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endemic

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 6:07 pm
by KatyBr
en·dem·ic (ĕn-dĕm'ĭk)
adj.
Prevalent in or peculiar to a particular locality, region, or people: diseases endemic to the tropics. See synonyms at native.
Ecology. Native to or confined to a certain region.
n. Ecology.
An endemic plant or animal.

[From Greek endēmos, native, endemic : en-, in; see en–2 + dēmos, people.]

en·dem'i·cal·ly adv.
en·dem'ism n.



Thesaurus
endemic

adjective

Existing, born, or produced in a land or region: aboriginal, autochthonal, autochthonic, autochthonous, indigenous, native. See native/foreign.



Medical
en·dem·ic (ĕn-dĕm'ĭk)
adj.
Prevalent in or restricted to a particular region, community, or group of people. Used of a disease.
Enzootic.
en·dem'i·cal·ly adv.
www.answers.com
can I say certain symptoms are endemic to certain diseases, like fungal infections to Diabetes?

Katy
my mother has Diabetes. She has fungal infections, her poor feet suffer so.

Re: endemic

Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 9:41 pm
by Stargzer
. . . can I say certain symptoms are endemic to certain diseases, like fungal infections to Diabetes?
. . .
No, I don't think endemic is the correct word here, especially since all diabetics won't have all the possible symptoms.

Wikipedia has a good explanation of endemic:
In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemic in a population when that infection is maintained in the population without the need for external inputs. For example, chickenpox is endemic in the UK, but malaria is not. Every year, there are a few cases of malaria acquired in the UK, but these do not lead to sustained transmission in the population due to the lack of a suitable vector (mosquitoes of the genus Anopheles).

For an infection to be endemic, each person who becomes infected with the disease must pass it on to exactly one other person (on average). Assuming a completely susceptible population, that means that the basic reproduction number (R[sub]0[/sub]) of the infection must equal 1. In a population with some immune individuals, the basic reproduction number multiplied by the proportion of susceptible individuals in the population (S) must be 1. This takes account of the probability of each individual who the disease may be transmitted to actually being susceptible to it, effectively discounting the immune sector of the population.

For the disease to be in an endemic steady state:

R[sub]0[/sub] × S = 1

In this way, the infection neither dies out nor does the number of infected people increase exponentially but the infection is said to be in an endemic steady state. An infection that starts as an epidemic will eventually either die out (with the possibility of it resurging in a theoretically predictable cyclical manner) or reach the endemic steady state, depending on a number of factors, including the virulence of the disease and its mode of transmission.
Wikipedia has this to say on the related word, epidemic:
An epidemic is generally a widespread disease that affects many individuals in a population. An epidemic may be restricted to one locale or may even be global (pandemic). An outbreak of a disease is defined as being epidemic, however, not by how many members or what proportion of the population it infects but by how fast it is growing. When each infected individual is infecting more than one other individual, so that the number of infected individuals is growing exponentially, the disease is in an epidemic state. Thus even if the number of people affected is small, the phenomenon may still be called an epidemic, although for small epidemics the term "outbreak" is more often used.

For an epidemic state:

R[sub]0[/sub] × S > 1

Where R[sub]0[/sub] is the basic reproduction number of the infection and S is the proportion of the population who are susceptible to the infection. This is merely a mathematical formalisation of the rule stated above.

Famous examples of epidemics include the bubonic plague epidemic of Mediaeval Europe known as the Black Death, the Great Influenza Pandemic concurring with the end of World War I, and the current AIDS epidemic.

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 11:54 am
by anders
And don't forget the epizootics that might affect our furred, feathered, scaly etc. friends.

ETA: I'm not too well informed about diabetic care in other countries, but would to be on the safe side stress the necessity for diabetics of having
1) regular professional foot care (peripheral sensitivity often decreases, and infections and even gangrene may go unnoticed until too late). At least in Sweden, diabetes is the major cause of foot and lower leg amputations.
2) very regular and thorough eye examinations. A case of diabetes I ("juvenile diabetes") which isn't perfectly managed (and perfect management is a pie in the sky, as large as any) is at a great risk for severely impaired vision and maybe blindness. And I won't go into detail about other problems from vascular deterioration.

Thanks to several multinational (yech), money hungry (boo) pharmaceutical companies, we now have excellent products helping diabetics to preserve their health. For type I, the insulin dipensers now are not more conspicuous in handling than a fountain pen, there are sooo small and easy to manage blood glucose meters, allowing patients to adjust their dose to their actual state, etc.

If your government doesn't supply meters free, the best of the plastic strips give almost as accurate measurements as meters, for those who can't afford the not too alarming expense.

Many type II ("adult" diabetes) patients would also benefit from blood glucose measurements. Most, if their kidneys still work well enough, would probably manage by monitoring their urine glucose levels. For that, they need only dipsticks and a not too impaired vision.

Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 2:27 pm
by Brazilian dude
Portuguese: endêmico (Br.), endémico (Pt.)
Spanish: endémico
Italian: endemico
French: endémique
Catalan: endèmic
Romanian: endemic

Brazilian dude