Archive for April 12th, 2010
What Causes Infection?
April 12th, 2010 | 
Author: Contact with potentially infectious micro-organisms such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi is common. The body’s normal resistance is usually enough to prevent the organisms from taking hold in the body, but if the organisms are very virulent or if a your resistance is low, then an infectious illness results. Infections spread from person to person, sometimes directly and sometimes via food or another medium.
Bacteria
Bacteria come in three basic shapes: spherical (such as the streptococci and staphylococci), rod-shaped (such as E. coli and whooping cough bacilli) and spiral (such as cholera bacteria). Bacteria can live in a wide variety of environments such as in soil, food and in the body. Certain types are normally present in parts of the body such as the bowel and on the skin, and many perform useful functions, helping the body to run smoothly. Illness can be caused by an overgrowth of these ‘normal’ bacterial colonies or by invasion of the body by disease-provoking or ‘pathogenic’ bacteria. Bacterial infections can be treated with antibiotics.
Viruses