Mens Health Blog. Medical Blog

Vitamin B5 (Pantothenic Acid)
Functions:
Sources:
Causes of Deficiency:
Growth; enzyme production; makes cortisone and sex hormones; needed for the absorption of other B vitamins; helps the body excrete lactic acid; helps stabilize blood sugar levels
Widely available in the diet; wholegrains, vegetables, animal foods, brewer’s yeast, royal jelly
Lack of other B vitamins, dirty colon, colon disorders
Deficiency Signs and Symptoms:
Low blood sugar, headaches, chest infections, lowered antibody production, sore joints, poor muscle co-ordination, premature greying of the hair, gastric ulcers, tingling and numbness in limbs, cramp
Folic acid
Functions:
Sources:
Causes of Deficiency:
Deficiency Signs and Symptoms:
Essential for normal metabolism; helps make red blood cells; keeps hormone levels stable; helps PMT and tiredness
Green leafy vegetables, liver, kidney; made in the bowel
Dirty colon, old age, pregnancy, antibiotics, poor diet
Severe deficiency: Anaemia, psoriasis, sore tongue, digestive problems some forms of psychosis.
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In a recent survey, parents of children who had epilepsy were asked to list the things that concerned them most. Their top ten worries were these:
1. Whether their child might die in a seizure
The chances of this happening are very small. I can not say that they are non-existent because, very rarely, people unfortunately do die during a prolonged grand mal seizure. However they are usually young male adults, very seldom children. With any other type of seizure the risk is negligible.
Worrying that death during a seizure might happen will make your life miserable. Instead make sure that you know what to do if your child does have a prolonged convulsion, so that if an emergency arises it does not turn into a catastrophe.
2. Whether the child will suffer brain damage or become insane
Seizures themselves, provided they are not prolonged, do not cause brain damage, though it is possible for a child who has such severe seizures that they frequently fall over to suffer head injury and subsequent brain damage.
3. Whether the child might become insane
Seizures do not lead to mental illness, with the exception of a few adults and even fewer children who develop a very rare complication of a short mental illness after a run of generalized seizures. This illness usually only lasts for one or two weeks before the child returns to normal. However, it is such a very rare occurrence that it should not even figure on your worry-scale.
4. Guilt, because parents think that they may have done something to cause the condition
It is very common for parents whose children have epilepsy to blame themselves. You have to remind yourself that you had no responsibility for your own genetic make-up and thus no responsibility for the genes that you pass on to your children. It is no one’s fault; it is just the way things are. Overcoming these feelings of guilt is all part of you coming to terms with your child’s epilepsy. Unless you do come to terms with it you cannot help your child to do so.
5. Frustration at not knowing the cause of the seizures, especially if they have been given no adequate explanation
This is a situation which really need not arise nowadays. It is certainly much less common than it used to be, because of the marked improvement in neuroimaging technology which allows a much more detailed view of the structure of the brain and its function. Doctors can now discover the cause of epilepsy in about 90 per cent of cases. Even if you have not been told the cause of your child’s epilepsy, the chances are that your doctor knows. If he does not, ask to be referred to a specialist.
6. Worry about the development of emotional or behavioural problems in the child
Some children with epilepsy do behave badly and have emotional problems. So do some children without epilepsy. Remember that this kind of problem is not usually due to the epilepsy alone. It is more likely to be caused by the way the child’s epilepsy is handled in the family and at school, by the attitude of other children, or by the medication that the child is taking. These are all factors over which you have some control. Never assume that any problem your child has is because of their epilepsy. If you do, you may never look for the true cause, which may be bullying by classmates, an unsympathetic teacher or falling behind in schoolwork — any one of the myriad of reasons that any child has for periods of unhappiness, and which can lead them to behave badly. Once you have found the reason, enlist the help of your doctor or the school in tackling the problem.
7. The impact that the epilepsy may have on the child’s future career
There are only a few clear-cut limitations on the employment of anyone who has epilepsy. Your child may never become an HGV driver or a pilot, for example, but, on the whole, predictions about a child’s future career can only be made when the cause of their epilepsy is known and they have had a proper assessment by a neuropsychologist. Once you know what their intellectual attainment should be, and what their strengths and weaknesses are, you will be in a better position to help your child make realistic choices about their future.
8. The stigma of epilepsy, and the prejudice the child may have to face
Unfortunately no one can control other people’s ill-founded beliefs and prejudices. Your child is bound to meet them sometime; what matters is your child’s ability to believe that prejudice is the result of ignorance or stupidity and is no reflection on them personally. Your child will largely adopt and reflect your own attitudes. If you have always tried to talk frankly about their epilepsy and give them a positive attitude towards it, you will go a long way to counterbalance other people’s prejudices.
9. School problems, especially the effects on learning and memory of epilepsy and medication
Epilepsy and, more usually, the drugs used to treat it, can have an effect on learning and memory. Sometimes a change of medication can make a huge difference, so talk to your doctor if you think the drugs your child is taking are slowing them down. When your child goes to junior school, and again when they enter secondary school at 11, they should be assessed by a neuropsychologist so that everyone concerned knows what the child is capable of and, without having unrealistic expectations of them, encourages them to reach their full potential. Some children will do very well and have no difficulty; others may need special help.
10. The difficulty parents find in having a social life outside
the family
This problem may operate on several different levels. It may be that the child can not be left by the parents. Or it may be that the parents feel that they can not leave their child – a very different matter. The obstacle may also be the parents’ feelings about the way other people view them; they may feel so uncomfortable or defensive about their child’s epilepsy that it makes social contact difficult for them. Or it may simply be that the parents’ lives have become so bound up with caring for their child that they have little time to keep up old friendships or to make new ones. They may, in fact, have got out of the habit of having a social life.
There are partial solutions to all these problems, though it is unrealistic not to accept that without help or the means to buy help in, it can be very difficult for those few parents whose children have very severe epilepsy to develop some sort of life of their own. Social services may be able to arrange respite care, and some social services benefits may allow you to employ help and thus get some freedom.
That said, the vast majority of families never face anything like such a difficult situation. Often there is no reason why a child with epilepsy can not spend time apart from their parents if sensible arrangements are made with a friend, relative or babysitter. Parents may feel guilty about being away from their child, or may feel no one else is capable of looking after their child properly, but these feelings are usually unrealistic. Epilepsy support groups are a good way for parents to wean themselves out of the house into an environment where other people will be understanding and sympathetic to the way they feel. A child’s epilepsy can not and should not become the whole focus of the parent’s life. It is not fair on the parents, neither is it good for the child.
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Diabetes is the sugar disease. Diabetics have too much sugar circulating because their pancreases do not make enough insulin, a vital hormone. Insulin prepares your body’s cells to absorb sugar (glucose) for energy. In the absence of insulin, the sugar piles up in the blood system.
The sugar does its damage to the body’s many enzymes. These chemicals carry out the intricate chemistry of the body. Some researchers believe that an overabundance of sugar in the blood allows the excess glucose to stick to enzyme molecules. An enzyme molecule coated with sugar will stick to other sugar-coated molecules. When that happens, the clumped enzymes fail to do their jobs.
Such a chemical catastrophe can shutdown many organs of the body, especially the kidneys, eyes, and nerves. In turn, battered nerves can lead to sexual impotence, severe leg pains, and blindness.
For at least three decades, diabetes experts argued about the need for keeping the blood sugar levels low and close to normal -the same level as non-diabetics achieve without injecting insulin. Pioneering diabetes specialists tried it out on a few patients to see whether low sugar levels could be won with injections of synthetic insulin, diet control, and exercise.
Diabetes patients found the new approach arduous. The system called for sufferers to measure their sugar blood levels four or more times a day. Fortunately, in the 1980s, electronics manufacturers were able to create a blood sugar machine no bigger than a pack of cigarettes. It worked beautifully.
The patient had to stick a sharp needle into one of his fingers. A drop of blood formed on the digit. The patient transferred the red liquid to a small paper stick. He then put the blood-soaked rod into the machine. In about a minute, the sugar reading came up on a small screen.
Depending on the number on the screen, a diabetic could inject more insulin, do some exercise, or have something to eat. It seemed like a thankless and difficult task. But enough diabetics did it to encourage the doctors to do a 10-year study on what is now called “tight control.”
“I can think of no other disease where patients can play a more active, direct role in their own care and its outcome,” says Dr. Phillip Gorden, director of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. The institute financed the research. Self-management was the key, and the massive experiment was on its way. It was called the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT). It involved 1,421 patients and cost $160 million. Half the patients, chosen at random, followed the standard treatment. They used the sugar machine to check their blood sugars once a day and took one or two insulin injections daily.
The other half, the experimental group, strived for tight control -blood sugars in the normal range. They measured their blood four or more times daily, taking at least three injections of insulin a day. For some patients who found four injections a day too difficult, doctors prescribed insulin pumps, which deliver a fixed amount of insulin below the skin.
The idea was not to take more insulin but to deliver it in a way that more closely mimics the body’s release of the hormone and to adjust the insulin doses -and sometimes diet and exercise -when sugars are too high or too low. This required working closely with diabetes educators and dietitians.
The result: The tightly controlled group had a 76 percent lower incidence of diabetic eye disease than the other group, 60 percent less nerve damage, and up to 56 percent fewer kidney problems.
Until now, doctors were not certain what caused the complications.  Some held to the theory that the crippling effects of diabetes came from defects in body tissues that were part of the basic disease process. Others said it was from the abnormally high blood sugar levels. Dr. Oscar B. Crofford of Vanderbilt University, chairperson of the study, says, “The DCCT proved for the first time that complications of diabetes can be prevented by such intensive diabetes therapy.”
The culprit was the abnormally high sugar level.
The DCCT study involved only Type I diabetics. It’s the Type II diabetics whose sometimes “casual” approach to diabetes puts them in jeopardy. Dr. James Gavin III of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland, says, “There is no such thing as ‘a little touch of sugar.’ Diabetes is serious – whether you take insulin or not. And the DCCT shows us clearly that, to prevent complications, it’s important for all people with diabetes to bring their blood sugars close to normal.”
Diabetes specialists hope that tight control will also prevent heart attacks and stroke, both of which are very common with diabetes.
Tracy Sankstone, a receptionist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, developed diabetes at age 2. She was the first patient in the experimental group of the DCCT, which began in 1983. She reports, “Doing four blood tests and four or more shots a day was tough in the beginning, but I’m used to it now. I feel great, I don’t have any complications – and I don’t want to get them.”
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