Degenerative disease is the result of a continuous process based on degenerative cell changes, affecting tissues or organs, which will increasingly deteriorate over time.
In neurodegenerative diseases, cells of the central nervous system stop working or die via neurodegeneration. An example of this is Alzheimer's disease. The other two common groups of degenerative diseases are those that affect circulatory system (e.g. coronary artery disease) and neoplastic diseases (e.g. cancers). Thus some are clearly hereditary like Huntington's disease. Other causes include viruses, poisons or chemical exposures, while sometimes, the underlying cause remains unknown.
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- Chronic traumatic encephalopathy
- Cystic fibrosis
- Some cytochrome c oxidase deficiencies (often the cause of degenerative Leigh syndrome)
- Ehlers–Danlos syndrome
- Fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva
- Friedreich's ataxia
- Frontotemporal dementia (FTD)
- Some cardiovascular diseases (e.g. atherosclerotic ones like coronary artery disease, aortic stenosis, congenital defects etc.)
- Huntington's disease
- Keratoconus (KC)
- Keratoglobus
- Leukodystrophies
- Macular degeneration (AMD)
- Marfan's syndrome (MFS)
- Some mitochondrial myopathies
- Mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome
- Mueller–Weiss syndrome
- Multiple sclerosis (MS)
- Multiple system atrophy
- Muscular dystrophies (MD)
- Neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis
- Niemann–Pick diseases
- Osteoarthritis
- Osteoporosis
- All prion diseases (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, fatal familial insomnia etc.)
- Retinitis pigmentosa (RP)
- Rheumatoid arthritis
- Sandhoff Disease
- Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA, motor neuron disease)
- Subacute sclerosing panencephalitis
- Substance use disorder
- Tay–Sachs disease
See also
- Life extension
- Senescence
- Progressive disease
- List of genetic disorders