Ill health-Vulnerable Groups

Jun 28, 2010 by admin

Doctors and related health care practitioners claim that the most vulnerable groups to disease attack are the elderly and infants.  One reason given is that one’s immune system is weakest at the two extremes of life.  The body loses its ability to fight disease in old age paving way for easier entry of disease causing organisms. Infants have a developing immune system. Hence, they lack sufficient blood cells conquer diseases.
Due to our ageing population and the inability to reverse aging, we will at some point require to cater for elderly diseases that crop in at this stage. Hence an understanding of what elderly diseases one is prone to is key step towards dealing with them.
Diseases of the Elderly
The most prevalent elderly diseases include:
•    Heart attack- due to lifestyle, from increased intake of fatty foods.  Some of these fatty materials get deposited in blood vessels blocking blood flow.  The heart, in its attempt to push the blood through the vessels generates high pressures.              
•    Cancers-are the worst elderly diseases currently.  They include; lung cancer and breast cancer which are known to affect two-thirds of the elderly, colon and bladder cancers that are prevalent in male elderly and in rare cases liver cancer.  Luckily cancer treatment is becoming effective and affordable.
•    Type 1 diabetes- results due to the body’s inability to convert sugars into energy.  The body produces insufficient insulin to counter the increasing sugar.  It is said that diabetes is incurable and can only be controlled by a combination of proper nutrition and medication.
•    Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases result from degradation of nerve endings. Said to be the latest types of elderly diseases. Their causes are still a mystery till now though extensive research is currently underway to demystify them.
Diseases of the Infant
Many new mothers are often confronted with the fear and worry of the threat of infant diseases. Sometimes, infant diseases are genetic. A condition arising this way is called a congenital condition.  Others develop during the life of the baby.
Infant diseases that are congenital include cystic fibrosis that affects the infant’s lungs, liver and pancreas; umbilical hernias that in many cases heal on their own and swollen tissues around the infant’s bones called hyperostosis.
Those that develop during the infant’s early life include hemolytic disease of the newborn and anemia.  Hemolytic disease is caused by incompatible blood groups of the mother and the baby.  This results in the migration of antibodies from the mother to the baby and hence blood clotting.   Anemia results in most cases from destruction of blood cells after attack from hemolytic disease of the newborn.