Testing It Up

Vitamin B12 is a water soluble vitamin that is essential to help optimize conversion of food into energy needed by the body to utilize numerous physiologic processes such as respiration, blood circulation, and immune system response. Vitamin B12 also helps maintain healthy nerve cells in the body and is needed by the red blood cells for the formation and production of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA).

This vitamin can be found in different kinds of foods such as fish, shellfish, meat and daily products. It is stored in the body for several years, thus deficiency of Vitamin B12 is rare. It may be rare, but it still affects hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. Factors that may predispose one to Vitamin B12 deficiency are age, diet and loss of the protein called intrinsic factor.

Old people are at risk of deficiency and so are strict vegetarians since vitamin B12 is seen less in vegetables. The loss of intrinsic factor by the intestines is the most common cause of vitamin B12 deficiency since this protein aids in the absorption of Vitamin B12.

Megaloblastic anemia may result from a deficiency in Vitamin B12. This is a type of anemia in which there is a malformation of the red blood cells. These red blood cells are found to be larger than normal and the ratio of the nucleus is way too increased than that of the cell cytoplasm. One main cause is alcohol abuse, wherein alcohol intake depletes the Vitamin B12 in the body. Symptoms include change in skin color, diarrhea and headache.

Vitamin B12 deficiency has also been connected with neurological and psychiatric problems. Patients with this deficiency may display muscle weakness, visual problems, incontinence, hypotension or the lowering of blood pressure, psychosis, dementia and mood disturbances.

Learn more about Vitamin B12 deficiency here.

Hospitals, depressed patients and crying babies – a deadly combination that seems to take a toll on me everytime I enter the Genetic clinic wards in pediatrics these days. Spice that up with the pernicious vocal bombs from my thesis supervisor and little wonder that I end up with a bad headache when the sun goes down! Everytime that happens, my mind tells me just to pop in a pain-killer and call it a day but since that “poppin-in” thing has started turning into almost a routine, I thought I would better get a reality check.

Pain-killers, as they are called, do kill pain, but at the same time they seem to be doing much more than that! Just today, a kiwi newspaper reported about a man who turned to marijuana to escape side-effects of pain killers! In November last year, Washington post reported about the death of a professional NFL player whose life took a rapid descent fueled by chronic use of a painkiller prescribed to deal with the lingering soreness of playing professional football. In fact, various reports indicate that several cases of kidney and liver failures can be associated, at least partially, to the continuous use of analgesics. Some popular analgesic drugs like Paracetamol and Aspirin, which have decorated cupboards across the globe for quite some time now, are very useful without any doubt but may not be as necessay as they are percieved to be. A mild headache, for instance, can easily be treated effectively by simply sipping two or three glasses of water followed by some rest!

Abusing Pain-killers can rather make your headaches worse, requiring more of them and thus making you addicted to them. The Huffington Post made an interesting revelation about Cindy McCain in June last year that in the mid-nineties she was addicted to prescription pain killers! Not just her, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), an estimated 5.2 million people used painkillers in 2006 for nonmedical reasons in United States and disturbingly that’s more than twice the 2.4 million people that are estimated to abuse cocaine! If we look more closely at these pain killers, this addictive trend is easy to grasp – most of the painkillers are made up of opoids - a class of highly effective but also highly addictive pain relievers!

So, the moral of the story is that having a mild headache does not necessarily mean one should just grab a pill and pop it in, rather try taking a chill pill with some water and doze yourself off, at least as a preliminary step!

When we hear would-be parents say that they are preparing for a baby, we automatically conclude that the woman is pregnant. In reality, though, the preparation should start even before the woman gets pregnant. Responsible would-be parents prepare themselves physically and emotionally to ensure that their baby is born healthy.

If you are a couple planning to have a baby, it is to your advantage if you both submit yourselves to a general health and wellness check up. This will inform you of your overall state of health. Based on the results of this check-up, you can work with your doctor regarding specific health concerns that you need to address before actually getting pregnant.

What does your doctor need to know? A pre-existing medical condition is not just something that only an insurance company is interested in. Pre-existing medical conditions also affect a woman’s pregnancy and the health of the baby. Your doctor will be interested to find out whether you, your partner, or your families have a history of diseases such as diabetes, lupus or hypertension.

Lifestyle choices such as smoking and drinking will also affect your preparation for pregnancy, as will your choice of contraception. If you are currently under medical treatment for illnesses such as depression, you will need to inform your doctor about that, too.

Checking for prenatal wellness can also be done at home. There are home wellness evaluation kits specifically designed for checking prenatal health, focusing on factors such as levels of folic acid, magnesium and niacin. The results of these tests can be taken to your gynecologist to help plan your pregnancy.

So before you take the plunge, prepare yourself well. As a couple, choose to improve your lifestyles health-wise. It is best to start making these changes about a year before actually getting pregnant. Do this and get ready to become the happy parents of an equally happy and healthy baby.