Health News Blog provides coverage of current health news.

Insulin is a natural hormone produced by the pancreas and helps to control the use of glucose in the body. A child with diabetes is producing inadequate amounts of insulin, so we must replace the deficit with insulin given by injection.

Insulin is given once or several times a day Although your child may have to receive several injections a day when he is being ‘stabilized’ after he has first been diagnosed, it will be possible eventually to control the diabetes with one or two injections a day. This has been made possible by the development of modified types of insulin which have been produced by laboratory research, particularly in Scandinavia. The type of insulin that is likely to be most suitable for your child will be selected by his doctor. After a period of stabilization the dose required to keep him in good health will also be determined.

There are many insulin types and names and this can be confusing. Sometimes it turns out that it is hard to achieve good control on one type of insulin. Then it is possible to mix two insulins, or split the dose to two (or more) parts during the day. Occasionally your doctor may decide that a different type of insulin is worth trying. In all events, different people respond to insulin in somewhat different ways and it is sometimes a matter of trying one insulin and altering it if it doesn’t prove entirely satisfactory.

There are different types of insulin

You may wish to know about the different types of insulin and why there are several brands. This is partly due to the different processes used to make the insulin, and partly due to the fact that there are several insulin manufacturers each with their own brand.

In the past, there were two major ways that insulins differed from each other:

1. The animal species from which the insulin was derived;

2. The way in which insulin had been modified to change its time of action.

Insulin may be beef, pork, ‘human’

In the past almost all insulins were made either from beef or pork pancreas. Both worked perfectly well, but each insulin was a little different in its chemical composition to each other and to insulin made in the human body. Some few people have developed allergies or resistance to insulins derived from beef or pork, and all people developed some antibodies to animal insulin.

It is now possible to make insulin identical with human insulin. This should have the advantage that antibodies would not be formed. ‘Human’ insulin is not made from human pancreas of course.

It is made in the laboratory by a process of genetic engineering. In this process, simple yeast cells or bacterial cells have had their gene structure changed so they make human insulin in a similar way to the way pancreas cells make insulin in the human body. The altered bacterial or yeast cells can make large quantities of insulin commercially in a way that human pancreas cells cannot.

Insulin may be modified chemically to make it work more slowly

Insulin, as it is produced in the body, has a very rapid effect once it enters the blood stream. This effect wears off very quickly. This is what is required if the body is making it normally. It is also suitable for the person with diabetes who is given insulin continuously by slow injection or at short and frequent intervals during the day before meals. Most people find it more convenient, however, to have one or two injections a day rather than injections each time they have a meal. To do this, it is necessary to alter the insulin so that it has a prolonged effect.

Insulin manufacturers have developed methods of prolonging the effects of insulin by chemical processes that modify insulin. This may involve adding the metal zinc and a protein to the insulin which slow down its absorption into the bloodstream. You can usually recognize these modified insulins because they are a cloudy suspension while the unmodified quick insulins are clear solutions. Insulins therefore can be in one of several groups.

1.     Fast acting, unmodified clear soluble solutions.

2.     Slow acting modified insulins which may last up to 24 hours,

or

3.     Intermediate acting modified insulins which last between 8 and 24 hours.

4.     A mixture of slow or intermediate insulins and fast insulins.

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We now know that certain pollutants and chemicals in the environment can affect both male and female fertility, and there may be many more substances that we come into contact with in everyday life that combine to form a ‘toxic cocktail’ with unknown long-term consequences.

The problem is that these suspect substances seem to be absolutely everywhere – in the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the things we use at work and at home. We can avoid many of them, and minimize our exposure to others. But we obviously cannot completely eliminate them, short of finding a non-polluted desert island to go and live on.

However, reducing your exposure is only part of the plan. There are plenty of ways to fortify yourself and your partner against the effects of unavoidable exposure and to ensure that toxins are successfully eliminated from your system. In my experience, dramatic results have been achieved by couples whose ‘unexplained fertility’ turns out to have been due to exposure to some of these substances.

Xenoestrogens

These are synthetic oestrogens which affect the fertility of wildlife and are causing some animals to grow both male and female sex organs. They come from pesticides and plastics and are stored in body fat and can affect men and women differently.

The massive proliferation of xenoestrogens has coincided with:

• A decrease in sperm counts of 50 per cent over the last ten years.

• An increase in testicular cancer.

• Earlier onset of puberty. (At the turn of the century the average age was 15. Now some girls as young as eight are growing breasts and pubic hair. It has been found that girls can enter puberty almost a year earlier if their pregnant mothers had higher levels of two synthetic chemicals, PCBs and DDE, while they were pregnant.)

• A doubling in the number of boys born with undescended testes (which means they may not produce sperm) between 1962 and 1981.

• Increasing numbers of male babies born with problems with their penis. Some boys are born with the opening of the urethra (where urine passes out of the body) on the side of the penis instead of the top. In extreme cases male babies have been born with both male and female organs.

Synthetic oestrogens, similar to those in use in the pesticides and plastics industry, have been linked to cancers and abnormalities.

Years ago women who suffered recurrent miscarriages were treated with a synthetic oestrogen called dithethylstilbestrol (DES). Now their grown-up daughters, who were exposed to DES in the womb, are showing high rates of cervical abnormalities that can lead to recurrent miscarriages or infertility. Some have developed a rare and sometimes fatal vaginal cancer (clear-cell adenocarcinoma).Their sons are not so severely affected but some have suffered mild genital abnormalities.

Further evidence comes from Professor Ana Soto in Boston, USA, who was studying breast cancer cells stored in large incubators. These cancer cells started to divide and multiply as if oestrogen was present. But when the laboratory changed the tubes on the incubators the cells stopped dividing. It turned out that nonylphenol, a synthetic oestrogen similar to those widely used in paints, toiletries, agricultural chemicals and detergents, had been used in the manufacture of the tubes.

In another example of the power of these chemicals, some male workers developed breasts after inhaling dust containing bisphenol A, a synthetic oestrogen used in a wide range of packaging (e.g. for soft drinks, bottled Water and even babies’ bottles).

Phthalates, found in PVC, food packaging and glues, are another class of chemical which has an oestrogen-like effect on humans.

Types of chemicals that affect hormone balance and fertility include:

• Pesticides (DDT, DDE, endosulfan, methoxychlor, heptachlor, toxaphene, dieldrin, lindane)

• Plastic compounds (Alkyphenols such as nonylphenol and octylphenol, biphenolic compounds such as bisphenol A, phthalates)

• Pharmaceutical drugs (Synthetic drugs like DES)

• Industrial substances (PCBs, dioxin)

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What is it?

Inflammatory bowel disease is a blanket term that covers two major conditions, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. They are very much more common than they used to be, hospitalizing more than 100,000 people in the US every year.

At first symptoms are so mild that you ignore them: a bout of diarrhea every few months and occasional abdominal pain. As the years pass the symptoms get worse. There is either diarrhea or constipation and the stools are bloody. Fleeting abdominal pain turns into chronic pains and the person feels ill and lacking in energy.

The vast majority of medical efforts are useless in these conditions though drugs can help a few and surgery a few more.

What causes it?

No one knows for sure but there are several plausible theories.

•     Food intolerance. A group of researchers in Cambridge have found intolerance in Crohn’s disease.

•     Crohn’s disease was unknown until the 1930s, but now it affects one in every 3,000 westerners. Because there have been such profound dietary changes over this period research has been aimed at dietary factors. A German study found that patients with Crohn’s disease ‘consumed large quantities of refined carbohydrate’. Another survey of the breakfast habits of Crohn’s disease patients found that they usually ate refined breakfast cereals such as cornflakes. In a survey of sugar intake Crohn’s patients were found to eat the equivalent of ten teaspoons a day while those without the disease ate seven. Other studies have found that Crohn’s patients add 26 per cent more sugar to tea and coffee, and 13 per cent more to cereals than do people without the disease.

•    Zinc deficiency is now well recognized as part of the problem. Crohn’s patients have many dietary deficiencies, partly because they lose their appetite and eat so poorly and partly because the disease itself reduces the intestinal absorption of nutrients. Crohn’s patients have insufficient levels of protein, iron, folate, calcium and vitamin B12. Recently, though, zinc deficiency has been found to be the most important of all. Zinc controls many body systems but in Crohn’s patients its lack further heightens the poor appetite and loss of taste for food. Many Crohn’s patients have no desire to eat. Zinc is also vital for healthy skin and some people with this condition have severe skin rashes. Normal eyesight needs zinc and some Crohn’s patients have night blindness. Zinc is vital for wound healing and Crohn’s disease never fully heals.

Adults with Crohn’s disease have been found to have zinc levels 15 per cent lower than normal, and their sense of taste has been found to be 65 per cent duller than normal. Studies giving patients with Crohn’s disease zinc supplements have found that several of the abnormalities associated with the condition are eliminated.

•     Vitamin Ñ deficiency can also cause some of the symptoms of Crohn’s disease. One study found that Crohn’s patients had vitamin Ñ levels 32 per cent lower than normal. This led the researchers to suggest that all patients with Crohn’s disease should supplement their diet with vitamin C.

•      There is some evidence of a link between Crohn’s disease and psoriasis and monilia. Though there is little true scientific evidence to support it, anecdotal evidence shows that some people with inflammatory bowel disease improve on nystatin-the antifungal drug-combined with a low-yeast, low-refined-carbohydrate diet.

Prevention

There is probably no way of preventing inflammatory bowel disease from occurring in the first place but understanding the causes suggests some valuable ways of preventing the disease getting worse once it is present.

•     If you are allergic to or intolerant of any foods, don’t eat them. This could prevent unseen and unrecognized damage being done to the large bowel.

•     Eat a diet low in refined carbohydrates and rich in unrefined ones.

•     Eat less sugar.

•     Eat more dietary fibre.

•     Take zinc supplements once you start to suffer from any of the symptoms of the disease.

•     Take vitamin Ñ in large doses-1 g twice a day-if you have the condition.

•     Talk to your doctor about trying nystatin and go on to a low-yeast diet.

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