Health, disease, and types of disease

Overview

What health and disease are and how they relate, other factors such as diet, exercise and stress, how a weak immune system or poor diet raises the risk of infection, links between physical and mental ill health, communicable and non-communicable diseases with their causes and examples in humans and crops, the four types of pathogen, and why crowding spreads disease.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What is meant by health?

   Model answer

   A state of complete physical and mental wellbeing, not simply the absence of disease.

2. 2

   What is a disease?

   Model answer

   A condition that disturbs the normal working of the body or the mind.

3. 3

   Describe the relationship between health and disease.

   Model answer

   Disease is a major cause of ill health, but health also depends on diet, exercise, stress and living conditions, so a person free of disease is not automatically healthy.

4. 4

   Give three factors other than disease that affect how healthy a person is.

   Model answer

   Diet, the amount of exercise taken, and the level of stress in their life.

5. 5

   Explain why a person with a poorly working immune system suffers more infections.

   Model answer

   Pathogens entering the body are not destroyed effectively, so infections take hold more easily and more often.

6. 6

   Explain why someone with a poor diet is more likely to catch an infectious disease.

   Model answer

   A shortage of nutrients weakens the immune system, so fewer white blood cells and antibodies are made to fight the pathogen.

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