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SSC CGL Diseases & Nutrition

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This page covers SSC CGL Diseases & Nutrition with complete concept notes, 28 graded practice MCQs, key points and exam-specific tips. Free to study.

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Concept Notes

Diseases & Nutrition— Rules & Concept

Core ConceptRead this first — the foundation of the topic

DISEASES & NUTRITION — SSC CGL General Awareness ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

CORE CONCEPT ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Diseases are conditions that disturb the normal working of the body. Nutrition means getting the right nutrients from food to keep the body healthy. When nutrition is poor, the body gets deficiency diseases. When germs (bacteria, viruses, fungi, or parasites) attack, the body gets infectious diseases. SSC CGL loves questions from BOTH categories. There are two main disease types you must know:

1. Deficiency Diseases — caused by lack of vitamins or minerals. 2. Infectious Diseases — caused by pathogens (germs).

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ KEY RULES & PROPERTIES

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ VITAMIN DEFICIENCY — MASTER TABLE (Most Tested)

Vitamin A → Night Blindness, Xerophthalmia Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) → Beriberi

Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) → Ariboflavinosis (cracked lips) Vitamin B3 (Niacin) → Pellagra (3 Ds: Dermatitis, Diarrhoea, Dementia)

Vitamin B9 (Folic Acid) → Neural Tube Defects in newborns Vitamin B12 → Pernicious Anaemia

Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid) → Scurvy (bleeding gums) Vitamin D → Rickets (children), Osteomalacia (adults)

Vitamin E → Sterility, muscle weakness Vitamin K → Excessive bleeding (blood does not clot)

MINERAL DEFICIENCY — ALSO TESTED Iron → Anaemia

Iodine → Goitre (swollen thyroid), Cretinism in children Calcium → Osteoporosis, weak bones

Zinc → Poor wound healing, stunted growth Fluoride → Dental decay (too much fluoride causes Fluorosis)

INFECTIOUS DISEASES — PATHOGEN TYPE Bacterial: Tuberculosis (TB), Cholera, Typhoid, Tetanus, Plague

Viral: Dengue, Malaria (NO — Malaria is Protozoan!), Rabies, Polio, Hepatitis B, HIV/AIDS Fungal: Ringworm, Athlete's Foot

Protozoan: Malaria (Plasmodium, spread by female Anopheles mosquito), Amoebic Dysentery Worm (Helminth): Filariasis (Elephantiasis — spread by Culex mosquito)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

ShortcutsUse these to save 30–60 seconds per question

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TRICK 1 — FAT vs WATER SOLUBLE VITAMINS Fat Soluble = A, D, E, K → Remember: 'ADEK' or 'A Dog Eats Kibble' Water Soluble = B-complex + C IMP: Fat soluble vitamins are STORED in body. Water soluble are NOT stored (excess is excreted). So overdose risk is only for fat-soluble vitamins. TRICK 2 — MOSQUITO-DISEASE MATCH Anopheles (Female) → Malaria Aedes → Dengue, Chikungunya, Zika Culex → Filariasis (Elephantiasis) Memory Code: 'A for Malaria, Ae for Dengue, C for Filaria' TRICK 3 — PELLAGRA's 3 Ds Pellagra (Vitamin B3 deficiency) = Dermatitis + Diarrhoea + Dementia If a 4th D is added, it is Death. Exam asks: 'Which disease shows 3 Ds?' Answer = Pellagra. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Exam PatternsWhat examiners ask — read before attempting PYQs

— WHAT GETS ASKED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SSC CGL asks: → 'Which vitamin deficiency causes X disease?' → 'Which mosquito spreads Y disease?' → 'Which pathogen causes Z disease?' → 'Which vitamins are fat-soluble?' → 'Match the deficiency with the disease.' ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Worked ExampleSolve this step-by-step before moving on

1

Step 1

Think — Rickets = weak/bent bones in children.

2

Step 2

Bones need Calcium + Vitamin D to absorb Calcium.

3

Step 3

If Vitamin D is absent, Calcium is NOT absorbed even if eaten.

4

Step 4

Result = Rickets (children), Osteomalacia (adults). Answer: Vitamin D ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ WORKED EXAMPLE 2 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Question: Which disease is caused by the female Culex mosquito?

1

Step 1

Three main disease-mosquito pairs exist.

2

Step 2

Anopheles → Malaria. Aedes → Dengue.

3

Step 3

That leaves Culex → Filariasis (Elephantiasis).

4

Step 4

Filariasis is caused by the worm Wuchereria bancrofti, spread by Culex mosquito. Answer: Filariasis (Elephantiasis) ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ #1 MOST COMMON TRAP — DO NOT FALL FOR THIS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TRAP: Students think Malaria is caused by a virus or bacteria. IT IS NOT. Malaria is caused by a PROTOZOAN called Plasmodium (4 species: P. falciparum is most deadly). It is spread by the FEMALE Anopheles mosquito. Male Anopheles does NOT spread malaria — it does not bite humans. This single fact has fooled thousands of students in SSC exams.

Key Points to Remember

Vitamin A deficiency → Night Blindness and Xerophthalmia (dry eyes).
ADEK are fat-soluble vitamins; B-complex and C are water-soluble vitamins.
Trick: Fat-soluble vitamins (ADEK) are stored in body; overdose IS possible.
Vitamin C deficiency → Scurvy (bleeding gums); Vitamin D deficiency → Rickets (children) / Osteomalacia (adults).
Pellagra = Vitamin B3 (Niacin) deficiency; shows 3 Ds: Dermatitis, Diarrhoea, Dementia.
Mosquito trick: Anopheles → Malaria; Aedes → Dengue/Chikungunya; Culex → Filariasis.
Malaria is caused by Plasmodium (Protozoan) — NOT a virus or bacteria.
Iodine deficiency → Goitre in adults; Cretinism (mental retardation) in newborns.
Iron deficiency → Anaemia; Vitamin K deficiency → Blood does not clot (excessive bleeding).
Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis — a bacterium, NOT a virus.

Exam-Specific Tips

Malaria is caused by Plasmodium falciparum (most deadly species) — it is a Protozoan, spread by female Anopheles mosquito.
Vitamin B1 (Thiamine) deficiency causes Beriberi; Vitamin B12 deficiency causes Pernicious Anaemia.
Scurvy (Vitamin C deficiency) was common among sailors who lacked fresh fruits — bleeding gums is the key symptom.
Filariasis (Elephantiasis) is caused by the worm Wuchereria bancrofti and spread by the female Culex mosquito.
Dengue fever is caused by the Dengue virus (DENV) and spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito — it is a viral disease.
Pellagra is caused by Vitamin B3 (Niacin) deficiency and is identified by the 3 Ds: Dermatitis, Diarrhoea, Dementia.
Rickets affects children (soft/bent bones); the adult form is called Osteomalacia — both caused by Vitamin D deficiency.
Goitre is caused by Iodine deficiency — the thyroid gland swells to compensate for lack of iodine.

Practice MCQs

Diseases & Nutrition — Practice Questions

28graded MCQs · easy to hard · full solution & trap analysis · showing 20 of 28

All MCQs →

Practice 1easy

Which of the following vitamins is synthesized by the human body and does NOT need to be obtained from dietary sources?

Practice 2easy

Which vitamin is known as the 'Sunshine Vitamin' because it is produced by the human body when exposed to sunlight?

Practice 3easy

Which of the following minerals is essential for the formation of hemoglobin and the transport of oxygen in the blood?

Practice 4easy

Kwashiorkor is a form of malnutrition primarily caused by deficiency of which nutrient?

Practice 5easy

Beriberi is a deficiency disease caused by the lack of which vitamin?

Practice 6easy

Which of the following vitamins is synthesized by the human body when skin is exposed to sunlight?

Practice 7easy

Scurvy is a disease caused by the deficiency of which vitamin?

Practice 8easy

Which of the following is a water-soluble vitamin that acts as a coenzyme in energy metabolism?

Practice 9easy

Which of the following diseases is caused by a deficiency of Iodine?

Practice 10easy

Scurvy is a deficiency disease caused by the lack of which vitamin, and what is its primary function?

Practice 11medium

Which of the following is a vector-borne disease transmitted by the Anopheles mosquito?

Practice 12medium

Kwashiorkor is a severe form of protein-energy malnutrition. Which of the following is a characteristic clinical sign of kwashiorkor that distinguishes it from marasmus?

Practice 13medium

Which vitamin deficiency causes the disease 'Rickets' in children?

Practice 14medium

Which of the following vitamins is synthesized by the human body and does NOT need to be obtained primarily from dietary sources?

Practice 15medium

Which of the following diseases is caused by a prion and is transmissible through infected neural tissue?

Practice 16medium

Which of the following vitamins is synthesized by the human body and does NOT need to be obtained entirely from dietary sources?

Practice 17medium

Scurvy is a deficiency disease that results from prolonged lack of which vitamin, and it primarily affects which tissue type?

Practice 18medium

Beriberi is a deficiency disease caused by the lack of which vitamin, and it primarily affects which system of the body?

Practice 19medium

Scurvy is a deficiency disease caused by the lack of which nutrient, and which body system is primarily affected?

Practice 20hard

Which of the following statements about the transmission of Plasmodium (malaria parasite) is INCORRECT?

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60-Second Revision — Diseases & Nutrition

Remember ADEK = Fat-soluble vitamins (stored in body); B-complex + C = Water-soluble (not stored, excreted).
Mosquito Trick: A = Anopheles → Malaria | Ae = Aedes → Dengue | C = Culex → Filariasis.
Trap: Malaria is caused by Plasmodium (Protozoan) — NOT a virus. Only female Anopheles spreads it.
Formula for Pellagra: Vitamin B3 deficiency = 3 Ds (Dermatitis + Diarrhoea + Dementia).
Vitamin D → Rickets (child) / Osteomalacia (adult); Vitamin C → Scurvy; Vitamin A → Night Blindness.
Iodine deficiency = Goitre (adult) + Cretinism (newborn); Iron deficiency = Anaemia.
Trap: TB is bacterial (Mycobacterium tuberculosis); Ringworm is fungal — not caused by a worm.

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