1. Diarrhea is sometimes
caused
by infection. The organism is often a bacteria such as
Campylobacter,
Shigella or Salmonella. Parasites such as Giardia
lamblia occassionally cause
diarrhea.
Giardia is contracted by drinking infected water. This may occur
while camping and drinking from a stream or by using a bad well.
All causes of bacterial or parasitic infectious diarrhea can be treated
by antibiotics.
2. Primary hypothyroidism or
hypothyroidism occuring on its own affects approximately 30%
or women over the age of 60. It is easily diagnosed with a simple
blood test and is treated with thyroid hormone (as a tablet) taken each
morning.
3. Adult Onset Diabetes or Type II
Diabetes is caused by the body's resistence to the activity of its own
insulin. Body fat
increases insulin resistence and directly affects the severity of the
diabetic
condition. Loss of body fat will make less present the very
process
by which a person is diabetic. Type I Diabetes, usually seen in
children,
occurs by a different mechanism than insulin resistence.
4. A person must always be
particularly
concerned over diseases which become well established without
symptoms.
These "silent killers" include hypertension,
glaucoma, mild anemia, and cancer of the ovary.
5. Iron deficiency usually
occurs
by the gradual loss of iron from the
intestinal
tract or the uterus (in women) as the result of bleeding.
If the iron lost as hemoglobin is in excess of that consumed in the
diet,
a gradual depletion of iron develops in the bone marrow. The loss
of iron stores in the bone marrow results in abnormal red blood cell
production
with small and variably shaped red blood
cells
being
produced. Thus, iron deficiency anemia is often one of the first
signs discovered in the patient having
cancer
of the colon.