Symptoms and Treatments of Hemochromatosis

Fatigue: The growth and development of red blood cells in the bone marrow may be suppressed while having increase in the number of malignant plasma cells, which then cause low levels of red blood cells in the blood. This condition, know as anemia, can result in unusual fatigue or weakness.

There are two types of hemochromatosis, primary and secondary. Primary hemochromatosis is a genetic disorder passed down through families. It occurs at birth. People with this condition absorb too much iron through their digestive tract. Iron builds up in the body, especially the liver. You are more likely to get this disease if someone else in your family has or had the condition. Secondary hemochromatosis is due to other blood-related disorders such as thalassemia or certain anemia’s. Sometimes it occurs in people with long-term alcoholism and other health conditions.

People may not know they have hemochromatosis since in the early stages they may not have any symptoms. In this stage, the only way the disorder can be detected is through routine blood tests and the doctor noticing elevated iron levels in the blood. Usually, the first and most common symptoms of hemochromatosis is joint pain and fatigue, but these are symptoms which occur in several other diseases and disorders, so the diagnosis is frequently held up or even overlooked. “Pain in the knuckles of the pointer and middle finger, collectively called ‘The Iron Fist,’ is the only sign or symptom specific to hemochromatosis. However, not everyone with HHC experiences the Iron Fist” (“WHAT IS HEMOCHROMATOSIS?” n.d.).

The first disease Moalem discusses, hemochromatosis, is a hereditary disorder that he himself lives with. It causes excess iron buildup throughout the body, damaging “the joints, the major organs, and overall body chemistry” (p. 13). Hemochromatosis can lead to “liver failure, heart failure, diabetes, arthritis, infertility, psychiatric disorders[, ...] cancer” (p. 13) and, in the end, death. Although it is more common in some communities than others, today the low-penetrance disease only manifests in 1 in 200 people.

Sharon Moalem discusses is hemochromatosis. Hemochromatosis is a disorder that disrupts iron metabolization, by absorbing excess iron instead of passing it through the body, causing iron to build up in the organs, especially the liver, heart and pancreas. The symptoms are joint pain, fatigue, and weakness. It was first described by Armand Trousseau in 1865, but is thought to have originated with the Vikings and spread throughout Northern and Western Europe. The genetic variant for hemochromatosis is very common among people of Western European descent, but only one in two hundred of those people have the disease with all of the assorted symptoms. Hemochromatosis can be diagnosed through blood and genetic tests, and it can be treated through the ancient practice of phlebotomy, or bloodletting. This lowers the amount of iron in the blood, and in the body, to safe levels. But although it is easily treatable, if left unchecked, hemochromatosis can lead to serious complications. As Dr. Moalem says, “Unchecked, hemochromatosis can lead to liver failure, heart failure, diabetes, arthritis, infertility, psychiatric disorders, and even cancer. Unchecked, hemochromatosis will lead to death.” Thus, before the days of genetic and blood testing, hemochromatosis was a very dangerous disease, and often caused death in middle age. It is here that Dr. Moalem raises the question: if hemochromatosis was so deadly, why was it passed down for so many generations? Unless it provided our ancestors with an advantage, such a damaging disease would not have remained in their gene

Take hemochromatosis, a hereditary condition that causes iron to accumulate in a person's body. A person having hemochromatosis

Iron deficiency anemia, one of the most common types of anemia, is a blood disorder where

Hemochromatosis is a deadly disease in which the body believes that it never has enough iron. The body, as a result is that iron is not filtered out through the intestines, it is always entering the body. This iron runs out of places to be stored, and is spread throughout the body. These iron stores eventually end up changing the body and causing damage to major organs and joints. Hemochromatosis can lead to cancer, heart failure, and a plethora of other problems.

Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia, is the disease that affects children the most and because of the abnormal cells that are immature white blood cells which cannot help the body fight infections cause children with the disease to often get infections and have fevers (National Cancer Institute, 2002, p. 1). The symptoms that the patient with ALL may have depend on the number of abnormal cells of the patient where exactly the cells collect. Children patients with ALL have low amounts of healthy red blood cells and platelets, which cause less oxygen to be carried through the body because of the lack of red blood cells. Patients at times may look pale, feel weak, and tired causing bleeding and bruising very easily because of their lack of enough platelets. This condition is called anemia. Anemia is very much common in patients with acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Fever, fatigue, bone or joint pain, tiny red spots under the skin called petechiae are a couple of symptoms that the disease ALL has. Headaches with, or without vomiting also may occur if patient happens to have abnormal cells collecting in the brain or spinal cord (National Cancer Institute, 2002 para. 2).

I was diagnosed with Henoch-Schonlein purpura (HSP) when I was five years old. This is a rare disease that occurs mostly in children around the ages of two to six years old. The disease causes bleeding in your joints, the small vessels under your skin, your intestines, and your kidneys, leading to bruising and other issues. When this disease makes it to your kidneys, the results can be disastrous and require medical treatment, but if caught in time, the disease will rarely leave the patient with any serious kidney damage. Its progression is rapid. Overnight, my body began to bruise as if someone had beaten me. Every joint in my wrists, ankles, hips, shoulders, even my toes and fingers, began to bruise and became swollen. I had bruises all over

The first disease Moalem discusses, hemochromatosis, is a hereditary disorder that he himself lives with. It causes excess iron buildup throughout the body, damaging “the joints, the major organs, and overall body chemistry” (p. 13). Hemochromatosis can cause conditions such as “liver failure, heart failure, diabetes, arthritis,

And another moral that you may learn from hemochromatosis is moderation. There is a point where a plethora of a good nutrient may actually be harmful, such in the case of hemochromatosis. However, the fact that scientists discovered an overload of iron may be dangerous could lead to new studies of nutrient overload. A rare disease known as hypervitaminosis D is caused by the toxicity of vitamin D (The Clinical Resource for Cellular Nutrition & Trace Mineral Analysis). As a future research potential, we can explore other diseases such as hemochromatosis and hypervitaminosis

The first disease that will be discussed is hemochromatosis. Hemochromatosis mainly targets the liver, heart, pancreas, joints, testicles, thyroid, and skin organs. The symptoms of hemochromatosis include: “liver failure, heart failure, diabetes, arthritis, infertility, psychiatric disorders, and cancer.” Hemochromatosis was first described by Armand Trousseau in 1865. Then, in 1889 Friedrich Daniel von Recklinghausen coined the term hemochromatosis. Afterwards, a group of California scientists isolated the gene that caused hemochromatosis in 1996. Hemochromatosis affects around one in every two hundred people that have Western European ancestry. Liver biopsies were commonly used to diagnose hemochromatosis. Hemochromatosis was often treated with phlebotomy (bloodletting) to reduce the amount of iron in the bloodstream. As “the most common genetic variant in people of Western European descent”, hemochromatosis has impacted humanity in a profound way. Many more people might have died in the Bubonic Plague and in subsequent plagues if not for the evolutionary advantages provided by hemochromatosis. In the present day however, hemochromatosis is a dangerous disease if fully manifested in a person and left untreated. Hemochromatosis made Europeans more resistant to bacterial infections like the Bubonic Plague. This happens because hemochromatosis reduces the iron levels in macrophages. Macrophages are white blood cells help fight and contain diseases. Also, macrophages usually

She looked jaundiced (yellowing of her body tissues), which is due to accumulation of bilirubin, a blood product, due to impaired excretion by the liver (7). Her mental status was indicative of hepatic encephalopathy, with orientation to only person and place, and did not know the date or time. Abdominal examination exposed moderate tenderness, normal bowel sounds, and severe ascites. Ascites is an abnormal buildup of fluid in the abdominal cavity, and is often caused by blood backed up in the hepatic portal vein going into the liver, due to cirrhosis. The backed up blood fills with byproducts that cannot be processed by the diseased liver, which shuts down the kidneys. The disabled kidneys cause a buildup of fluid, which leaks out of the vasculature and into the abdominal cavity (8). Diseased livers also often produce less albumin, a protein in the blood that helps keep fluid in the vasculature. When the albumin levels drop, fluid leaves the blood, entering the body as edema, or swelling, which was moderately visible in her feet (9). Upon rectal examination, hemorrhoids were noted to be present, but are not considered a pathology, simply an anatomical structure that exists in most people from a young age (10). A stool sample was taken, and tested positive for blood with a hemoccult test.

Common effect that Haemochromtosis has on daily life is there can be joint pain stoping them doing daily life actives such as running ,cooking , shopping, doing the washing and most all house old duty are effected in one’s daily life because of the joint pain that can lead to arthritis. Abdominal pain is another symptom of Haemochromtosis which effect people daily lifestyle in that you are unable to concentrate or move freely during the day.