Disease Disease is any condition that impairs the normal physical or mental (or both) function of an organism. (Though this definition includes injuries, it will not be discussed here). Diseases can arise from infection, environmental conditions, accidents, and inherited diseases. It is not always easy to classify the source of a health problem. For instance, people can develop gout, which is known to cause permanent or near permanent changes to the human body, because of diet, inherited genetic predisposition, as a secondary condition from other diseases, or as an unintended side effect of certain medications. Infectious diseases can be caused by pathogens and microorganisms such as viruses, prions, bacteria, parasites, and fungi. For infectious, environmental, and genetically predisposed conditions, lifestyle choices such as exercise, nutrition, stress level, hygiene, home and work environments, use or abuse of legal and illegal drugs, and access to healthcare (including an individual's financial ability and personal willingness to seek medical attention) especially in the early stages of an illness all combine to determine a person's risk factors for developing a disease or condition. Precancerous condition Progressive disease localized disease to spread to other area of the body. Diet Injury Trauma is "a body wound or shock produced by sudden physical injury, as from violence or accident," or, more simply put, is "a physical wound or injury, such as a fracture or blow." Accidental injuries, most of which can be predicted and thus prevented, are the unintentional negative outcomes of unforeseen or unplanned events or circumstances which may have been avoided or prevented if reasonable measures had been taken or if the risks involving the circumstances leading up to the accident been recognized and acted upon (minimized). Battery is a criminal offense involving the use of force against another that results in harmful or offensive contact. (Assault is fear/belief of impending battery.) Violence is defined by the WHO as the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself or others that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation. Head trauma Head trauma in the form of a traumatic brain injury, stroke, drug or alcohol abuse, and infection have been known in some cases to cause changes to a person's mental processes, the most common being amnesia, ability to deal with stress and changes in aggression. There have also been documented cases of a person's personality changing more drastically, the best-known case being Phineas Gage, who in 1848 who survived a 1.1 meter long tamping iron being driven through his skull (though almost all presentations of Gage's subsequent personality changes are grossly exaggerated). There is also the rare condition called Foreign Accent Syndrome in which someone who has suffered a brain injury will appear to speak in a new language or dialect. This is typically thought to be due to an injury to the linguistic center of the brain causing speech impairment that just happens to sound like a persons non-native language. This is thought to be the reasoning behind the urban legend where someone wakes from a coma or surgery and suddenly speaks a new language. Body modification Body modification is the deliberate altering of the human body for any non-medical reason, such as aesthetics, sexual enhancement, a rite of passage, religious reasons, to display group membership or affiliation, to create body art, shock value, or self-expression.
Acquired characteristic
Biosimilar
Human biology
Permanent makeup
Surrogacy laws by country
Heterogeneous condition
Human genetic enhancement
Learned intermediary