Stage 6: Diseases and Disorders
Inflammation, infection, cancer, diabetes and other common conditions.
Introduction to Disease
What disease means, how conditions develop, and the difference between acute and chronic.
Infection and Immunity
Bacteria, viruses, antibiotics, resistance and how vaccines protect populations.
- Infection: When Something Else Gets Inside
- Antibiotic Resistance: How Bacteria Stop Responding to Treatment
- Vaccines: Teaching the Immune Response in Advance
- Sepsis: When Infection Causes Life-Threatening Organ Dysfunction
- Pneumonia: Infection in the Lungs
- Urinary Tract Infection and Pyelonephritis: Infection from Bladder to Kidney
- Meningitis and Encephalitis: Infection Around or Within the Brain
- Infectious Gastroenteritis: Infection of the Stomach and Bowel
- Tuberculosis: A Persistent Bacterial Infection
- HIV: How a Virus Weakens Immune Defence
- Influenza and COVID-19: Two Viral Respiratory Diseases
- Pelvic Inflammatory Disease: Infection of the Upper Reproductive Tract
Inflammation and Autoimmune Disease
When the immune system attacks the body — and what inflammation really is.
- Inflammation: The Body's Repair Response, and What Happens When It Persists
- Autoimmune Disease: When Defence Turns Inward
- Rheumatoid Arthritis: Autoimmune Inflammation of the Joints
- Systemic Lupus Erythematosus: An Autoimmune Disease with Many Patterns
- Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis: Two Forms of Inflammatory Bowel Disease
- Coeliac Disease: An Immune Reaction to Gluten
- Multiple Sclerosis: When the Immune System Attacks Nerve Insulation
Cancer
What cancer is, how it grows, spreads and is treated — in plain English.
- Cancer Basics: What Actually Goes Wrong at the Cellular Level
- Breast Cancer: One Name, Several Biological Subtypes
- Lung Cancer: Different Cancers Arising in the Lungs
- Bowel Cancer: Cancer of the Colon and Rectum
- Prostate Cancer: Disease Ranging from Slow-Growing to Aggressive
- Skin Cancer: Melanoma and Non-Melanoma Cancers
- Blood Cancers: Leukaemia, Lymphoma and Myeloma
Long-Term Conditions
Diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, kidney disease, mental health and more.
- Diabetes and Metabolic Disease: Why One Ongoing Disturbance Affects So Much
- High Blood Pressure: The Long-Term Condition That Rarely Announces Itself
- Asthma and COPD: Two Different Ways the Airways Can Narrow
- Chronic Kidney Disease: Why So Much Function Can Be Lost Before It Shows
- Chronic Pain: When Pain Itself Becomes the Condition
- Mental Health Conditions: Genuine Illness, Not a Character Trait
- Monitoring Long-Term Conditions: Why the Same Pattern Keeps Appearing
Rare and Complex Conditions
Genetic conditions, multi-system disorders and how rare disease medicine works.