Posts Tagged ‘nutritional deficiency diseases’
Bone Diseases – Rickets
Illness caused by a nutritional deficiency, characterized by skeletal deformities. Rickets is caused by a decrease in the mineralization of bone and cartilage due to low levels of calcium and phosphorus in the blood. Vitamin D is essential for maintaining normal levels of calcium and phosphorus.
Rickets classic deficiency disease of infancy characterized by inadequate development or weakening of the bones, is caused by an insufficient amount of vitamin D in the diet, or certain diseases that prevent absorption of calcium salts in excessive removal kidney calcium and phosphorus or insufficient solar ultraviolet radiation, which blocks the conversion in the skin of 7-dehidroesteroles, such as 7-dehydrocholesterol and ergosterol, causing vitamin D2 (ergocalciferol) and D3 (cholecalciferol), respectively.
In adults, vitamin D deficiency manifests as osteomalacia (softening of bones), disorders due to inadequate bone mineralization. In children there is an additional failure of mineralization of growth cartilage at the ends of bones. The new bone is prone to warp inadequate. The type of skeletal deformity depends largely on the child’s age when there is deficiency of vitamin D.
In general, deformed ankles and wrists and are forming bumps on the ribs called rachitic rosary, the head is enlarged and the chest is narrow. A child who has not yet learned to walk develop spinal deformities, whereas a child who develops them walking legs. The nervous system also undergoes changes, affected children are irritable, have difficulty sleeping and excessive sweating. The alterations produced in the muscles causes the belly bulge characteristic of this disease.