30
votes
Accepted
Is "smokers lungs" a lie?
So my question is: Are smokers' lungs visibly and routinely blackened and/or discolored in the absence of lung disease?
That last phrase is tricky, because smokers who have heavy pigmentation are ...
- 9,344
8
votes
In a viral infection, which symptoms are caused by the virus itself, and which symptoms are caused by the body fighting the virus?
To provide a brief answer, as I think a sufficient answer would be far beyond the scope of this site, the symptoms that are "generic" to the common colds are all caused by the body's response to a ...
- 1,846
7
votes
Are there diseases for which infection does not grant lasting immunity but a vaccine does?
Rabies is almost 100% fatal so there is no chance to develop immunity. So, post-exposure vaccination is used if the person has not been vaccinated prior to exposure.
Rabies is a vaccine-...
- 13.2k
7
votes
Are there diseases for which infection does not grant lasting immunity but a vaccine does?
Varicella zoster - you can get infected and then develop shingles recurrences which are preventable using vaccination eg Shingrix
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/shingles/public/shingrix/index.html
- 196
6
votes
Accepted
Is walking pneumonia aka mycoplasma pneumoniae curable?
Fortunately "walking pneumonia", also known as atypical pneumonia, is not a lifelong condition. Atypical pneumonia can be caused by various bacteria and viruses. The most common bacteria that causes ...
- 1,271
6
votes
Medical database with symptom frequencies
Nature Communications have such a database.
Human symptoms–disease network
XueZhong Zhou, Jörg Menche, Albert-László Barabási & Amitabh Sharma
Published: 26 June 2014
They count the number of ...
- 1,513
6
votes
How do doctors go about diagnosing uncommon diseases?
My question is, statistically most cases are horses, but how do you find the zebras?
The answer is... complicated. I will answer first from my experience as a (US) physician, and secondly, from a ...
- 9,344
5
votes
Accepted
Not taking bath or shower when sick
Is there any evidence that taking a bath or shower when sick has negative effects?
This is quite interesting because I've heard MANY patients with this same belief. Some people believe that bathing ...
5
votes
Is asthma a disease?
This is very dependent on what one defines as a disease. There are people who only count acute conditions and/or infections as "diseases" though I wouldn't have expected a doctor to make this ...
- 6,982
4
votes
Accepted
Does wart treatment (such as freezing) kill the wart or only triger the bodies natural immune reaction?
It does both.
The center of the wart is weakened/killed with the acid/nitrogen(cold), while the periphery is damaged (both the wart and the skin around it).
Because the wart is weakened, the body'...
- 1,215
4
votes
Where I can find infomation about ALL diseases of human beings?
Is there any book or website about ALL diseases were officially registered ever?
The best you're going to get is the International Classification of Disease (ICD) which is developed by the World ...
- 775
4
votes
Accepted
Ulcerative Colitis Disease Activity
N.b. My institution does not have access to this journal and the upload you made has since been deleted
There are a number of ways of scoring the severity of ulcerative colitis on endoscopy; there ...
- 471
4
votes
Accepted
What is a terminal or chronic illness? What is the difference between the two?
Erm, the term chronic illness in itself isn't unambiguous, in the scientific literature it is used in different ways:
The academic literature is not immune to the same kind of terminology
...
- 6,742
4
votes
Is there a virus from which humans can recover, but which doesn't grant long lasting immunity?
Seasonal coronaviruses come back year after year and we continue to suffer with them
Researchers do know that reinfection is an issue with the four seasonal coronaviruses that cause about 10 to 30% ...
- 13.2k
4
votes
How do doctors go about diagnosing uncommon diseases?
The UK National Health Service estimates that 80% of rare diseases have an underlying genetic etiology¹. Thus, rare diseases diagnosis now and in the near future is mostly a function of:
Having a ...
- 2,991
4
votes
How has computational modelling and simulation contributed to medical research?
I recommend looking into protein folding.
Since the 1960s, computer modelling has been used to (attempt to) predict the structure of proteins and the steps they go through to get there. Low-resolution ...
4
votes
Accepted
Patches of Partial Albinism
The website you linked to refers to piebaldism as "partial albinism". Piebaldism is an autosomal dominant genetic disorder caused by pathogenic variants of the KIT gene.
This is a ...
- 2,991
3
votes
Disease and Conditions
there's a discussion of this point here
Condition is perhaps the least specific, often denoting states of health considered normal or healthy but nevertheless posing implications for the provision ...
- 13.2k
3
votes
What is the solution for Chikungunya?
Since 'the cure' or rather a vaccine against the virus is still only on the horizon, affected populations have to resort to prevention measures and supportive care, once the infection breaks out. Even ...
- 6,867
3
votes
Database with diseases and symptoms?
There's an App call Ada. It's only available for iOS. It's an IA based bot that ask you about your symptoms and gives you a diagnostic. It was pretty accurate with some regular illnesses. It's much ...
- 261
3
votes
Is there any efficient treatment of Tinnitus (Ear ringing)?
Is tinnitus curable?
No, there is no cure for tinnitus. It is connected to a malfunction in the neurons which turn the signals from the ear into the perception of hearing. The usual cause is that the ...
- 2,781
3
votes
Are Drug toxicity, Infectious toxic disease, Hypoxia & Malignancy all Acquired Metabolic Diseases?
When you classify diseases by causes, you put a disease in a certain group according to what happens first in that disease. For example, pheochromocytoma, a tumor of the adrenal medulla, releases ...
- 15.8k
3
votes
What ages are included by 'the young and the elderly"
Young:
Definition of Older Adolescent and Young Adult:
For the purposes of this review, the older adolescent-young adult age
range is considered to be 15 to 29 years of age. Most of the
...
- 15.8k
3
votes
Accepted
What are some medical conditions and disabilities that might prevent someone from wearing a face covering during the COVID-19 outbreak?
My interpretation of this advice is that it is creating a necessary loophole for, say, someone's physician to state that a patient should not wear a mask. Maybe it would include people on supplemental ...
- 13.3k
3
votes
Accepted
How much more Toxic is Ammonia than Urea?
Probably the easiest way to compare them is to look at their material safety data sheets (MSDS).
The MSDS for urea lists its LD50 as 8471 mg/kg, so it's not very toxic stuff. The US Occupational ...
- 9,674
3
votes
Is there a nonchronic disease with similar effects to lungs like those of emphysema?
Yes, damage to the alveolar walls or the reduction in surface area for gaseous exchange can be reversible. Additionally, acute (non-chronic) conditions can cause these circumstances. For example, in ...
- 301
2
votes
Tuberculosis: Lung scarring and weight gain
Tuberculosis and scarring
That scar on the X-rays is likely a leftover from either a lymphadenopathy or a lung cavity. A lymphadenopathy is a swelling of the lymph nodes and appears in almost all ...
- 6,982
2
votes
Accepted
Tuberculosis: Lung scarring and weight gain
No, it is not compulsory for all the patients to have/develop a scar which is most probably the pulmonary fibrosis or might be residual parenchymal lesions.
In certain cases, it is due to not doing ...
- 365
2
votes
Accepted
Coworker regularly takes 30-45 minutes on the toilet - is this normal?
You didn't say which country you work in, so let's take the US as an example:
Do I have a right to have my medical information kept private in the workplace?
Your employer has a number of ways to ...
- 2,833
2
votes
Is there any efficient treatment of Tinnitus (Ear ringing)?
While there is no single treatment to tinnitus as a variety of reasons can cause it some kinds of therapy might help ease symptoms. Tinnitus is a symptom and not a disease so it is helpful to pinpoint ...
- 236
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