Talk:Degenerative disease
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- [...] will progressively deteriorate over time, whether due to normal bodily wear or lifestyle choices such as exercise or eating habits.
But doesnt this fail to mention perhaps the most important reason? genes!
"bodily wear" doens't include this, because it's not "normal".
In pathology, diseases are morphologically classified as inflammatory, neoplastic or degenerative.
Any descriptive terms containing '-itis' or '-oma' mustn't therefore be classified as degenerative, because they always designate an inflammatory or neoplastic entity, respectively.
Therefore, 'prostatitis' and others are not degenerative diseases.
Genetic factors may underlie any of these morphological categories, because they concern the etiology of a disease (i.e. what causes it) and not its morphology (i.e. how its looks like). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.132.193.65 (talk) 17:58, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
I took the liberty of removing the link to Vegan nutrition, because I really don't see in which way it is related to degenerative diseases, at least not any more than other eating habits - but then we can't have every type of nutrition linked from this page, can we? 109.112.123.217 (talk) 17:49, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
Added muscular dystrophy which was missing for some reason.222.152.176.50 (talk) 07:19, 22 June 2013 (UTC)
Removal of some diseases from the list
Let me start of by saying that instead of having an excessive list, it'd be better to simply have a "degenerative disease" tag, that you could add to pages that can clearly be classified as degenerative. Then you'd have Category:degenerative disease -page for such disease listing all tagged diseases.
It doesn't seem clear whether essential tremor could be classified as a degenerative disease or not so I removed it from the list.ex1,ex2
Removed: prostatitis (self explanatory), Klaus Müller syndrome (couldn't find any info about it), COPD (most sources call it a progressive disease, although I'm not sure if these are synonyms?). No reputable sources called Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva a degerative disease but it kills you progressively and has no cure so what else it could be? Vascular dementia is problematic: e.g. this study claims classification between vascular and neurogenerative maybe too strict: "a formal division of dementia cases using the dichotomy, vascular versus neurodegenerative may be inappropriate. While logical and conceptually valid, most elderly subjects have multiple brain pathologies." Type 2 diabetes removed from the list since it is sometimes improved with proper care, but without treatment it (insulin insensitivity) and its complications can get progressively worse in a vicious cycle. So it's really in gray area (sometimes degenerative, sometimes not). Also removed IBD (seems no reputable sources are calling degenerative). As far as I known, it gets better with treatment, although is not cured.
Should cancer and vascular dementia remain? I'm no medical expert so someone review my edits and fix whatever I might've gotten wrong.
- Sources I recently added claim that infection and cancer are included in the definition of what are degenerative diseases. Later I found a medical dictionary (The British Medical Association illustrated medical dictionary, 2002, ISBN 9780751333831) which on page 161 claims: degenerative disorders - A term covering a range of conditions in which there is progressive impairment of the structure and function of part of the body. The definition excludes conditions due to inflammation, infection, altered immune responses, chemical or physical damage, or cancerous change. The number of specialized cells or structures in the organ affected is usually reduced, and cells are replaced by connective tissue or scar tissue. I don't know what to believe. talk) 17:50, 18 September 2018 (UTC)]