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- Lactose Intolerance.
- Leprosy.
Lactose Intolerance
If you have symptoms such as nausea, abdominal cramping and pain, bloating and
passing of gas or diarrhoea after consuming milk or milk-based products, you might
be suffering from lactose intolerance.
Lactose intolerance is a condition when there is insufficient lactase, an enzyme
produced by intestines, to digest lactose. Lactose is a natural sugar found in milk and
milk-based products. As your body ages, it produces less lactase, hence you become 'lactose
intolerant'.
Here are a few tips to help you to cope:
- Choose lactose-reduced or lactose-free milk and dairy products.
- Take milk and milk products with other food, as part of a meal.
- Try yoghurt containing active cultures. Such cultures contain good
bacteria that will produce the enzyme lactase, to help you digest lactose.
To ensure adequate calcium intake, include other calcium rich foods in your diet.
Examples are dark green leafy vegetables like spinach, kalian, chye sim. Eat, almonds,
beans, tofu, tau kwa and fish with soft edible bones such as ikan bilis and sardines.
Remember to eat the bones too. This is where most of the calcium is stored!. Also, take
calcium enriched products like high calcium soya bean drink, high calcium bread.
For Teenagers:
Do you suffer from uncomfortable or even embarrassing symptoms like abdominal cramp or pain,
bloating and passing of gas after drinking milk or eating milk-based products? If your answer
is yes to all of the above, you might be suffering from a condition known as Lactose Intolerance.
Other symptoms of lactose intolerance are nausea and diarrhoea. Lactose intolerance is a condition
that results from a deficit of lactase, an enzyme produced by intestines to digest lactose, a natural
sugar found in milk and milk-based products. As your body ages you produce less lactase, hence you become
lactose intolerant and experience the described symptoms.
Here are a few tips to help you to cope:
- Choose lactose-reduced or lactose-free milk and dairy products.
- Consume milk and milk products as part of a meal or with other food.
- Try consuming yoghurt containing active cultures. Such cultures contain good
bacteria that will produce the enzyme lactase, to help you digest lactose.
To ensure adequate calcium intake, include other calcium rich foods in your diet. Examples are
dark green leafy vegetables (like spinach, kailan, chye sim), almonds, beans, tofu, tau kwa and
fish with soft edible bones such as ikan bilis and sardines (remember to eat the bone as that is
where most of the calcium is stored!), as well as calcium enriched products like high calcium soya
bean drinks, high calcium bread and so forth.
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Leprosy
Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is a slow developing disease, endemic in the less developed
countries of the world. At the beginning of year 2000, the number of leprosy patients in the world
was about 640,000, as reported by 91 countries. About 680,000 new cases were detected during 1999.
According to the latest available information, special efforts will be needed to reach the leprosy
elimination target in 10 countries: Brazil, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, India, Indonesia,
Madagascar, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nepal and Tanzania. Taken altogether, these 10 countries account for 90
per cent of the prevalence of the disease in the world in early 2000.
Causes:
Leprosy is a caused by mycobacterium leprae, related to the causative organism of tuberculosis.
It attacks mainly the skin and nerves though other organs are involved too. The incubation period
is very long varying from 1 year to 40 years. The disease strikes mainly young people between 10
and 20 years of age, males more often than females.
Leprosy takes various clinical forms, depending on the immune system of the person infected. People
with compromised immune system develop multibacillary leprosy (infectious), while those with a stronger
immune system come down with paucibacillary leprosy (non-infectious).
The mode of spread is uncertain but is thought to be from person to person via respiratory droplets.
Environmental factors such as unhygienic and crowded living conditions contribute to the spread of the
disease. Malnutrition and a weak immune system also favour infection.
Signs and Symptoms:
Paucibacillary leprosy is milder and manifest as one or more hypopigmented skin macules (flat lesions)
with loss of sensation. Peripheral nerves may be damaged and enlarged.
Multibacillary leprosy characterised by numerous shiny, non-itchy reddish nodules and plaques
(raised lesions), thickened dermis, and involvement of the nasal mucosa with resulting nasal
congestion and epistaxis (bleeding from the nose). Distal peripheral nerves are also affected.
Skin smears are always positive for bacilli. There may be loss of eyelashes and eyebrows.
Complications include damage to the peripheral nerves leading to numbness, muscle weakness or even paralysis
(with consequent claw hand or foot drop), and dry skin. Because of the loss of sensation, the patient fails
to notice an injury.
Injuries easily result in infections, which in turn lead to ulcers that damage the dermal tissues, joints
and bones with the consequent loss of extremities (toes and fingers) or secondary deformities. This happens
in an estimated 25 per cent of cases who are not treated at an early stage of the disease.
Treatment/Prevention:
Leprosy is a curable disease, and treatment provided in the early stages averts disability. Diagnosis is
made on clinical symptoms and signs (the chronic skin lesions, peripheral neuropathy, thickened nerves, muscle
weakness/wasting) and confirmed with biopsy.
A World Health Organization (WHO) Study Group recommended multidrug therapy (MDT) in 1981. MDT consists of three
drugs: dapsone, rifampicin and clofazimine. This drug combination kills the pathogen and cures the patient.
By killing the bacilli MDT interrupts the chain of transmission, and by curing very rapidly it prevents mutilations
and deformities. The 70 to 80 per cent of the cases who have paucibacillary leprosy (PB) are non-infectious, can
be cured within six months. The remaining 20 to 30 per cent who have the multibacillary form (MB) are curable
within one year. In most cases visible improvements can already be observed at the outset of MDT, encouraging
patients to comply with the treatment.
MDT is safe, effective and easily administered under field conditions, and patients treated with MDT are cured
within six to twelve months. Patients are no longer infectious after the first dose of MDT. There is virtually
no relapse, i.e. recurrence of the disease after treatment is completed. No resistance of the bacillus to MDT
has been detected.
WHO estimates that early detection and treatment with MDT has prevented about 3 to 4 million people from being disabled.
This suggests great cost-effectiveness of MDT as a health intervention, considering the economic and social loss averted.
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