A population-based survey in 1996 and 1997 of 770 adults (aged > or = 15 years) from an urban district of Dares Salaam and 928 from a village in rural Kilimanjaro district (Tanzania) revealed that the prevalence of diabetes, impaired fasting glucose (IFG), overweight, obesity, and physical inactivity was higher in the urban area for men and women. The difference between urban and rural prevalence of diabetes was 3.8 [1x1-6.5]% for men and 2x9 [0x8-4.9]% for women. For IFG, the difference was 2x8 [0x3-5x3]% for men and 3x9 [1x4-6x4]% for women; for overweight and obesity, the difference was 21.5 [15.8-27.1]% and 6.2 [3x5-8.9]% for men and 17x4 [11.5-23.3]% and 12.7 [8x5-16x8]% for women, respectively. The difference in prevalence of physical inactivity was 12x5 [7.0-18.3]% for men and 37.6 [31x9-43.3]% for women. For men with diabetes, the odds for being overweight, obese and having a large waist:hip ratio were 14.1, 5.3 and 12.5, respectively; for women the corresponding values were 9x0, 10x5 and 2x4 (the last not significant) with an attributable fraction for overweight between 64% and 69%. We conclude that diabetes prevalence is higher in the urban Tanzanian community and that this can be explained by differences in the prevalence of overweight. The avoidance of obesity in the adult population is likely to prevent increases in diabetes incidence in this population.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Sensitivity and specificity of a portable system measuring postural tremor.

A portable, accelerometric system measuring tremor was evaluated. That is, the validity and consistency of measurements as well as its ability to discriminate pathologic from physiological tremor were investigated. Control subjects and patients with Parkinson's disease were tested with this portable system and with an independent system that gave precise displacement data using lasers. It was found that amplitude of postural tremor as measured by the two systems differed significantly, but further investigation revealed that this difference was due 1) to the difference between amplitude of acceleration and amplitude of displacement, and 2) to changes in tremor over the time between tests, rather than to any inaccuracy or unreliability in the portable system. The other characteristics of tremor reported by the portable system were also valid and reasonably reliable in test-retest experiments, with the exception of the "harmonic index," which proved less stable. Most of the reported characteristics were distributed differently for the control group and for the patients with Parkinson's disease, but the large overlaps between distributions would make diagnosis difficult when tremor is not very pronounced. These results suggest that until better discriminating measures of tremor are available, tremor tests should be repeated and combined with other tests of motor function.

Humans↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Tremor in Cree subjects exposed to methylmercury: a preliminary study.

Rest, postural, and kinetic tremors were recorded in Cree subjects (n = 36) exposed to low levels of methylmercury (MeHg) and control subjects (n = 30) using lasers designed to measure displacement. Displacement and derived velocity and acceleration time series were analyzed using quantitative characteristics in time and frequency domains. We found: 1) relatively low agreement between our results and those of a clinical examination done at the time of testing (r = 0.31 for postural tremor); 2) best discrimination with velocity of static (postural with visual feedback) and kinetic tremors for which significant differences between the two groups are found in many of the characteristics examined; 3) myoclonic-like finger microdisplacements in tremor of Cree subjects; 4) significant changes in static tremor of Cree subjects following a kinetic task; 5) significant differences among three age-matched subgroups of six subjects each (Cree with higher and lower MeHg level, and a control group) in characteristics that reflect difficulty with tracking, myoclonic-like microdisplacements and change in frequency composition of tremor after the tracking task. The subtle differences detected in this preliminary study suggest that further work is warranted to determine whether they can be unambiguously associated with exposure to MeHg.

Environmental Exposure↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Methods of assessing factor VIII content of stored fresh frozen plasma intended for preparation of factor VIII concentrates.

Minimally destructive methods were sought to assess the factor VIII content of fresh frozen plasma intended for large-scale fractionation and stored in five-liter polyethylene packs after pooling approximately 23 plasma donations. Although factor VII distribution in the frozen pack was not perfectly homogenous, a central "core" through the frozen pack gave a representative sampel of the entire contents of the pack. Coring was compared with other methods of pack sampling before large-scale cryoprecipitation. The survival of factor VIII was studied in three grades of stored plasma which had been separated and frozen within 4 hours, 8 hours, and 18 hours of blood donation. Plasma frozen after overnight storage of blood is a satisfacory starting material for the preparation of factor VIII and factor IX concentrates.

Blood Banks↗

PubMedDate not supplied

"Have you seen this?" Diffuse hepatic apoptosis.

One important cell death pathway involves binding of the cell surface receptor Fas, which recruits and activates specific initiator and effector caspases. In this study Balb/c mice were injected with monoclonal antibody to Fas either alone or followed by the tripeptide caspase inhibitor Z-VAD.fmk. At four hours mice were killed along with concurrent controls and tissues processed for histological examination and immunocytochemical staining for cleaved caspase-3. The livers in all animals treated with Fas alone showed massive apoptosis and positive staining for cleaved caspase-3 whereas those treated with Fas and Z-VAD.fmk or controls showed little or no apoptosis or staining for cleaved caspase-3. These features suggest that massive apoptosis may be important in fulminant liver disease.

Amino Acid Chloromethyl Ketones↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Stevens-Johnson syndrome: a multisystem case.

Explore the source record for details and available documents.

Allopurinol↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Self-efficacy as a predictor of adult adjustment to sickle cell disease: one-year outcomes.

OBJECTIVE: The present study prospectively investigated the role of self-efficacy in predicting disease symptomatology and health services utilization for adult patients with sickle cell disease. METHODS: These data are derived from a 12-month prospective cohort study of African American adults with sickle cell disease. Disease-specific perceptions of coping self-efficacy and indices of disease severity, health care utilization, and psychosocial adjustment were assessed by use of standardized questionnaires administered by trained clinicians. RESULTS: Perceptions of self-efficacy for coping with sickle cell disease were moderately stable across the 12-month study period. At baseline (N = 147), significant inverse relationships, measured with Pearson correlations, were noted between self-efficacy and the following variables: physical symptoms, psychological symptoms, pain severity, and number of physician visits over the preceding 12 months (p <.01). Similar relationships with self-efficacy were noted at the 1-year follow-up (N = 104) period for measures of physical symptoms, psychological symptoms, and pain severity (p <.01). In multiple-regression models, baseline self-efficacy scores predicted changes over the 1-year study period in physical and psychological sickle cell disease symptomatology. Moreover, changes in self-efficacy from baseline to 1-year follow-up were significantly and independently related to changes in physical symptoms, psychological symptoms, and pain ratings from baseline to 1-year follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Self-efficacy beliefs among African American adults with sickle cell disease are inversely related to reported disease symptomatology, and these relationships persist across time. Future investigations should examine the mechanisms through which relationships between self-efficacy and adjustment to sickle cell disease are effected, as well as the feasibility and effectiveness of enhancing self-efficacy beliefs as a means of improving adjustment to sickle cell disease.

Adaptation, Psychological↗