What Is Hemochromatosis Disease

What is hemochromatosis disease ? Hemochromatosis is an iron disorder in which the body contains only a lot of iron fat. This energy is the genetic and iron overload, if left untreated, can damage the joints, organs, and eventually fatal. Hereditary hemochromatosis forces your body to absorb a lot of iron from the food you eat. Excess iron is stored in your organs, especially in the liver, heart, and pancreas. Excess iron can be toxic to organs, which can cause life-threatening conditions such as cancer, liver cirrhosis, heart problems like cardiac arrhythmia, and diabetes or arthritis if left untreated.

Iron overload is usually caused by an inherited condition called hemochromatosis (excess iron). The genes that cause hemochromatosis are hereditary, but only a small percentage of people who have genes that have experienced serious problems are the cause of hemochromatosis. The signs and symptoms of hereditary hemochromatosis usually occur in middle age. Treatments include regular bleeding from your body. Because a large part of the body's iron is contained in red blood cells, this treatment reduces iron levels to a safe level.

Caucasians are the ones most at risk for the classic hemochromatosis type. What is hemochromatosis? More than a million Americans have genes for this guy. However, there are other combinations of genes that produce hemochromatosis regardless of one's nationality. It is estimated that as much as or more than 16 million Americans have high levels of high iron and are at risk for the same disease that occurs in people with classic-type without treatment: bone and joint, cirrhosis, liver cancer, Diabetes, hypothyroidism, hypogonadism, infertility, impotence, depression or premature death due to liver or heart failure.

There are several types of hemochromatosis. The type 1, also known as Classic Hemochromatosis (HHC), is a leading cause of iron overload. HHC (people with too much iron) absorb more iron than their daily diet. The human body cannot escape an extra iron. Over time, this excessive accumulation in large organs like the heart, liver, pancreas, joints, and pituitary. If extra iron is not removed, these organs may become ill. The untreated hemochromatosis can be lethal.

How Does The Hemochromatosis Affect Organs?

Iron plays an important role in various bodily functions, including blood formation. But too much iron is poisonous. Hepcidin, a hormone secreted by the liver, usually controls how iron is used and absorbed in the body and how excess iron is stored in various organs. In hemochromatosis, the normal role of Hepcidin is disturbed, which causes your body to absorb more iron.

This excess iron is stored in the main organs, especially in your heart. For some years, stored iron can cause severe damage that can cause organ failure and chronic diseases such as cirrhosis, diabetes, and heart failure. What is hemochromatosis? Although many people have the wrong genes that cause hemochromatosis, only about 10 percent of them experience an iron overload up to values that cause tissue and organ damage.

Hereditary hemochromatosis is not the only type of hemochromatosis. Other types include:

Juvenile hemochromatosis. This causes the same problem in young people, which causes hereditary hemochromatosis in adults. But the accumulation of iron begins earlier and symptoms usually occur between the ages of 15 to 30 years. This disorder is caused by mutations in the Hemojuvelin gene or Hepcidin.
Neonatal hemochromatosis. In this severe disorder, iron is rapidly accelerating in the liver of the developing fetus. This is considered an autoimmune disease in which the organism invades itself.
Secondary hemochromatosis. This form of the disease is not inherited and is often referred to as iron overload. People with certain types of anemia or chronic liver disease may need many blood transfusions that cause excessive iron accumulation.

Iron is an important nutrient that is found in many foods. Iron transmits oxygen (in hemoglobin) to all parts of the body. People usually absorb about 8-10% of the iron in the food they eat. People with hemochromatosis (too much iron) can absorb iron four times more than usual.

Hemochromatosis Symptoms and Signs

Some people with hereditary hemochromatosis never had any symptoms. Early signs and symptoms often overlap with other general conditions. Some patients often complain of the following, although this is not always specific indicators for hemochromatosis, and common symptoms include: joint pain, abdominal pain, fatigue, weakness, lack of energy, memory fog, Loss of sexual appetite, darkening of the skin, heart palpitations and irregular heartbeat.

Chronic fatigue and joint pain are the most common complaints of people with hemochromatosis. For this reason, a complete diagnosis is often delayed because these two symptoms are often observed in other diseases. The pain in the finger of the pointer books and the middle finger, collectively called "The Iron Fist", is the only special way for signs or symptoms of hemochromatosis. However, not everyone with HHC has.

When symptoms associated with hemochromatosis usually start in men in the late 20s to 30 years. In women, symptoms usually start about 10-15 years after they have stopped due to menopause in the menstrual cycle, birth control pills, or hysterectomy.

Hemochromatosis can be ignored by physicians who focus on treating existing diseases in patients. Many doctors still believe what they learn in medical school, which hemochromatosis is rare and appears only in older men. When Hemochromatosis is found early and treated before he can produce organ damage, a person can live a normal and healthy. Each practitioner is eligible to diagnose and order treatment of patients with hemochromatosis.

Hemochromatosis Diagnosis and Treatment

How is hemochromatosis diagnosed? Hereditary hemochromatosis can be difficult to diagnose. The initial symptoms, such as rigidity of joints and fatigue, may be due to conditions other than hemochromatosis.

Many people with this disease have no signs or symptoms other than an increase in the iron level in their blood. Hemochromatosis can be identified because abnormal blood tests are performed for other reasons or in the screening of family members of people diagnosed with the disease. Two main tests for the detection of excess iron are:

Transferrin Saturation Serum. This test measures the amount of iron that is linked to a protein (transferrin) that carries iron into the blood. The saturation values of transferrin exceeding 45% are considered too high.
Serum ferritin. This test measures the amount of iron stored in the heart. If the results of the saturation test of serum transferrin are higher than usual, your doctor will check your ferritin serum.
Since a number of other ailments can also cause an increase in ferritin, both blood tests are usually abnormal among people with this affection and are the best after repetition. This increase in one or all blood tests for iron can be found in other disorders. You may need to retest for the most accurate results.

As a rule, genetic testing is recommended for all first-degree relatives of parents, siblings, and children of anyone diagnosed with hemochromatosis. If mutations occur only in one parent, the children do not need to be tested. And then what? What is the treatment of hemochromatosis?

How to hemochromatosis treatment? Blood removal is the best way to treat hemochromatosis. Doctors can treat hereditary hemochromatosis safely and effectively by regularly removing blood from your body (phlebotomy), just as you donate blood. Some blood collection centers in the United States received permission from the Food and Drug Administration to collect this blood and use it for transfusion.

The goal of phlebotomy is to reduce the level of iron to a normal level. The amount of blood that is removed and how often it is discarded depends on your age, overall health and the severity of the iron overload. It may take a year or more to reduce the amount of iron in the body to a normal level.

Initial service schedule. Initially, you may have a pint (about 470 milliliters) of blood taken once or twice a week, usually in your hospital or in your doctor's office. When you lie on a chair, the needle is inserted into the vein in the hand. The blood flows from the needle into the tube attached to the blood bag.

Maintenance Plan. After the iron level returns to normal, the blood can be eliminated less often, usually every two to four months. Some people can maintain normal iron levels without having to take blood, and some people may need to bleed every month. The program depends on how fast the iron is formed in your body.
Treating hereditary hemochromatosis can help relieve symptoms of fatigue, abdominal pain, and dark skin. This can help prevent serious complications, such as liver disease, heart disease, and diabetes mellitus. If you already have one of these conditions, phlebotomy may slow down the progression of the disease and, in some cases, may even reverse it.

Phlebotomy cirrhosis will not reverse or improve joint pain. If you have cirrhosis, your doctor can recommend periodic screening for liver cancer. This usually involves abdominal ultrasound and blood tests. If you cannot undergo the bleeding process, because you have anemia, for example, or complications of the heart, your doctor may recommend the drug to get rid of excess iron. The drug can be injected into your body, or it can be taken as a pill. This medicine has extra iron binds, allowing your body to free the iron through urine or feces. What about treatments through the hemochromatosis diet? In this way, you can refer to the article in the article called Hemochromatosis

Diet.