DIABETES IN CHILDREN: STATISTICS OF COMPLICATIONS
April 23rd, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: DiabetesNo Comments
Eye complications (retinopathy)
The sensitive part of the eye that is responsible for vision is situated at the back of the eyeball and called the retina. The retina is composed of special nerve cells and these are supplied with blood by small arteries. In diabetes after many years, these arteries can become weakened and may leak blood or burst, giving small hemorrhages. Later on, scarring can take place and new blood vessels may develop and grow over the nerve cells, putting vision at risk.
The stage of mild blood vessel changes with small hemorrhages is called ‘background retinopathy’ and does not normally affect vision. It is said to develop in 60% of people after 15 years with diabetes and 90% of people after 30 years. These figures, which are based on adult observations, refer particularly to years after puberty. The early childhood years do not seem to count in calculating the duration of diabetes leading to complications. Perhaps the hormones that develop during adolescence and continue into adult life influence the development of complications.
These early changes may progress to more severe changes in some people with a risk of visual impairment. It is reported that after 15 years of diabetes, 5% of people with diabetes have developed this worsening of retinopathy and after 30 years, 8% have loss of vision.
The early signs of retinopathy can be detected during regular eye checks and if there are signs of deterioration or new vessel formation which would threaten vision, laser treatment (photocoagulation) can prevent further deterioration and preserve vision. Thus regular eye checks are important for a person with diabetes after the early teenage years.
Kidney complications
Within the kidney, the blood is filtered to remove waste products which are excreted by the body as urine. This process of filtering takes place in fine structures called glomeruli, and in diabetes the glomeruli can be affected, either through the small blood vessels within the glomeruli or by changes in the structure of the glomeruli themselves.
Up to 50% of people may show signs of kidney involvement and some may eventually go on to show signs of kidney failure. At that time, a renal transplant may be necessary.
Early signs of kidney involvement can be found by checking the urine for traces of the protein albumin. Albumin is a natural constituent of blood and if there is an alteration in the kidney due to diabetes, some of this albumin may leak out into the urine. There are other causes why albumin may appear in the urine apart from diabetes. In childhood, some of these are of no importance but all need to be checked out.
*65/54/5*
BACKGROUND MANAGEMENT OF STRESS: MAN AND WOMAN
April 23rd, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: Anti Depressants-Sleeping AidNo Comments
In our discussion of stress you will have noticed that there has been a recurrent theme that those things which we do in life, which are in tune with our natural biological heritage, are a help to us in the matter of stress. So it is with man and woman.
Our relationship of man and woman fulfils our biological needs at quite different levels. In carnal sex the massive discharge of nerve cells in orgasm temporarily relieves the individual of the tensions of stress. Sex as an expression of love has a similar effect. The tranquility of the togetherness which follows helps our brain to run quietly, allowing the integration of matters which were previously so disturbing. But our experience of man and woman in its effect on stress extends far beyond our physical intercourse together. All those aspects of our life which fulfill our biological needs make it easier for our brain to sort things out. Sleep, rest, leisure. And of equal importance is our experience of man and woman together.
In the simplest possible terms of biology, woman bears our child and nourishes the baby, while man provides food and shelter for both. Through this division of labour, and by the process of evolution, man and woman have developed certain qualities to suit them to their life’s task. Woman must understand the needs of her child before it can speak to her, so she has developed a natural understanding of others. Man, because of his biological role, has developed greater physical strength.
The basic biology of man and woman fits into our pattern of coping with stress in several ways. If this division of labour is our basic code of life, then our brain is doing things that it has learned to do over countless generations, and so has learned to do them without much hassle, and the tendency to stress is so much the less. This is a basic principle. But we must remember that patterns of life change, and sociological practices grow and develop from one generation to the next. Hence we have a tendency for woman to move from the biological creativity of the home to the material creativity of the outside world. At the same time man is moving towards a much greater participation in the care of the children. Both man and woman can benefit by this. Woman gains from her new vantage point to see wider horizons. Man gains by learning something of the intuitive skill of woman in handling others. But we must remember that these gains, great as they are to both man and woman, are valid only so long as the primary biological role of man’ and woman is still maintained as a basis.
This leads us further into the effect of the togetherness of man and woman in stress. Woman is strong in the intuitive understanding of others which she has inherited to help her with her children in their pre-verbal years. Man is strong in logic to help him as provider of food and shelter. The effect on stress comes through the closeness of man and woman together – the being with, the physical contact, the cuddle, the lying together – this physical closeness which brings with it our mental and spiritual closeness. In this man becomes aware of her intuitive understanding. He picks up something of it himself. And his brain runs profoundly quiet. Woman becomes aware of his strength. It gives her a sense of security, both physical and deep within her, and her brain runs profoundly quiet.
*68/98/5*
MAJOR PROBLEMS CAUSING STRESS: REDUNDANCY
April 23rd, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: Anti Depressants-Sleeping AidNo Comments
“The writing is on the wall. Anyone can read it. There will be a take-over. That’s not the problem. The problem for me is that I shall be found redundant. Will be paid off. Thrown to the wolves. The wolves that would tear the flesh from your bones. Don’t know where I can turn. Very few jobs about in my particular field. Very few, and my age is no help. Can’t sleep. I jitter inside. Can see my work going off. That only means the sack is more certain than ever.
‘Had planned an overseas trip. Just the two of us. The wife and I. Every night she is reading about places to visit. Haven’t told her the worst. Haven’t told her the truth. Just vaguely suggested we put it off for a year or two. There’s a chill in the air. I just don’t know what to do.”
The major problem and the associated problem are clearly marked. He needs all the help he can get in the home, or he will come under stress and probably develop psychosomatic symptoms.
The kind of help that he needs is understanding. If she rails against his employers and the injustice they are inflicting on him, it will only increase his level of tension, and make his performance at work so much the worse. On the other hand, she may try to bolster his morale with talk of his ability and experience, and that he will certainly get another job, equal or better, just as soon as he wants it. If she talks like this, he realizes what she says is out of tune with reality, and the gulf between them is so much the greater.
If, however, she can communicate her understanding in that very simple and wordless communication of man and woman, his level of anxiety is reduced and his performance at work is so much the better.
*30/98/5*
PREVENTION AND HEALTH: VENEREAL DISEASE (VD)
April 23rd, 2009 | Posted by admin | Category: General healthNo Comments
Venereal disease is a family of infections involving the genital organs. They are, by definition, caught by having sexual contact with another person but in reality this is too narrow a way of looking at the problem, as we shall see.
VD (otherwise known as sexually transmitted diseases-STDs) is a fast-growing problem. Gonorrhea, for example, is the second most common infectious illness in the world after measles.
VD is becoming more of a problem for several reasons. First, society’s changed attitudes over the last twenty years or so have encouraged young people to have intercourse at a younger age. The babies born in the 1950s and 1960s are now teenagers and young adults and this group are exceptionally active sexually. Premarital sex is more commonplace than it used to be-a change particularly involving women. Most surveys show that over 90 per cent of women are not virgins when they go up the aisle. Half of all US women who have never been married have had more than one sex partner, compared with just over a third fifteen years ago. The divorce rate is rising steadily; more adults are choosing to remain single or are postponing marriage for various reasons; and so the list of changes goes on. All of this has led to increasing numbers of individuals having sex with larger numbers of partners than ever before.
Women and newborn babies bear the major brunt of this epidemic of venereal infections. One in every twenty babies born in the US has an infection with Chlamydia, and of the infected group half will develop conjunctivitis and one in five pneumonia. Early syphilis, until recently a rare disease, is once more appearing in women of childbearing age. If early syphilis is untreated in pregnancy 40 per cent of the infants will be still-born, born prematurely or die prematurely. Another 40 per cent will have congenital syphilis. Such a woman has only a one in five chance of having a normal, healthy baby.
As many as three in every 10,000 babies are born with herpes. Half die very early in life and a quarter of those who survive will be damaged. Three in every 200 babies are affected with cytomegalovirus and one in seven of them will be deaf, retarded or suffer eye defects. Nearly 5,000 babies a year die from beta-hemolytic streptococcus-a proportion of these infections are probably sexually transmitted.
Pelvic inflammatory disease is the most common serious complication of chlamydial and gonococcal infections. These diseases cause 25,000 ectopic pregnancies (pregnancies that occur outside the womb in the fallopian tubes), 213,000 hospital admissions, 115,000 major surgical operations, and 900 deaths, per year in the US alone.
*252/72/5*