Core biology - Disease

pathogens
1. bacteria
  1. very small, can reproduce rapidly inside the body
    1. they make you feel ill by: damaging your cells and producing toxins
2. viruses
  1. they are not cells!
    1. they replicate by invading our cells and copying themselves
      1. it then bursts releasing the copied virus. the cell damage is what makes you feel ill
fighting disease
1. your defence system
  1. skin, hairs and mucus are the first level of defence
  2. platelets in the blood clot the blood at wounds to seal the wounds and prevent infection
  3. the immune system: white blood cells. Thy are in every part of your body
    1. they consume the microbe: white blood cells engulf and digest the mocrobe
    2. produce antibodies: when a foreign antigen is detected they start to produce antibodies which will lock on and kill the antigen.
    3. produce antitoxins: these counter toxins produced by invading the bacteria
2. vaccination
  1. they protect from future infection
    1. a small amount of dead/inactive microorganisms. these carry antigens which will ask your body to produce antibodies to attack them. This will help the antibodies to remember the shape of the microorganism so it can get rid of it.
      1. advantages: they have helped control lots of infections and diseases. epidemics (big out breaks) can be prevented
      2. disadvantages: vaccines don't always work. they can also cause the patient to have a bad reaction but they are very rare.
3. drugs
  1. some relieve symptoms and some cure the problem
    1. painkillers are the drugs that relieve the pain. they don't actually cure the problem they just relieve some of the symptoms
    2. antibiotics kill/prevent the growth of the bacteria causing the problem without killing the bodies cells, different antibiotics kill different types of bacteria - you have to be treated with the correct one to make an impact.
      1. but antibiotics don't kill viruses, they reproduce using your own bodies cells so it is hard to develop drugs that can get rid of them without hurting the bodies cells
    3. bacteria can become resistant to antibiotics.
  2. you can investigate antibiotics by growing microorganisms
    1. agar jelly contains carbohydrates, minerals, proteins and vitamins.
4. past andfuture
  1. Semmelweis cut deaths by using antiseptics
    1. he told doctors that were performing operations to was their hands with antiseptic solution. deaths cut from 12% to 2%
      1. because he couldn't prove his theory people forgot his theory and deaths rose
  2. antibiotic resistance is becoming more common.
    1. overuse of antibiotics has caused lots of infections to become immune. this means that people who are infected are finding it hard to get rid of them due to the minimal medication there to get rid of them
  3. we face new and scary dangers all the time.
    1. bacteria
      1. bacteria mutates to produce new strains. these new strains could be antibiotic resistant so no treatment may work. this could result in an epidemic
    2. viruses
      1. they also tend to mutate often which makes it hard to produce vaccines because their DNA changes
        pandemic - when a disease spreads all over the world

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Core biology - Disease

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	Created by hollyc11 over 10 years ago