Word: vitamins
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...support it, the skin begins to lose elasticity and sag. Loss of fat around the eyes gives them a sunken look, and the face starts to wrinkle in what starvation experts call the old-man syndrome. The other principal form of starvation, kwashiorkor, is largely a protein-vitamin-mineral deficiency. Its most common symptom: swollen legs and ankles, caused by fluid leaking from blood vessels into the body...
Within weeks after refeeding begins, even those adults who were on the verge of death will have largely recovered. But children, especially those under five, can carry the scars for life. They can go blind from lack of vitamin A. They may never achieve their full height. Girls may never be able to safely bear children because of malformed pelvises. And mental function is often impaired. "Even when they are fed and back on their feet, you'll have a generation of kids with a considerable degree of retardation," says Michael D'Adamo of Catholic Relief Services...
THERE WOULD BE NO CHANGE IN THE TASTE OF THE daily bread, but the addition of folic acid, a valuable B vitamin, to flour, breads and baked goods, as recommended by an advisory panel of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, could prevent a lot of misery. Just a smidgen of B, the group reports, could reduce the risk of neural-tube birth defects...
...with most of the brain missing or the spinal column incompletely closed. Reflecting recent studies, many doctors advise that women planning pregnancy consume 0.4 mg of folic acid daily -- about double their average intake -- by eating more leafy green vegetables, citrus fruits, beans and fortified cereals or by taking vitamin pills. But many pregnancies are unplanned, and women do not realize that they are expecting until it is too late for supplements to do much good. Before approving the recommendation, the FDA must weigh whether the B-fortified food would have harmful side effects...
Warfarin, known in North America by its trade name Coumadin, works by blocking Vitamin K-de-pendent factors involved in clotting activation. But because warfarin slows clotting, the drug can be dangerous to patients prone to ulcers or head injuries, which can cause life-threatening internal bleeding...