15 diseases you thought were gone – but aren’t

Beware: this scary STD is making a comeback on the dating scene. Infection rates jumped by 17.7 per cent between 2014 and 2015, putting them at a 20-year high. According to USA Today, health experts believe the increase is due to relaxed attitudes about HIV and lax condom usage, less funding for STD awareness, and a rise in social media and dating apps. While syphilis can be cured with penicillin, it is often mistaken for other medical issues, and symptoms might not show up for 90 days. Symptoms include painless sores on the genitals, anus or mouth in the primary stage, as well as a non-itchy rash in the secondary stage, often along with fever, fatigue and muscle aches. If left untreated, syphilis can enter the latent phase for up to 20 years but eventually can cause dementia, paralysis, organ damage and death.

Now discover why it’s so important for boys as well as girls to be vaccinated against another STD.

Here’s the good news: polio – an infectious disease that can cause muscle weakness, paralysis and death – has been almost completely eradicated worldwide. But that took a massive, coordinated, 30-plus-year vaccination effort by a number of health organisations, including the WHO, the CDC, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. However, it is still endemic to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria; cases only number in the dozens, though. There is no cure, and once the infection starts, it has to run its course which is why prevention is so important. According to the WHO, if all polio vaccinations were halted today, the infection rate could skyrocket to 200,000 cases per year within ten years.

Here are 12 medical conditions that can kill you in 24 hours or less.

Once called the ‘disease of kings’, gout isn’t a contagion like many of the others on this list. It’s a painful form of arthritis, caused by a crystallisation of uric acid in the joints, and it’s exacerbated by eating foods rich in compounds called purines, such as red meat and certain fish, as well as by drinking beer and hard liquor. Currently, one in 20 Australians will experience gout, and its prevalence is increasing around the world. Experts believe the rise is due to a rise in obesity and high blood pressure, though hereditary factors also play a role in whether someone will develop it.

Discover 9 things you think could be arthritis – but aren’t.

Also known as German measles, symptoms include a rash, headache and mild fever and are generally serious unless you’re pregnant. If you are pregnant and contract rubella, it can lead to miscarriage and stillbirth, or cause severe problems to the foetus, including deafness, eye damage and heart defects. Transmission occurs primarily through coughing, but up to 50 per cent of those infected are asymptomatic. After a serious worldwide outbreak in the early 1960s, rubella vaccinations became standard, and today, rubella protection is wrapped up in the childhood MMR vaccine.

Here are 28 things your doctor wishes you knew about vaccines.

It sounds like it should be relegated to the pages of a Victorian novel, but this disease, which causes bowed legs and weakened bones in children, is rearing its ugly head in the 21st century. Caused by a severe vitamin D deficiency, rickets can be prevented with exposure to sunlight and the consumption of certain foods, such as fatty fish, egg yolks and vitamin D-fortified milk and cereal. Known risk factors include living in cold regions where there isn’t much sunlight; having dark skin, which doesn’t produce as much vitamin D; taking certain medications; and exclusively breastfeeding and not supplementing a baby’s diet with vitamin D drops.

Here are 5 vitamin myths you have to stop believing – and 1 vitamin you actually do need.

Sign up here to get Reader’s Digest’s favourite stories straight to your inbox!

Source: RD.com