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The Bronze Killer
"I had a husband in a million," says Marie Warder of Richmond, "He was big, strong, athletic. He had a permanent tan that singled him out. Then at age 42 he began to exhibit the classic signs of diabetes and suffered a change of personality. He lost his memory and his body hair. The doctors gave him only weeks to live.
"It was absolutely a miracle that we ran into one of the world authorities on hemochromatosis, Professor T. Bothwell of South Africa. He could diagnose the disease because there's a high incidence of iron overload among South African blacks due to their cooking methods and their practice of brewing beer in iron pots. He started treatments that saved my husband's life.
"I became interested in the disease and formed the Canadian Hemochromatosis Society in 1982. I guess I'm a bit of an upstart. I'm not a doctor. But the information about this disease has to be made available at a level that is readily understandable to the public. "You see, when one takes iron, everybody should have some sort of technique in the bowel to regulate the elimination of iron. When you have two genes for hemochromatosis you lack the ability to rid the system of excess iron. Over time the iron settles in a vital organ, usually in the liver. It destroys or damages the organ in which it is stored. When it enters the pancreas, you get what has been known as bronze diabetes.
"My book will be called The Bronze Killer (Self-published $12.95, Soules distributing) because of this tan that never fades. It can also cause a crippling form of arthritis, impotence and less libido in men. It is also a cause of premature menopause in women.
"The average family doctor still believes hemochromatosis is a rare disease. The research that's being done isn't filtering through. It wasn't until 1984 that I found a Canadian doctor who was doing any research. That's Dr. Valberg, Dean of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario. In Macleans magazine he has estimated there are approximately 75,000 Canadians afflicted with hemochromotosis.
"The numbers are rising rapidly because it's a genetically transferred disease. There are now about 32 million people in the U.S. who carry the gene for the disease. So far we only have figures for Caucasians but it appears it's especially prevalent in the French, Dutch, Germans, Scandinavians and the British.
"Now we're reaching the stage where we have little children with it. There are children in the Vancouver Children's Hospital with the disease. It's not fatal if it's treated. But how many people have died of hemochromotosis because it hasn't been diagnosed?
"Everyone who goes in for a checkup should be checked for too much iron as well as too little iron. I hope an iron-profile will become standard practice for medical check-ups. And I want to see a warning label on iron supplements. I have hundreds of recorded cases of women who cannot have children because when they started having menstrual problems, they were put on iron supplements.
"I've been a voice crying in the wilderness for nine years. Now several other people in the U.S. want to do a book. People are slowly starting to realize that potentially hemochromatosis could be a greater threat than AIDS."
[BCBW Summer 1988]
"It was absolutely a miracle that we ran into one of the world authorities on hemochromatosis, Professor T. Bothwell of South Africa. He could diagnose the disease because there's a high incidence of iron overload among South African blacks due to their cooking methods and their practice of brewing beer in iron pots. He started treatments that saved my husband's life.
"I became interested in the disease and formed the Canadian Hemochromatosis Society in 1982. I guess I'm a bit of an upstart. I'm not a doctor. But the information about this disease has to be made available at a level that is readily understandable to the public. "You see, when one takes iron, everybody should have some sort of technique in the bowel to regulate the elimination of iron. When you have two genes for hemochromatosis you lack the ability to rid the system of excess iron. Over time the iron settles in a vital organ, usually in the liver. It destroys or damages the organ in which it is stored. When it enters the pancreas, you get what has been known as bronze diabetes.
"My book will be called The Bronze Killer (Self-published $12.95, Soules distributing) because of this tan that never fades. It can also cause a crippling form of arthritis, impotence and less libido in men. It is also a cause of premature menopause in women.
"The average family doctor still believes hemochromatosis is a rare disease. The research that's being done isn't filtering through. It wasn't until 1984 that I found a Canadian doctor who was doing any research. That's Dr. Valberg, Dean of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario. In Macleans magazine he has estimated there are approximately 75,000 Canadians afflicted with hemochromotosis.
"The numbers are rising rapidly because it's a genetically transferred disease. There are now about 32 million people in the U.S. who carry the gene for the disease. So far we only have figures for Caucasians but it appears it's especially prevalent in the French, Dutch, Germans, Scandinavians and the British.
"Now we're reaching the stage where we have little children with it. There are children in the Vancouver Children's Hospital with the disease. It's not fatal if it's treated. But how many people have died of hemochromotosis because it hasn't been diagnosed?
"Everyone who goes in for a checkup should be checked for too much iron as well as too little iron. I hope an iron-profile will become standard practice for medical check-ups. And I want to see a warning label on iron supplements. I have hundreds of recorded cases of women who cannot have children because when they started having menstrual problems, they were put on iron supplements.
"I've been a voice crying in the wilderness for nine years. Now several other people in the U.S. want to do a book. People are slowly starting to realize that potentially hemochromatosis could be a greater threat than AIDS."
[BCBW Summer 1988]
Submitted on December 9, 2003 in By David.
