This prompt was a tough one to think about. A non-infectious disease caused by microorganisms? Yikes. Honestly, I couldn’t think of any myself off the top of my head, so I turned to the glorious site we call Google and did some research. Here’s what I came up with:
- appendicitis: an infection of the appendix that could have been caused by a traveling stomach bug
- asthma: inflammation of the lungs that could be caused by an infection or allergen
- allergies: I’m not sure if this is considered a disease, but it’s definitely a reaction in the human body that cannot be passed between people and is caused by microorganisms!
- emphysema: difficulty breathing caused by small particulates (microorganisms??) like ash and smoke from chronic smoking
- IBS: one reason for irritable bowel syndrome could be due to inflammation of the bowel due to an infection by microorganisms
I did not realize how difficult it would be to think of diseases that were caused by microorganisms but are not passed between people. There are far fewer than I thought. While I was able to find a long list of non-infectious diseases, most of them were autoimmune, cancer, or due to environmental factors that have nothing to do with microorganisms, such as obesity, heart disease, or kidney failure. I am excited to learn more about this section of diseases and am looking forward to realizing how many more things I was totally unaware of (like diseases not passed from person to person but still involve bacteria- how cool!?)
