Your Food Directly Affects Your Health and It Can Cost Your Health

What we eat have a lot of effect on our health. What you eat or drink play a whole lot of role in your life, and you might not believe this until you are scheduled for an emergency procedure or you find yourself at the ER. Today, I want to share the story of when improper dieting gives the expected health result.

April 2011, A 45 year old man who was found on the floor naked was brought into the ER. He was a construction worker and he had financial issues so in his bid to make his life better, he resorted to sport betting but since the odds were against him, he wasn't winning. Because he had gluten sensitivity, he would eat cheap calorie dense foods even when he had to work as a construction worker.

Soon he noticed his skin began to turn brown in the area of his face, neck and back palm, it also began to peel. Soon he became disoriented, he was muttering, and confused. He naked himself and laid on the street cursing passerby and talking to himself. His was rushed to the emergency unit for care.

In the ICU, he was not able to answer questions including his name, he was disoriented, and he was hallucinating as he reacted to things that he was seeing and hearing which others didn't. For the doctors, there were two suspect which could either be substance abuse or primary psychotic disorder. If it was the former, then it could either be illicit substance use, use of prescription drug, or withdrawal syndrome, while for the later it could be Schizophrenia, Bipolar disorder, Depression with psychosis, and delusional disorder. Although this two might be the possible suspect, there are a long list of conditions that could cause this symptoms including Endocrine disease, metabolic conditions (liver failure, kidney failure), infectious disease, inflammation, tumors, autoimmune disease and many more.

The doctor for clarity decided to do a host of test including normal tests, Blood Count, Electrolyte, Blood glucose, Lipid profile, Liver enzyme, liver function, kidney function, urine microscopy, Urine culture EKG, EEG, and Abdominal Ultrasound but even after all these tests, they all came back normal and this gave a better chance that it was a mental health condition. In the hospital, after 3 days he began to suffer from diarrhea, and vomiting, with low blood pressure.

A CT scan of the head was carried out and it was seen that there was abnormalities in the cerebral cortex with diffused spots around the cerebral ventricles. With his symptoms a test to confirm the amount of N-methylnicotinamide was done and it was showed from the urine test that the patient had low N-methylnicotinamide which confirmed that the patient was suffering from Pellagra which is a condition that occurs as a result of Vitamin B3 or Niacin deficiency.

It showed that although Niacin is available in almost all food from meat, Nuts and so on, the patient lacked it and this was as a result of the type of food he consumed. Niacin is important in the body a it is converted to NAD after it enters into the small intestine and it is responsible for helping other enzymes to convert food to energy for movement, thought process and it helps to repair damaged DNA. The food he was eaten was low in vitamin B2, and B6 (tryptophan) that could be converted to Niacin just as it was lacking vitamin B3 itself and this led to Pellagra.

Symptoms of Pellagra are in 4 Ds which includes Dermatitis, Diarrhea, Dementia, and it could lead to death. The patient was treated immediately with niacin acid, vitamins B and C, and glutamin. With treatment, his mental status began to improve and his health got better. He was able to communicate and his skin color returned to normal.