Blood

I wrote an article last year about MRSA, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, because my foster child brought a note home from her school about it. It was not one of those, “This is what contagious disease your child is being exposed to this week,” notes that you get almost every week from public school. The purpose of this informational sheet about MRSA was to calm worried parents because MRSA was getting quite a bit of publicity then. The note suggested washing hands frequently to prevent spreading germs, covering open sores with bandages, and disinfecting surfaces frequently. After reading the note, I was not worried about any of my adopted children getting MRSA. While our house is not spotless, it is cleaned and disinfected at least once a… [more]

Is this exciting news for children and adults suffering from type 2 diabetes? A new hot cocoa contains special flavanols that actually improve blood flow in type 2 diabetics. Hey mom, chocolate really is good for you. It seems that Mars Incorporated is doing more than making chocolate bars lately. They have created their own scientific division called Symbioscience. Symbioscience joined forces with some researchers in Germany to study the effects of flavanols on vascular function. This is the first study of this type but probably not the last because of the positive results. Flavanols are natural compounds found in some vegetables, fruits, and dark chocolate. Flavanols improve blood flow. They seem to cause the arteries to relax, probably by increasing the production of… [more]

Malaria can be deadly. Biting mosquitoes spread it and more than 1 million people, mostly children, die from Malaria each year. Malaria is preventable and it is treatable. Unfortunately, many areas that are affected by Malaria are impoverished. Therefore, the people do not have access to the medicines or tools to keep themselves and their families safe. Malaria is endemic in more than 100 countries and territories. World Malaria Day, April 25, hopes to build awareness to help put a stop to malaria deaths around the world by ensuring universal coverage by the end of 2010. They intend to stop malaria deaths by offering indoor residual spraying, and bed nets treated with long lasting insecticide to all at risk people.The United States is spending tens… [more]

Which infants have the highest risk of developing diabetes as they mature? Asians, Native Hawaiians, blacks, Hispanics, and other Pacific Islanders, have significantly higher risks of developing diabetes than whites do. Non-Hispanic whites have nearly an 8.7 percent chance of developing diabetes, while non-Hispanic blacks have a 13.3 percent chance. When you group all of the Hispanic/Latino population together they have 9.5 percent chance of developing diabetes however, Mexican Hispanics have a 13.3 percent chance. American Indians and Alaska Natives have a 12.8 percent chance of developing diabetes while Asians, Native Hawaiians, and other Pacific Islanders have nearly a 16 percent chance of developing diabetes. In 2005, there were 1.5 million new cases of diabetes diagnosed in the… [more]

Von Willebrand disease is a bleeding disorder that slows the process of blood clotting. This condition often causes bruising, nosebleeds, prolonged bleeding, oozing after an injury, surgery, or losing a tooth. Women with this condition experience excessive bleeding during menstruation (menorrhagia). Spontaneous bleeding without an injury may occur in severe cases of von Willebrand disease. The condition, if mild, may not become apparent until abnormal bleeding occurs following surgery or a serious injury. Symptoms of von Willebrand disease may change with age. There are three types of Von Willebrand disease, which all cause varying degrees of prolonged bleeding. The mildest form is type 1 and type 3 is the most severe. While most types of the disorder are caused by inherited gene mutations… [more]

Kawasaki disease affects coronary, small, and medium sized arteries throughout the body causing inflammation in the artery walls. Because Kawasaki disease also affects lymph nodes, skin, and mucous membranes inside the mouth, nose, and throat, it is also called mucocutaneous lymph node syndrome. Children from two to five years, of Japanese or Korean descent, are usually affected although any child can get this disease. A Japanese doctor, Tomisaku Kawasaki, identified the disease in 1967. Some of the complications of the heart, and the blood vessels that supply the heart, may be life threatening. Kawasaki disease is the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children. Approximately one out of every five children with the disease will develop heart problems, however less than half of those… [more]

Hepatitis B is apparently spreading in Asia with no hope for a turnaround due to a lack of understanding about the disease and its transmission. Between 60 and 70 percent of those interviewed in China, Singapore, and the Philippines, believed that hepatitis B is contracted through eating infected food. Even nearly half of those who had the virus believed that they caught it from eating infected food or from generally poor health. Chronic hepatitis B affects 360 million people worldwide; 281 million of those people are in Asia. Hepatitis is the tenth leading cause of death worldwide, but one out of four of those infected in Asia will die from either cirrhosis of the liver or liver cancer. More than half of the chronic hepatitis B… [more]

Over 2 million people have the gene that makes it possible to pass sickle cell on to their birth children. Over 70,000 people in the U.S.A. have sickle cell disease and they are not just African Americans. In the United States, hospitals screen all newborn babies for sickle cell disease. Sickle cell disease is most common among people whose ancestors come from sub-Saharan Africa, South America, Cuba, Central America, Saudi Arabia, India, Turkey, Greece, and Italy. In these parts of the world, malaria is or was common. People with sickle cell trait are less likely to get malaria then other people. While the trait doesn’t eliminate a person’s chance of infection it does makes death from malaria less likely. People have the sickle cell “trait” when… [more]

Henoch-Schonlein purpura, is a disease known also as Anaphylactoid purpura and Vascular purpura. It usually affects male children, but it may affect people of any gender and any age. Most people affected recently had an upper respiratory illness. One of my friends is a female, and in her early 40’s, and was just hospitalized for an entire week with this illness. For an unknown reason, the immune system has an abnormal response to infection or stressors. The interior of the blood vessel responds with inflammation, it is a type of hypersensitivity *vasculitis. When the blood vessels burst under the skin, purple spots appear on the skin, accompanied by joint pain, gastrointestinal symptoms, and **glomerulonephritis. The purple spots, which appear on the skin, are usually over… [more]

It is not routine for pregnant women to be tested for hepatitis C Virus, as they are not at a greater risk to contract the virus than anyone else is. However, if a pregnant woman has HCV infection, then her child has about a four percent chance (i.e. 4 out of every 100 infants) of becoming infected; that percentage can be as high as 19% however, if the mother is co-infected with HIV. The actual infection to the child occurs at the time of birth, and unfortunately, no treatment is currently available to prevent it, although delivery by caesarian may reduce the risk. Most infants infected at birth with HCV don’t display any symptoms and do well during childhood. Because a mother’s… [more]