Courtnee McKenzie

Science

Health
Page 1

A healthy you
Illness and diseases
How do we as human lead a healthy lifestyle and keep free from illness and disease?
We can lead a healthy lifestyle by doing daily exercise, we also need to eat healthily otherwise you will put on
more weight than expected. Dont smoke or drink. Also we can keep free from illness and disease by getting
flu jabs.
What does keeping healthy mean?
Being in a good physical condition.
What is a balanced diet?
Eating everything in the food groups e.g. fat, carbohydrates, dairy etc.
A food pyramid is a The Food Pyramid, developed by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), is an excellent
tool to help you make healthy food choices.
Diet and exercise are very important as it might make your life expectancy longer unless you have a genetic
illness.
Many people can eat food without gaining weight/getting fact because they have high metabolisms.
The health problems linked to obesity are:

Heart disease
Arthritis bone/joint problems
Type 2 diabetes
High blood pressure
Metabolic syndrome
Cancer
Sleep apnea
Gallstones
Reproductive problems

Also it is unhealthy to be underweight because your body needs certain amounts of nutrition, and if you
aren't eating enough then you may not get your daily need of it. Your body also uses the food you eat and
turn it in to energy, so it is better to eat more. It is better to follow a strict diet and go from there.

Carbs
Fibre

Protein
Fat

Dairy

Courtnee McKenzie

Science

Health

How does an athletes diet differ from yours?

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An athletes diet is different to normal people because Athletes must consume far more calories than a normal
person. Carbohydrates are sugars that the body uses for energy. Normal people usually consume around 2000
to 2200 calories a day. But athletes need almost 2600 to 3000 if they are trying to stay energized and maintain
their weight at the same time. A normal person shouldnt consume that much because they normally wont
use that much energy and when sugars and fats are used for energy, they are just stored in the body as fat,
making that person gain weight.
How can inherited factors affect your health?
Genetic disease is considered to be an inherited factor affecting health, where disorders are passed down
through generations. These genetic diseases will affect your health not because your unhealthy but because
the disease has been passed down from generations and managed to reach to you.
Why does your cholesterol level matter?
High blood cholesterol, therefore, is a risk factor for coronary heart disease, and the higher your blood
cholesterol level is, the greater your risk of heart disease is. The good news is that heart disease is relatively
uncommon among people with low blood cholesterol (below 150 mg/dl).
Does exercise make you healthier?
If youre already suffering from a disease then exercise wont make it go away but it could improve the
situation. If you havent got any diseases and youre just overweight then exercise will make you fitter
and more able.
What are pathogens?
A bacterium, virus, or other microorganism that can cause disease.
How do pathogens cause disease?
Microbes that cause diseases are called pathogens. They are specialised to infect body tissues where they
reproduce and cause damage that gives rise to the symptoms of the infection. The body fights back by
mobilising its immune system to fight off the infection but modern medicine has also developed many
successful treatments to assist the body's natural defences.
How did Ignaz Semmelweis change the way we look at disease?
Semmelweis noticed that the death rates in mothers during pregnancy were unusually high. He noticed that
the doctors in his hospital were going straight from examining diseased dead bodies in the morgue to
delivering babies, and thought that perhaps this meant that they were transferring disease from the corpses to
the mothers. He suggested that all doctors thoroughly wash their hands between patients, and almost
immediately the death rate fell.
This was the first time that the idea of infectious disease (passing disease via a pathogenic medium, i.e.
bacteria and viruses) was considered. Before this, contracting diseases was put down to chance.
What are different micro-organisms?
The different types of micro-organisms are; Fungi, viruses, protozoa, bacteria, cyanobacteria etc.

Courtnee McKenzie

Science

Health
Page 3

How does your body stop pathogens getting in?

The body has natural barriers to prevent pathogens from entering inside. Some of these are natural barriers,
which includes the use of certain body parts to block the entry of the pathogens. One of these natural barriers
is the skin, which protects the internal organs from damage caused by diseases, as well as harmful chemicals
and radiation from the sun. The nasal hairs in the nose and sticky mucus along the windpipe also help prevent
diseases by filtering the air. If some irritants get into the nose, the person will cough to shift the mucus down
into the throat to be swallowed. The mucus will then be transferred to the stomach so that the pathogens can
be killed by its acid. The body also have chemical barriers to prevent the entry of pathogens. This includes
body fluids with cleansing properties such as saliva and tears, which are capable of washing away particles
trapped under the skin's surface. The acid in the stomach (as mentioned above) bears the ability to kill a
majority of pathogens before they enter into other parts of the digestive system, which prevents intestinerelated diseases.
How do white blood cells protect us from disease?

Produce antibodies that attack pathogens.

Make memory of attacking pathogen for a faster response if attacked again.
Other types of WBC kill pathogens by engulfing or ingesting (same) them then digesting them.
Others attack our own cells if infected by a pathogen.

What is a medicine?
A drug or other preparation for the treatment or prevention of disease.
How do medicines work?
Medicines fight off the infection/virus you have. They might ease them or completely get rid of them.

Courtnee McKenzie

Science

Health

Why cant we use antibiotics to treat diseases caused by viruses?

A virus is so simple in their make-up that there is nothing to attack on their structure. They hijack the host cell
to use its more complex metabolism to replicate.
What is antibiotic resistance?
Antibiotic resistance is the ability of a microorganism to withstand the effects of an antibiotic. It is a specific
type of drug resistance. Antibiotic resistance evolves naturally via natural selection through random mutation,
but it could also be engineered by applying an evolutionary stress on a population.
How can we prevent antibiotic resistance developing?
The most important ways to prevent antibiotic resistance are:

Minimise unnecessary prescribing and overprescribing of antibiotics. This occurs when people expect
doctors to prescribe antibiotics for a viral illness (antibiotics do not work against viruses) or when
antibiotics are prescribed for conditions that do not require them.
Complete the entire course of the prescribed antibiotic so that it can be fully effective and not breed
resistance.
Practise good hygiene and use appropriate infection control procedures.

Why is mutation in bacteria and viruses such a problem?

It depends on whether you mean bad for humans or bad for bacteria. If you mean bad for humans, mutations
can make bacteria resistant to certain antibiotics and harder to kill. If you mean bad for bacteria, a mutation
might cause a flaw in making some sort of vital protein the bacteria need to function; if, for example, the
bacteria were unable to synthesize a certain nutrient without it and the nutrient was no longer in their
medium for some reason, the entire colony could die.
You probably just mean bad for humans and good for bacteria, though, in which case random mutations can
create tougher and more deadly bugs. It's as simple as that.
How does your immune system work?
The immune system is made up of a network of cells, tissues, and organs that work together to protect the
body. The cells involved are white blood cells, or leukocytes, which come in two basic types that combine to
seek out and destroy disease-causing organisms or substances.
How does vaccination protect you against diseases?
The diseases that vaccines prevent can be dangerous, or even deadly. Vaccines reduce the risk of infection by
working with the body's natural defences to help it safely develop immunity to disease.
When germs, such as bacteria or viruses, invade the body, they attack and multiply. This invasion is called an
infection, and the infection is what causes illness. The immune system then has to fight the infection. Once it
fights off the infection, the body is left with a supply of cells that help recognize and fight that disease in the
future.
Vaccines help develop immunity by imitating an infection, but this "imitation" infection does not cause illness.
It does, however, because the immune system to develop the same response as it does to a real infection so
the body can recognize and fight the vaccine-preventable disease in the future. Sometimes, after getting a
vaccine, the imitation infection can cause minor symptoms, such as fever. Such minor symptoms are normal
and should be expected as the body builds immunity.

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Courtnee McKenzie

Science

What are advantages and disadvantages of being vaccinated?

Health
Page 5

The advantages are; once your immune system is trained to resist a disease, you are said to be immune to it.
Before vaccines, the only way to become immune to a disease was to actually get it and, with luck, survive it.
This is called naturally acquired immunity. With naturally acquired immunity, you suffer the symptoms of the
disease and also risk the complications, which can be quite serious or even deadly. In addition, during certain
stages of the illness, you may be contagious and pass the disease to family members, friends, or others who
come into contact with you.
The disadvantages are; most side effects from vaccination are mild and short-lived. It's quite common to have
redness or swelling around the injection site, but this soon goes away. Younger children or babies may be a bit
irritable or unwell, or have a slight temperature. Again, this usually goes away within one or two days.
How has the treatment of disease changed over time?
High blood pressure in the 1930's was treated by William Kempner using low calorie rice and tinned fruit diet.
It was apparently very successful but boring. Has now been replaced by drugs of course.
The cancer drug methotrexate was developed in the 1940's after children with leukaemia were given folic acid
supplements which made their disease worse. The methotrexate is an analogue of folic acid and is still used
today in cancer, arthritis and Crohn's disease.
Or how about the frog pregnancy test? Taking urine or serum from a woman who may be pregnant and
injecting it into frogs to see if the frogs make eggs in response to the pregnancy hormones from the woman.

Courtnee McKenzie

Science

Health