Coeliac disease is a condition of malabsorption due to a disorder of the small bowel. It has been shown to be caused by the action of gluten present in cereals.
The exact cause is uncertain but may be due either to some immunological disturbance or to the absence of a specific enzyme which prevents the complete breakdown of gluten so that a toxic substance is formed, damaging the cells forming the wall of the small intestine.
It tends to run in families, but in identical twins the abnormality has been reported only in one of the pair. It occurs in about one in 4000 and may start at any age although it is more common in children.
In childhood, it usually starts soon after gluten is added to the diet. At this stage, the child may produce loose stools, become pot-bellied and may develop anaemia, general wasting, irritability and failure to thrive.
Although the disease has been recognised in Europe for many centuries, it was only in 1950 that Dr W. K. Dicke, of Utrecht, Holland, discovered an effective treatment. He found that the elimination of wheat gluten from the diet of, children with coeliac disease produced a full clinical remission.
Later, the glutens of rye, barley and oats were also regarded as dangerous to these children, but the evidence concerning barley and oats is still controversial.
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Posted on 2009 under Cancer |
One popular theory on the origin of cancer states that, throughout life, cancer cells continually develop in our body by a process of mutation. Mutation means a spontaneous change in the basic genetic makeup of a cell so that it is distinctly different from its parent cell. In all of us, mutations occur continually and most are harmless, but occasionally a mutation gives a cell the qualities which make it into a cancer cell — failure to differentiate, escape from growth regulation, ability to metastasize and ability to invade normal tissues. Because the change is in the cancerous cell’s genetic makeup, it can pass it on to all cells which develop from it. Usually, the immune system detects new cancer cells very quickly and destroys them before they have a chance to multiply. Unfortunately, with most cancers, the immune system is only capable of dealing with a very few cells. Thus, if for some reason the cancer manages to grow to more than a few thousand cells (smaller than a pinhead), it is then beyond the control of the immune system. However, if some form of treatment destroys most of the cells, the immune system can again come in useful in getting rid of any odd ones which remain.
Many attempts have been made to artificially stimulate the body’s natural immune system to deal with large numbers of cancer cells. On the whole, the results have been very disappointing.
This means that once a cancer has reached a size where it can be detected (millions of cells), it is growing independently, regardless of the body’s immune system and normal controls on growth.
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