Heart disease
It has recently been proven that heart disease can be spread through two types of processes, namely genetically inherited and by gut bacteria. According to a study published in the journal Science coordinated by the Canadian microbiologist, Brett Finlay, heart disease, as well as type 2 diabetes and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and other similar diseases can actually be transmitted from person to person just like stomach bugs.
Their hypothesis is that these diseases coexist with an altered microbiome that exists in your gut, and in general, people spread microbes with the people they cohabitate or interact with. In general, these unhealthy altered microbiomes are responsible for causing the disease in other people.
“It really leads to a rather almost heretical postulate — that non-communicable diseases, which basically means non-infectious diseases, might actually be communicable. And, given that 70 percent of the people in the world die of what we call non-communicable diseases, it gives you a whole different way of looking at these things. Your microbes are more similar to the person you’re living with than the genetically related twin living on the other side of the world,” said Finlay.
Diabetes
As I said before, just like heart disease and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), type 2 diabetes can be spread by inherited genes or direct contact with another person. We discussed the second method of transmission earlier, so now we will talk about the role of your inherited genes in diabetes.
Whether or not you can increase your chances of getting diabetes or other illnesses from another person, genetics is another important mechanism that can transmit a certain disease. That being said, studies have shown that diabetes is not genetic per se, but your DNA can increase your risks of getting this disease. Of course, there are a lot of factors that can lead to diabetes, such as diet, stress, age and overall lifestyle.
Health experts believe that having a parent who suffers from type 2 diabetes increases your risk of developing this disease as well, and this risk increases even more if both parents are diagnosed with diabetes. Researchers have shown that if both parents have type 2 diabetes, there is an almost 50 percent chance that you and your siblings will have the genes passed on from your parents, which means that you are prone to diabetes as well.
2 thoughts on “10 Surprising Things You Won’t Believe Are Contagious”
Super information!!
From page 2: “Their hypothesis is that these diseases coexist with an altered microbiome that exists in your gut, and in general, people spread microbes with the people they cohabitate or interact with. In general, these unhealthy altered microbiomes are responsible for causing the disease in other people.”
I can understand how this could be true. But if my microbiome is healthy and my spouse’s isn’t, the implication is the unhealthy microbiome will be passed to me. Why would the healthy microbiome lose to the unhealthy ones?
If this is true, than it is chilling and the implications are incredible! “… people spread microbes with the people they cohabitate or interact with.” So the people I work with for many hours most of the days in a week can affect my health because they are unhealthy. “Here try the cookies we made”, says the obese, unhealthy guy in your workplace. He’s being nice, right? I have a new and different outlook on things. It all makes sense, we should have known.