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Gastro Enterology => Digestive System => Deficiency Diseases
Deficiency Diseases
Deficiency Diseases, disorders caused by lack of specific essential substances such as vitamins, minerals, or amino acids. More broadly, the term applies to conditions in which the essential substances are present but not absorbed, or in which the organism fails to produce a natural and essential substance . Such diseases as beriberi, scurvy, pellagra, and rickets are caused by lack of particular vitamins, and recovery is dramatically prompt when adequate quantities of the vitamins are supplied in the diet. Certain types of anemia may be caused by a dietary lack of iron in usable form. At least ten amino acids, ten minerals, and ten vitamins are indispensable nutritional elements in the human diet, and the absence of any one causes a specific deficiency disease.
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