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Health briefsBy Compiled from Times wires © St. Petersburg Times, published September 19, 2000 Education is planned about "dryness disease"WASHINGTON -- They call it the dryness disease. Its hallmark symptoms of dry mouth and eyes at first are simply annoying -- until they make patients' teeth fall out or damage eyesight. Sjogren's syndrome is no mere nuisance illness. Dryness is just the start of this mysterious, painful disease that can gradually attack the joints, organs and nerves, affecting more than 1-million sufferers. The National Institutes of Health this week holds an unprecedented meeting to teach health workers how to spot Sjogren's (pronounced "show-grins") and ease symptoms. Sjogren's is an autoimmune disease, meaning patients' immune systems create antibodies that attack their own tissue. Salivary glands and eye glands that produce tears and oils that keep eye moisture from evaporating often are damaged first. Tooth loss, fungal infections and corneal abrasions are common. Nobody knows Sjogren's cause. Ninety percent of patients are women. New kind of diabetes seen in those with HIVJERUSALEM -- A French scientist described a new type of diabetes in people infected with HIV and suggested Monday it could be linked to anti-retroviral drugs used to treat the virus that causes AIDS. In the last few years, scientists have reported seeing HIV patients with diabetes who also have a condition where fat collects in their abdomens while their faces and limbs become abnormally thin. Dr. Eric Renard said at a conference of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes that his research on 102 HIV patients showed that the two conditions were in fact related to three medications in a cocktail of HIV drugs known as anti-retrovirals.
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