10 mysterious diseases of today’s world
Pastor Dale Morgan
10 mysterious diseases of today’s world*
Today doctors can cure many diseases with the swish of a pen across
prescription pad. But for all we understand now about some illnesses,
there are even more that still stump the pros, confound the public and
rage on uncontested. The following are the most mysterious illnesses and
diseses of today’s world.
1. Morgellons Disease
This mysterious illness, which has cropped up again recently, displays
almost sci-fi symptoms. Sufferers complain of intensely creepy-crawly
skin and odd fibrous strands which protrude from open wounds. Some in
the medical community blame the “disease” on psychotic delusion, but
others say the symptoms are very real.
2. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Chronic fatigue is a classic MUPS (medically unexplained physical
symptoms) disease, with a diagnosis based only on the ruling out of
other possibilities. More than just feeling a little tired, CFS patients
are often bed-ridden for days at a time.
3. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease
One version of this rare brain disorder is better known — Mad Cow — and
can be contracted by eating contaminated beef. “Regular” CJD is also
always fatal, quick-acting and is the most common form, but develops in
most patients for reasons doctors have yet to figure out and can not
prevent.
4. Schizophrenia
Experts consider this the most puzzling of mental disorders, one which
robs the sufferer of the ability to logically distinguish between
reality and fantasy. Symptoms range wildly between patients and include
delusions, hallucinations, disorganized speech, lack of motivation or
emotion, but the disease has no defining medical tests.
5. Autoimmune Disorders
A catchall term for a host of afflictions including Lupus and MS,
autoimmune disorders treat the body’s organs and normal functions as
enemy invaders. They’re usually chronic, always debilitating, and
doctors can do little except ease their symptoms.
6. Pica
People diagnosed with Pica have an insatiable urge to eat non-food
substances like dirt, paper, glue and clay. Though it is believed to be
linked with mineral deficiency, health experts have found no real cause
and no cure for the peculiar disorder.
7. Avian Flu
Humans have no immunity to the powerful flu virus carried by birds,
which health official fear could mutate into a strain that can be
transmitted between humans. Death rates for human infected are around 50
percent but, so far, humans have been infected mostly by direct handling
with infected birds. A recent cluster of cases, however, appeared to
involved its spread between people.
8. The Common Cold
Even with an estimated one billion cases in the United States every
year, doctors still know very little about the nose-running,
cough-inducing cold, whose root causes number in the hundreds (some
headway is being made). Time and chicken soup, not antibiotics, is often
the only prescription that helps.
9. Alzheimer’s Disease
Not to be confused with the forgetfulness that affects most everyone in
their later years, Alzheimer’s is a degenerative brain disorder that
manifests differently in each of its sufferers. The exact cause isn’t
understood and it can’t be effectively treated.
10. AIDS
Twenty-five years since it was first identified, there is still no cure
for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. AIDS remains among the world’s
most potent killers, especially in developing countries. The disease
likely started with a chimp to human jump, recent research confirmed.
Source: livescience.com