Preksha Dhyana Human Body Part 2

Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati

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Diseases and (Body's) Defences
Throughout life a human being is constantly at war. Enemies lurk both without and within. Potentially harmful microbes swarm in air, water, food, and on the surfaces of objects handled and used by human beings. They assemble at the major entrances into the body, ready to slip inside, if there is a breach in the defences. Some even exist inside the body, kept at bay by the body defenders, but ready to assail, multiply and spread, if exposure, malnutrition or mental stress temporarily lowers the resistance.
Homeostatic mechanisms involving the circulatory, the excretory, the neuro-endocrine and other systems normally function to maintain the dynamic equilibrium of body processes. They are a major line of protection against disease. But one weak link, for example, a heart rendered less efficient by degenerative changes, can lead to a chain reaction of physiological catastrophe. Even the body itself can sometime become its own enemy, attacking its own cells instead of the invaders.
Some major types of diseases alonwith the body's powerful defences are discussed here.
Diseases
A complete catalogue of the diseases and afflictions that can beset humanity would make one blanch. There are literally thousands of them. Most of them would fit under one of a few basic categories: bacterial, viral, fungus and other parasitic diseases, cancer and degenerative diseases. The causes of some diseases that afflict us have not yet been determined.
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