Public Health
Education doesn’t prevent cognitive decline
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Although a higher level of education attainment is associated with a higher level of cognitive functioning, it does not protect against cognitive decline in old age, contrary to the results of some reports, according to a study sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
The association between higher educational attainment and reduced cognitive decline is based largely on studies that measured change at two points in time, study co-author, Dr. Robert S. Wilson, told Reuters Health.
“These studies have had difficulty separating education’s correlation with level of cognition from its correlation with rate of change. Studies such as ours that measure cognition at three or more time points are better able to separate these effects,” he said.
Ecologists report quantifiable measures of nature’s services to humans
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The idea of ecosystem services is a promising conservation concept but has been rarely put into practice. In a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, researchers use novel tools to report some of the first quantifiable results that place values on nature’s services to humans.
“The idea of ‘ecosystem services’ – identifying and quantifying the resources and processes that nature provides for people – gives us a framework to measure nature’s contribution to human well-being,” write authors Peter Kareiva, guest editor for this issue and the chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy, and Susan Ruffo, director of ecosystem services programs at TNC, in an editorial in the issue. “It provides a credible way to link nature and people that goes beyond emotional arguments and points us toward practical solutions.”
Some of the best-described ecosystem services include pollination of crops, flood and storm protection, water filtration and recreation. The challenging part is translating these services into something with a measurable value. Economic valuation methods take changes in the supply of ecosystem services and translate these into changes in human welfare.
Rice eyes risks of quantum dots
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Quantum dots have the potential to bring many good things into the world: efficient solar power, targeted gene and drug delivery, solid-state lighting and advances in biomedical imaging among them.
But they may pose hazards as well.
A team of Rice researchers has been working to discover the health risks of quantum dots, molecule-sized semiconducting nanocrystals that are generally composed of heavy metals surrounded by an organic shell.
Pedro Alvarez, Rice’s George R. Brown Professor and chair of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, published a paper in ACS Environmental Science and Technology showing that under even mildly acidic or alkaline conditions, the shells can break down, releasing their toxic contents into the body or the environment. He coauthored the paper with colleagues Vicki Colvin, the Pitzer-Schlumberger Professor of Chemistry and in chemical and biological engineering, researcher Shaily Mahendra and postdoc Huiguang Zhu.
End-of-life care differs by race: study
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The way that older adults with advanced cancer live out their last days seems to vary based on race, a US study suggests.
Researchers found that of nearly 41,000 older Americans with terminal cancer, black and Asian patients were less likely than their white or Hispanic counterparts to be enrolled in a hospice program.
On the other hand, they were more likely to be hospitalized frequently or admitted to an intensive care unit near the end of their lives. They were also more likely than whites or Hispanics to die in the hospital, according to the study findings published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.
New CDC Study Assesses Impact of Genetic Testing on Health Outcomes
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Some genomic tests developed to personalize medical decisions about cancer care are beneficial, while for others the evidence is uncertain and reliance on the test might even lead to poorer medical management of cancer in some cases, according new recommendation statements from an expert panel. The statements appear in the January issue of Genetics in Medicine, the official peer-reviewed journal of The American College of Medical Genetics. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health, a leading provider of information and business intelligence for students, professionals, and institutions in medicine, nursing, allied health, pharmacy and the pharmaceutical industry.
Genetic tests for tumor gene expression in women with early-stage breast cancer to detect those at risk for cancer recurrence, the panel wrote, are based on insufficient evidence to determine whether they offer any improvement in health outcomes. The panel also found insufficient evidence to recommend testing for variants of the gene UGT1A1 in patients undergoing chemotherapy for metastatic colorectal cancer to inform use of the chemotherapy drug irinotecan. While the test might be useful in identifying patients at risk of side effects from the drug, reducing irinotecan dosage may be more harmful than the side effects, so the clinical utility of the UGT1A1 test is questionable, at best, it said.
On the other hand, genetic testing for Lynch syndrome, a hereditary condition that increases the risk of colorectal cancer, is useful to recommend screening relatives for the mutations that cause the syndrome and encouraging them to have regular colorectal cancer exams, the panel found.
Predicting the Future Spread of Infectious-Disease Vectors
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As global warming raises concerns about potential spread of infectious diseases, a team of researchers has demonstrated a way to predict the expanding range of human disease vectors in a changing world.
Researchers from Australia and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have identified the key biological and environmental factors constraining a population of the dengue fever vector, the mosquito Aedes aegypti. In a study publishing online Jan. 28 in the British Ecological Society’s journal Functional Ecology, they report that climate changes in Australia during the next 40 years and the insect’s ability to adapt to new conditions may allow the mosquitoes to expand into several populated regions of the continent, increasing the risk of disease transmission.
While the current study focuses on the Australian population of the dengue mosquito, these mosquitoes live around the world and present a global threat similar in scope to malaria, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Study author and UW-Madison zoologist Warren Porter says that the Australian findings are likely to apply to other worldwide mosquito populations as well.
Scientists want DNA tests on Galileo for “eye test”
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Italian and British scientists want to exhume the body of 16th century astronomer Galileo for DNA tests to determine if his severe vision problems may have affected some of his findings.
The scientists told Reuters on Thursday that DNA tests would help answer some unresolved questions about the health of the man known as the father of astronomy, whom the Vatican condemned for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun.
“If we knew exactly what was wrong with his eyes we could use computer models to recreate what he saw in his telescope,” said Paolo Galluzzi, director of the Museum of History and Science in Florence, the city where Galileo is buried.
Scientists find way to remove lead from blood
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South Korean scientists may have found a way to remove dangerous heavy metals such as lead from blood by using specially designed magnetic receptors.
The receptors bind strongly to lead ions and can be easily removed, along with their lead cargo, using magnets, they wrote in an article in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, a leading chemistry journal.
“Detoxification could theoretically work like hemodialysis: the blood is diverted out of the body and into a special chamber containing the biocompatible magnetic particles,” they wrote in a statement.
No drop in US preterm births, 2006 stats show
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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s newest statistics on US births show that preterm births continue to rise, while C-sections accounted for 31.1 percent of births in 2006-an all-time high.
Since 1990, there has been a 20 percent increase in the percentage of babies born preterm, or before 37 weeks gestation. Most of this rise has been driven by so-called “late-preterm” births, or infants born between 34 and 36 weeks’ gestation, Joyce A. Martin and colleagues from the CDC’s Division of Vital Statistics note in the January 7 issue of National Vital Statistics Reports.
There were nearly 4.3 million babies born in the US in 2006, the report shows, the largest number in more than four decades. While the Healthy People 2010 set a goal of 7.6 percent of babies born preterm, the actual 2006 number was far higher, with 12.8 percent of babies born before 37 weeks in the womb.
Researchers Assess the State of Stroke Telemedicine
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Stroke telemedicine is a lifesaving practice that deserves further advancement, Mayo researchers write in the January 2009 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings. Since its inception, stroke telemedicine has developed nationally and internationally as a reliable means of aiding patients. Yet certain key systematic components need to be developed more fully while specific unsettled issues must be resolved.
Called a “telestroke,” a patient with suspected stroke symptoms presents to a local hospital emergency department to undergo a remote stroke assessment by a vascular neurologist at a hub hospital. Described as a consultative modality, stroke telemedicine consults specialists at stroke centers to facilitate the care of patients with acute stroke at underserviced hospitals. In the article, Mayo researchers explain: Telecommunications, which started with the telephone and advanced to audiovisual (AV) communication, has changed the face of medicine not only in remote areas but also in urban areas with a shortage of subspecialties. A surge in the use of telestroke across the United States, Canada and Europe occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s, resulting in the development of 20 new telestroke networks. The implementation of telemedicine for stroke is a vital piece to the puzzle of creating universal access to emergency care for all patients with stroke, regardless of geographic location or hospital resources.
“Well-designed studies have shown that this consultative modality is valid, accurate and reliable. Numerous telestroke networks exist worldwide, and most of these networks have published their implementation experiences and early outcome results,” reports study author Bart Demaerschalk, M.D., Mayo Clinic neurologist. “Successfully delivered promises of telestroke include remote instant expert stroke diagnoses, delivery of short-term therapies, and secondary prevention advice.”
Global warming linked to European viral epidemic
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An epidemic of the viral disease nephropathia epidemica (NE) has been linked to increases in the vole population caused by hotter summers, milder winters and increased seedcrop production by broadleaf trees. Research published in BioMed Central’s open access International Journal of Health Geographics links outbreaks of this rodent-borne disease to known effects of global warming.
Dr Jan Clement from the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at Belgium’s Rega Institute (University of Leuven) worked with a team of medical researchers and bioscience-engineers to investigate outbreaks of NE in Belgium. Dr. Clement founded the Belgian Hantavirus Reference Centre in 1985, and noted that of the 2,200 cases since then, 828 (37.6%) occurred in just the last three years, 2005-2007. The epidemic has been shown to extend to neighboring countries such as France, Germany, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg. He said, “This animal-borne disease, scarcely known before 1990, has been increasing in incidence in Belgium with a cyclic pattern, reaching epidemic proportions since 2005. The fact that the growing combined effect of hotter summer and autumn seasons is matched by the growth of NE in recent years means this epidemic can be considered an effect of global warming”.
NE is caused by infection with Puumala virus (PUUV), which is spread by the bank vole, a rodent common throughout most of Europe. The authors believe that warmer weather causes increases in the amount of ‘mast’, plant seeds from oak and beech trees, that forms the voles’ staple diet.
Countries undergoing economic change urged to limit social and health costs for populations
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Countries seeking to make massive changes in the way their economies are run, for example by privatising formerly state-run sectors, must take into account the potential impact of such changes on people’s health, experts warn today.
The warning comes after a study of former countries of the Soviet Union, including Russia, that underwent privatisation programmes in the 1990s, following the collapse of communism, revealed how the process coincided with large increases in male mortality in some countries. The findings are published in the Lancet Online First today.
The authors, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, analysed mortality rates in working aged men (15-69 years) in post-communist countries in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union between 1989 and 2002. They found that mass privatisation programmes were associated with a rise in short-term adult male mortality rates of 12.8%. They suggest that unemployment, which rose by 56% during this period, was probably a key factor.
Study sees no eye cancer risk from cell phones
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Regular mobile phone use does not appear to increase a person’s risk of getting a type of cancer called melanoma of the eye, German researchers said on Tuesday.
The study involving about 1,600 people detected no link between the time a person spent using a cell phone over about a decade and their chances of developing melanoma of the eye, they wrote in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
The findings contradicted an earlier, smaller study by the same researchers that had raised concern about such a link.
Americans spending more on healthcare: report
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Americans spent about 40 percent more out of their own pockets for healthcare over the past decade, according to a report in the latest issue of the health policy journal Health Affairs. An increase in chronic conditions, especially diabetes and high blood pressure—not just among the “oldest old” but among baby boomers and older adults—is to blame, researchers say.
“Chronic conditions are more than just a health issue for the elderly. They are a household economics issue for every American,” lead co-author Kathryn Paez said in a statement. “Taking the time and making the effort to prevent diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes will save Americans money and increase their quality of life,” Paez, a research scientist at the Silver Spring, Maryland-based Center for Health Policy and Research, Social and Scientific Systems, added.
Paez and colleagues compared 1996 and 2005 out-of-pocket healthcare costs using data from the national Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, which represents 292 million Americans.
Plan Now to Address Health Effects of Climate Change, Experts Urge
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Health care providers and public health authorities should start planning to manage the current and future health risks associated with climate change, reports a special topic section in the January Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).
The four articles in the special section, authored by experts in the field, address critical issues in evaluating the likely health impact of climate change in the United States—including steps to anticipate and remediate those risks.
Kristie L. Ebi, Ph.D., M.P.H., of ESS, LLC, Alexandria, Va., discusses public health responses to climate change, including the individuals and agencies responsible for addressing specific types of risks. She highlights the need for coordinated efforts at the local, state, and federal levels to ensure maximum effectiveness, including the ability to identify and rapidly respond to new risks.
