Articles: health.
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There is near unanimous scientific consensus that greenhouse gas emissions generated by human activity will change Earth's climate. The recent (globally averaged) warming by 0.5 degrees C is partly attributable to such anthropogenic emissions. Climate change will affect human health in many ways-mostly adversely. ⋯ Research so far has mostly focused on thermal stress, extreme weather events, and infectious diseases, with some attention to estimates of future regional food yields and hunger prevalence. An emerging broader approach addresses a wider spectrum of health risks due to the social, demographic, and economic disruptions of climate change. Evidence and anticipation of adverse health effects will strengthen the case for pre-emptive policies, and will also guide priorities for planned adaptive strategies.
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Hepatitis C virus remains a large health care burden to the world. Incidence rates across the world fluctuate and are difficult to calculate given the asymptomatic, often latent nature of the disease prior to clinical presentation. Prevalence rates across the world have changed as well with more countries aware of transfusion-related hepatitis C and more and more evidence supporting intravenous drug use as the leading risk factor of spread of the virus. This article reviews current hepatitis C virus prevalence and genotype data and examines the different risk factors associated with the virus.
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The health-related quality of life (HR-QOL) of children and adolescents is increasingly considered a relevant topic for research. Instruments to assess quality of life in children and adolescents of a generic as well as disease- or condition-specific nature are being developed and applied in epidemiological surveys, clinical studies, quality assurance and health economics. This paper attempts to give an overview on the state of the art of HR-QOL assessment in children as it relates to methodological and conceptual challenges. ⋯ It was concluded that (i) HR-QOL instruments are available to assess the dimensions of the construct relevant to children and adolescents; (ii) provided that an instrument was constructed in an appropriate way, the dimensions of HR-QOL can be measured in an interculturally comparable manner; (iii) the HR-QOL of children and adolescents can and should be ascertained by self-rating; (iv) the measurement instruments used have to consider maturity and cognitive development; (v) only generic quality-of-life instruments allow for an assessment of HR-QOL in both healthy and chronically ill children and adolescents; (vi) the representation of HR-QOL achieved through a singular index value is connected to strict psychometric conditions: the index instrument has to be tailored to these psychometric conditions; (vii) how far utility measures are employable with children and adolescents has to be investigated in further studies. The problem aspects identified indicate the necessity for further research. Nevertheless, instruments for assessing the HR-QOL of children and adolescents can be identified that meet the requirements mentioned above.
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Rapid Commun. Mass Spectrom. · Jan 2006
A longitudinal study of ethanol and acetaldehyde in the exhaled breath of healthy volunteers using selected-ion flow-tube mass spectrometry.
Selected-ion flow-tube mass spectrometry (SIFT-MS) has been used to monitor the volatile compounds in the exhaled breath of 30 volunteers (19 male, 11 female) over a 6-month period. Volunteers provided breath samples each week between 8:45 and 13:00 (before lunch), and the concentrations of several trace compounds were obtained. In this paper the focus is on ethanol and acetaldehyde, which were simultaneously quantified by SIFT-MS using H3O+ precursor ions. ⋯ Increased ethanol levels were observed if sweet drink/food had been consumed within the 2 h prior to providing the breath samples, but no increase was apparent when alcohol had been consumed the previous evening. The measured endogenous breath ethanol and acetaldehyde levels were not correlated. These data relating to healthy individuals are a prelude to using breath analysis for clinical diagnosis, for example, the recognition of bacterial overload in the gut (ethanol) or the possibly of detecting tumours in the body (acetaldehyde).