Healthcare News

In 2005, 34.6% of Hispanics in Arizona were uninsured, compared with 12.7% of whites, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released Thursday, Cronkite News/Arizona Republic reports (Konopken, Cronkite News/Arizona Republic, 10/10).

The report provides a detailed analysis of the uninsured population in the U.S., providing breakdowns by state, county and demographic groups.

According to the report, about 16% of U.S. residents did not have health insurance in 2005. Minnesota and Hawaii had the lowest uninsured rates in 2005 at 9.5% and 9.7%, respectively, followed by Wisconsin at 10.3%. The study also found Florida, New Mexico and Texas had the three highest rates of uninsured residents younger than age 65. In addition, the report found that states have wide variances between racial and ethnic groups. Mississippi and Texas had greater shares of uninsured Hispanic residents, while Montana and Oklahoma had higher rates of uninsured white residents (Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, 10/9).

In Arizona, 20.7% of residents were uninsured in 2005. Hispanics made up 28.6% of the state’s population that year. Jill Rissi, associate director for research and policy at St. Luke’s Health Initiatives, said, “The rates of the Hispanic population that are not insured parallel with things like their education, income and culture.” She noted that Arizona has a larger proportion of small business that do not provide health insurance to employees, while other employers are reducing workers’ hours to the point where they do not qualify for health benefits.

Alberto Esparza, president and CEO of the not-for-profit youth advocacy group Si Se Puede Foundation, said, “Our economy is suffering, and everyone seems to be looking for a reason of why it is that way. Both Hispanics and non-Hispanics are feeling its effects.” He added that many Hispanics cannot afford health insurance coverage. “They want the health insurance, but they are in survival mode. People are having to choose between putting food on the table and health insurance,” he said (Cronkite News/Arizona Republic, 10/10).

This article is republished with kind permission from our friends at The Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery of in-depth coverage of health policy developments, debates and discussions. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for Kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Copyright 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Child Health News

Obese teenagers are much more likely to suffer from metabolic syndrome - which can lead to heart disease - if they live in Brazil than Italy, according to a study in the October issue of IJCP, the International Journal of Clinical Practice.

Researchers from the two countries looked at more than 500 obese teenage boys and girls to see if there was any difference in metabolic syndrome, an increasing worldwide problem where fat deposits lead to thickening and hardening of artery walls, increasing the risk of heart disease.

They found that 35 per cent of the Brazilian boys suffered from metabolic syndrome, compared with 24 per cent of the Italian boys.

They also discovered that boys were twice as likely as girls to suffer from metabolic syndrome, recording levels of 16 per cent for Brazilian girls and 12.5 per cent for Italian girls.

“We found that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome risk factors varied considerably between the two countries and that insulin resistance appears to be a major factor” says lead author Danielle Caranti, who carried out the study with Professor Ana Dβmaso from the Federal University of Sao Paulo and Professor Alessandro Sartorio from the Italian Institute for Auxology in Milan.

“It is likely that this reflects differences in genetic, environmental, social, economic and dietary factors between the two countries.”

Of the 509 teenagers who took part in the study, 110 were from Brazil (64 girls and 46 boys) and 399 were from Italy (255 girls and 144 boys). Their average age was 16 and their body mass index ranged from 35.1 to 37.3, which is over the 97th centile for their age and sex and indicates a severe level of obesity.

The researchers discovered a number of variations in the detailed blood tests they carried out.

They discovered that the Brazilian teenagers showed significantly higher levels of:

• Insulin resistance, which can cause problems such as Type 2 Diabetes, high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol levels and heart disease. Brazilian boys averaged 4.8 (Italian boys 2.7) and Brazilian girls averaged 3.5 (Italian girls 2.3).
• Fasting plasma glucose (blood sugar levels after an overnight fast). Brazilian boys averaged 92.5 mg/dl (Italian boys 76.3) and Brazilian girls 90.7 (Italian girls 73.9).
• Triglycerides, the chemical form in which most fat exists. Brazilian boys averaged 130.9 mg/dl (Italian boys 105.6) and Brazilian girls 109.9 (Italian girls 90.4).

However, Italian teenagers showed significantly higher levels of:

• LDL cholesterol, which helps to form deposits that can narrow arteries and make them less flexible. Italian boys averaged 106.9 mg/dl (Brazilian boys 94.2) and Italian girls averaged 102.8 (Brazilian girls 90.0).
• Systolic blood pressure, which measures the pressure in the arteries when the heart contracts and pushes blood out into the body. Italian boys averaged 129.3 (Brazilian boys 125.2) and Italian girls 122.8 (120.3).

“Previous studies have found that metabolic syndrome ranges from five per cent to 40 per cent in obese teenagers in different countries, mainly because of the different criteria used to define metabolic syndrome” says Danielle Caranti. “But few studies have made direct comparisons between two groups in this way.

“Our findings suggest that insulin resistance, together with the level of obesity, is a critical component in measuring metabolic syndrome risk in adolescence. It stood out in our study as the most frequently altered parameter when it came to the development of metabolic syndrome in Brazilian and Italian teenagers.

“We hope that our study will provide valuable information on why metabolic syndrome is more prevalent in some societies than others.

“Identifying the causes of metabolic syndrome is an important step towards developing effective long-term strategies to combat this worldwide emerging health problem.”

http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/ijcp

Medical Research News

Recent research from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet reveals completely new properties of the skin’s stem cells - discoveries that contradict previous findings.

The studies, which are published in Nature Genetics, show amongst other things, that hair follicle stem cells can divide actively and transport themselves through the skin tissue.

“The stem cells don’t behave at all in the way we’d previously thought, and are found in unexpected places”, says Professor Rune Toftg?, one of the scientists at Karolinska Institutet responsible for the study. “We’re now investigating the part played by the stem cells in the wound-healing process and the development of basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of skin cancer.”

The stem cells examined by the present study are found in the skin’s hair follicles, around which the cells are able to move depending on their stage of growth. The scientists believe that their growth is governed by previously known mechanism called Hedgehog signalling. Mutations in the genes that control this signal system can cause the delayed deactivation of signal transference; the signals thus continue uninhibited, which increases the risk of cancer.

http://ki.se

Medical Science News

The transportation of antibodies from a mother to her newborn child is vital for the development of that child’s nascent immune system. Those antibodies, donated by transfer across the placenta before birth or via breast milk after birth, help shape a baby’s response to foreign pathogens and may influence the later occurrence of autoimmune diseases.

Images from biologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) have revealed for the first time the complicated process by which these antibodies are shuttled from mother’s milk, through her baby’s gut, and into the bloodstream, and offer new insight into the mammalian immune system.

Newborns pick up the antibodies with the aid of a protein called the neonatal Fc receptor (FcRn), located in the plasma membrane of intestinal cells. FcRn snatches a maternal antibody molecule as it passes through a newborn’s gut; the receptor and antibody are enclosed within a sac, called a vesicle, which pinches off from the membrane. The vesicle is then transported to the other side of the cell, and its contents–the helpful antibody–are deposited into the baby’s bloodstream.

Pamela Bjorkman, Max Delbr?ofessor of Biology at Caltech and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and her colleagues were able to watch this process in action using gold-labeled antibodies (which made FcRn visible when it picked up an antibody) and a technique called electron tomography. Electron tomography is an offshoot of electron microscopy, a now-common laboratory technique in which a beam of electrons is used to create images of microscopic objects. In electron tomography, multiple images are snapped while a sample is tilted at various angles relative to the electron beam. Those images can then be combined to produce a three-dimensional picture, just as cross-sectional X-ray images are collated in a computerized tomography (CT) scan.

“You can get an idea of movement in a series of static images by taking them at different time points,” says Bjorkman, whose laboratory studies how the immune system recognizes its targets, work that is offering insight into the processes by which viruses like HIV and human cytomegalovirus invade cells and cause disease.

The electron tomography images revealed that the FcRn/antibody complexes were collected within cells inside large vesicles, called “multivesicular bodies,” that contain other small vesicles. The vesicles previously were believed to be responsible only for the disposal of cellular refuse and were not thought to be involved in the transport of vital proteins.

The images offered more surprises. Many vesicles, including multivesicular bodies and other more tubular vesicles, looped around each other into an unexpected “tangled mess,” often forming long tubes that then broke off into the small vesicles that carry antibodies through the cell. When those vesicles arrived at the blood-vessel side of the cell, they fused with the cell membrane and delivered the antibody cargo. The vesicles also appeared to include a coat made from a molecule called clathrin, which helps form the outer shell of the vesicles. Researchers previously believed that a vesicle’s clathrin cage was completely shed before the vesicle fused with the cell membrane. The new results suggest that only a small section of that coating is sloughed off, which may allow the vesicle to more quickly drop its load and move on for another.

“We are now studying the same receptor in different types of cells in order to see if our findings can be generalized, and are complementing these studies with fluorescent imaging in live cells,” Bjorkman says. “The process of receptor-mediated transport is fundamental to many biological processes, including detection of developmental decisions made in response to the binding of hormones and other proteins, uptake of drugs, signaling in the immune and nervous systems, and more. So understanding how molecules are taken up by and transported within cells is critical for many areas of basic and applied biomedical research,” she adds

http://www.caltech.edu/

Disease/Infection News

A five-member team from the University of California-San Francisco’s Global Health Group will help Namibia develop a strategic plan aimed at eradicating malaria in the country, the New Era reports. The team, which arrived in Namibia on Oct. 5, has conducted site visits in the country’s malaria-endemic northern region and met with Prime Minister Nahas Angula on Wednesday to discuss malaria control efforts.

Richard Feachem, head of the delegation, said that the team is eager to help Namibia create a malaria elimination plan and identify funding gaps, adding that he is impressed with the health facilities he visited in the northern region. Feachem called for an “aggressiv[e]” scale up of malaria interventions, insecticide-treated nets and indoor insecticide spraying to meet the Southern African Development Community’s target of eliminating malaria from Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Swaziland by 2015. In addition, Feachem recommended that people carrying out indoor insecticide spraying also distribute ITNs to ensure maximum coverage.

Feachem also emphasized the importance of collaborating with neighboring countries on public health initiatives and suggested that Namibia hold a high-level meeting with health ministers from Angola and other countries to devise a regional plan for malaria control. Richard Kamwi, Namibia’s minister of health and social services, has not yet submitted Feachem’s proposal to Namibia’s Cabinet for approval. According to Kamwi, Namibia’s major challenges in the fight against malaria are a shortage of financial resources and a lack of skilled health workers. He noted that the country has only one malaria researcher with a master’s degree and that many skills — such as conducting blood smears, determining parasite carriers and examining drug resistance — require a doctorate degree.

Angula suggested that the country mobilize young people in the fight against malaria. He added that the country is facing challenges in meeting many of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, particularly the targets related to health, and child and maternal mortality. According to Namibia’s Ministry of Health and Social Services, malaria accounts for an average of 400,000 outpatient visits, 30,000 inpatient visits and 877 deaths annually in the country (Sibeene, New Era, 10/9).

This article is republished with kind permission from our friends at The Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery of in-depth coverage of health policy developments, debates and discussions. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for Kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Copyright 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Men’s Health News

Men who visit the University of Hertfordshire’s Health and Human Sciences Research Institute Showcase next week can have their ears and fingers measured and dance moves scrutinised to get a rating on their expected attractiveness to women.

Dr Peter Lovatt from the University’s School of Psychology will host a stand at the Showcase when he will test his hot-off-the-press research findings into what it is about the way a man dances that attracts a woman.

He will measure men’s ears and fingers to assess levels of prenatal testosterone and physical symmetry on the basis that it’s accepted that men with symmetrical ears and for whom the fourth finger is considerably longer than the second finger, have high levels of prenatal testosterone.

He will then either invite them to dance or to describe their dance moves so that he can predict their attractiveness to women.

Dr Lovatt, who teaches on the only Psychology of Performance degree-level course in the UK, carried out some research over the summer into what features of men’s freestyle dance communicate dominance, masculinity, attractiveness and quality (DMAQ) to women.

Bearing in mind two previous studies in this field which showed that female ratings of DMAQ of men’s freestyle dance are associated with levels of prenatal testosterone and symmetry, Dr Lovatt, himself an ex-dancer. asked 55 women to rate him dancing in 12 different ways.

The findings suggest that the ratings of DMAQ are influenced differentially by interactions between the size and degree of coordination of movement.

“The implication of these findings is that high testosterone men are unlikely to share a common pattern of dancing which leads to them all being rated as universally attractive,” said Dr Lovatt. “At our Showcase, we could help men with low prenatal testosterone to dance the dance of high testosterone by just varying their moves on the dance floor.”

Dr Lovatt will be at his stand at the Showcase on Tuesday 21 October between 6-9pm and on Thursday 23 October from 8-10.15am and 6-9pm.

The Health and Human Sciences Research Institute Showcase will host a variety of research being conducted by the University of Hertfordshire and will be held at the de Havilland Campus from 21-24 October. For further information, please visit: the Showcase website at: www.healthshowcase.co.uk.

Disease/Infection News

Volunteer community health workers and nongovernmental organizations should collaborate with Ghana’s health sector to enhance the country’s capacity to curb the spread of tuberculosis, Austin Arinze, national coordinator of the Stop TB Ghana Partnership, said recently in Winneba, Ghana, during a two-day workshop, GNA/My Joy Online reports.

The workshop — organized by Stop TB Ghana and the Afro Global Alliance — aimed to provide 100 volunteers with information about TB control and train them to promote awareness about the disease through community involvement. During the workshop, participants discussed the causes, prevention and treatment of TB; the state of TB in Ghana; the role of community volunteers; and DOTS implementation. Abudu Imoro, program manager of Afro Global Alliance, said the workshop would help volunteers use communication skills to spread messages about TB and initiate behavior change in their communities. Arinze said that the Ghanaian government cannot combat TB alone, adding that volunteers will be essential in community-level efforts to control the disease.

Volunteers can disseminate TB messages at clubs, faith-based organizations, homes, markets and schools, Kwesi Addo, chair of Stop TB Ghana, said, adding that monitoring and support visits to people at an increased risk of contracting TB could help prevent the disease from spreading. Addo also expressed concern that community workers in Ghana’s central region will need to improve TB detection, prevention and treatment to meet the targets of the country’s National TB Control Program (GNA/My Joy Online, 10/9).

This article is republished with kind permission from our friends at The Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery of in-depth coverage of health policy developments, debates and discussions. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for Kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Copyright 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Pharmaceutical News

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday said that many large pharmaceutical companies — including Abbott Labs, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline and Pfizer — plan to increase their efforts to develop HIV/AIDS drugs and diagnostics for impoverished regions, Reuters reports.

The companies have promised to invest more in prevention efforts — including vaccine development and pre- and post-exposure prophylactics — Ban said in a statement after he met with senior pharmaceutical executives from 17 companies and other U.N. officials. “We noted that despite the gains, the epidemic continues to outstrip our best efforts,” Ban said, adding, “Only one-third of those who need antiretroviral treatment in low- and middle-income countries are getting it. Each day, for every two people who are placed on antiretroviral treatment, five more are infected. Collectively, we still have more work to do.”

The companies also agreed to work toward adapting medicines and treatment for “resource-limited settings to be used safely in children, adolescents, adults and pregnant women,” according to Ban. He added that the drug companies and the United Nations jointly agreed that increasing access to vaccines and medicines is “essential in scaling up prevention and treatment efforts” (Charbonneau, Reuters, 10/9).

This article is republished with kind permission from our friends at The Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery of in-depth coverage of health policy developments, debates and discussions. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for Kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Copyright 2008 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.

Medical Science News

DNA, the molecule that acts as the carrier of genetic information in all forms of life, is highly resistant against alteration by ultraviolet light, but understanding the mechanism for its photostability presents some puzzling problems. A key aspect is the interaction between the four chemical bases that make up the DNA molecule.

Researchers at Kiel University have succeeded in showing that DNA strands differ in their light sensitivity depending on their base sequences. Their results are reported by Nina Schwalb and colleagues in the current issue of the journal Science appearing on October 10, 2008.

It has been known for many years that the individual bases that code the genetic information contained in DNA show a high degree of photostability, as the energy that they take up from UV radiation is immediately released again. Surprisingly, however, it is found that in DNA, which consists of many bases, those mechanisms are ineffective or only partially effective. It seems that the deactivation of UV-excited DNA molecules must instead occur by some completely different mechanisms specific to DNA, which are not yet understood. Through measurements by a variety of methods on DNA molecules with different base sequences, the research group led by Professor Friedrich Temps at the Institute of Physical Chemistry of Kiel University has now been able to confirm and clarify that assumption.

According to Professor Temps, “DNA achieves its high degree of photostability through its complex double-helix structure. The interactions between bases that are stacked one above another within a DNA strand, and the hydrogen bonds between the base pairs of the two complementary single strands in the double-helix play key roles. Through the different interactions that we have observed the DNA acts to some extent as its own sun-protection”.

Nina Schwalb investigated many different base combinations in synthetically-produced DNA molecules. Using a femtosecond pulsed laser spectroscope, she measured the characteristic energy release for each combination. She was able to measure the time for which the molecules continued to fluoresce, and thus how long they stored the light energy. She found that for some base combinations these fluorescence ‘lifetimes’ were only about 100 femtoseconds, whereas for others they were up to a thousand times longer. A femtosecond is one millionth of a billionth of a second.

Commenting on the conclusions from her research, Nina Schwalb says: “We have investigated the photophysical properties and have found that different base combinations have widely different fluorescence lifetimes. This could lead to the development of a new diagnostic method whereby laser light could be used to directly recognise certain genetic sequences without, for example, having to mark the DNA with dyes as in the method used at present”.

One might also envisage linking the photophysical properties to genetic characteristics. When these mechanisms are better understood, it might in the long term become possible to repair gene mutations using laser radiation.

“In the field of nano-electronics it has already been shown that synthetically produced DNA can be used as ‘nano-wires’. On the basis of the different reaction times of the molecules it might one day become possible to use laser pulses to ’switch’ specific molecules. It might even be possible under some circumstances to make transistors from DNA that would work through the hydrogen bonds,” explains Professor Temps.

http://www.uni-kiel.de/