Analyzing Data
Food Allergies
About four percent of Americans have food allergies. Eight foods account for 90 percent of all food allergies—milk, eggs, peanuts, tree nuts, wheat, soy, fish, and shellfish. Approximately 30,000 emergency-room visits and 150–200 deaths each year can be attributed to food allergies. Most of the deaths are due to peanut allergies. The graph shows the percentage of children who had allergies from 1998–2006.
Autoimmune Diseases Sometimes a disease occurs in which the immune system fails to properly recognize “self,” and attacks cells or compounds in the body as though they were pathogens. 
When the immune system attacks the body's own cells, it produces an autoimmune disease. Examples of autoimmune diseases are Type I diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus.
In Type I diabetes, antibodies attack insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. In rheumatoid arthritis, antibodies attack tissues around joints. Lupus is an autoimmune disease in which antibodies attack organs and tissues causing areas of chronic inflammation throughout the body.
Some autoimmune diseases can be treated with medications that alleviate specific symptoms. For example, people with Type I diabetes can take insulin. Other autoimmune diseases are treated with medications that suppress the immune response. However, these medications also decrease the normal immune response and must be monitored.
BUILD Vocabulary
ACADEMIC WORDS Alleviate is a verb that means “to lessen” or “to relieve.” It comes from the Latin ad- (to) and -levis (light in weight).
HIV and AIDS
What causes AIDS and how is it spread?
During the late 1970s, physicians began reporting serious infections produced by microorganisms that didn't normally cause disease. Previously healthy people began to suffer from Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, Kaposi sarcoma (a rare form of skin cancer), and fungal infections of the mouth and throat. Because these diseases are normally prevented by a healthy immune response, doctors concluded that these patients must have weakened immune systems. Diseases that attack a person with a weakened immune system are called opportunistic diseases. Researchers concluded that these illnesses were symptoms of a new disorder they called acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Research eventually revealed that this “syndrome” was an infectious disease caused by a pathogen new to science.
Table of Contents
- Formulas and Equations
- Applying Formulas and Equations
- Mean, Median, and Mode
- Estimation
- Using Measurements in Calculations
- Effects of Measurement Errors
- Accuracy
- Precision
- Comparing Accuracy and Precision
- Significant Figures
- Calculating With Significant Figures
- Scientific Notation
- Calculating With Scientific Notation
- Dimensional Analysis
- Applying Dimensional Analysis