What is Wilson's Disease

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What is Wilson‘s diseases? Wilson’s disease also known as a term called hepatolenticular is basically a genetic disorder and causes copper to start accumulate in the liver, brain and other vital organs. This accumulation then causes various troubles and problems related to the organs. Copper is an essential metal for our body and it plays a key role in the development of healthy nerves, bones, and collagen.

As we said that Wilson’s disease is a genetic disorder which mean it can be pass down from generations to generations. The main reason for this will be genetic mutation. For example, if you have received one gene then you won’t be affected from the disease rather you’ll become a carrier, which means you can pass this on to the next generation. Due to this mutation, the protein that helps in shifting excessive copper to the liver came to a problem. The picture below show how the mutation was passing down.

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We can easily receive copper from the foods we eat for example seafood like oyster. For normal scenarios, people usually take more copper than needed. The liver then will take the required amount of copper to perform the daily task and will help to releases the excessive ones out of the body. But, those who’re suffering from Wilson’s disease could not get rid of the excessive copper. The copper will then be deposited in the liver and later on cause damage to your organ like liver failure. With time, these excessive copper may start to leave the liver starts building up in other vital organs of the body; mostly eyes cornea, brains and kidneys which will lead to possible to life threatening level. Left untr...

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...th urine and sweat. The faecal excretion is in the greatest part due to the passage of unabsorbed zinc but it is also due to endogenous intestinal secretion.

Other possible drug interaction
The absorption of zinc may be reduced by iron and calcium supplements, tetracycline and
Phosphorus-containing compounds, while zinc may reduce the absorption of iron, tetracycline, fluoroquinolones.

Reaction mechanism of Zinc Acetate
Zinc works by increasing the levels of metallothionein in the intestinal cells, which reduces dietary copper uptake. Furthermore, it also reduces the reabsorption of endogenous copper, this facilitating its excretion and preventing copper from accumulating in the body.

From the table above, we can see by increasing the metallothionein which is in short MT helps to reduce the copper as the excess copper was being “trap “on the metallothionein.

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