Super quick guide to understand medical jargon

It is quite understandable that whenever medical doctors speak about the different conditions that affect us humans, we might blackout and go in-and-out consciousness for a while. Such happens because there is so much professional jargon spat a us that the normal brain would take in just the minimum bearable; that being - "Doc? Am I gonna be fine?".

Before your doctor comes up with yet another one of those super long terminology rampages that scare you more than the actual illness, it is time to breathe. The trick to understand that foreign 'Aramaic' language, regurgitated from the depths of some cold Alma Mater lost in both space and time, is actually reasonably simple.

Just close your eyes, listen to the word and break it into parts. 

I think I fool no one when I say that the secret, as in any other realm of knowledge, lies in the breaking of the whole into its component units. Is that Gestaltism? I remember vaguely something about it from my Psychology classes during my secondary school years... That and my professor's purple hair,..., oh and those five girls who never wanted to go out with me because apparently I was "too weird" for them.

Anyway, just look at the word has being made of two to three parts, tops: a prefix, a root and finally a suffix. The prefix, when present, either reinforces or changes the meaning of the word, as for example with the word 'Aniridia':

An - indicating absence or negation

Iridia - related to the iris of the eye

Then we have the root as being the central object (iris - in the previous example), and finally the suffix that is usually the action produced by or on the object.

But before you follow any of this as rule for life protected in the guts of some Ark of the Covenant, mind that I'm no linguist, and my intention here is just to help you at least understand what that guy in the white masonic gown is bragging about, so you avoid misinterpretations as the ones suggested in the picture.

Let's take a look at yet another example with the word 'Abiotrophy'. This means a progressive loss of an organ's/tissue's vitality that can result in loss of function. Now we Shogun-knife-cut-it-into-parts:

A - (prefix) meaning absence/negation of

Bio - (core object) meaning life

Trophy - (suffix action) meaning development

Now imagine you get the latest doctor's newsletter on the observations taken from your medical exams. You read that your records all point towards 'Thrombocytopenia'. "That can't be good, man, there's penia there" you think it to your self. But rather than immediately checking your parts for something wrong with the supposed 'penia', you can just apply the aforementioned method and break the word into its constituting parts:

Thrombo - relates to blood clots.

Cyto - relates to cells.

Penia - relates to deficiency.

Immediately you know your penis is actually fine! The issue is now to make sense of this big word by learning the meaning of these individual parts. You go with 'deficiency'... 'of cells'... 'of blood clots'. Hmmmmm! After a while, if you're not versed in the ways of medicine like most people aren't, you can at least comprehend that what is suggested is that you might have a low blood platelet count.

And this system works quite well for a lot of other really weird ailments, such as:

Osteopenia = Osteo + Penia = Bone + Deficiency = low bone density.

Myositis = Myo + Itis = muscle + inflammation = inflammation of the muscle tissue.

Hepatomegaly = Hepato + megaly = liver + large = enlarged liver condition.

***

You have now, at least, the very basics to understand health care professionals. What you really need now is a very basic, very straightforward list that can offer you some direct understanding of the human body and its conditions. I tried and did that for you! In this table you can find the most popular human bits and bobs, some suffixes that can guide you to an understanding of the ulterior condition. It's not the ultimate encyclopaedia, but I'm sure it will be helpful:

Human Bits and Bobs	Core word (few examples)	Actions (few examples)
Brain	Encephalo-	Condition = -pathy
Bone	Osteo-	Infection/inflammation = -itis
Hair	Hirsute-	Pain = -algia, -dynia
Ears	Vestibular-, Labyrinth-, Acoust-, Audit-	Deficiency = -penia
Eyes	Cornea-, Retina-, Iridia-	Enlargement = -dilat
Nose	Sinus-	Death = -nephrosis
Mouth	Gingiv-, Laryng-	Excessive = -hyper
Skin	Derma-, Derm-, Dermat-	Insufficient = -hypo
Abdomen	Abdomin-	Weakness = -paresis
Spine	Spin-	Respiration = -pnea
Heart	Endocard-, Myocard-	Paralysis = -paresia
Blood	Haemo-	Degeneration = -(a)trophy
Trachea	Trachea-	Blood condition = -emia
Lungs	Pneum-, Pulmonar-, Bronchi-	Irritation = -erethism
Stomach	Gastro-	Formation = -genesis
Neck	Cervic-	Abnormal condition = iasis
Kidneys	Nephr-	To reduce = -lytic
Liver	Hepato-	To breakdown = -lysis
Pancreas	Pancrea-	To cut = -spadia, -sect
Intestines	Entera-	Bring forth = -para
Spleen	Spleen-	To lead to = -duct

Well, for what is worth this is a mere guide to help you make a bit more sense of all those complicated terms. But my advice is that you resort to your healthcare professional for he/she is the one that can easily unblock any confusion resulting from complicated medical jargon.

See you soon!

Bacterial docking and anchoring... to the heart!

I apologise but I cannot indeed remember where exactly I saw this presentation slide for the first time (probably here), so I cannot refer back to the web document I got it from. But I was most intrigued about the concepts of docking and anchoring of bacteria to eukaryotic cells. Concepts I was partially unaware of on its biomolecular nature, but had a mild understanding of what could actually mean physically.

Bacterial adhesion can occur in two major ways:

In a basic primary fashion known as the docking stage and by secondary means known as locking or anchoring.

Docking is reversible and occurs between the bacterial cell surface and the surface of interest where electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions play a role [1].

Anchoring becomes irreversible if no prompt intervention takes place, and involves molecularly-mediated binding between specific adhesins and the compromised surface. This compromised agent subjected to an initial locking will become susceptible to a different range of adhering organisms, thus allowing a pluralised matrix to form in the shape of a biofilm varying in strain identities [1].

Both can lead to serious defense suppression, but the second can get the host death compromised by adding to antimicrobial drug resistance by compromising the glycocalyx (image below).

 [2]

The glycocalyx is a carbohidrate-enriched layer surrounding the outside of many eukaryotic and also prokaryotic cells. It basically reports on the health state of a cell and its disruption means disease! Especially in hyperglycemic subjects, thus diabetic patients are prone to loss of endothelial glycocalyx during accute hyperglicaemia [3].

If you want to know more about it read the articles below:

[1] Dunne, M. (2002). "Baterial adhesion: Seen any good biofilms lately?". Clinical microbiology reviews, 15(2), pp. 155-166.

[2] Rabelink and Zeeuw (2015). "The glycocalyx - linking albuminuria with renal and cardiovascular disease". Nature Reviews Nephrology, advanced online publication.

[3] Nieuwdorp et al., (2006). "Loss of endothelial glycocalyx during acute hyperglicemia coincides with endothelialdysfunction  and coagulation  activation in vivo". Diabetes, 55(2), pp. 480-486.

Resistance breaker (short definition)

Resistance breakers - compounds that enhance the effectiveness of the existing antibiotics. These compounds work in different ways, for example by disrupting the cell membrane or destroying the cell wall. The development of such compounds, such as Teixobactin, is far less costly when compared to the morosity and expensiveness associated to classic research on whole new antibiotics.

Based on the 18th of May Tim Sandle article in Science Magazine "Taking on bacterial resistance with 'resistance breakers'