Public Health

Sleep disorders are common, costly and treatable, but often remain undiagnosed and untreated. Unrecognized sleep disorders adversely affect personal health and may lead to chronic sleep loss, which, in turn, increases the risk of accidents and injuries. These problems are exacerbated in shift workers such as police officers, who may experience chronic sleep loss due to their schedules. A sampling of police officers shows a high incidence of sleep disorders among the members of this profession, according to a research abstract presented at SLEEP 2007, the 21st Annual Meeting of the Associated…

The era in which standard serology tests divided populations into two basic blood groups, ABO and Rh, may soon be a thing of the past. Nearly a century after blood group analysis began, new technologies for genotyping of blood offer a far more accurate picture of blood groups, experts reported at the 12th Congress of the European Hematology Association. Safety of blood transfusions, donor-recipient compatibility, and efficiency in managing blood banks may all receive a significant boost with genotyping, says Professor Neil Avent, from the Bristol Genomics Research Institute in the UK.…

Dr. Peter K. Gregersen says he has finally closed the circle between key genes and more than a 1,000 patients with rheumatoid arthritis. The genes will help tell the story of how the immune system works to create specific antibodies that in turn increase a person’s risk for this crippling disease. Gregersen's group conducted genome-wide scans to identify polymorphisms, or genetic variants, that are associated with the inflammatory condition and can be used to understand the triggers of the disease. This will provide key insights into the pathways underlying rheumatoid arthritis and other…

Researchers at the National Institutes of Health have discovered a survival mechanism in a common type of bacteria that can cause illness. The mechanism lets the bacteria protect itself by warding off attacks from antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which are defense molecules sent by the body to kill bacteria. Bacteria are divided into two types, gram-positive and gram-negative, with the primary difference being the nature of the bacterial cell wall. Little is known about how gram-positive bacteria—such as those that can lead to food poisoning, skin disorders and toxic shock—avoid being killed…

The simple notion of copying the body’s own natural "waste disposal" chemistry to mop up potentially toxic nitrogen has saved an estimated 80 percent of patients with urea cycle disorders --- most of them children – according to a report in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine summarizing a quarter century of experience with the treatment. The effectiveness of sodium phenylacetate and sodium benzoate, two chemicals the body already makes to carry nitrogen for disposal in urine "just knocked my socks off from the moment we first tried them," recalls Saul Brusilow, M.D., professor…

Researchers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) have found that persons infected with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), who also have alcohol problems, were negatively affected by co-infection with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). These findings appear in the June issue of Alcoholism: Clinical Experimental Research. Co-infection of HIV and HCV is a significant medical and public health concern due to its increasing prevalence and complex patient management. An estimated 15 to 30 percent of HIV infected persons in the United States and Europe…

Scientists subjected mice to a diet that was 40 percent fat and lots of high fructose corn syrup - the human equivalent of a McDonald's meal and 8 cans of soda per day - and it took only four weeks for liver enzymes to increase and for glucose intolerance, the beginning of type II diabetes, to begin. "We wanted to mirror the kind of diet many Americans subsist on, so the high fat content is about the same you'd find in a typical McDonald's meal, and the high fructose corn syrup translates to about eight cans of soda a day in a human diet, which is not far off with what some people consume,"…

Excessive levels of fecal bacteria were to blame for almost 60 percent of Nebraska streams deemed impaired by federal and state environmental laws in 2004. In order to develop effective pollution-control strategies, it is important for researchers to identify the source of the contamination. By using multiple methods, or a “toolbox” approach, to determine the origin of fecal pollution in streams, researchers were able to identify the source of fecal bacteria with greater certainty than if testing with a single method. Plum Creek watershed, south-central Nebraska. Credit: Jason R. Vogel,…

A new study presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference finds that obese people are significantly more likely to have persistent or severe persistent asthma than their thinner counterparts. The study presented on May 23 looked at 3,059 adults with asthma, who were divided into three groups: non-overweight, overweight and obese, based on their body mass index (BMI). Compared with non-overweight asthma patients, obese patients (BMI=30) were more likely to report having continuous symptoms, have more ER visits, miss more days of work, use more rescue inhaler…

Extremely drug resistant TB, or XDR-TB, is a serious problem in India, according to a study presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference, on Monday, May 21. The study, the first in India to look at the prevalence of XDR-TB, found this type of TB accounts for 8% of multi-drug-resistant cases, compared with about 4% in the United States. MDR-TB (multi-drug resistant TB) describes strains of tuberculosis that are resistant to at least the two first-line TB drugs, isoniazid and rifampicin. XDR-TB is MDR-TB that is also resistant to three or more of the six classes of…