Why should anyone care about diseases of iron overload? What is iron that makes it a particular concern in health human? Should not we all be taking Geritol?
Many of us who are of age we have to care severe disease of iron overload are old enough to remember the misleading advertising for alcohol television and iron tonic Geritol. In 1950, that could open the newspaper and see an ad with a woman sitting in a chair leaning on an ironing board. The caption read "After the flu, cold, and sore throat, if you're running because of the tired blood, take Geritol. "In the following table could see the same woman with a radiant smile, her exploitation of iron in the air, with the caption:" feel stronger in excellent fast! "
In the 1970s, the popular Lawrence Welk show featured a commercial in which a husband admires his Geritol coming and going national prowess wife and then intone, with puppy dog eyes, "My wife – I think I will stay with her." Geritol became a basic for all the characters in the comedy of aging Archie Bunker to Fred Sanford. Hundreds of millions of people heard the slogan iron supplement, "When you have your health, have almost everything. "
Unfortunately for the 2.5 million or more that are becoming in the twenty century Geritol generation, iron we has helped maintain our health. For those of us who have different conditions that make our body absorb and retain unusual amounts of iron, the decades of are leading to excess iron oxide literal. And as the guest who never realizes it's time to pack, iron accumulates in parenchymal organs, brain, colon, liver, lungs, pancreas, and skin, in particular, causing a surprising variety of health problems.
There are dozens of diseases that cause excessive accumulation of iron. The most common of these in the U.S., but often not diagnosed, is hereditary hemochromatosis. In this genetic disease, the colon is unusually permeable to iron.
Iron overload is often a complication of sickle cell disease, occurring in cells anemia are destroyed and the release of its iron. It is a complication of another blood disease, beta-thalassemia. Results siderosis iron overload in Africa, alcohol abuse and viral hepatitis. One of the consequences of aceruloplasminemia, atransferrinemia, dysmetabolic iron overload syndrome, fatty liver, hemochromatosis youth, neonatal hemochromatosis, and diseases of the enzyme. It can be caused by breathing (working with asbestos products, milling of steel, mining iron, and inhalation of smoke snuff), ingestion (eating foods fortified with iron, eating excessive amounts of red meat, alcohol used in excess, and supplements iron), injection (walking on rusty metal, multiple blood transfusions), and decompartmentalisation (destruction of red blood cells or destruction of liver tissue).
Iron overload can overwhelm the endocrine glands, joints, heart and liver. Can cause arthritis, diabetes, and bronzed skin. This can cause erectile dysfunction, infertility, decreased external sexual organs, hypothyroidism, and early menopause. It can lead to cancer, heart attacks and fatal infections.
Some people with iron overload disease are not diagnosed. Some people, as my father died of fatal infections a few weeks after diagnosis, in its ninth decade of life. Symptoms may appear at the age of 25 or 55 years old. The course of iron overload disease varies from person to person. All diseases of iron overload, however, require medical treatment.
That does not mean that there is nothing you can do. The diet makes a difference. An increasing number of nutritional supplements that your doctor can do to help manage symptoms of iron overload disease. Two nutritional supplements even seem to act as chelators, although caution should be used.
The critical first step, however, accurate diagnosis. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control found that in a group of about 3000 people who had hereditary hemochromatosis, more than 67 percent had received multiple misdiagnoses before being correctly diagnosed with iron overload disease. They saw an average of three Doctors and waited an average of 9 years before receiving the correct diagnosis. So in my next post, let's look at how to determine if you have the iron overload disease.
Michael Barone
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