deficiency
Medicinal oil reduces debilitating epileptic seizures associated with Glut1 deficiency, trial shows
Two years ago, the parents of Chloe Olivarez watched painfully as their daughter experienced epileptic seizures hundreds of times a day. The seizures, caused by a rare metabolic disease that depleted her brain of needed glucose, left Chloe nearly unresponsive, and slow to develop. Within hours, treatment with an edible oil dramatically reduced the number […]
Zinc deficiency before conception disrupts fetal development
Female mice deprived of dietary zinc for a relatively short time before conception experienced fertility and pregnancy problems and had smaller, less-developed fetuses than mice that ingested zinc during the same times, according to researchers in Penn State’s College of Agricultural Sciences. The findings have implications for human reproduction, scientists suggest. Going without zinc prior […]
Brain degeneration in Huntington’s disease caused by amino acid deficiency
Working with genetically engineered mice, Johns Hopkins neuroscientists report they have identified what they believe is the cause of the vast disintegration of a part of the brain called the corpus striatum in rodents and people with Huntington’s disease: loss of the ability to make the amino acid cysteine. They also found that disease progression […]