Health News resources and information

About 20 percent of American women have fibrocystic breasts, a condition in which small tender lumps can be felt within the breasts. Composed of distorted fluid-containing milk ducts and fibrous tissue, these lumps usually become tighter and more tender at the time of menstrual periods, when they may become so painful as to interfere with sleep.

Please note that we no longer talk about fibrocystic “disease,” since we now realize that this condition is merely a variant in texture of the normal breast. It is not precancerous. Nevertheless, fibrocystic breasts often become so tight and uncomfortable that many women need treatment of one kind or another to relieve the pain.

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (244:1077), vitamin E may be what they are looking for. It was found that fibrocystic occurrences disappeared or decreased in 22 of 26 women who took this vitamin in doses of 600 units daily for 12 weeks. Possibly vitamin E acts as an anti-hormone, blocking the effects of the breast-stimulating hormone prolactin, which is normally produced by the pituitary gland.

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While there is no doubt that dietary supplements of nicotinic acid help to lower the blood level of cholesterol, some people have been taking it in such excessively large doses that they have injured their livers.

The Southern Medical Journal (76:239) reports the case of a man who took about four grams (4,000 mg) of nicotinic acid daily for several months and became ill with fever, jaundice (yellowness of the skin), nausea, vomiting, and pain, swelling, and tenderness in the abdomen. Tests showed that his liver function was seriously disturbed. All of these problems quickly subsided after he stopped taking nicotinic acid.

However, not believing that a vitamin (nicotinic acid is a member of the vitamin B complex) could cause illness, he started taking large doses of nicotinic acid again a year later. Once more he suffered with the same symptoms, which were again proved to be due to liver toxicity, and which, for the second time, subsided when he stopped taking nicotinic acid.

The medical literature contains 11 more case reports of patients with liver disease who had been taking three to four grams of nicotinic acid daily. These doses are 30 to 40 times greater than the 100 mg daily doses recommended as an adjunct in controlling the blood cholesterol. Limiting one’s intake of animal fat and cholesterol, however, must remain the cornerstone of any program to prevent atherosclerosis.

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Other than diuretic drugs (discussed above), most drugs used in hypertension work by relaxing the muscular walls of the blood vessels and are more likely to cause side effects because they relax other muscles, too. For example, they can cause difficulty in passing urine (due to relaxation of the bladder muscle), constipation (by relaxing the intestinal muscles), and sometimes impotence in men.

Even without drug treatment, many people feel dizzy momentarily after suddenly standing up. Called postural hypotension, this occurs when, for a few moments, blood pools in the veins of the legs and does not get up to the brain. Blood vessels slackened by drugs are more likely to cause this effect, and patients taking multiple blood pressure medications may have severe postural hypotension and even lose consciousness if they stand up too quickly or stand still for too long (movement assists the circulation).

Whenever people on blood pressure drugs feel dizzy, they should immediately stretch and yawn and move their legs to boost the circulation. Hypertensive patients liable to dizziness under these conditions should never shut themselves in a telephone booth, because being held upright after fainting could be fatal. The combined effects of blood pooling in the legs and continuing to remain propped upright prevents a life-sustaining blood supply reaching up to the brain. Falling, although it may cause injury, instantly lowers the head so that blood can flow into it by gravity.

If side effects become a frequent problem, the situation can be corrected by changing the dosage or by switching drugs. This needs to be done under medical supervision. Whatever happens, hypertensive patients must continue taking some medications regularly every day because, without it, their lives will be shortened.

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Unusual Dietary Cravings

Iron deficiency can cause a condition called pica, which is the compulsive eating of almost anything, including dirt or clay (geophagia), starch (amylophagia), and ice (pagoph-agia). Not just an occasional zany impulse, pica is the continuous obsessive craving for the unconventional dietary experience.

A case reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine (94:660) illustrates a potential complication. A 74-year-old woman with iron deficiency had a craving for magnesium carbonate, which she ate several times a day. In quantity, magnesium acts as a laxative and causes the too rapid transit of food through the intestines, with failure of absorption of dietary ingredients, including iron. So, in this case, as in many others, iron deficiency caused pica and thereby made itself worse.

Pica and its complications usually respond rapidly to an injection of iron.

Tea Drinking as a Cause of Anemia?

Many things can influence the amount of iron we absorb and retain from our food. If we lose blood or become anemic for any reason, iron absorption usually increases, so that when iron is in short supply, we compensate by absorbing it more efficiently. Our ability to absorb increased amounts of iron when necessary, however, is variable, a human inconsistency which has always puzzled hematologists.

Now, according to the New England Journal of Medicine, tea-drinking may help to explain some of these differences in iron absorption. It has been found, for instance, that tea reduces iron absorption from food by as much as 95 percent. Whereas in some diseases this could be helpful because there is already too much iron in the body, if you have a problem absorbing iron, or there is inadequate iron in your diet (most vegetarians need to take iron), you may want to limit the amount of tea you drink.

Iron Deficiency Correction

Anemic nomads in Africa suddenly came down with tuberculosis and other infections when iron was added to their food. Iron deficiency, it seems, had been protecting them by preventing bacterial growth in their tissues.

Now, according to Pediatrics, the same sort of thing has been observed in the United States. Adding extra iron to infant formula, it has been found, encourages growth of contaminant bacteria in the milk. Fortunately, the iron in human milk, unlike that in cow’s milk, is bound to a special protein and is not available to bacteria. If mothers nurse their babies and take sufficient iron in their food, their babies will get all the iron they need in the safest possible way.

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Whereas pneumonia in children and younger adults tends to be an easily recognized illness with abrupt onset, flushing of the skin, fever, cough, shortness of breath, and pain in the chest on breathing, the same infection in older people causes so many fewer and less dramatic symptoms that the disease may be easily overlooked, Emergency Medicine (18#1:52) reports.

In the elderly, therefore, pneumonia is often left undiagnosed and untreated until it is too late, and is a common cause of death. Even when the doctor examines an older person who has pneumonia, he may not find any typical signs during the first few days of the illness. Often, the only abnormalities may be slight fever, lack of desire for food and drink, signs of dehydration (such as dryness of the mouth, hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, and little if any urination) with mental slowness and loss of alertness.

Older people with these clues of illness, therefore, should be taken to the hospital without delay so that X-rays and blood tests can be performed to establish the diagnosis, and so that treatment can be started without delay. In some cases, however, the doctor may not wish to move the patient. Instead, he will make a tentative diagnosis of pneumonia without X-rays or tests and start treatment at home with an antibiotic, such as penicillin, right away.

If treated in time, most cases begin to respond within 24 hours and thereafter gradually improve until they have become normal again after several days. Complications and slower responses are common, however, when treatment is delayed, if there is an underlying illness (such as heart failure), or in the very old. Since pneumonia is so common, so easily overlooked, and so potentially dangerous, we must all be alert to this possibility, even when an elderly person appears to be just vaguely unwell.

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