Questions tagged [medicine]
Medicine is the doctrine of prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases and injuries in humans and animals. Health and medicine questions are off-topic unless dealing with the biology underlying health and medicine. Please carefully explore the tour, help centre, and meta before posting health and medicine questions.
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Do we actually get more sick (flu/cold) during winter?
The word flu derives from the Italian phrase "influenza de freddo" meaning "influence of the cold".
Indeed it is that time of the year when my colleagues seem to have the flu/cold more often than not....
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What does irregular heartbeat mean in simple language?
I bought a blood pressure monitor (A&D UA-851) which has the option to measure irregular heartbeat. I do understand what 'irregular' means, but why do irregular heartbeats happen and what are it'...
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Viruses: Adaptation to a new host through repeated host jumps
A friend told me, during a 3 minute discussion, that viruses that are endemic in host $A$ and make repeated jumps to host $B$ but can't be transmitted between individuals of species $B$, may slowly ...
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Survival curve in early humans
The survival curve/function describes the probability of a given individual to survive to age $x$. In humans, today's survival function is very much influenced by medicine. This leads me to wonder ...
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Functions of the CFTR gene?
I am a senior in high school and I am studying cystic fibrosis.
I don't quite get the function of the CFTR gene as this is my first time dealing with this type of heavy scientific info.
I had ...
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Does homeopathic or herbal treatment of cancer have any scientific recognition?
Even though we have a very high tech society, cancer is still a serious issue. We humans still are not entirely capable of fighting cancer.
Radiation and chemotherapy are still considered the best ...
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What fraction of human cells gets infected during a viral infection?
As I understand, if a cell gets infected during a viral infection then it eventually dies. If an individual does not die of an infection, the percentage of cells that gets infected in the course of ...
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Why did scientists state that the Omicron COVID-19 variant was a reason to get a booster?
I was watching Vox’s video, Big questions about the Covid booster shot, answered, which references the New York Times article Omicron Prompts Swift Reconsideration of Boosters Among Scientists.
In ...
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What are the consequences of inbreeding?
Inbreeding increases the risk of getting two identical recessive genes, alleles, that cause a disease which wouldn't have been activated with mixed genes. That's how I understand it anyway. But I ...
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Does avoiding medication that alleviates symptoms shorten the length of a cold?
People use over the counter (OTC) medications to relieve symptoms of the common cold.
However, these symptoms are part of the immune response, right? They are driven by the body responding to the ...
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Is half-a-tablet of X a substitute for a tablet of X/2?
This may be anecdotal.
At the pharmacy earlier, the prescription called for a drug with X mg of the target chemical. The pharmacy however only had stock of a higher potency of the same brand.
E.g. ...
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Can far-UVC light be safely used as germicide? (help understanding a paper)
I've been trying to familiarize myself with the literature on far UVC light as a germicide. My question mostly pertains to figure 4 of this paper. The paper investigates the efficacy of 207 nm light ...
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Is there a possibility that medicine will affect the efficiency of natural selection?
I mean, saving sick people means that they possibly can propagate something that nature does not allow. I know that there is already something that operate at genetical level producing alteration, i.e....
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How does the body respond to blood donation; are there any possible risks?
Can blood donation cause any harm to the donor? I have been told so, but cannot find any references supporting this claim. I have also learned that our body will replace the lost fluids within 24 ...
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Understanding a Chromosomal formula in a karytope analysis
I am reading a medical reporting results of a karyotype analysis. On it it is written:
Chromosomal formula
46,XX,del(7)(q11q36)[12]/46,XX[13]
I understand that 46 ...