2024-06-29 09:28:32
A patient suffering from “essential tremor” asked me what this disease was. I explained to him, with some difficulty, that this was a disease of unknown cause, possibly related to age-related neurodegenerative diseases. He asked me about the word “idiopathic,” which I had to admit was a strange word, applied to a disease of unknown cause, such as essential hypertension. However, many diseases, such as schizophrenia or migraine, lack this moniker even though nothing is known about them.
The term “non-specific” is more direct and less obscure; it literally refers to a disease whose type (and therefore cause) cannot be identified. What we call non-specific interstitial pneumonia, colitis, myocarditis, urethritis or dermatitis are all non-specific and refer to inflammation of the lungs, colon, myocardium, urethra or skin. The cause is unknown and neither It is contagious and not autoimmune.
Medicine also uses the term “idiopathic” to describe a lack of understanding of the cause. Thus, pulmonary fibrosis, scoliosis, thrombocytopenia, intracranial hypertension, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or epilepsy are diseases with idiopathic forms.
Sometimes we use the word “old age” in a less dramatic way to describe the obvious. The most famous is Alzheimer’s disease, which is characterized by the appearance of “age spots” in the brain. We also talk about osteoporosis, cataracts, and senile keratosis, which affect the degeneration of our bones, lenses, and skin over time. When the aging of our organs has identifiable peculiarities, we prefer to use real disease names, which avoids the offense of “aging” or “degeneration.” Thus, the senile plaques of dementia become the amyloid plaques of Alzheimer’s disease, and the senile plaques of Parkinson’s disease become levodopa deficiency.
The award went to AMD, a widely publicized acronym used to market a drug that slows some forms of retinal degeneration. The idea of selling a drug to treat a disease whose very name suggests it is entirely age-related may seem comical from a marketing perspective, but from a biological perspective it is Ideas may seem magical.
The word “degradation” is often explicitly prohibited. As a result, degenerative osteoarthritis has become “osteoarthritis,” which sounds like a familiar, almost friendly name, except that it leads to kidney failure and addiction through the misuse of anti-inflammatory drugs and opioids.
This patient, after my confusing explanation of ignorant disease classifications, had the audacity to conclude that old age was a fundamental disease. I have no choice but to encourage him with this wisdom that will protect him from many tortures and will certainly save him from countless iatrogenic illnesses.
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#health #reasons
