STUDY GUIDE
Death, Disease and Demographics
Chronic Diseases
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Infectious diseases are diseases that you can “catch”. How are chronic diseases different from infectious diseases?
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What are some examples of chronic diseases?
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What are some ways that you develop a chronic disease?
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Why are we seeing more chronic diseases today?
 Why is it important to study cancer?
 Are there many different forms of cancer?
 What is one trait that is common to all different types of cancer?
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What do cancer cells do that normal cells don’t do?
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What has happened to the incidence of cancer in the last 200 years? Why?
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Why are there differences in the prevalence of cancer in different countries?
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Some say that cancer is a disease of the cell cycle. What does this mean?
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Cancers usually involve mutations of genes. Are all cases of cancer hereditary? Are any? Explain.
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What is the difference between a malignant and a benign tumor?
 What does metastasize mean?
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 Oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes are both involved in cancer. Be able to identify each of their role in cancer and understand how mutations in proto-oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes are involved.
 What can cause a mutation that can lead to cancer? Be able to give some examples.
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Understand that the mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA 2 genes are linked to ovarian and breast cancer.
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What are some environmental factors that can lead to cancer?
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What are HeLa cells and why are they important.
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What is heart disease?
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Why is it important to study heart disease?
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What are the two causes of heart disease?
 What happens in Coronary Artery Disease?
 What is a myocardial infarction? What are symptoms?
 What is congestive heart disease? What causes it?
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 What is a stroke? What are the symptoms?
 What are some unchangeable risk factors?
 What are some changeable risk factors?
 What is cholesterol? Why is it good, why is it bad?
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What is the difference between good and bad cholesterol?
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Why are fats good for you?
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What are saturated fats and why are they bad for you?
 What types of fats are good for you? Why?
 Why are trans fats bad for you?
 What is Omega 3, why is it good and how can you get it?
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How is obesity related to heart disease?
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How is diabetes related to heart disease?
 How is physical activity related to heart disease?
 How is smoking related to heart disease?
 How is alcohol consumption related to heart disease?
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What is Coronary Artery Bypass Surgery?
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What is Angioplasty?
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How can you prevent cardiovascular disease?
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There are many different genetic disorders. Most are recessive. What does this mean?
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What happens in Tay Sachs?
 If two parents who are carriers (heterozygous) for Tay Sachs, what is the chance that their child will have Tay Sachs?
 Name one other disease that is recessively inherited.
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If diseases can kill you, why are some still inherited? In other words, why aren’t these alleles selected out of our population completely?
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