Lorenzo's Oil Essay

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Gabe Robinson Lorenzo’s oil In the movie Lorenzo’s Oil, a young boy named Lorenzo starts having symptoms of a disease known as Adrenoleukodystrophy (aka ALD). Lorenzo’s parents Augusto and Michaela Odone work tirelessly to find a cure for this thought-to-be terminal illness. After the parents consulted a doctor who researched this disease, they found out the disease is corroding a fatty sheath that insulates the nerves called myelin, which if missing causes degeneration of the brain and eventually loss of body function. After he finds out there isn't a cure permanent or temporary for this disease, Augusto contacts the “world expert” on ALD, a man named Nikolais who explains that certain foods contain very long-chain saturated fats that normally would be used, with the excess being destroyed by the body, stripping the ALD affected boys' myelin covering. The reason this doesn’t happen in boys affected by ALD is because the disease prevents these excess long-chain saturated fats from being destroyed, causing a buildup. Augusto uses selective attention by breaking down the disease into parts and focusing on the saturated fats aspect so that he can put his efforts into finding a way to lower Lorenzo’s saturated …show more content…

She also states that the summary of the study talked about “Fatty-acid manipulation” which states “They stop the rats producing one kind of fat by loading their diet with another kind”. Michaela probed the problem by researching studies of related experiments and finding a relationship between the overproduction of fats and replacing those missing fats with another

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