Allostatic Load in Parents and Offspring: Sex Differences and Intergenerational Effects on Cardiovascular Disease-Free Survival.

Background: Allostatic load (AL), a measure of cumulative stress-related physiological dysregulation, predicts the onset of chronic diseases. We investigated the relationship between AL and cardiovascular disease (CVD)-free survival in parents and offspring, including sex-specific differences.

Methods: The analysis consisted of 6145 offspring-mother-father trios derived from the Framingham Heart Study.

Climate Change: The Ultimate Determinant of Health.

Climate change ubiquitously influences social determinants of health via various pathways. Disproportionately burdening communities who have contributed the least to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and benefitted the least from economic benefits obtained through high-emission activities that cause climate change, climate justice must be centered in any discussion of health equity. This article will explore how climate change contributes to health disparities in vulnerable populations, why this is a justice issue for primary care to address, and what we can do to promote equity, resilience, and adaption in our current economic system while mitigating GHG emissions, leveraging the health sector.

Climate Change and Underserved Communities.

Climate change is the greatest global health threat of the twenty-first century, yet it is not widely understood as a health hazard by primary care providers in the United States. Aside from increasing displacement of populations and acute trauma resulting from increasing frequency of natural disasters, the impact of climate change on temperature stress, vector-borne illnesses, cardiovascular and respiratory illnesses, and mental health is significant, with disproportionate impact on underserved and marginalized populations. Primary care providers must be aware of the impact of climate change on the health of their patients and advocate for adaptation and mitigation policies for the populations they serve.

Environmental Justice and Underserved Communities.

Underserved communities suffer from environmental inequities. Gases lead to hypoxia and respiratory compromise, ozone to increased respiratory illnesses and decreased mental acuity, and mercury to prenatal cognitive disabilities and antisocial behaviors. Lead toxicity is associated with developmental delays.

NANDI TRADITIONAL HEALERS: SENTINELS IN AN UNDERSERVED ENVIRONMENT.

Unlabelled: Project Purpose: Discuss the healing practices and expressions as well as any perceived barriers to practice of traditional Nandi healers working as specialized herbalists (three) and midwife (one) in a rural community in Western Kenya.

Methodology: This Doctorate of Nursing Practice (DNP) project used qualitative approaches including individual recorded interviews conducted in private in a community in rural western Kenya, which were later transcribed and reviewed with key messages identified. The key messages were then corroborated by the participants and reviewed by the doctoral project committee.

Travel-related illness.

Travel abroad for business and pleasure should be safe and meaningful for the traveler. To assure that safe experience, certain processes should be considered before travel. A thorough pretravel health assessment will offer patients and health care providers valuable information for anticipatory guidance before travel.

Diets for successful aging.

The effects of different dietary patterns on specific age-related illness and overall longevity are discussed.

Preventing Heart disease: who needs to be concerned and what to do.

Cardiovascular disease is the most prevalent health challenge to the global health care industry. The goal of prevention is compression of morbidity and enhancement of quality of life through modification of lifestyle and environmental risk factors. Treatment of established cardiovascular disease is expensive and inefficient relative to disease prevention.

Dietary n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids enhance hormone ablation therapy in androgen-dependent prostate cancer.

Hormone ablation therapy typically causes regression of prostate cancer and represents an important means of treating this disease, particularly after metastasis. However, hormone therapy inevitably loses its effectiveness as tumors become androgen-independent, and this conversion often leads to death because of subsequent poor responses to other forms of treatment. Because environmental factors, such as diet, have been strongly linked to prostate cancer, we examined the affects of dietary polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs; at 1.

Dietary resveratrol does not affect intestinal tumorigenesis in Apc(Min/+) mice.

To determine its effect on intestinal tumorigenesis and the protumorigenic COX pathway in Apc(Min/+) mice, resveratrol was administered as a powdered admixture in the diet at 0, 4, 20, or 90 mg/kg body weight for 7 wk. In two separate experiments, resveratrol did not affect intestinal tumor load. It was stable in the diet under experimental conditions, circulated in the plasma as the glucuronide-conjugated form and reached the tumors as evidenced by significant decreases in PGE2 levels.