There is likely hundreds of human non-infectious diseases that are influenced by microorganisms, but the ones I think of when I hear this are sarcoidosis, malaria, oral thrush, yeast infections, sepsis, lyme disease, botulism, tetanus, and toxic shock syndrome.I realize after trying to write down all of the diseases that I think are influenced by microorganisms is actually slightly difficult. The most common diseases that came to mind were viruses, and while I suppose some would argue that a virus is a microorganism, I did not think it would be appropriate to add to this list. The videos provided for this week challenged my thinking though, but as of right now I figured I would keep cancer and other “non-microbial” diseases off my list as I am not well-versed in this area. After completing this activity, I noticed that the diseases I could think of were mostly communicable diseases. I think it is interesting that there are some microorganism influenced diseases that cannot spread person to person, due to the fact that the disease was most likely brought on by exposure, and then it simply inhabits only that body. However, is it possible that two microorganisms can inhabit the same body, ultimately causing two separate diseases? Does the body somehow ramp up its own immune system as an attempt to fight off an additional disease that it could come in contact with? I suppose this is why illness often confines a person to their bed, but I rarely hear of two life-threatening bacterial/fungal diseases occurring at once often. This could also simply be because it is just not very likely.
