Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0024523 (malabsorption)
 7,319 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Diarrhea affects approximately 330,000 travelers from industrialized nations each year. Diarrhea is a reflection of inadequate hygiene or waste disposal in the countries visited, usually developing countries. The greatest incidence occurs in 20-29 years olds who take the most dietary risks. Some foods that pose the greatest risk in descending order include raw oysters, steak tartare, ice cubes, washed vegetables, cold milk, puddings, and sandwiches with mixed fillings. 40% of all travelers have a self limiting and rarely grave diarrheal illness caused by local enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC). Following an incubation period of 5-9 days, symptoms appear (cramps, fever, and 10 or more diarrheal episodes/day). 5% are infected with Giardia lamblia and 4% with Entamoeba histolytica. Giardiasis occurs worldwide and is characterized by grumbling diarrhea, cramps, and flatulence. E. histolytica causes a severe illness characterized by colitis with bloody stools, anorexia, malaise, sweats, weight loss, and epigastric pain. Only 10-100 Shigella bacteria are required by cause shigellosis. Symptoms include blood and mucus in the diarrhea and malaise. A traveler who ingests food with 100,000 Salmonella bacteria in it most likely will fall ill 48 hours after eating the contaminated food. Typhoid and paratyphoid fevers have an incubation period of about 12 days and may be fatal. Initial symptoms consists of headache, malaise, fever, and pain and 2 weeks later bloody diarrhea appears. Additional common diarrheal illnesses include cholera, post infectious tropical malabsorption, and those caused by Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Campylobacter species. Another disease common in areas of poor hygiene is poliomyelitis with fever, sore throat, and headache present in mild forms. If the virus invades the central nervous system, however, paralysis occurs.
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PMID:Exotic diarrhoeal problems and poliomyelitis. 259 59

Enteric virus infections were studied in two children with congenital T-cell immunodeficiency. One patient (LC) with cartilage hair hypoplasia developed persistent diarrhea and malabsorption following acute gastroenteritis. Electron microscope (EM) examination of feces revealed excretion of rotavirus for more than 450 days with concurrent astrovirus infection for at least 225 days, associated with the persistent diarrhea. Prolonged infection with poliovirus type 2 following vaccination had previously been noted in this patient. The second patient (DT), with the CHARGE association and DiGeorge syndrome, had two episodes of loose stools. EM of fecal extracts demonstrated rotavirus excretion for at least 66 days following the initial episode. Virus-specific immune responses were assayed in these two patients. LC showed a poor serum neutralizing antibody response to polio vaccination, no detectable antibody response (by immune EM and ELISA) to rotavirus, and no detectable antibody response to astrovirus (by immune EM). Rotavirus specific cell mediated immunity was also not detectable. DT showed no detectable serum antibody response to rotavirus (by ELISA). Rotavirus isolates from both patients were found to be group A viruses and were further analyzed by polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Atypical genome profiles, with multiple additional bands between segments 3-7 of the normal rotavirus profile, were obtained throughout the course of each illness, including the earliest specimens available (day 41, LC; day 7, DT). These results indicate that chronic virus infection of the gut can occur in patients with T-cell immunodeficiency. Such chronic infection may be associated with persistent diarrhea and can cause considerable problems of management.
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PMID:Chronic enteric virus infection in two T-cell immunodeficient children. 283 34