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Journal Article 2004; 25(Suppl 1): 43-47 PubMed PMID: 15735585 Citation  Keywords:  Female, Humans, Infant, Newborn, Pregnancy, Premature Birth:epidemiology, Risk Factors,.   

: Preterm birth is a major clinical problem, accounting for 47% of all neonatal deaths. The preterm delivery rate in UK is approximately 7%, and rates of preterm birth are steadily increasing. The diagnosis of preterm labour is difficult and most interventions to halt labour are unsuccessful. Despite this, the lack of good data hinders high quality research. The West Midlands has the highest perinatal mortality in the UK and a Perinatal Institute was set up in 2000 to address this, and aid improvements in care. Survival rates amongst preterm infants have changed dramatically over the last decade, with 88% survival for 2728 weeks, and 21% for > or =24 weeks (depending on birth weight). Risk factors include lower social class, less education, single marital status, low income, younger maternal age, low body weight, ethnicity, smoking, poor housing along with medical factors such as induction, premature rupture of membranes, infection, multiple pregnancy intrauterine death, fetal and uterine abnormalities and chorioamnionitis. Data from further detailed, robust studies are required to facilitate a comprehensive understanding of risk factors and their relationship with each other. Only then will it be possible to influence the adverse outcomes described....

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Clinical Trial 2004; 25(4): 262-266 PubMed PMID: 15361814 Citation  Keywords:  Adult, Biomarkers:blood, Blood Pressure, C-Reactive Protein:analysis, Coronary Disease:blood, Female, Homocysteine:blood, Humans, Hyperlipidemias:blood, Hypothyroidism:blood, Middle Aged, Reference Values, Risk Factors, Severity of Illness Index, Statisti.   

OBJECTIVES: Overt hypothyroidism (OH) is associated with premature atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease (CHD). Recently, C-reactive protein (CRP) and total homocysteine (tHct) emerged as additional independent cardiovascular risk factors. Subclinical hypothyroidism (SH), affecting as many as 15% of middle-aged women is not known to be associated with risk for CHD.

DESIGN AND MEASUREMENTS: We measured CRP and tHct levels as well as conventional cardiovascular risk markers in 44 middle-aged women with newly diagnose SH. Results were compared with those obtained in 10 patients with OH and 19 euthyroid controls.

RESULTS: In SH, tHct and CRP levels were not as augmented as compared to controls. Their mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure values were increased vs. controls (p<0.04;p<0.01, respectively). Mean values of total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), triglycerides, TC/HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C were not different in patients with SH compared to controls. Individual analysis revealed that the percentage of patients with SH having hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia, hypercholesterolemia, elevated TC/HDL-C and LDL-C/HDL-C ratios were higher than the percentage in controls. CRP positively correlated with BMI(r=0.29,p<0.02), and tHct positively correlated with age (r=0.24, p<0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest that subclinical hypothyroidism in middle-aged women is associated with hypertension and dyslipidemia. CRP and tHct do not appear to contribute to the increased risk for CHD in these patients....

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Journal Article 2003; 24(1-2): 65-67 PubMed PMID: 12743535 Citation  Keywords:  Antibodies, Antinuclear:analysis, Autoantibodies:analysis, Autoimmune Diseases:epidemiology, Dental Amalgam:adverse effects, Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay, Humans, In Vitro Techniques, Lymphocytes:drug effects, Mercuric Chloride:pharmacology, Risk Fac.   

BACKGROUND: Experimental and clinical data published recently show that dental amalgam can give rise to undesirable immunological responses in susceptible individuals. In genetically susceptible strains of experimental animals, mercury and silver can induce autoimmune responses. Sera of patients sensitive to mercury were found to have a higher incidence of autoantibodies relative to controls.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to determine possible presence of antinuclear SSB/La autoantibodies after the in vitro stimulation of peripheral blood lymphocytes with HgCl2.

METHODS: Lymphocytes were obtained from patients with autoimmune thyroiditis and increased response to mercury in vitro. Mononuclear cells were cultivated for 6 days with 100 microl HgCl2 solution or with pure medium and the levels of antinuclear autoantibodies SSB/La were assayed by a commercial SSB/La ELISA kit.

RESULTS: Increased production of SSB/La autoantibodies in the media following stimulation of peripheral blood lymphocytes with HgCl2 was found in all cases. Using the Student's paired test, the results were significant on the p=0.05 significance level.

CONCLUSION: Results imply that, in some patients with thyroiditis, mercury from dental amalgam can stimulate the production of antinuclear antibodies. Dental amalgam may be a risk factor in some patients with autoimmune disease....

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Congresses 2002; 23(Suppl 2): 84-87 PubMed PMID: 12163855 Citation  Keywords:  Animals, Humans, Light:adverse effects, Neoplasms:epidemiology, Neurosecretory Systems:physiology, Risk Factors,.   

: The International Symposium "Light, Endocrine Systems and Cancer" was held on May 2-3 at Cologne University, Germany. The symposium was organized by Professor Claus Piekarski and Dr. Thomas C. Erren, Institute and Polyclinic for Occupational and Social Medicine. The main goal of the symposium was to evaluate the epidemiological and experimental data on the effect of the exposure to light-at-night on cancer risk and to indicate the main directions of future research in the field. The symposium covered also the mechanisms and epidemiology of skin cancer which, however, are not included in the present summary....

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Editorial 2002; 23(Suppl 2): 82-83 PubMed PMID: 12163854 Citation  Keywords:  Circadian Rhythm:physiology, Humans, Light:adverse effects, Neoplasms:epidemiology, Neurosecretory Systems:physiology, Risk Factors,.   

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Editorial 2002; 23(Suppl 2): 79-81 PubMed PMID: 12163853 Citation  Keywords:  Animals, Humans, Light:adverse effects, Neoplasms:epidemiology, Neurosecretory Systems:physiology, Risk Factors,.   

: A conference was held at the University of Cologne on May 2-3, 2002, to discuss the strength-of-the-evidence supporting a linkage between light, endocrine systems and cancer. This overview of the conference is intended to summarize some of the key elements of the conference and to indicate both conclusions and research gaps identified by this reviewer....

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Editorial 2002; 23(Suppl 2): 71-78 PubMed PMID: 12163852 Citation  Keywords:  Darkness, Decision Making, Humans, Light:adverse effects, Neoplasms:epidemiology, Neurosecretory Systems:physiology, Risk Factors,.   

: Research on light at night and cancer is evolving at an accelerating pace, fueled largely by exciting results in rodent toxicology and basic human biology. Epidemiologic research is at a relatively early stage of development in which the exposure surrogates such as shift work and blindness predominate. Causal graphs for shift work, light at night and breast cancer illustrate some of the subtleties that can arise in the use of exposure surrogates of different kinds. Baseline data on circadian rhythms and melatonin cycles among human populations living at different latitudes are needed. Epidemiologic study of this topic is expected to mature soon as studies begin to incorporate quantitative and semiquantitative measurements and personal histories of exposure to light at night. The current emphasis on breast cancer should widen to include other cancers and intermediate outcomes. An advance in epidemiologic studies of blind persons would be to compare cancer rates between the "cortically blind" and the "retinally blind" within levels of visual impairment. Without a proposed intervention to reduce exposure to light at night, attributable fraction and attributable caseload estimates are meaningless. In the near future, both epidemiologic and laboratory research in this area are expected to grow appreciably in scope and scale....

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Journal Article 2002; 23(Suppl 2): 57-60 PubMed PMID: 12163850 Citation  Keywords:  Breast Neoplasms:epidemiology, Circadian Rhythm, Female, Humans, Light:adverse effects, Lighting, Risk Factors,.   

: Risk of breast cancer varies by about 5-fold among societies, and incidence and mortality have been increasing worldwide for many decades. Migrants from low-risk Asian societies to the U.S. suffer elevated risk of breast cancer in their own lifetimes, and the second or third generation Asian-Americans attain the high risk of the multi-generational European immigrants [1,2]. Something about a modern Western lifestyle apparently increases risk dramatically. Madigan et al. [3] estimate that 41% of the new U.S. cases of breast cancer are explained by "known risk factors"; these include the reproductive factors of age at first birth, menarche, menopause. They ascribe about 30% to reproductive factors when they are analyzed alone. "High income" is estimated to account for about 19% when analyzed by itself. The 41% is an analysis taking all the factors together, and since they are related, the total is less than the sum of estimates for the individual items. By itself, "High income" has no biological interpretation and must reflect attributes of lifestyle and/or environment that increase risk. So, the proportion of breast cancer cases in the U.S. that can be accounted for by known biological risk factors is about one third. Therefore, at least half of breast cancer risk in the U.S., and other Westernized/industrialized societies, is in excess of that found in non-industrialized societies and is without any agreed-upon explanation. Many candidate factors exist, each with a cadre of proponents. The sum of these may turn out to explain the bulk of the excess risk in modern societies. On the other hand, they may not, and worse, may fall woefully short....

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