Longreads: 5 Diseases You Didn't Know to Worry About

[Haiku]

Or maybe you already know....I found it interesting reading, I like to read.

In 2012, none of America's top killers are contagious. You don't get cancer, diabetes, or heart disease at the swimming pool or just because someone sneezed on you. But a hundred years ago, you probably died from something you caught. While hygiene and modern medicine have thankfully eliminated the deadliest of those bugs, there's still plenty of parasites, bacteria, and viruses hoping to reproduce in the warm, cozy environment of your body. Like it or not, we and these microbes are intimately intertwined.

Climate change is expanding the geographic reach of some diseases, possibly including hantavirus, brain eating amoebas, and at least seven others. Others, once eradicated, have returned due to indiscriminate antibiotic use. And still other diseases have remained a mystery, continuing to frustrate doctors and patients. Below, we've rounded up the best long-form journalism on disease, ready for your consumption. Apologies in advance, hypochondriacs.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/09/longreads-disease-tuberculosis-lyme-gonorrhea

We have a real problem with lime disease here. My ex and my dog have both been treated for it. These are real, and a small list of important and current effects of our changing climate and our current medical knowledge. A mix...

Sex and the Superbug (Gonorrhea) | Jerome Groopman | The New Yorker | October 2012

How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy (Toxoplasmosis) | Kathleen McAuliffe | The Atlantic | March 2012

The Patient Predator (Tuberculosis)| Kevin Patterson | Mother Jones | March/April 2003

Undead: The Rabies Virus Remains a Mystery | Monica Murphy and Bill Wasik | Wired | July 2012

Ticked Off (Lyme Disease) | Laurie Abraham | Health Magazine | March/April 1995