From foodconsumer.org
Down syndrome: Questions and Answers
By FC/USGOV
Feb 26, 2007 - 9:41:06 AM
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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.