A patient has been diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.

The doctor asked him a number of questions to assess the risk factors that might have contributed to the development of cardiovascular disease.

What is meant by risk factor?

State two risk factors that might have contributed to the patient developing cardiovascular disease.

The doctor checked the patient's BMI.

He measured the patient's height and weight, and then checked the chart below.

The man weighs 110 kg and is 1.80 m tall.

Which is the patient's BMI category?

Use the equation to calculate the patient's BMI.

Give your answer to 3 significant figures.

The doctor wants to check the man's blood sugar levels as he suspects the man could have type 2 diabetes.

Suggest why the doctor wants to check if the man has type 2 diabetes.

Diseases can be communicable or non-communicable.

Which of the following defines a non-communicable disease?

A student is studying the impact of non-communicable diseases on individuals and communities.

State two human and financial costs of non-communicable diseases to an individual and a local community.

Different types of disease may interact.

This means that having some diseases can lead to a higher chance of developing other diseases. 

People suffering from severe physical ill health often suffer from mental illness.

Suggest why.

Explain how defects in the immune system, such as infection with the HIV virus, can increase the likelihood of infectious diseases.

Investigations have been carried out to see if there is a link between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer.

The results are shown in the graph below.

Describe how an increase in the number of cigarettes smoked relates to the number of deaths from lung cancer.

Suggest why the number of lung cancer deaths is shown as a rate per 100,000 people, rather than the total number of deaths per year.

Lung cancer can develop in people who have never smoked.

Suggest one reason why.

Scientists have now studied the whole human genome.

Give two benefits of understanding the human genome.

Many diseases can be treated using drugs.

Drugs must be trialled before they can be administered to patients.

Give three reasons why.

Drugs must be trialled before they are licensed for human use.

To ensure valid results during a clinical trial,

• some patients were given a placebo
• a double-blind trial was used

Give reasons why a placebo and a double-blind trial were used. 

Coronary heart disease (CHD) is one of the UK's leading causes of death.

CHD is responsible for around 66,000 deaths in the UK each year.

Describe how coronary heart disease affects the flow of blood to the heart.

A woman has been told that she is overweight and has a high risk of developing CHD.

Suggest two lifestyle choices that she can make to reduce the risk of developing CHD.

A doctor is planning to test a new diet for weight loss.

She selects 100 obese people to take part in the test.

All the obese people are between 30 and 40 years of age.

State two other factors the scientist should control when selecting the volunteers for her trial.

Devise a plan the doctor could use to test the effectiveness of the new diet using the 100 obese volunteers.

Explain how statins and stents can be used in the treatment of CHD.

A student is studying the relationship between blood cholesterol levels and the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The student reviews a graph that shows the relationship between blood levels of cholesterol and deaths from coronary heart disease.

Use data from the graph to describe the relationship between cholesterol levels and number of deaths from CHD. Use examples from the graph to support your description.

Calculate the percentage change in deaths from CHD when cholesterol levels increase from 150 to 250 mg/dL.

Explain why high cholesterol might increase the risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

People with a genetic condition called hypercholesterolemia (HC) have an abnormal protein on the cell membrane of their liver cells.

The normal version of the protein picks up cholesterol from the blood and transports it into the liver cells, where cholesterol is broken down.

Explain why people with HC are more likely to develop heart disease.

A group of scientists is studying the effectiveness of a new drug designed to treat cervical cancer, a type of cancer often caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV).

Explain how a virus like HPV can lead to the development of cancer.

The scientists review data from a clinical trial, which compares the new drug to a current standard treatment.

Calculate the percentage of patients showing improvement:

• with the new drug
• with the standard treatment

Explain why we can't compare the number of patients showing improvement in each group without calculating percentages.

Compare the effectiveness of the new drug to the standard treatment.

Suggest one other factor that a doctor might consider before deciding which treatment to use for a patient.

Drugs are tested on tissues and animals before they can be approved for clinical trials.

What is the main purpose of pre-clinical testing?

Motor neurone disease (MND) is an uncommon condition that affects the brain and nerves.

A small percentage of people suffer from the condition after inheriting a mutated form of a gene.

Scientists have genetically modified mice with a mutation in the same gene that causes MND in humans.

Scientists can use the genetically modified mice to test new drugs.

Describe the processes that then need to happen to test the new drugs before it can be used to treat patients with MND.