Kim’s public health blog

A new study of women’s contraceptive use around the world finds that sexually active 15–19-year-olds are more likely than their 20–49-year-old counterparts to use contraceptives inconsistently and, on average, experience a 25% higher rate of contraceptive failure. The study’s authors, Ann K. Blanc of EngenderHealth et al., believe that compared with adult women, adolescent women face more obstacles to consistent contraceptive use—including feeling embarrassed about seeking out contraceptives, not being able to afford them and not knowing how to use them correctly—and may be more likely to abandon a method and try another if they experience side effects, which often leads to gaps in contraceptive use.

With the federal government putting $1.1 billion into comparative-effectiveness research, two Baylor College of Medicine researchers advocate investing in finding ways to put that science into practice in doctors’ offices and clinics across the nation. “We need to pay as much attention as to how the evidence is put into practice as to the evidence itself,” said Dr. Laura A. Petersen, chief of the section of health services research in the department of medicine at BCM and director of the Veterans Affairs Health Services Research and Development Center of Excellence. Petersen, and Dr. Aanand D. Naik, an assistant professor of medicine discussed the need for a new emphasis in implementing the results of comparative-effectiveness research in a Perspective in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Who really thought that a scanner that looked like a cell phone, used in Star Trek the Next Generation could be for real? Now In the lab of UCLA electrical engineering professor Aydogan Ozcan, a prototype cell phone has been constructed that is capable of monitoring the condition of HIV and malaria patients, as well as testing water quality in undeveloped areas or disaster sites. The imaging platform, known as LUCAS (Lensless Ultra-wide-field Cell monitoring Array platform based on. Now that Ozcan has successfully created prototypes with a cell phone and webcam, his next step is to build from scratch a handheld device incorporating the LUCAS imaging system. Using this device, people in remote areas of the world would be able to monitor the spread of disease, allowing doctors to focus limited resources in the areas of greatest need.

ScienceDaily (Dec. 16, 2008) — More than half a million babies are born preterm in the United States each year, and preterm births are on the rise. Late preterm births, or births that occur between 34 and 36 weeks (approximately 4 to 6 weeks before the mother’s due date), account for more than 70% of preterm births. A new study and an accompanying editorial in The Journal of Pediatrics investigate the serious neurological problems associated with late preterm births. Much of the preterm birth increase maybe due to elective caesarian intervention and twin births due to use of fertility drugs.[ Petrini et al. Increased Risk of Adverse Neurological Development for Late Preterm Infants. The Journal of Pediatrics,]

A nationwide study of over 280,000 women showed that postmenopausal women who are overweight or obese have advanced breast cancer at significantly higher rates than women of normal weight or less than normal weight. From 1996 to 2005, researchers collected ongoing mammography data on 287,115 postmenopausal women who were not using postmenopausal hormone therapy. They found that overall breast cancer rates went up in direct relationship to weight, as did rates of advanced cancer – specifically, rates of large invasive tumors, advanced-stage tumors, and high nuclear grade tumors. Nuclear grade is a measure of tumor cell growth and rate of cell division; the higher the grade, the more aggressive the tumor.

Google.org’s investment of “More than $14Million for genetic and digital detection” is the title of a blog post that I recently came across. Under a program called Predict and Prevent, Google is working with Healthmap.org and Promed-mail.org to tract the outbreak of infectious diseases across the world through digital and genetic approaches. These three organizations work together to use GIS to display geospatial data on global disease alert maps.
See: http://rose.geog.mcgill.ca/wordpress/?p=1126

The new basophil-microarray based allergy assay is the brainchild of researchers in The University of Nottingham’s Schools of Pharmacy and Biosciences. The new technology developed at Nottingham is a lab-based, in-vitro test to mimic human allergic reaction that could be used as an alternative to the traditional skin-prick test. It can test up to 5,000 different food or inhalant allergens that could cause an allergic reaction in a patient and the researchers are hoping it could also be developed as a diagnostic tool for parasitic infections.

According to a paper published in this week’s NEJM, primary prevention using stations may prevent acute cardiovascular events such as coronary and stroke disease, the an individual has a high “C-Reactive Protein” level, but no physical signs or symptoms of disease. An analysis of the study suggests that “250,000 heart attacks, strokes, bypass operations, angioplasties, and deaths in the next five years” Comment: However, given the media hype, is the suggestion that everyone with this single adverse test (no data on false positives or false negatives) by paced on statins for life?

In a paper published in the August issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Professor Anthony Norman identifies vitamin D’s potential for contributions to good health in the adaptive and innate immune systems, Norman also lists 36 organ tissues in the body whose cells respond biologically to vitamin D. The list includes bone marrow, breast, colon, intestine, kidney, lung, prostate, retina, skin, stomach and the uterus. According to Norman, deficiency of vitamin D can impact all 36 organs. Already, vitamin D deficiency is associated with muscle strength decrease, high risk for falls, and increased risk for colorectal, prostate and breast and other major cancers.

The American Academy of Pediatrics “recommends all children receive 400 IU a day of vitamin D, beginning in the first few days of life. The previous recommendation, issued in 2003, called for 200 IU per day beginning in the first two months of life.” Rickets continues to be reported in the United States in infants and adolescents. The greatest risk for rickets is in exclusively breastfed infants who are not supplemented with 400 IU of vitamin D a day. Adequate vitamin D throughout childhood may reduce the risk of osteoporosis. In adults, new evidence suggests that vitamin D plays a role in the immune system and may help prevent infections, autoimmune diseases, cancer and diabetes.