Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Dietary Problems
Diseases Caused by
Dietary Problems
Mary E. Miller
Diseases Caused by Dietary Problems
Copyright © Momentum Press®, LLC, 2018.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Keywords
calcium; lead; lead poisoning; phosphorous; rickets; scurvy; spina bifida;
vitamin B; vitamin C; vitamin D
Contents
Acknowledgments....................................................................................ix
Introduction...........................................................................................xi
Chapter 1: Symptoms and Diagnosis...................................................1
Chapter 2: Causes and Contributing Factors.....................................11
Chapter 3: Treatment and Therapy....................................................25
Chapter 4: Future Prospects...............................................................31
Conclusion............................................................................................33
Bibliography..........................................................................................35
Glossary................................................................................................39
About the Author...................................................................................41
Index....................................................................................................43
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Malcolm Campbell for the opportunity to make
contributions to this book series. His forward approach to science and
scientific pedagogy is inspiring. I thank my husband David and daughter
Mallory for their patience and support of these efforts. I am fortunate to
work at Rhodes College, which has supported my professional and intel-
lectual development. I take pride that I have worked with outstanding
students and thank them for inspiring my passion for science education.
My outstanding mentors, colleagues, and collaborators have made it pos-
sible to carry out rigorous research and forward high-impact educational
practices. Specifically, I thank Mitch Smith, Dan Engel, Jeff Becker, Fred
Cross, and Pam Hanson, whose advice and influence have shaped my
professional success. The editorial staff at Momentum Press have been
supportive and kind, and I appreciate their work in the production of this
book. I hope that some aspect of this work is helpful for individuals work-
ing to better understand or manage these devastating diseases.
Introduction
In some cases, very serious diseases can be entirely preventable by modi-
fications in diet. These nutritional diseases are dependent on a person’s
access to specific nutrients through natural biosynthetic processes in the
body or food that they eat. Appropriate access to food can prevent and
cure many life-threatening diseases. When considering worldwide access
to food, and how this access impacts human health, understanding clear
nutritional deficiencies and toxicity is critical in diagnosing, treating, and
curing nutritional diseases. We will consider four human health problems
(rickets, scurvy, spina bifida, and lead poisoning) that are related to
nutritional diseases or toxicity. In the case of rickets, scurvy, and spina
bifida, vitamin deficiencies trigger disease onset. In the case of lead poi-
soning, the ingestion of the heavy metal lead can cause disease.
Vitamins are small chemical molecules that can be obtained from our
diet. Humans generally need 13 different types of vitamins. Vitamin A,
D, E, and K are all fat soluble and therefore they are best absorbed by our
bodies when ingested with some form of fats consumed during a meal.
The other nine vitamins are water soluble and include vitamin C and
eight types of B vitamins. B vitamins include B1 (thiamine), B2 (ribofla-
vin), B3 (niacin), B5 (pantothenic acid), B6, B9 (folate), and B12. The B
vitamins are grouped because they all help similar sets of enzymes func-
tion in the cells of our body. Vitamins are generally produced by plants,
but can be obtained by consuming animal products because the animals
are capable of making the minerals or they eat plants that originally made
the vitamins. Since human cells cannot synthesize all of these vitamins,
we are frequently dependent on our diet to obtain and maintain high
enough levels of vitamins to maintain healthy physiological functions.
Vitamins contain carbon atoms and so they are considered organic
molecules. The carbon atoms in vitamins can react with or be incorpo-
rated into new chemical bonds with other molecules. In these reactions,
vitamins must physically interact with other molecules, so a vitamin’s
xii INTRODUCTION
shape is critical for its function. Heat can change the shape of a vitamin
enough so that it no longer functions. This is why fruits and vegetables are
more nutritious raw than cooked. Vitamins have very different chemical
structures than minerals. Dietary minerals such as calcium and phos-
phorous do not contain carbon, so are called inorganic, and are more
difficult to break into pieces or react with in nature. Therefore, dietary
minerals are not usually destroyed when food is cooked. With this in
mind, we normally associate vitamins with living organisms—we get our
vitamins by eating plants or animals because these living systems create
the vitamins. We associate minerals with our environment—found in the
water we drink or the soil where plants grow. Minerals can accumulate
in plants and animals that we eat because they take up the minerals from
their environment. Both vitamins and minerals are vitally important to
human health. Vitamins and minerals frequently rely on each other for
function, and depletion of one can cause the depletion of the other. For
this reason, nutritional deficiencies that we associated with a lack of vita-
mins in our diet can be tied to dietary deficiencies in minerals.
Vitamins and minerals are frequently associated with the function
of special proteins in the body called enzymes. Generally, proteins are
composed of amino acid chains, and each amino acid has chemical and
structural properties that determine the protein’s overall shape and thus
its function. The shape and structural characteristics of an enzyme protein
dictate how it interacts with other molecules and how an enzyme can
produce structural changes in other molecules. Enzymes are associated
with cellular metabolism—the synthesis and breakdown of the materi-
als inside living cells. For example, some enzymes add a hydroxyl group
to another protein; a hydroxyl group is composed of one oxygen atom
chemically bound to one hydrogen atom. When a protein is modified
by the addition of a hydroxyl group, it is very likely that the modified
protein has an altered three-dimensional shape that can produce a new
function in the modified protein. Many nutritional diseases cause defects
in critical enzyme function, and therefore many nutritional diseases pro-
duce a metabolic dysfunction in the body. Not all proteins interact with
vitamins are enzymes. Other types of proteins influenced directly by
vitamins are responsible for intercellular communication. For example,
some proteins called receptors are located on the surface of a cell and
INTRODUCTION
xiii
are too weak to bear weight, as well as large forehead, abnormally shaped
ribs, abnormally curved spine, large abdomen, stunted growth, and teeth
abnormalities. In rare cases of VDDR, hair loss can also occur; at times,
to the extent that the patient has no body hair at all. Calcium and phos-
phorous can also be important for neuromuscular function too, so varied
Symptoms and Diagnosis 3
The diagnosis of spina bifida usually occurs before birth, though mild
cases might not be diagnosed until after birth. Screening can occur during
weeks 16 to 18 of pregnancy, using blood tests of the mother to d etect
maternal serum alpha fetoprotein (MSAFP). Alpha fetoprotein is made
naturally by the fetus and placenta and can enter the mother’s blood
stream. Elevated levels of this protein indicate that the fetus might have
a neural tube defect which can lead to serious forms of spina bifida. The
MSAFP test is only a first pass screen so that if a mother tested positive
for high levels of MSAFP, the doctor would do further tests to determine
if spina bifida is in fact present in the fetus. One probable follow up
test might be an ultrasound, where sound waves are used to visualize the
shape of the fetus to identify any malformations. Samples from the fluid
of the amniotic sac (amniocentesis) can also be tested to detect high levels
of alpha fetoprotein. Tests for spina bifida can be carried out later in preg-
nancy, along with broader panels of tests to identify other potential birth
defects. Diagnosis after birth would include physical examination of the
infant to detect weakness in feet, hips, or legs with associated deformities.
Imaging techniques after birth such as x-rays, CT scans, or MRI can give
a more clear view of the spinal cord and brain to diagnose one of the four
types of spina bifida.
Figure 1.3 The element lead is represented by the symbol “Pb,” has
the atomic number 82 with a standard atomic weight of 207.2
8 DISEASES CAUSED BY DIETARY PROBLEMS
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