ABSTRACT
The diseases in the periodic table are non-communicable diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. The position of a cell type in the table, namely its abundance and turnover, is determined by its physiological function. Cell-type specific diseases show broad patterns when arranged in a table by cell number and turnover. The lifetime risk of cancer in a given cell type rises along the diagonal of the table: the more cells and the more exposure, the more mutations in a lifetime and the higher the cancer risk. The secretory cells have a turnover time on the order of weeks to months, except for some cell types like beta cells which have slower turnover in adulthood. Listing the most common diseases of the cell types indicates a striking pattern with various zones of diseases according to cell number. Permanent tissues cease to divide in adulthood and never get cancer in adults; their rare cancers occur in childhood, such as neuroblastomas and osteosarcomas.
