Harmones and glands - overactivity and underactivity

Many hormones

The Endocrine Glands I 263 is known to pour out a dozen or so; the adrenals more than 30. The following table shows a number of the hormones and some of the dis- eases resulting when a gland is too active or not active enough: Disease Caused by Exophthalmic goiter (also Myxedema, called Graves' disease or cretinism (in hyperthyroidism) infants)

ROLL CALL OF THE GLANDS 

The Islets of Langerhans Diabetes is the most familiar of the diseases caused by endocrine gland disorder. GLAND Thyroid Parathyroid Islets of Langerhans (pancreas) Adrenal Cortex Medulla Gonads Female (ovary) Male (testis) Pituitary anterior lobe posterior lobe HORMONE Thyroxin Parathormone Insulin Cortin, cortisone, etc. Adrenaline Estrogen (estrin) Androgen (testosterone) Corticotropin, thyrotropin, gonadotropins, lactogenic hormone, prolactin Vasopressin, oxytocin

OVERACTIVITY 

Hyperparathyroidism (osteitisfibrosacystica) Hyperinsulinism Cushing's syndrome, adrenal hypercorticism, adrenal virilismHyperadrenalism, pheochromocytoma Menstrual irregularities Excessive virilism Cushing's syndrome (hyper adrenalism) r gigantism (acromegaly) 

UNDERACTIVITY Parathyroid tetany Diabetes mellitus Addison's disease May contribute to symptoms of Addison's disease Menopause Eunuchism Dwarfism, Simmonds' disease Diabetes insipidus The islets of Langerhans of the pancreas secrete insulin.

This hormone enables the body to use, or burn, sugar and starch after they have been converted by digestive juices into glucose. The body must utilize glucose (sugar) to provide heat and energy and to help in utilization of other foods. Any sugar the body does not immediately need is stored in the tissues to be drawn on later, like money in the bank. 

When the islets fail to provide insulin to spark this process, the sugar passes unused into the blood and is eliminated in the urine. The quantity of urine increases, causing the diabetic to become thirsty and to drink more fluid, which in turn is quickly eliminated. Not all reasons why the islets may fail to produce enough insulin are known. 

Drug Addiction and Curative Measures

RELATIVELY FEW readers of this blogs will have had any personal experience with illicit drug use. Yet it has become important for every concerned person-in term of children and other contacts-to be informed about that problem and what can be done to prevent serious consequences. Until fairly recently, illicit drug use and addiction were largely confined in the United States to the Skid Rows-to the hopeless, helpless, and disadvantaged of society. 

But in recent years, the scene has shifted dramatically to better neighborhoods and schools, to the respected and well-educated who, in increasing numbers, especially the adolescents, have been "turning on."

College and university students have been tempted to try drugs since 1962 when a Harvard instructor and some graduate students enthused over the virtues of a then little-known drug, LSD. Soon LSD became an "in" drug. It has also become an illegal drug, and even aside from its illegality, after a first surge of use it has become much less popular as it has become clear that taking LSD is playing a chemical Russian roulette. But the use of other drugs-marijuana, amphetamines, barbiturates, opiates-is widespread. And the penalties may be multiple.

 There are the legal punishments which may ruin the life of an offender. There are the possible threats of impaired development and alienation from life and society. And there are the risks to physical health. What scientific information is there available about the various drugs, their effects, and their hazards? Recently, pediatricians, psychiatrists, and other physicians, and the National Institute of Mental Health and other government and private agencies have been working to bring together all known facts.  Lysergic acid diethylamide is a man-made chemical first synthesized in 1938 from ergot alkaloids. Often called "acid" by its users, it is a mind-altering drug, classed legally as a hallucinogen.

A single ounce of LSD is enough to make 300,000 of the usual doses, each amounting to a speck, usually taken in a sugar cube or on a cookie or cracker. LSD, in an average dose, has effects that last eight to ten hours- increase of pulse and heart rate, rise in blood pressure and temperature, dilation of the pupils of the eyes, flushing or paleness of the face, sweaty palms, chills, irregular breathing, nausea, and distortion of the physical senses. Actually, the first effects of the drug may be on the physical senses. There are visual phenomena: walls appear to move, colors become more brilliant, unusual patterns unfold, flat objects become three-dimensional. 

Psychoanalysis and Psycotherapy for alcoholic patients

Psychoanalysis as a rule has produced disappointing results with alcoholics. In the view of many distinguished authorities, Alcoholics Anonymous is of first importance in the rescue and rehabilitation of alcoholics. "AA," says Dr. Ruth Fox, medical director of the National Council on Alcohol- ism, "is a pragmatic, simplified, spiritual approach to life, a prescription for living. For patients who can and will accept it, it may be the only form of therapy needed. 

There can be an immediate amelioration of symptoms as the isolated alcoholic feels that there is hope for him." Alcoholics Anonymous is an organization of individuals who have conquered or are trying to conquer their own habitual drinking and to help others with their problems.

From their own personal experiences, they have learned how to encourage and stimulate others in their desire to stop drinking. Meetings and discussions provide opportunities to air Drinking / 133 problems, and this is a most useful form of psychotherapy. The organization has branches in many communities across the country and members are welcomed wherever they may travel. 

A call to a local branch can bring immediate help. If abused, alcohol can be extremely dangerous. If used intelligently, it can have a place in the life of the healthy, well-balanced individual.

A good and simple rule for intelligent drinking is to restrict daily intake to one or two drinks, preferably long ones, at the end of the day. If alcohol is consumed at other times, it should be selective, not routine, consumption. By all means, limit the practice of lunchtime drinking and after-dinner drinking to special occasions. 

Count your drinks; limit their number; if you lose count, stop drinking. Don't order "doubles." Don't stop for "quickies" on the way home. Don't sneak drinks in the kitchen. Drink moderately, leisurely, not alone but with family or friends, to promote relaxation, sociability, a pleasant interlude after a day's hard work. 

HELP FOR THE ALCOHOLIC - who is alcoholic? symptoms and cure

Dr. Harry J. Johnson, President of the Foundation, goes on to urge, very soundly, that every heavy drinker should give himself a test to determine whether or not he is becoming an alcoholic. It's a simple test. It merely requires that the heavy drinker declare a semiannual alcoholic abstention period of not less than one week. 

If he can get through the week without unpleasant withdrawal symptoms, without a feeling of martyrdom, and with no obsessive desire to return to drinking when the rest period is over, alcoholism is not yet present. If, when time for the test period arrives, the drinker rationalizes and justifies a postponement for any reason whatever, he is entering the twilight zone of alcoholism and the point of no return may be near. Alcoholism is preventable. 

Even the heavy drinker, alert to the danger that he is traveling the road to alcoholism, often time to prevent development of the full-blown addiction and disease by limiting alcohol intake.

HELP FOR THE ALCOHOLIC

Once alcoholism has developed, the problem is difficult but not hopeless. It can be solved-and must be solved if permanent damage and possibly death to the alcoholic and incalculable damage to spouse and family as well, are to be prevented. If it is to be solved, it must be approached in no simplistic fashion. It must not be regarded as simply a form of neurosis. 

Every aspect of the problem, which means virtually every aspect of the alcoholic's life, must receive attention. An important part of the physician's job is to help the patient recognize, accept, and understand his illness. He must be made to feel not an outcast, a pariah, but a worthwhile person who has a definite sickness. 

Treatment-more properly, rehabilitation-must be multifaceted: physical, psychological, social, and spiritual.

On the physical side, for ex- ample, because an alcoholic often drinks instead of eating and may be seriously malnourished, lacking in essential vitamins, minerals and other basic nutrients, his diet must be carefully supervised. Many forms of treatment for alcoholism have been tried. There are medications which in some cases have stopped the abuse of alcohol and have prevented the complications of alcoholism. 

For example, for some well-motivated alcoholics, Antabuse, a drug that leads to uncomfortable reactions upon drinking, has proved useful. It may eliminate preoccupation with drinking, freeing the mind for other things, and giving the patient a lift through the feeling that he can live without alcohol. 

Although hypnosis has been found of limited usefulness in producing aversion to alcohol, it sometimes may help in teaching the nervous, anxious patient to relax and develop greater self-esteem. 

Alcoholism and Sexual Problems

 Almost all had sexual problems. Whatever the causative factors of alcoholism may turn out to be, one thing is clear from a practical preventive standpoint: without excessive consumption of alcohol there cannot be alcoholism. Perseverance at drinking heavy drinking is required to establish the addiction. 

Alcoholism is no sudden visitation. The person who becomes alcoholic builds up to it, and often does so quite gradually, unaware that he really is beginning to drink to excess and then that he is drinking more and more to excess. Significantly, there have been surveys of highly intelligent, heavy- drinking business executives to determine what they consider excessive drinking-and always, it appears, the definition of excessive drinking turns out to be several drinks more than the heavy drinker personally consumes.

Some of these men have indicated that they see nothing excessive in drinking as much as a fifth of whiskey a day. Unless they have specific guidelines to follow, it would appear that even intelligent people who have moved far along the road to alcoholism may not recognize the fact. In an effort to provide such guidelines, the Life Extension Foundation in New York, a nonprofit organization de- voted to improving the health of business executives through preventive measures, has produced the following for its executive clients which deserve repeating here.

 Any drinker, the Foundation suggests, can con-sider that alcoholism is approaching:

1.        If two or three years ago a half hour before dinner was set aside for a drink and now this has stretched to two hours and four drinks.

2.        If two or three years ago dinner was anticipated with pleasure and now there is little interest in food and sometimes dinner is completely omitted.

 3.       If two or three years ago cocktails at lunch were for business entertaining only and now one or two are routine.

4.        If two or three years ago weekend consumption was little more than that of weekdays but now drinking is started in the morning and continues more or less all day. 

What happens in Alcoholic drinking?

WHAT HAPPENS IN DRINKING?

There is still a widespread misconception that alcohol is a stimulant. Actually, it has exactly the opposite effect. The gay chatter of a cocktail party, for example, is not the result of drinking-induced stimulation but rather of the depressant effect alcohol has on the nervous system which, in terms of behavior, may remove inhibitions. Alcohol dulls the cerebral cortex, an area of the brain that is involved in judgment, motor coordination, and self-control.

As a result of the dulling-which, of course, will vary in degree depending upon the rate and quantity of alcohol consumption-judgment and self-control are reduced, and feelings and emotions may be expressed more freely. 

As muscular control decreases, reaction time becomes greater, so that a driver, for example, who has had several drinks, is unable to stop or swerve in an emergency as quickly as he would normally. With heavy drinking, speech becomes slurred, vision is affected, hearing is impaired, and equilibrium is lessened. Continued intake of alcohol slows the breathing rate and heart action and lowers blood pressure.

When concentration in the blood goes beyond 0.4 per cent, there may be coma and eventually death. Alcohol acts very quickly to affect thought, feeling, and behavior because it can enter the bloodstream and begin to circulate within two minutes. Unlike food, alcohol does not have to go through the process of digestion. 

Some of it is absorbed even by the stomach walls; the rest is quickly absorbed into the bloodstream through the intestinal walls. Alcohol taken on an empty stomach is especially fast-acting; when it is mixed with food, the absorption rate is less rapid. In whatever form it may be consumed-as beer, cider, whiskey, straight, mixed-alcohol's effects on the body are the same.