When medicine focuses on naming (new) chronic diseases based on symptoms and constellations of symptoms, medicine is creating an infinite list of named chronic diseases and subparts of chronic diseases. Variations in symptoms in people and over time reflect a variation in effect in different people, a progression of the disease, the duration of the chronic disease, or a new observation or thought about the chronic disease at various stages in the evolution of chronic disease. New observations in an existing disease result in splitting a chronic disease into smaller parts, such as has happened in epilepsy, diabetes, dementia, etc. Co-morbid diseases and subparts of a chronic disease may have common underlying cause(s), yet are seldom recognized as having a common cause.

Focus on infectious causes may clarify the causes of chronic diseases, explain co-morbidities, and explain the evolutionary process of the disease that led to the splitting of diseases into subparts. For instance, pathogens attacking the endothelium of the vascular system can migrate throughout the body, causing endothelial failure in many different organs, including in the heart, brain and eyes; and a variety of named diseases and named sup-parts of chronic diseases. Pathogens along the intestinal tract can similarly migrate into intestinal organs and throughout the body, causing a variety of named diseases over time.

Naming a disease based on symptoms rather than causes results in symptomatic treatment, and an infinite number of named diseases. Giving symptomatic treatment without knowing the cause may be ineffective, lifelong, and even harmful.