Rabies: Rabies is a very common dog disease caused by a virus affecting the central nervous system of the dog. Rabies is known to be spread through saliva. There are several stages observed in the dogs. In the first stage the dogs are seen with a behavior change, in the second stage the dogs become very violent and in the third stage body parts of the dogs stop coordinating with each other. There is no cure till now for this deadly disease.

Bloat: This is a serious condition of the dog. The stomach of the dog gets twisted, which is due to over eating. The symptoms of bloat are restlessness and depression combined with dry heaves.

Distemper: It is considered to be the worst dog disease worldwide. This leads to fatal condition of the puppies up to 80 percent and adult dogs up to 50 percent. The common symptoms of this disease are congestion in the chest, coughing, diarrhea, gunky eyes, nasal discharge etc. At later stages it affects the nervous system of the dogs leading to paralysis. It is a highly contagious dog disease. It can be transmitted from the feces of the infected dog. This dog disease too does not have any cure.

Parvovirus: It is a very contagious disease affecting the intestinal tract of the dogs. It is also said to affect the heart of the dogs. The symptoms of this disease are severe diarrhea, depression, decrease of appetite. The feacel matter of the dog is found to be in a different color with blood stains. The symptoms appear within hours of the infestation and can even kill the dog within 2 to 3 days of infection. Hence, it is considered as a deadly disease.

Kennel Cough: It is very common among dogs. It is a kind of respiratory disease. This can be easily treated.

Canine Viral Hepatitis. This disease affects the liver, kidney and the blood vessels of the dogs. The common symptoms are profuse thirst, vomiting, hemorrhages, loss of appetite etc. This virus too spreads through the faeces of the dogs.

Leptospirosis: This disease is caused by bacteria and, even human beings get affected by the bacteria. There are several species of bacteria found to produce the disease in dogs. The common symptoms include lethargy, fever, kidney inflammation, clotting of blood and conjunctivitis. In more chronic conditions it can produce pneumonia, intestinal inflammation and jaundice.

Heartworm: Heartworms are a kind of parasites which multiply and grow, causing infection in the chambers of the heart and arteries of the lungs. The symptoms may start with mild cough, fatigue and lethargy. If it is not treated properly it can lead to congestive heart failure.

Retinal Dysplasia: Abnormal development of the retina is the disorder. This is very common in most of the dog breeds. The minor forms lead to vision problems and the acute forms leads to total blindness in dogs. Cataract can also accompany with this disorder.

Poor countries have little money to make known their plight to the rest of the world. To make the voices of despair heard around the world the Neglected Tropical Disease Coalition (NTDC) was formed. The NTDC is made up of individual disease alliances, as well as international agencies, their corporate partners, interested academic institutions, some faith-based groups, and also non-governmental organizations.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and also the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identify diseases that are “targets of opportunity” with the purpose of improving global health.

The six diseases mentioned earlier are being targeted to help control or to eliminate the diseases altogether. What will make this possible is the joint effort of all the participants in NTDC to cooperate with scientific breakthroughs and corporate philanthropic efforts to fund research and treatment programs.

Success can almost be seen in the treatment of trachoma in Morocco and leprosy has declined globally. When disease is irradiated in these countries, the citizens become more productive and the global economy improves. This is why all countries industrial or poor should care about these neglected tropical diseases.

Improved economies have an impact on the global economy because of world trade. Financial impact and the health of local residents is not the only concern. International travelers, many those who are called to serve are also greatly at risk to contract these neglected tropical diseases.

These neglected tropical diseases not only have an impact on the citizens of the poor countries where they are found, but any individual traveling to those countries are at risk for exposure to these tropical diseases including missionaries, and also volunteers with the peace corps. These individuals deserve the opportunity to serve without being exposed to these neglected diseases.

The statistics are sad and should be alarming to everyone. 3 billion children, women and men are at risk from these 6 neglected tropical diseases. 350 million individuals have already been disabled or impaired severely by exposure to these neglected tropical diseases.

The cost to work productivity is $10 billion annually or more. This loss represents revenue that could have boosted the country out of poverty and enabled it to become productive in the global economy.

The ability to diagnose, treat and even prevent these 6 diseases exists; the goal to eliminate these diseases is real. There are low or no-cost medications available from four of the major pharmaceutical companies, namely – GlaxoSmithKline,Merck & Co., Inc., Novartis, and Pfizer who have already donated drugs and cash support.

Treatment intervals that are community based is possible which will offer the ability to combine treatments that will be more cost effective and have a greater impact on more of the population. The cost for community-wide treatment of these six diseases ranges from just a few cents to a few dollars per individual.

There are in existence the tools, local and national support to rid these countries of the diseases. Even though tools and opportunity exist to address the issue of neglected tropical diseases, it remains the responsibility of individuals, corporations and countries to take action.

The immune system is made up of organs and cells that work together to defend the body against attacks by outside invaders such as bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi. Autoimmune diseases are disorders in which the body’s immune system reacts against itself and produces antibodies to attack its own healthy cells and tissue. Autoimmune disorders can be directed mainly at one part of the body, such as the thyroid gland or the pancreas, or they can spread widely throughout the body, as in the case of diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus.

There are more than 80 types of autoimmune diseases, and some have similar symptoms. This makes it hard for your health care provider to know if you really have one of these diseases, and if so, which one. Getting diagnosed can be frustrating and stressful. In many people, the first symptoms are being tired, muscle aches and low fever.

Normally the immune system’s army of white blood cells helps protect the body from harmful substances, called antigens. Examples of antigens include bacteria, viruses, toxins, cancer cells, and foreign blood or tissues from another person or species. The immune system produces antibodies that destroy these harmful substances.

Autoimmune disorders are diseases caused by the body producing an inappropriate immune response against its own tissues. Sometimes the immune system will cease to recognize one or more of the body’s normal constituents as “self” and will create autoantibodies – antibodies that attack its own cells, tissues, and/or organs. This causes inflammation and damage and it leads to autoimmune disorders.

The immune system is a network of organs, cells and molecules that work together to defend the body against attacks by foreign (not of the body) invaders such as germs, bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi. When one of these invaders (antigens) tries to break into the body, the body’s first line of defense is the skin and mucous membranes. The skin and mucous membranes house macrophages (white cells of the tissues) and antibodies. The macrophages job is to digest the antigens while the antibodies trap the antigens that got away.

Autoimmune diseases are the third most common category of disease in the United States after cancer and heart disease; they affect approximately 5%–8% of the population or 14–22 million persons. Autoimmune diseases can affect virtually every site in the body, including the endocrine system, connective tissue, gastrointestinal tract, heart, skin, and kidneys. At least 15 diseases are known to be the direct result of an autoimmune response, while circumstantial evidence implicates >80 conditions with autoimmunity. In several instances, such as rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, and myocarditis, the autoimmune disease can be induced experimentally by administering self-antigen in the presence of adjuvant (collagen, myelin basic protein, and cardiac myosin, respectively).

Cardiovascular disease encompasses the diseases of the heart and the blood vessels. These develop and progress slowly over our lifetime and often without symptoms. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) accounts for more deaths than the next seven causes of death in women combined, including all forms of cancer. Since 1984, men have experienced a decline in deaths due to CVD; women have not. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the number one killer of women in the United States. Long thought of as primarily affecting men, we now know that CVD?including heart disease, hypertension, and stroke?also affects a substantial number of women.

Estrogen provides a beneficial effect on the arteries. When estrogen production slows down, women lose that protective effect,? Even so, Kusler adds, women in their 30s and 40s still experience heart attacks. Estrogen serves as protection against heart disease in women, therefore once a woman has gone through menopause her risk increases dramatically.

Risk of coronary events begins to decline within months of stopping smoking and reaches the level of persons who have never smoked within 3 to 5 years. Sadly, though, smoking cessation rates have declined more slowly among women than men. Risk was not associated with dose or duration of use of estrogen and did not persist after oral contraceptives were discontinued.

African Americans are at substantially higher risk for death from CVD than are whites. This difference is attributable in part to a greater risk for strokes and a higher prevalence of high blood pressure among African Americans. African American and Hispanic women, who are at higher risk of heart disease than white women, continue to have lower rates of awareness.

Aspirin therapy is recommended for women over age 65 to prevent heart attack and stroke as long as blood pressure is controlled and the benefit is likely to outweigh the risk of gastrointestinal side effects. Regular use of aspirin is not recommended for healthy women under age 65 to prevent heart attacks. Aspirin treatment reduced risk of subsequent cardiovascular events by about 25%. Lipid-lowering therapy also appears to provide substantial benefit in secondary prevention in women. Aspirin has also been shown to be of preventive benefit in women to reduce the incidence of coronary artery disease and strokes. In women with multiple risk factors for coronary artery disease, a dose of 325 mg per day is recommended, while in lower-risk women, 81 mg is probably sufficient.

Fortunately, there are many known ways of reducing your chances of cardiovascular disease. The most important thing to lower your risk is avoiding smoking, and if you are currently a smoker, to quit smoking. Even only occasionally smoking cigarettes drastically increases your risk of heart disease. Smoking damages the heart and blood vessels, and smokers are more prone to narrowing of the arteries, a common cause in heart attacks. Nicotine also increases your blood pressure, another risk factor. The risk of smoking increases with age, especially over age 35. Fortunately, though, your health starts to improve at the moment you quit ? within one year, the risk of cardiovascular disease will drop significantly. No matter how long you have smoked, there is a great health benefit in stopping today.

Body weight is also a large component in the risk of cardiovascular disease. Too much fat, especially in the area of your waist, increases risk of heart disease as well as many other ailments including stroke, high blood pressure, gallstones, and diabetes. If your BMI, or body mass index, is greater than 25.0, you are considered overweight, and BMI of 30.0 or more indicates obesity. You can calculate your BMI through many online calculators, such as this one: http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ Lowering weight, even if you can?t reach your ideal weight, will decrease stress on your heart and increases the average lifespan as well. Along with losing weight, increasing your intake of fruits and vegetables is also something that correlates with lower risk of heart disease.

Health screenings are important in order to prevent cardiovascular disease in order to pinpoint problems early. One common problem that contributes to heart disease risk is high blood pressure. Blood pressure is the amount of force with which the blood is being propelled through the blood vessels. High blood pressure can damage the body over time, including the heart and the blood vessels themselves as well as other organs (like the kidneys). A doctor can help you with monitoring blood pressure, as well as other factors ? such as cholesterol and triglyceride levels ? that may impact blood pressure. For example, getting a lipid profile (http://www.emedicinehealth.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=4170) would give a far fuller picture of your risk of cardiovascular disease than just knowing your cholesterol level. It?s important to act as quickly as possible in order to prevent cardiovascular disease.

Heart disease prevention can start with even very simple changes to your daily habits and can potentially add years to your life. No matter what your age or health level, you can take action to lower your risk.

Mosquitoes spread a good deal of diseases. Such diseases are called “arboviral” as arthropods are responsible for spreading them. all arboviral diseases produce clinical sickness in human beings that demand professional medical help. A virus called “alphavirus” is spread when the patient gets an arboviral disease. This causes typical mild symptoms but is known to have painful after effects. The West Nile virus is another arboviral disease that is being spoken about a lot these days. This disease originated in birds, but is spread by mosquitoes. The disease spreads when a mosquito feeds on an infected bird and then goes feeds on a human, causing the blood type to mix. Therefore it is suggested that you always carry with you bug spray and instantly swat or squash all mosquitoes when they appear.

Brucella is a bacterial infection that many hunters often find themselves with. Typically, brucella is an infection that is bacterial and spreads when infected animals feed on each other. As the hunters sometimes eat the hunted animals, there is a possibility for spread of brucella to humans. Brucella are highly infectious bacterial organisms. The highest source of spread of infection is through food as it is through consumption that brucella is largely captured. Thankfully, person-to-person spread of brucella is hardly heard of although it is still possible. Hunted meat should be properly checked before consumption. Professional specifications must be followed in he cleaning and cooking of the meat. Hand washing is mandatory.

Another common disease among outdoor people is Lyme. This illness affects bones and joints and on advancement can cause nervous system and skin problems. Lyme is the most repeatedly diagnosed outdoor diseases and target people of any age. For this reason, thorough precautionary measures must be taken. This disease spreads through tick bites that transmit a corkscrew looking bacteria. Usually, people who are infected with the Lyme disease usually feel the effect only around two weeks post the tick bite. Always keep ticks of the skin and take precautions for the same.

A number of other bacterial infections spread in the outdoors. By taking the necessary precautions, a hunter need no worry about these diseases and can concentrate on the job at hand. Ensure the clothing is tight fitting but light, making it easy to spot bugs but hard for them to get in. Naturally light clothing can visually expose the hunter to animals. However, a compromise can be arrived at, as the risk of a disease is far more urgent than anything else.

No matter what school of thought you follow, there are a number of diseases that hunters should steer clear of when in the outdoors. Although this is a protective measure on nature’s part, one must try one’s level best to keep the diseases at bay as they can spread from one person to a number of other people. Before going to any outdoor area for a trip, ensure that you have researched enough on the kind of disease and afflictions that are characteristic of the given area.

The signs of aging, declining energy, gray hair, wrinkles and poor eyesight are changes that come on gradually but noticeably. The most profound change however creeps up on most of us in stealth like fashion totally unnoticed. It is the slow, progressive and unrelenting loss of muscle tissue, called sarcopenia (which means vanishing flesh).

From at around age 30 this loss of muscle tissue amounts to 300-500 grams per year accelerating as one gets older. Although sarcopenia is not an actual disease, it sets the stage and is the backdrop against which most other diseases are played out. The loss of muscular strength is associated with a downward spiral of declining health and physical function.

Sarcopenia is both a fundamental cause and a contributor to disability and disease progression. The severity of this loss of muscle tissue is determined by how we take care of ourselves in the years and decades before we get old.

Inactivity and a sedentary lifestyle is more of a sinister enemy that we realize. Many people just sit around, endless hours of watching TV, work at jobs that require them to spend long hours sitting at a desk so they engage in virtually no physical movement at all on a daily basis. As a result, chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other life threatening diseases are being diagnosed – all related to lack of regular physical activity and premature death.

The human body was designed to be used and vigorous activity is critical for its health. In fact, the more you do the stronger and healthier your body gets. Activity gets everything moving, the blood, the oxygen, the nutrients delivered to the cells which need them to carry on the process of life. Movement is the root of health and without enough of it we head towards ill health and disease.

The risk of contracting these diseases can be lowered with changes in lifestyle, changes in diet and activity levels as we get older to help escape the spiral of inactivity. A proper exercise program that includes strength training exercise can prevent and even reverse muscle tissue loss throughout ones life. By subjecting our muscles and bones to adequate loads they will keep their strength and help protect us from killer “lifestyle diseases”.

Strength training is the fastest way to improve muscle strength and endurance which allows a person to perform everyday tasks with less effort. Simply forcing the muscles to work on a regular basis significantly improves their capacity to work as well as someone 20 years younger and will bring life back into your body and keep it there.

Physical activity keeps us vibrant, youthful and alive and ensures we are strong enough to live our lives to the fullest. Everyone needs to make adjustments throughout their lives to ensure they give priority to an exercise program as a protective measure to lower risk of disease. An added bonus is many other benefits including greatly improved functional capacity, a more independent lifestyle and a higher quality of life.

Now this might seem a little strange, but the first piece of advice for any parent who is about to tackle this subject with their children is to take the time to learn about it yourself. You cannot give your child the right information unless you have it yourself and things have probably changed dramatically since most of us learnt ourselves, possible many years ago. Thankfully, there are several trusted and well respected organizations today that are only too willing to give you the up-to-date information you need and also to provide you with information which you can communicate to your children in a tried and tested form which they will both understand and accept.

The accepted wisdom for many years, and still the preferred route for many parents, is simply to teach children abstinence. This is not a good approach and has been shown time and time again to fail. Like it or not as parents we have to accept that there is a good chance that our children are going to have sex before we feel that they are ready to do so and our prime responsibility must be to ensure that they do so safely and responsibly. The important thing to remember is that, whatever our own attitude towards sex, we cannot necessarily expect our teenagers to have the same attitude and can only point them in the right direction. At the end of the day the decision will be theirs and not ours.

Many parents feel uncomfortable about talking to their kids about sex and find a raft of excuses to pass the problem off onto somebody else. For example, a lot of parents feel that this is something which should be dealt with in schools or that there is no real need to deal with the subject at all, because kids today can pick up all the information they need from their peers or from sources such as the Internet. This is simply a ‘cop out’ and amounts to nothing more than evading your responsibilities as a parent.

You need to ensure that you children get the right information and that they receive it from someone they trust – and that means you. More importantly when your child has a problem, is concerned about something or simply has a question about sex, he needs to know that he can come to you and talk about it openly and easily and without any embarrassment on either side.

If you are still feeling nervous about talking to your child about sex then just stop and think for a moment how you would feel if your fifteen year old daughter came home one day and told you that she was pregnant, or your sixteen year old son told you that he had been to the std clinic because he had been having a problem and has been diagnosed with HIV. Dealing with the consequences of your own failure to tackle sex education in a responsible and timely manner can be devastating, not least to the children you love so much.

The figures are even higher for women under the age of 18, as 8.1% of women under 18 have contracted Chlamydia according to figures from GP clinics.

Some STD infections have risen by more than 100% in the last ten years, yet many people, especially those aged between 18 and 30, are still afraid to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

Two of the reasons that people are afraid to go for sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing are:

Embarrassment

Many people fear they will be judged by the doctors performing the tests and by others at the STI clinic. Getting testing for STDs isn?t something to be embarrassed about; it?s something that responsible people do.

Fear of being found positive

One of the main reasons people fear getting tested for any form of STI is that they could be found positive. To find that you have contracted an STD is something that nobody wants to have to experience, but it?s much better to know about it and get treated for it than it is to pass on an STI without realising it or suffer later.

Fear of being found positive

One of the main reasons people fear getting tested for any form of STI is that they could be found positive. To find that you have contracted an STD is something that nobody wants to have to experience, but it?s much better to know about it and get treated for it than it is to pass on an STI without realising it or suffer later.