Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.

The system of organs responsible for getting food into and out of the body and for making use of food to keep the body healthy. The digestive system includes the salivary glands, mouth, esophagus, stomach, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, small intestine, colon, and rectum. The digestive system’s organs are joined in a long, twisting tube from the mouth to the anus. Inside this tube…

Pain during urination, or difficulty urinating. Dysuria is usually caused by inflammation of the urethra, frequently as a result of infection.

1 The process by which cells become progressively more specialized; a normal process through which cells mature. This process of specialization for the cell comes at the expense of its breadth of potential. Stem cells can, for example, differentiate into secretory cells in the intestine. 2 In cancer, differentiation refers to how mature (developed) the cancer cells are…

A cancer in which the cells are mature and look like cells in the tissue from it arose. Differentiated cancers tend to be decidedly less aggressive than undifferentiated cancers composed of immature cells.

The process of weighing the probability of one disease versus that of other diseases possibly accounting for a patient’s illness. The differential diagnosis of rhinitis (a runny nose) includes allergic rhinitis (hayfever), the abuse of nasal decongestants and, of course, the common cold.

Abbreviation for differential diagnosis, the process of weighing the probability of one disease versus that of other diseases to account for a patient’s condition. Dx is the medical abbreviation for diagnosis.

An elegant term for a predisposition or tendency. For example, hemorrhagic diathesis means a tendency to bleed.

Referring to the time when the heart is in a period of relaxation and dilatation (expansion). The noun for diastolic is diastole. (The final letter in “diastole” is pronounced as a long “e” as in “lee.”) The diastolic pressure is specifically the minimum arterial pressure during relaxation and dilatation of the ventricles of the heart when the ventricles…

The time period when the heart is in a state of relaxation and dilatation (expansion). The final letter in “diastole” is pronounced as a long “e” as in “lee.” The adjective for diastole is diastolic. The diastolic pressure is specifically the minimum arterial pressure during relaxation and dilatation of the ventricles of the heart. Diastole is…

A common condition that involves unusually frequent and liquid bowel movements. The opposite of constipation. There are many infectious and noninfectious causes of diarrhea. Persistent diarrhea is both uncomfortable and dangerous to the health because it can indicate an underlying infection and may mean that the body is not able to absorb some nutrients due to a…