Infections are all over the news and infecting a lot of people. This is the first in a series I hope will distill a complex field into practical, understandable sound bites. I intend to make this series current, local and relevant as well as understandable and FUN.
Why am I writing about this?
Watch for upcoming topics including: RSV, influenza, COVID-19 updates, monkeypox, Ebola and more as the world turns and daylight wanes here in the PNW.
Infections have plagued humanity forever, but many of us don’t remember and could not believe we would experience a pandemic in our lifetimes. Many of us are reeling from this seemingly unprecedented experience, which it is not. Even most of our elders were not alive to remember the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 when whole families were dying overnight or when my aunt died of diphtheria at the age of 7 before my mother was born. Many of my fellow boomers just slipped past the horror of polio thanks to the vaccines.
Infectious disease is the field of science that studies the diseases human beings suffer from microbes (defined below) and how we can fight them off internally and with external support.
The field has two important and complex parts – the infections themselves and the host (that is us, the ones who get infected). This column is about the infections, the whole slew of them! Let’s save the host factors, specific infections and treatment to the rest of the series. More fun!
Infections are caused by microbes. Think microbiology. Microbes are small nasty ‘things’ that can infect us biological creatures. These microbes come in 3 groups or classes: parasites, bacteria and viruses. Each of these groups include bunches of microbes that like us have their own families.
Parasites are multicell living organisms (kind of like animals only smaller) that can infect us. This group includes fungi (think yeast infection, women), worms (think pinworms in your kids, parents), insects (some of you have unfortunately scratched yourself raw from itching before you knew you had scabies) and ‘other’ small parasites such as giardia (tummy aches from drinking bad water even from our ‘pristine’ mountains) and trichomonas (back to the women again). There are hundreds more, especially in the tropics (think malaria).
Bacteria are their own ‘animal’ but not really animals. They are single-celled organisms (living entities like us and our pets though we are multi-celled) that can pro-create (i.e., make more of themselves) on their own. (We can’t do that – we need each other to pro-create. Okay, you already knew that.) Bacteria need food and shelter (as we do) to live and replicate (as we do). They can live ‘independently’ (kind of). In fact, lots of them live ON or IN us without causing infections. There are millions or billions on our skin, in our intestines and genitals. Most of the time this relationship is quite harmonious bilaterally, good for us and them. When it isn’t, that’s a bacterial infection (think strep throat) and a topic for another column.
Viruses are another ball game entirely. They are pieces of genes rolled into a ball (kind of), just molecules, not living organisms and sometimes with envelopes (think thin raincoats made of molecules) that need our cells to replicate (i.e., to manufacture more of themselves). Virus get into our cells (remember this important fact) and steal our machinery to make more of themselves, the little buggers.
The virology subfield of infectious diseases is relatively new. Though we have known about viruses for a long time and found effective vaccines for some of the most horrible decades ago (think smallpox and polio), the scientific understanding of these devilish molecules is very new. This is thanks to the field of molecular biology. Molecular biology is simply the understanding of living molecules. Since viruses are truly only molecules, it took this science to show us what they are, and how they operate, infect, grow and replicate themselves. And, as a corollary, how to stop them in their tracks. This is a LOT of information to sort out in 50 years! We learn more every year. As tragic and challenging as it has been for humanity, the science around COVID and vaccines has advanced this field of knowledge greatly.
Who knew infectious disease was so complicated? That a balled-up gene (RNA or DNA – next column) could have the power to kill and shut down the world economy, not to mention your social life.
Before this pandemic, most non-medical people I encountered both in and out of my medical office called almost any infection ‘the flu.’ If you had any combination of vomiting, diarrhea, runny nose, coughing, sore throat, headache, fever and muscle ache, it was the flu. More sophisticated types might call something respiratory (i.e., runny nose, cough, sore throat) a cold.
If these said symptoms lasted too long or interfered with your life and occupation, you thought: “I have a cold or flu and am going to make an appointment with my doctor to get antibiotics,” WRONG and a real problem (which requires a little more background to understand so STAY TUNED…).
If you are bored, and I hope you are not, biology is relevant to us NOW. It is my hope that this background will help you understand what is happening with the infections in our midst, infecting the kids with RSV (a virus), how Covid vaccines and treatment work and more.
Until we meet again, stay home if you are sick (so as not to infect others and take the time to recover), get enough sleep and eat well, so your risk of getting sick is lower. More about epidemiology, host factors (including immunity) is coming up, so you understand why to do all that.
Debra Glasser, M.D., is a retired internal medicine physician who lives in Olympia. Her laughter is infectious. Got a question for her? Write to her at drdebra@theJOLTnews.com
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