Posted on 03/15/2003 5:29:54 AM PST by aculeus
A four-year-old girl has been diagnosed as having a rare inherited condition where sufferers constantly smell of rotten fish.
The child's condition was triggered when fish was included in her diet from the age of nine months.
According to the journal Medicina Clinica, it is the first genetic case of 'Fish Odour Syndrome' to be documented in Spain.
It is estimated there have been just 200 cases seen worldwide since the condition was first observed in the 1970s.
Although doctors say it could affect five out of every 10,000 people.
The syndrome often has very negative psychological effects on sufferers: social exclusion that leads to depression, low self esteem and anxiety.
Dr Luis Sierrasesumaga, director of the Department of Paediatrics at the Clinic University of Navarra, North Spain, said: "The problem can be so serious that some patients can get to their teens without stepping out of their homes because of rejection.
"A number of victims choose jobs where they have to be on their own. Some smoke a lot to disguise the smell."
Diet changes
Trimethylaminuria is a metabolic illness where the liver cannot metabolise trimethylamine, a chemical produced by naturally occurring intestinal bacteria properly.
It can be triggered by a kidney or liver infection or the excess intake of the chemical choline, which the body turns into trimethylamine.
There is no cure, but diets avoiding foods that contain choline, like salt water fish, egg yolk, peas, liver, kidney, and legumes, can have a degree of success.
Levels of trimethylamine in urine above 15 or 20 mg indicate a patient is suffering from trimethylaminuria. Trimethylamine is excreted in the breath, sweat and the urine itself.
Dr Antonio Baldellou is an expert in metabolic diseases at the Children's Hospital Miguel Servet in Zaragoza, Spain.
He said: "The excess of trimethylamine in the urine produces the characteristic smell that the patients give off and as a consequence it affects their quality of living."
Dr Baldellou called for research funding for the condition, and said it qualified for European funding because it is such a rare disease.
Increased recognition
Fish Odour Syndrome can vary from individual to individual.
Assessment can be inaccurate and it can take a long time for patients to be diagnosed.
But because information about the condition is becoming more available to the public more people are recognising that they suffer from this syndrome.
Dr Steve Mitchell from the Imperial College London has published several studies on the subject.
He does not agree with Dr Baldellou and says that the 'Fish Odour Syndrome' should not be considered as a rare disease any more.
"New cases are continually being recognised because of a greater awareness of this metabolic condition.
"In terms of frequency of occurrence, it appears that it should no longer be regarded as a 'rare' disorder but more appropriately as an 'uncommon' one."
Story from BBC NEWS:
Published: 2003/03/15 00:54:51
© BBC MMIII
I resemble that remark!
Great to hear from you! Greetings to Darlie!
Shucks, I jest got a nose for news.
Omega-3 fatty acids help make the blood less sticky, so it is less likely to forms clots which contribute to heart attacks. Omega-3 also helps the nervous system development and can keep the immune system from attacking the body's joints in arthritis.
Oils: Peanut, Olive, Marine, and Bitter Almond
Marine Oils
In order to extract the oil, raw fish is placed into a continuous cooker and heated to a temperature of 95 C. This temperature is reached by heating the meat directly, or indirectly, with steam. Heating helps to coagulate proteins in the meat (Bimbo, 1990). As the proteins coagulate, the heating also helps recover the fat and water from the fish meat (Pigott, 1967).
The cooked meat is collected and conveyed to screw presses (Bimbo, 1990). The presses help to remove any remaining oil and water from the fish. This resulting liquid is called pressliquor. The pressliquor is sent to undergo a combination of decanters and separators.
Decanters are used to separate solid fish meat from the liquid. The pressliquor is pumped into cylindrical bowls and conveyers that rotate. The rotation of the decanter helps to force the solids to the outside of the bowl where they are collected. The remaining liquid continues through the process.
After decanting, the pressliquor is pumped through a separator. The high speed rotation of the separator plates result in the separation of the oil from the water.
EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid) are the two principal fatty acids found in fish and are known as omega-3 fatty acids. DHA can also be obtained from other marine sources, such as algae (algal oil). EPA and DHA are polyunsaturated fats ("good" fats, as opposed to saturated fats which increase the risk of heart disease.) The body has a limited ability to manufacture both EPA and DHA by converting the essential fatty acid, alpha-linolenic acid (ALA) found in flaxseed oil, canola oil or walnuts. But this ability is lessened if the diet is too high in omega-6 fatty acids from vegetable oils from corn, sunflower, soybean or safflower.The bottleneck is this limited ability. Simply increasing the precursor won't increase the product.
The very person with whom Taubes chose to end his article, Stanfords John Farquhar, was as livid as Reaven. Taubes said that Farquhar had sent Taubes "an e-mail message asking the not-entirely-rhetorical question, Can we get the low-fat proponents to apologize?" On this powerful note, the article ended.As a biological scientist with a major portion of my graduate training in human nutrition/nutritional biology, I have to agree with Farquhar and the author of this article.
But its Taubes whom Farquhar wants to apologize. "I was greatly offended by how Gary Taubes tricked us all into coming across as supporters of the Atkins diet," he wrote in an e-mail he broadcast to reporters and to colleagues who were stunned that Farquhar might actually hold the beliefs Taubes attributed to him. "We are against the Atkins Diet," he wrote, speaking for himself and Reaven. "I told him [Taubes] there is the minor degree of merit" to the idea that "people are getting fatter because too much emphasis is being placed on just cutting fats," Farquhar told me. But "once I gave him that opening -- bingo -- he was off and running, even though I said about six times that this is not the cause of the obesity epidemic."
Your right, we smell like fresh cut Kentucky Blue grass.
Oh...Fish heads, fish heads, rolly polly fish heads...
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