Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0013362 (dysarthria)
 3,768 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

A male, born on December 8, 1956, during the period when many Minamata diseases broke out in a district. His parents who ate much fish and shell fish taken in Minamata Bay suffered from the light, incomplete Minamata disease showing sensory disturbance, the constriction of the visual field, muscular weakness, etc. He weighed 3,225 gr. upon the normal birth given 10 months after pregnancy. His abnormalities were noted since his head was not stabilized on the neck even six months after the birth. Because of the delay in the development of the motor function, he became barely able to sit, stand up and begin walking at the ages of 3, 5 and 6 respectively. In 1962 (at the age of 6), his congenital Minamata disease was diagnosed in view of his clinical symptoms and epidemiological conditions. The mercury value in the hair and blood upon the birth is not known because a considerable time had elapsed after the birth when his mercury poisoning was discovered. However, the clinical symptoms included intelligence disturbance, character change, dysarthria, primitive reflexes, strabismus, hypersalivation, ataxia and hyperkinesia, indicating a typical congenital Minamata disease. Until he became 13 years old (1969) or so, his mental and motor function developed, both gradually. In the same year, he was admitted to a special class for the handicapped. EEG examination revealed that there was a slow alpha activity in the basic pattern and that 6 Hz positive spike was found in the sleep EEG. The constriction of the visual field was classified through examination.2+
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PMID:[Congenital Minamata disease accompanied by arachnoid cyst (author's transl)]. 709 64

Minamata disease (M. d.) is methylmercury (MeHg) poisoning that occurred in humans who ingested fish and shellfish contaminated by MeHg discharged in waste water from a chemical plant (Chisso Co. Ltd.). It was in May 1956, that M. d. was first officially "discovered" in Minamata City, south-west region of Japan's Kyushu Island. The marine products in Minamata Bay displayed high levels of Hg contamination (5.61 to 35.7 ppm). The Hg content in hair of patients, their family and inhabitants of the Shiranui Sea coastline were also detected at high levels of Hg (max. 705 ppm). Typical symptoms of M. d. are as follows: sensory disturbances (glove and stocking type), ataxia, dysarthria, constriction of the visual field, auditory disturbances and tremor were also seen. Further, the fetus was poisoned by MeHg when their mothers ingested contaminated marine life (named congenital M. d.). The symptom of patients were serious, and extensive lesions of the brain were observed. While the number of grave cases with acute M. d. in the initial stage was decreasing, the numbers of chronic M. d. patients who manifested symptoms gradually over an extended period of time was on the increase. For the past 36 years, of the 2252 patients who have been officially recognized as having M. d., 1043 have died. This paper also discusses the recent remaining problems.
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PMID:Minamata disease: methylmercury poisoning in Japan caused by environmental pollution. 773 58

Organic mercury, especially methylmercury, poisoning causes chronic neurological disease predominantly affecting the brain. There have been documented exposures from eating fish from contaminated waters in Japan and in northwestern Ontario and in Iraq from eating bread made from seed wheat treated with methylmercuric fungicide. The neurological disease is called Minamata disease in Japan. Visual field constriction due to involvement of the calcarine cortex, sensory disturbance due to involvement of the somatosensory cortex, and cerebellar ataxia due to involvement of granule cell neurons of the cerebellum are common and characteristic features due to methylmercury poisoning. Other neurological features include dysarthria, postural and action tremor, cognitive impairment, and hearing loss and dysequilibrium. In contrast, peripheral nerve disease is more characteristic of inorganic mercury intoxication. Similarly, psychosis is more typical of exposure to inorganic mercury, which has been documented in the felt hat industry ("mad hatter"). Laboratory tests (e.g., on blood and hair and toenail samples) are of limited value in the assessment of chronic neurological disease due to mercury poisoning because they may not reflect remote neuronal injury due to mercury. Methylmercury also causes injury to fetal brains during development. There is no effective treatment.
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PMID:Chronic Neurological Disease Due to Methylmercury Poisoning. 3027 52