What Do You Know About Cystic Fibrosis?

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is an inherited disease that mostly affects the respiratory and digestive systems. About 30,000 children and young adults in the U.S. have CF. Most of them are descendants of people from northern Europe. Find out more about CF by taking this quiz, based on information from the National Institutes of Health.

1. CF affects which body system?
2. How many Americans are carriers of the abnormal CF gene?
3. Which symptom in an infant or young child might mean CF?
4. What happens to the mucus glands in a child with CF?
5. How is the digestive system affected by extra mucus in CF?
6. How is CF diagnosed?
7. Currently, no effective treatment is available to correct the cause of CF. Doctors can slow the progression of the disease. Which of these types of medicine can do this?
8. A defect in a gene that makes the protein cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator is the cause of CF. According to recent research, this problem causes an imbalance of which key substance in the body?
9. CF is an inherited, disease. How is CF passed down through families?