Defective heart development, effects

It is now believed that physical activity has a more positive role in reducing fat in an obese person. Drugs used for obesity, fenfluramine and dextrofenfluramine, were licensed and later withdrawn from the market because of the incidence of pulmonary hypotension and heart valve defects in patients. The drugs, that are under development are leptin, cholecystokinin promoters, and troglitazone. At present, there are no safe drugs that are effective in the treatment of obesity. All one can usefully say to the obese patient is, stick to the diet, keep jogging, and seek medical advice. 

There is no information on health effects in people who eat food or drink water contaminated with carbon disulfide. Animals fed food that contained carbon disulfide developed liver and heart disease, and some showed abnormal behavior. These amounts, however, were very much higher than those that occur in drinking water supplies. When pregnant animals received large doses of carbon disulfide in their diet, some of the newborns died or had birth defects. 

Perhaps the most striking illustration of the pervasive developmental effects of thyroid hormones is provided by children with severe thyroid hormone deficiency from early childhood, a condition termed cretinism. This may either be endemic in regions of severe iodine deficiency or sporadic due to failure of the thyroid to develop normally or defects in the synthesis of thyroid hormone. Affected children are dwarfed with short extremities, have mental retardation, and are inactive and listless. Other manifestations include facial puffiness, enlarged tongue, dry and doughy skin, slow heart rate, and decreased body temperature. Eor full recovery, treatment of patients with cretinism must be initiated before these florid features are apparent. Thus, pregnant women in areas of endemic cretinism due to iodine deficiency are supplemented with iodine and aU newborns are screened for thyroid hormone deficiency in many developed nations. 

---