The organ that cleans blood and makes white blood cells. White blood cells attack bacteria and other foreign cells.

Looking into the esophagus, stomach, and duodenum with an endoscope. See endoscopy.

What Is Cerebral Vasculitis?

[dropcap]C erebral vasculitis, also called vasculitis of the central nervous system (CNS), is an autoimune attack against elastin fibers in the walls of arteries that bring blood to the head. Early recogniton may reduce poor outcomes.¹

Cerebral vasculitis is characterized by inflammation of large, medium, or small blood vessels which is often segmental with scattered foci (sites) of intense inflammation, and results in necrosis (death) of affected tissues with scarring that occludes, or blocks, blood flow.

Q: What happens when an artery is occluded by scarring?

A: When an artery is occluded by scarring, blood cannot flow through it thus preventing the body tissues it supplies with oxygen and nutrition.   Depending on vessels that are affected, blindness, TIA (transient ischemic attack) or stroke may result from blockage or rupture (hemorrhage).

Blood flow through arteries can be seen by angiography procedure. The diagnosis is made by biopsy. Additionally, contrast-enhanced MRI, proven to be sensitive to extradural arteritis, for the identification of intracranial vessel wall inflammation shows that wall thickening and intramural contrast uptake are frequent findings in patients with active cerebral vasculitis affecting large brain arteries.²

Vasculitis may develop with  autoimmune diseases, such as celiac disease, lupus eythematosis and rheumatoid arthritis due to immune complexing, and possibly severe infection and drug sensitivity.

What Is Cerebral Vasculitis In Celiac Disease and/or Gluten Sensitivity?

Sources:

1. Salvarani C, Brown RD Jr, Calamia KT, Christianson TJ, Weigand SD, Miller DV, Giannini C, Meschia JF, Huston J 3rd, Hunder GG. Primary central nervous system vasculitis: analysis of 101 patients. Ann Neurol. 2007 Nov;62(5):442-51. [↩]
2. Küker W, Gaertner S, Nagele T, Dopfer C, Schoning M, Fiehler J, Rothwell PM, Herrlinger U. Vessel wall contrast enhancement: a diagnostic sign of cerebral vasculitis. Cerebrovasc Dis. 2008;26(1):23-9. doi: 10.1159/000135649. Epub 2008 May 30. [↩]

What Is Non-Response to Tuberculosis Treatment?

[dropcap]N on-response to treatment for tuberculosis means that proper medical treatment failed to control active disease. Tuberculosis is an infection that may be dormant or active.

Q: What happens in active tuberculosis?

A: Tuberculosis is an infectious disease caused by a bacteria called mycobacterium tuberculosis. It is characterized by chronic bacterial infection most commonly affecting lungs that develops in stages.

Active tuberculosis  produces inflammation and formation of tubercles, necrosis, abcess, fibrosis, and calcification. Calcification is the body’s action to encapsulate the bacterial invasion. Active tuberculosis is life-threatening and may result in death.

About one third of the world’s population is infected with tuberculosis bacteria. In 2012 the number reached a staggering 8.6 million people. Of these, 1.3 million people died from tuberulosis.  About 95% of tuberulosis deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries and it is among the top three causes of death among women aged 15 to 44.¹

People with weakened immune systems have a much greater risk of falling ill from tuberculosis. For example, a person living with HIV is about 20 to 30 times more likely to develop active tuberculosis.²

What Is Non-Response To Tuberculosis Treatment In Celiac Disease and/or Gluten Sensitivity?

Sources:

1. http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/tb_facts/en/index.html [↩]
2. http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/tuberculosis/en/ [↩]

What Is Osteitis Fibrosa Cystica?

[dropcap]O steitis fibrosa cystica is a metabolic bone disease characterized by decalcification and softening of bones with bone cyst formation and bone tumors developing from effects of chronic vitamin D deficiency causing hyperparathyroidism and parathyroid adenoma (tumor).

Hyperparathyroidism is a sustained elevated parathyroid hormone level in the blood which draws calcium from bone tissue.

Q: How does vitamin D deficiency cause hyperparathyroidism?

A: Vitamin D is required to absorb calcium from the food we eat. Deficiency of vitamin D  in turn causes deficiency of calcium to develop. Without adequate calcium for essential body functions, the pituitary gland stimulates the parathyroid glands to produce parathyroid hormone for the purpose of getting calcium from bone tissue which is less essential to life.

Unfortunately, the bones become depleted of calcium and become soft and disfigured.

What Is Osteitis Fibrosa Cystica In Celiac Disease and/or Gluten Sensitivity?

What Is Dysmenorrhea?

[dropcap]D ysmenorrhea is a distressing menstrual disorder in females characterized by cramping and spasmodic pain that occurs regularly just before or during menstruation.

What Is Dysmenorrhea In Celiac Disease and/or Gluten Sensitivity?

What Is Spina Bifida?

[dropcap]S pina bifida is a congenital defect of neural tube closure and among the commonest and most severe disorders of the fetus and newborn.¹

Spina bifida is a defect in the walls of the spinal canal in the lumbar section (waist level) of the spine in which the backbone and spinal canal fail to close before birth.

Normally, during the first month of a pregnancy, the two sides of the spine join together to cover the spinal cord, spinal nerves and meninges. Meninges are tissues that cover the spinal cord. Spina bifida refers to any birth defect involving incomplete closure of the spine.

Q: What are the birth defects involving incomplete closure of the spine?

A: Myelomeningocele is the most common type of spina bifida. It is a neural tube defect in which the bones of the spine do not completely form, resulting in an incomplete spinal canal. This causes the spinal cord and meninges (the tissues covering the spinal cord) to stick out of the child’s back. Myelomeningocele may affect as many as 1 out of every 800 infants.

The rest of spina bifida cases are most commonly of these two types:

• Spina bifida occulta, a condition in which the bones of the spine do not close but the spinal cord and meninges remain in place and skin usually covers the defect.
• Meningoceles, a condition where the tissue covering the spinal cord sticks out of the spinal defect but the spinal cord remains in place.²

Spina bifida in the unborn results from deficiency of folic acid and/or vitamin B12 in the mother.³

Intervention trials have demonstrated conclusively that oral ingestion of extra folic acid can prevent the majority of cases of spina bifida and other neural tube defects (NTDs). Data from these studies offer conclusive evidence that the intake of 400 μg/day folic acid provides this benefit.⁴

What Is Spina Bifida In Celiac Disease and/or Gluten Sensitivity?

Sources:

1. Copp AJ, Greene ND. Genetics and development of neural tube defects. J Pathol. 2010 Jan;220(2):217-30. doi: 10.1002/path.2643. [↩]
2. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002525/ [↩]
3. Molloy AM, Kirke PN, Troendle JF, Burke H, Sutton M, Brody LC, Scott JM, Mills JL. Maternal vitamin B12 status and risk of neural tube defects in a population with high neural tube defect prevalence and no folic acid fortification. Pediatrics. 2009 Mar;123(3):917-23. doi: 10.1542/peds.2008-1173. [↩]
4. Scott J. Folic acid consumption throughout pregnancy: differentiation between trimesters. Ann Nutr Metab. 2011;59(1):46-9. doi: 10.1159/000332127. Epub 2011 Nov 25.

   The American Academy of Pediatrics endorses the US Public Health Service (USPHS) recommendation that all women capable of becoming pregnant consume 400 microgram of folic acid daily to prevent neural tube defects (NTDs). Studies have demonstrated that periconceptional folic acid supplementation can prevent 50% or more of NTDs such as spina bifida and anencephaly. ((Folic acid for the prevention of neural tube defects. American Academy of Pediatrics. Committee on Genetics. Pediatrics. 1999 Aug;104(2 Pt 1):325-7. [↩]

What Is Juvenile Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus?

[dropcap]J uvenile diabetes is type I diabetes mellitus that begins in childhood or before the age of 25 years. It is an inherited inflammatory autoimmune disease of the pancreas in which anti-islet autoantibodies destroy the islet cells of the pancreas that secrete insulin hormone, resulting in a lack of insulin.

Loss of insulin production results in failure to metabolize glucose. Glucose is a simple sugar that is a required source of energy for the body, especially the brain and muscles.

Juvenile diabetes is characterized by sustained fasting blood glucose levels above 126 mg/dL (hyperglycemia) with subsequent loss of glucose from the body by removal through the urine (glucosuria) as the body attempts to lower blood glucose, and cell starvation that follows.

That is, while glucose accumulates in blood, the body cannot access it. Without insulin treatment, this disorder quickly produces coma and ultimately results in death. In fact, it is 5th leading cause of death in the United States.

Q: How does insulin work?

A: Insulin moves glucose from the bloodstream into body cells where it is used or reformulated for high energy storage. For example, muscles can use glucose for immediate work or store it in the form of glygogen for later work, depending on need. Healthy insulin production keeps an 8 hour fasting blood glucose level to less than 100 mg/dL. Upon eating carbohydrate food, glucose is digested and absorbed from the small intestine into the bloodstream which then raises blood glucose levels. The elevated level is controlled by prompt action of insulin to lower it to below 140 mg/dL  within 2 hours of eating.

Insulin does not work alone. The islets of Langerhans manage glucose in the body. The islets are specialized formations located on the outer surface of the pancreas. The islets are composed of two different types of cells known as alpha and beta cells. These cells make the competing hormones that keep blood glucose within a healthy range.

Alpha cells secrete glucagon to raise blood glucose levels by triggering the body to release stored energy in the form of glycogen. In the opposite, beta cells secrete insulin to lower blood glucose by opening body cells so that glucose in blood can enter. Without insulin, glucose cannot enter cells but remains in the bloodstream where it accumulates.

Insulin is also needed to move magnesium into cells from the bloodstream. On the other side, magnesium is needed to produce insulin. Insulin has other functions such as building muscle and helping regulate cholesterol which directly impacts the sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone.

Onset of symptoms usually occurs over a period of days or weeks, although beta cell destruction can begin years earlier. The SEARCH for Diabetes in Youth multicenter study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has determined that based on data from 2002 to 2003, a total of 15,000 youth in the United States were newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes each year. Non-Hispanic white youth had the highest rate of new cases of type 1 diabetes according to NIH.

Type 1A diabetes mellitus has become one of the most intensively studied autoimmune disorders. It is now possible to predict its development, beginning with HLA-encoded genetic susceptibility, followed by the development of a series of anti-islet autoantibodies.¹

What Is Juvenile Diabetes In Celiac Disease and/or Gluten Sensitivity?

Sources:

1. Liu E, Eisenbarth GS. Type 1A diabetes mellitus-associated autoimmunity. Endocrinology and Metabolism Clinics of North America. Jun 2002;31(2):391-410, vii-viii. [↩]

A parasite that can cause gastrointestinal infection and diarrhea.

Bloating or swelling of the abdomen.