Book excerpt: Introduction to Human Disease: Pathophysiology for Health Professionals, Sixth Edition provides a broad overview of the most common and important human diseases for students pursuing careers in the health professions. Comprehensive yet accessible, it addresses the aspects of disease epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment that are essential to clinical practice. The Sixth Edition of this popular text has been thoroughly updated to cover the latest advances in medical knowledge and practice, especially with regard to mental health and nutritional disorders. It also includes additional clinical information on treatments for diseases. Designed to facilitate learning, this essential reference features new full-color photos and illustrations, learning objectives, and practice questions for review and assessment. Introduction to Human Disease: Pathophysiology for Health Professions, Sixth Edition will help students gain a solid foundation in disease pathology and medical terminology to help them throughout their medical education. KEY FEATURES - Provides a comprehensive introduction to the essential aspects of human disease - Covers the most common and important human diseases, including mental illnesses - Facilitates learning with chapter objectives, key terms, and practice questions - Includes more than 400 full-color illustrations, photos, and tables NEW TO THE SIXTH EDITION - New photos and illustrations - New and updated resources for instructors and students - Updated content reflects the current state of medical knowledge and practice - More clinical information, including general and specific treatments for diseases with an emphasize on common laboratory tests - Chapter 26: Infectious Diseases and Chapter 27: Immunologic Diseases are revised and now included in Section 4: Multiple Organ System Diseases - Chapters 24: Mental Illness and 30: Nutritional Disorders are revised, to bring them up-to-date with current health problems (e.g. obesity), concepts, and terminologies