25 Diseases You Didn’t Know You Could Die From

1. Batten Disease is a rare, fatal, autosomal recessive neurodegenerative disorder. Early symptoms, appearing around age four-10, are vision problems and seizures. Eventually, children become blind, bedridden, and demented. Life expectancy varies.
2. Bubonic Plague: the World Health Organization (WHO) reports thousands of new cases every year, though there are still under 50 per year in the U.S. Symptoms are chills and fever, swollen lymph nodes, stomach pain, and cough. It is spread primarily by wild rodents so don’t handle dead (or live) rats on a picnic.
3. Buerger’s Disease (Thromboangiitis obliterans) is a disease associated with tobacco use especially in males 20-40 but also in females. It involves clots in the small and medium arteries and veins in the hands and feet and the symptom is pain in these areas. It often leads to amputation which can lead to early death.
4. Campylobacter means “twisted bacteria.” It is one of the main causes of food-born bacterial disease. It is transmitted fecal-orally, and in contaminated food and water. Symptoms last usually five-seven days, but there are around 100 deaths from it per year in the US.
5. Celiac Disease has an excellent prognosis for a long, healthy life if the patient follows a gluten-free diet, but if untreated, the disease can have life-threatening complications, such as autoimmune disorders and certain types of intestinal cancer.
6. Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) is a degenerative neurological disorder that can’t be cured and always leads to death. The first symptom is dementia, which leads to memory loss, personality change, and hallucination. There are physical symptoms such as ataxia, change in gait, seizures. Symptoms are caused by the progressive death of brain cells, leading sooner or later (symptoms can continue for years) to death.
7. Drug-induced Diarrhea is one of your body’s natural defenses against invaders and the invader can be medicine. Sometimes the cause of chronic diarrhea, because it is a medicine, is not found in time to avoid a life-threatening situation.
8. Ebola Hemorrhagic Fever is named after the Ebola River Valley in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The virus damages blood vessel walls so platelets are unable to coagulate, leading to hypovolemic shock. Transmission is through bodily fluids.
9. Familial Mediterranean Fever is a hereditary inflammatory disorder. There are seven types of attacks. Most patients have their first attacks before they are 18. 75 percent experience joint attacks. Chronic renal failure may lead to early death. FMF is most common among Armenians.
10. Fatal familial insomnia, or FFI is a rare genetic condition where people lose the ability to sleep, and it can lead to coma and death.
11. Fatal Hiccups occurs when a bout of hiccups lasts for days, causing the sufferer to be unable to rest or get proper nutrition, which can result in death.
12. Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS) is one of the causes of kidney failure. It involves scarring of the glomerulus, a functional part of the nephron.
13. Haff Disease is the development of swelling and breakdown of skeletal muscle (rhabdomyolysis) with risk of acute kidney failure within 24 hours of ingesting fish. Most cases have been in Russia and Germany and followed consumption of burbot, eel and pike, but 6 cases have been reported in the US (1997) involving buffalo fish.
14. Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome is also known as House Mouse Flu because it’s transmitted by infected rodents through droppings, urine, or saliva. Six states have reported 30 or more cases since 1993. Symptoms include tachycardia and tachypnea which can lead to cardiovascular shock. As a side note, The US researched Hantavirus among other agents as potential biological weapons before suspending its program.
15. Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome is a genetic condition characterized by rapid early aging. Patients look normal as infants, then fail to gain weight. They develop external characteristics of aging. Accompanying this is a hardening of the arteries that can result in early heart attack or stroke.
16. Infectious Diarrhea is diarrhea caused by an infection by bacteria, virus, or parasite. It usually last seven days when not treated by antibiotic. In the developing world, infectious diarrhea causes four to six million deaths per year, mainly among children.
17. Legionnaire’s Disease, or Legionellosis, does not always occur in outbreaks such as among American Legionnaires in Philadelphia in 1976, but isolated cases occur. It leads to pneumonia and in five to 30 percent of cases, death.
18. Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) affects females of childbearing age. It involves the disorderly growth of smooth muscles (leiomyoma) in the lungs which results in the obstruction of small airways. May be misdiagnosed as asthma or other common lung disorders. A chronic disease which may not be fatal for decades. Treatment is through lung transplant.
19. Marburg Virus, or just Marburg, originated in Central and East Africa and is also known as the green monkey disease because it originated with primates. It’s spread through bodily fluids, such as blood, saliva, excrement, and vomit. Symptoms, from headache and fever to hemorrhaging and delirium, last one to three weeks, then the afflicted person either gets better or dies.
20. Membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis is caused by deposits in the kidney and membrane thickening. Type II of the disease will progress to end stage renal disease within ten years.
21. Menkes Disease is also called copper transport disease, or kinky hair disease. It affects copper levels in the body, leading to copper deficiency. Onset is usually during infancy. Symptoms can include developmental delay and mental retardation. Death may result from rupture of blockage of arteries in the brain.
22. Norovirus is an RNA virus that causes 90 percent of epidemic nonbacterial outbreaks of gastroenteritis around the world. It affects people of all ages. It is transmitted in faecally contaminated food and water, by person-to-person contact, or by contamination of surfaces. There are a few hundred fatalities in the US every year.
23. Nuclear Factor Kappa B Essential Modulator (NEMO) is a condition discovered in 2007, found only in males, that results in immunodeficiency. Symptoms include repeated infections, conical teeth, fine hair, and abnormal bone growth. Treatment is through bone marrow transplant.
24. Prion Diseases are transmissible spongiform encephalopathies, a family of rare neurodegenerative disorders that affect both humans and animals. They have long incubation periods, progress rapidly, and are always fatal, causing the brain to become sponge-like. One example is Mad Cow Disease.
25. Santavuori-Haltia Disease is a rare, inherited, biochemical disorder involving the build-up of certain chemicals in body tissues due to deficiency of an enzyme needed to process them. Closely associated with neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis, it begins in infancy, causes developmental delay, impaired intelligence, progressive dementia, lowered life expectancy.