• Question: Why do some people have serious illnesses and some people don't?

    Asked by 08764654765375437543737dominic to Amy, Karen, Sarah, Vijay, Will on 18 Jun 2012. This question was also asked by emma101999.
    • Photo: Amy Birch

      Amy Birch answered on 18 Jun 2012:

      HI dominic!
      There are many different causes for serious diseases, and we don’t always know the causes for all of them.
      But some of the causes could be related to your lifestyle & environment (for example smoking increases your chance of getting lung cancer, heart disease and having a stroke; being overweight increases your chance of getting type II diabetes and dementia) and some causes could be hereditary, so the mutation on the gene that causes the disease can be passed from parents to children (for example Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis).
      Diseases are often very complex however, and can have lots of different causes. I hope this answers your question.

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