Word: gout
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...Although gout is no longer caricatured as a comical disease caused by high living and swilling port wine, it is still regarded as an affliction almost exclusively of adult men, many of whom like to think that it is associated with above-average intellectual powers. Maybe so. But the latest medical research, presented last week in Baltimore at the annual meeting of the American Rheumatism Association, shows that at least some cases of gout are closely related to a devastating inherited disease. The malady occurs only in male children, and is marked by cerebral palsy, uncontrollable twitching of the hands...
After centuries of speculation, most of it idle and all of it profitless, typical gout was recognized in 1931 as an "inborn error of metabolism," indicating that something was wrong with the patients' enzyme systems. But what? Although it was easy to show that victims had an excess of uric acid in their blood, the metabolic pathways by which it got there remained hidden in the biochemical jungle. Then in Baltimore, Pediatrician William L. Nyhan Jr. and Dr. Michael Lesch saw two retarded brothers with the palsy and biting symptoms. It has since been learned that a substance...
...most are in institutions. All are boys, indicating that the enzyme defect is transmitted, like hemophilia, through the mother on an X chromosome, although she appears unaffected. Researchers at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases checked to see whether the same enzyme deficiency could explain typical adult gout. It does in only a few cases, they reported last week. In one family, two gout victims have only about 1% of the normal PRT; in another family, it is about...
Although these findings help to explain only a minority of cases of gout, they show that it is not a simple, one-cause, one-effect disorder. At least two and probably more inherited enzyme defects are involved, and researchers are now trying to track these down. For the foreseeable future, gout victims will have to be satisfied with what relief they can get from drugs and watching their diet. But they may also solace themselves with an occasional glass of port wine or a highball...
...APPELLE BARBRA (Columbia). Rue Streisand runs into Place Pigalle on her latest disk, which takes its flavor from an assortment of French songs (Autumn Leaves, Clopln dopant) arranged by Michael Legrand and sung, partly in English partly in French, by the Berlitz bombe. It may be gout americain, but it is still champagne...