lyn Lim

      Ee Lyn Lim answered on 28 Jun 2013:

      Disease – ‘dis-ease’. A disease is something that makes you physically ‘uneasy’, or uncomfortable. So, quite literally, anything that makes your body unwell is a disease 🙂 Of course, you can further break different diseases down into different categories, and people in medicine concern themselves with some types more than others. But if it bothers you and should be treated, it’s a disease!

    • Photo: Paul Waines

      Paul Waines answered on 28 Jun 2013:

      Hi hellotherehowreyou (fine thanks, btw)

      A disease is something which affects the body of an organism. By organism I mean anything from a bacterium up!

      It might come from the outside (an infectious disease) or from the inside of the body (for example an autoimmune disease). Either way, all diseases cause pain, distress and can mess up the way the body normally works!

      There are four main types of disease:

      – ‘pathogenic’ disease (caused by viruses, bacteria etc)
      – ‘deficiency’ disease (caused by a lack of something e.g Scurvy)
      – ‘hereditary’ disease (passed down from parent to child via the genes
      – ‘physiological’ disease (such as heart disease, mental problems etc.)

      There are so many types of disease you can get, that it goes to show how good your body is at (usually) staying healthy!

      Hope this helps. If you’d like to know more- just post us another question 🙂

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