Health news from around the world.

When a toenail is curved and so greatly thickened that it looks more like a claw, we are dealing with a condition medically known as onychogryphosis.

This nail deformity occurs, according to Cutis (34:480), if toenails are not trimmed often enough and are allowed to grow to too great a length. Pressure from socks and shoes on the ends of the long nails bends them downwards and exerts leverage on their roots, irritating them and causing them to produce much thicker nails than usual. Since claw nails are difficult to cut, they tend to be further neglected and become still thicker and longer. Not surprisingly, therefore, most physicians believe them to be irreversible.

A case reported in Cutis, however, demonstrates that claw nails can be reversed. To achieve this, the affected nails must be cut back and trimmed to relieve the nail roots of leverage. This requires professional help repeatedly. Also, until a new nail has formed, the feet must be rested most of the time.

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As we have reported before, a huge number of unnecessary deaths from colon cancer could be prevented if people routinely had their stools tested for blood for three days every year.

One can easily perform the test by oneself at home with a kit that is mailed to a laboratory. The kits, instructions for use, and mailers can be obtained from most doctors. If any of the three tests turn out to be positive, the person is advised to avoid red meat, raw vegetables, and iron-containing medicines for another three days, after which the testing is repeated. If any of the second series of tests is positive, the person is advised to visit a doctor for further investigation, such as X-rays and inspection of the colon through an instrument.

By these means about 95 percent of colorectal cancers can be detected early enough to be cured. The latest news on this appeared in the New England Journal of Medicine (312:1448), which mentioned another precaution that needs to be taken. To avoid “false negative” results, vitamin C supplements should not be taken for a few days before and during the time when one is testing the stools for blood. In other words, taking vitamin C during the tests can make it appear that one’s stools are free of blood when, in fact, they are not, so that a diagnosis of cancer can be missed.

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A Newly Recognized Cause of Suddenly Worsening Hypertension

Hypertension tends to progress with age, but usually does so gradually. Suddenly worsening hypertension, according to Modern Medicine (50#2:276), can, among other things, be caused by mood-elevating drugs that are used in the treatment of mental depression.

Even though these medications do not usually raise the blood pressure in otherwise healthy persons, existing hypertension tends to be worsened by them and may rise rapidly out of control. To avoid this problem, hypertensive persons taking anti-depressant medication should monitor the blood pressure more closely than usual, and, if necessary, take extra antihypertensive medication.

Nosebleeds

In adults, nosebleeds are much more likely to be symptomatic of serious conditions than they are in children. Apart from lesions in the nose, conditions such as overdosage with certain drugs (e.g: blood thinners such as Dicumarol), diabetes, blood disorders, and kidney failure must be looked for in a careful medical examination. One of the most common causes of nosebleeds in adults is hypertension, or high blood pressure (BP).

Since anyone who has just lost a lot of blood could be in shock, and thereby have a lower BP than usual, the Journal of Laryngology and Otology (98:277) recommends that the BP be taken several times after the patient has fully recovered. In this way, cases of hypertension that have been responsible for nosebleeding will not be missed.

Special Risk in Hypertension Newly Defined

Fever not only makes sick persons flushed and sweaty, but it can markedly lower their blood pressure too. This, no doubt, helps to account for the weakness and lightheadedness which usually accompany fever. Not recognized until now, this fall in the blood pressure adds to the effect of medicines that lower blood pressure and thereby poses a special risk for people with hypertension. According to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine (302:865), a patient who had regularly been taking two antihypertensive drugs developed a cold with fever and became so weak that he was unable to get up and walk without extreme faintness and staggering. At that time, his blood pressure was found to be excessively low. Not bothered by this any more after the fever went away, he again experienced this problem the next night when the fever returned.

Sudden reductions in blood pressure of this kind could result in bone-breaking falls or bring on strokes or heart attacks. Accordingly, people taking medicines for hypertension should not get out of bed when they are suffering from fever unless there is someone in attendance.

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Anorexia nervosa is a dangerous illness brought on by abnormally depleted diets, and its victims are usually young women who have an obsessive desire to be thin. Typically, a young woman loses so much weight that she becomes skeletal in appearance, and eventually, so weak that she has to remain in bed. The weakness can be so profound that eating enough to remain alive becomes progressively more difficult so that the patient may ultimately die.

With the current emphasis on slimness, anorexia nervosa has become much more common and may now affect about 0.4 percent (one in 250) of adolescent females in Western countries, the Annals of Internal Medicine (102:49) reports.

Even though its origin may be largely “psychological,” it must not be taken lightly because, according to the Annals, the death rate can be as high as 30 percent. The cause of death, a sudden heart rhythm disturbance, is similar, if not identical, to that seen in people taking a liquid protein diet.

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Certain medications, the American Family Physician (32#2:250) reports, interfere with our ability to store information in our memories and quickly recall it on demand. Older people, many of whom already have this problem, tend to be much more severely affected.

The drugs in question share a common mechanism of action—they block production of a substance known as acetyl choline in the tissues. Acetyl choline is responsible for many functions in the body, including memory functions of the brain. Since production of this substance naturally declines in many older people to the extent that the memory becomes impaired, drugs that interfere with acetyl choline production tend to make an older person’s memory very much worse. The drugs that do this include many medications used for insomnia, for calming the nerves, for reducing tremors, or for decreasing the production of gastric acid.

Since saliva and mucus secretion also depend upon acetyl choline’s presence in the tissues, all of these drugs additionally produce dryness of the mouth. Whenever possible, therefore, older people with memory problems should try to do without any drug that causes dryness.

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