A risk factor is a variable associated with an increased risk of disease or infection but risk factors are not necessarily causal. For example, being young cannot be said to cause measles, but young people are more at risk as they are less likely to have developed immunity during a previous epidemic. A disease is an abnormal condition of the body or mind that causes discomfort, dysfunction, or distress to the person afflicted or those in contact with the person. ... Infection is also the title of an episode of the television series Babylon 5, and the English title of the Japanese film Kansen. ...
Risk factors are evaluated by comparing the risk of those exposed to the potential risk factor to those not exposed. Let's say that at a wedding, 74 people ate the chicken and 22 of them were ill, while of the 35 people who had the fish or vegetarian meal only 2 were ill. Did the chicken make the people ill?
So the chicken eaters' risk = 22/74 = 0.297 And non-chicken eaters' risk = 2/35 = 0.057.
Those who ate the chicken had a risk over five times as high as those who did not, suggesting that eating chicken was the cause of the illness. Note, however, that this is not proof. Statistical methods would be used in a less clear cut case to decide what level of risk the risk factor would have to present to be able to say the risk factor "causes" the disease (for example in a study of the link between smoking and lung cancer). A graph of a bell curve in a normal distribution showing statistics used in educational assessment, comparing various grading methods. ... The British doctors study is the generally accepted name of a prospective clinical trial which has been running from 1951 to 2001, and in 1956 provided convincing statistical proof that tobacco smoking increased the risk of lung cancer. ...
The term "risk factor" was first coined by heart researcher Dr. Thomas R. Dawber in a landmark scientific paper in 1961, where he attributed specific conditions (blood pressure, cholesterol, smoking) to heart disease. Blood pressure is the pressure exerted by the blood on the walls of the blood vessels. ... Cholesterol chemical structure Cholesterol is a sterol (a combination steroid and alcohol) and a lipid found in the cell membranes of all body tissues, and transported in the blood plasma of all animals. ... Various smoking equipment including different pipes, and cigars. ... Heart disease is one of a number of different diseases which afflict the heart. ...
Low testosterone in men may be diabetes riskfactor
After the influence of age, race and obesity was factored in, men with the lowest levels of testosterone were four times more likely to have diabetes than men with the highest levels.
Yet, "even after accounting for the effect of obesity, low testosterone levels still appear to be an important riskfactor for diabetes," she said.
Riskfactors are chronic infection with hepatitis B or C virus, cirrhosis of the liver (chronic liver injury, usually due to alcohol abuse), aflatoxin ingestion (produced by a common mold that invades poorly stored peanuts and other foods), and occupational exposure to thorium dioxide or vinyl chloride.
Riskfactors are excessive exposure to ultraviolet radiation (sunlight), fair skin, history of severe sunburns, personal or family history of melanoma, multiple moles or atypical moles (colored skin spots), giant congenital moles, xeroderma pigmentosum (a rare hereditary disease), personal history of melanoma, and reduced immune function due to organ transplants or HIV infection.
Riskfactors are genetic factors, certain rare inherited syndromes such as neurofibromatosis, being a parent or sibling of a child with brain cancer, high doses of ionizing radiation, and occupational exposure to certain aromatic hydrocarbon compounds, bis-chloromethyl ether, vinyl chloride, and acrylonitrile.
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