Editor's note: Those who have kids with Down syndrome may consider nutritional intervention in addition to conventional assistance.  The editor has heard at least one mother saying that nutrition intervention helps her Down syndrome child.

News summary:

A new mice study by Stanford University indicates that an old useless drug may actually help patients with Down syndrome improve their learning ability and memory.  The study published Feb. 25 in the advance online edition of Nature Neuroscience also found that once the therapeutic effect of pentylenetetrazole, or PT is established, it can last for up to two months after the treatment is discontinued.

Craig Garner and Fabian Fernandez from the Stanford University School of Medicine and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital fed mice with Down syndrome symptomes milk with PTZ for 17 days, subjected the treated mice to two tests and found that mice treated with PTZ performed as well as wild mice without Down syndrome.

PTZ has not been approved by the government for any medical use.  High doses of PTZ can cause seizure.  The researchers say the drug did not improve mental capacity in those healthy mice.  They say further human trials are needed to determine if PTZ has the same effect on patients with Down syndrome.

Dow syndrome, the leading cause of mental retardation, affects more than 300,000 people nationwide in the U.S.   About 5,000 children are born with Down syndrome in the United States each year.  The condition is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21. Children with this condition have high risk of heart disease, leukemia and early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

Read a full report on the study Old drug may help Down syndrome patients

The following questions and answers on Down syndrome cited from a number of federal agencies are published here for those who want to know more about the condition.

What is Down syndrome?

Down syndrome is set of mental and physical symptoms that result from having an extra copy of Chromosome 21.

Normally, a fertilized egg has 23 pairs of chromosomes.   In most people with Down syndrome, there is an extra copy of Chromosome 21 (also called trisomy 21 because there are three copies of this chromosome instead of two), which changes the body’s and brain’s normal development.
 

What is the prevalence of Down syndrome?

Down syndrome, the most commonly identified cause of mental retardation, occurs in about 1 in 800 births.

(The mother’s age may be a big risk factor for Down syndrome.  The rate of Down syndrome is 1 in 1600 among babies born to women aged 20, 1 in 1000 among those born to 30 year old women, and 1 in 90 among those born to 540 year old woman, added by foodconsumer.org)

What are the signs and symptoms of Down syndrome?

Even though people with Down syndrome may have some physical and mental features in common, symptoms of Down syndrome can range from mild to severe.   Usually, mental development and physical development are slower in people with Down syndrome than in those without the condition.

Mental retardation is a disability that causes limits on intellectual abilities and adaptive behaviors (conceptual, social, and practical skills people use to function in everyday lives).   Most people with Down syndrome have IQs that fall in the mild to moderate range of mental retardation.   They may have delayed language development and slow motor development.

Some common physical signs of Down syndrome include:

    * Flat face with an upward slant to the eye, short neck, and abnormally shaped ears

    * Deep crease in the palm of the hand

    * White spots on the iris of the eye

    * Poor muscle tone, loose ligaments

    * Small hands and feet

There are a variety of other health conditions that are often seen in people who have Down syndrome, including:

    * Congenital heart disease

    * Hearing problems

    * Intestinal problems, such as blocked small bowel or esophagus

    * Celiac disease

    * Eye problems, such as cataracts

    * Thyroid dysfunctions

    * Skeletal problems

    * Dementia—similar to Alzheimer’s
 

What are the risk factors for Down syndrome?

Despite many years of research to identify risk factors associated with Down syndrome, only one factor, advanced maternal age, has been well established.

Previous studies of risk factors for Down syndrome have pooled all cases regardless of parental origin or timing of the chromosome error. With new DNA technology and chromosome 21-specific genetic markers, determining the parental origin of the chromosome error and the timing of that error during meiosis is possible. [Meiosis is the special process of cell division that creates egg and sperm cells so that each has half the number of chromosomes normally found in other cells in the body.]

Younger mothers (<35 years) who smoke and have meiotic II error are at an increased risk of having children with Down syndrome. The combined use of cigarettes and oral contraceptives increased the risk even further.
 

Who is at risk for Down syndrome?

The chance of having a baby with Down syndrome increases as a woman gets older—from about 1 in 1,250 for a woman who gets pregnant at age 25, to about 1 in 100 for a woman who gets pregnant at age 40.   But, most babies with Down syndrome are born to women under age 35 because more younger women have babies.

Because the chances of having a baby with Down syndrome increase with the age of the mother, many health care providers recommend that women over age 35 have prenatal testing for the condition.   Testing the baby before it is born to see if he or she is likely to have Down syndrome allows parents and families to prepare for the baby’s special needs.

Parents who have already have a baby with Down syndrome or who have abnormalities in their own chromosome 21 are also at higher risk for having a baby with Down Syndrome.

Once the baby is born, a blood test can confirm whether the baby has Down syndrome.

Do only older women give birth to babies with Down syndrome?

Researchers have established that the likelihood that a reproductive cell will contain an extra copy of chromosome 21 increases dramatically as a woman ages. Therefore, an older mother is more likely than a younger mother to have a baby with Down syndrome, but older mothers account for only about 9% of all live births each year and 25% of Down syndrome births.
 

What is the treatment for Down syndrome?

Down syndrome is not a condition that can be cured. However, early intervention can help many people with Down syndrome live productive lives well into adulthood.

Children with Down syndrome can often benefit from speech therapy, occupational therapy, and exercises for gross and fine motor skills. They might also be helped by special education and attention at school.   Many children can integrate well into regular classes at school.   For more information about treatments for Down syndrome, visit one of the Web sites provided below or ask your health care provider.
 

Can people with Down syndrome receive proper care at home?

Home-based care and community living give them the opportunity to socialize and benefit from such interactions.
 

Should all children with Down syndrome be placed in special education classrooms?

While federal laws have been established to insure that all handicapped children have access to public education, children with Down syndrome can and have been included into a regular classroom.