Lead Toxicity and Pollution in Poland.

Background: Human exposure to lead can occur in a variety of ways, all of which involve exposure to potentially toxic elements as environmental pollutants. Lead enters the body via ingestion and inhalation from sources such as soil, food, lead dust and lead in products of everyday use and in the workplace. The aim of this review is to describe the toxic effects of lead on the human body from conception to adulthood, and to review the situation regarding lead toxicity in Poland.

Surgical repair of long-gap esophageal atresia: A retrospective study comparing the management of long-gap esophageal atresia in the Nordic countries.

Background: Several surgical procedures have been described in the reconstruction of long-gap esophageal atresia (LGEA). We reviewed the surgical methods used in children with LGEA in the Nordic countries over a 15-year period and the postoperative complications within the first postoperative year.

Methods: Retrospective multicenter medical record review of all children born with Gross type A or B esophageal atresia between 01/01/2000 and 12/31/2014 reconstructed within their first year of life.

Medical-Legal Partnership Impact on Parents' Perceived Stress: A Pilot Study.

Stress has adverse effects on health, and prolonged stress exposure is a risk factor for several mental and physical illnesses. Families living in poverty face many stressors created and maintained by economic hardship and unaddressed legal and social needs. Medical-Legal Partnerships (MLPs) aim to improve health and well-being by addressing health-harming legal and social needs of patients.

Low-density lipoprotein particle number predicts coronary artery calcification in asymptomatic adults at intermediate risk of cardiovascular disease.

Background: Clinicians require more discriminating measures of cardiovascular risk than those currently used in most clinical settings. A promising avenue of research concerns the relationship of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) subfractions to subclinical atherosclerosis.

Objective: To assess cross-sectional associations between subfractions of LDL cholesterol and coronary artery calcification (CAC).

A randomized control trial of continuous support in labor by a lay doula.

Objective: To compare labor outcomes in women accompanied by an additional support person (doula group) with outcomes in women who did not have this additional support person (control group).

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Setting: A women's ambulatory care center at a tertiary perinatal care hospital in New Jersey.

Patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis with low vs high levels of nutritional risk have decreased morbidity.

Objective: To compare the demographic and clinical characteristics and outcomes (morbidity) of 442 patients receiving maintenance hemodialysis who are at different levels of nutritional risk.

Design: A retrospective, longitudinal, chart review.

Setting/subjects: An urban, outpatient hemodialysis unit in New York City.

Pulque intake during pregnancy and lactation in rural Mexico: alcohol and child growth from 1 to 57 months.

Objective: To examine maternal intake of a mildly alcoholic beverage (pulque) during pregnancy and lactation, and its potential effect on postpartum child growth and attained size.

Design: A prospective cohort study that followed mothers (during pregnancy and lactation) and their offspring (from birth to approximately 57 months of age).

Setting: Six villages in rural, central Mexico.

Quantitative approaches to nutrient density for public health nutrition.

Nutrient density, the vitamin or mineral content of a food or diet per unit energy, has long been a useful concept in the nutritional sciences. However, few nutritionists have applied the idea in quantitative, population-based nutrition planning and assessment. This paper discusses the conceptual issues related to the calculation of a nutrient density value that, if consumed, should meet the nutrient needs of most individuals in a population or sub-population, and outlines several methods for estimating this value.

Interrelationships between power-related and belief-related factors determine nutrition in populations.

The vast majority of social research in nutrition has focused either on economic, material and political factors ("power-related" variables) or on psychological, cultural and attitudinal factors ("belief-related" variables). Even when data on both classes of factors are collected, the orientation in analysis is to treat one of the two classes as "confounding" or "control" variables. Although single-focus studies have yielded essential knowledge about the role of specific factors, they fail to reveal the mechanisms through which belief-related and power-related variables interact to produce nutritional outcomes.

Diet and iron status of nonpregnant women in rural Central Mexico.

Background: Few studies have examined the relation of iron status to diet in populations from developing countries with high levels of iron deficiency and diets of poor quality.

Objective: The objective was to identify nutrients, dietary constituents, and foods that are associated with better iron status in a rural Mexican population.

Design: A prospective cohort study was conducted in rural central Mexico.

The history and future of food fortification in the United States: a public health perspective.

For more than 50 years, the United States federal government has regulated food fortification. During this time, the nutritional situation in the United States has improved greatly, whereas scientific information about the role of vitamins and minerals in human growth and development has increased exponentially. Concurrently, government authority to regulate food fortification has declined.

Maternal consumption of pulque, a traditional central Mexican alcoholic beverage: relationships to infant growth and development.

Objectives: To document the consumption during pregnancy of pulque, a traditional central Mexican alcoholic beverage, and its relationship to subsequent infant size, physical growth and performance on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: Six villages in rural, central Mexico in 1984-1985.

Obesity among offspring of women with type 1 diabetes.

Objective: To determine subsequent growth and body composition of children born to women with type 1 diabetes compared with controls.

Design: Prospective cohort study.

Setting: Follow-up of offspring born to women with type 1 diabetes and controls from an earlier study of diabetes and lactation.

Women with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) complicated by eating disorders are at risk for exacerbated alterations in lipid metabolism.

Objective: To examine lipid parameters that are affected in women with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) who engaged in disordered eating behaviours.

Design: Randomized, unmatched.

Setting: Tertiary care.

Examining the gender gap in nutrition: an example from rural Mexico.

Gender differences in nutrient and food intake were examined in Mexican Nutrition CRSP (Collaborative Research Support Program) infants (N = 75), preschoolers (N = 80), and school children (N = 91). No significant gender differences in dietary quality or quantity were seen for infants and preschoolers. For school children, the contribution of various foods to total energy intake (dietary quality) was also quite similar for girls and boys.

Subclinical and clinical eating disorders in IDDM negatively affect metabolic control.

Objective: To characterize the relationship of subclinical and clinical eating disorders to HbA1c values in women with IDDM.

Research Design And Methods: Ninety women with IDDM (18-46 years of age) were recruited from diabetes clinics throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts. Subjects were categorized into one of three groups according to the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R) criteria for eating disorders as follows: the clinical group (n = 14), the subclinical group (partially fulfilling the diagnostic criteria; n = 13), and the control group (n = 63).

Olfactory dysfunction and related nutritional risk in free-living, elderly women.

Objective/design: To determine the nutritional risk associated with measured olfactory dysfunction in free-living, elderly women through analytic observational methods. Olfactory perception was measured orthonasally (odor: butanol threshold and odor identification) and retronasally (flavor: orange flavor threshold in sweetened gelatin).

Setting/subjects: Elderly women were recruited from New Haven, Conn, through posters and direct contact.

The interactive effects of dietary quality on the growth and attained size of young Mexican children.

Predictors of attained size at 30 mo and growth rate between 18 and 30 mo (eg, diet, maternal size, morbidity, age at weaning, and selected environmental factors) were investigated by using longitudinal data from 67 Mexican children aged 18-30 mo. These children were small because of growth stunting in early infancy. Between 18 and 30 mo they grew on average at the 50th percentile of National Center for Health Statistics references values for weight, and the 25th for length.

Household size, food intake and anthropometric status of school-age children in a highland Mexican area.

Large household size is widely regarded as a risk factor for malnutrition in developing countries, particularly for infants and young children. This study examines the extent to which household size is related to nutritional status in school-age children in the Solis Valley in highland Mexico. The relationships of food intake, anthropometric measures, and household size are assessed in a sample of 110 children (7-9 years of age), who were followed longitudinally for a minimum of one year as part of the Collaborative Research Support Program on Food Intake and Human Function.