Blood Levels of Environmental Heavy Metals are Associated with Poorer Iron Status in Ugandan Children: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Iron deficiency (ID) and environmental exposure to metals frequently co-occur among Ugandan children, but little is known about their associations, although iron and other divalent metals share the same intestinal absorption transporter, divalent metal transporter 1 (DMT1).

Objectives: We examined associations between iron status and blood concentrations of lead, manganese (Mn), cobalt (Co), and cadmium, both singly and as a mixture.

Methods: We used data on sociodemographic status, iron biomarkers, and blood concentrations of heavy metals collected from a cross-sectional survey of 100 children aged 6-59 mo in Kampala, Uganda.

Environmental exposure to metal mixtures and linear growth in healthy Ugandan children.

Background: Stunting is an indicator of poor linear growth in children and is an important public health problem in many countries. Both nutritional deficits and toxic exposures can contribute to lower height-for-age Z-score (HAZ) and stunting (HAZ < -2).

Objectives: In a community-based cross-sectional sample of 97 healthy children ages 6-59 months in Kampala, Uganda, we examined whether exposure to Pb, As, Cd, Se, or Zn were associated with HAZ individually or as a mixture.

Association of Prenatal and Perinatal Exposures to Particulate Matter With Changes in Hemoglobin A1c Levels in Children Aged 4 to 6 Years.

Importance: Environmental risk factors for childhood type 2 diabetes, an increasing global problem, are understudied. Air pollution exposure has been reported to be a risk factor for this condition.

Objective: To examine the association between prenatal and perinatal exposures to fine particulate matter with a diameter less than 2.

Toxic Metals and Chronic Kidney Disease: a Systematic Review of Recent Literature.

Purpose Of Review: Arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), and lead (Pb) are ubiquitous toxicants with evidence of adverse kidney impacts at high exposure levels. There is less evidence whether environmental exposure to As, Cd, or Pb plays a role in development of chronic kidney disease (CKD). We conducted a systematic review to summarize the recent epidemiologic literature examining the relationship between As, Cd, or Pb with CKD.

Piloting a Developmental Screening Tool Adapted for East African Children.

There is a need for developmental screening that is easily administered in resource-poor settings. We hypothesized that known risk factors would predict failed developmental screening on an adapted screening tool in East African children living in poverty. The sample included 100 healthy Ugandan children aged 6⁻59 months.

Assessment of blood levels of heavy metals including lead and manganese in healthy children living in the Katanga settlement of Kampala, Uganda.

Background: Exposure to environmental heavy metals is common among African children. Although many of these metals are known neurotoxicants, to date, monitoring of this exposure is limited, even in countries such as Uganda that are undergoing rapid industrialization. An assessment of the burden and potential causes of metal exposure is a critical first step in gauging the public health burden of metal exposure and in guiding its elimination.

Deoxygenated phosphorothioate inositol phosphate analogs: synthesis, phosphatase stability, and binding affinity.

Inositol phosphates, such as 1D-myo-Inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate [Ins(1,4,5)P(3)], are cellular second messengers with potential roles in cancer prevention and therapy. It typically is difficult to attribute specific pharmacological activity to a single inositol phosphate because they are rapidly metabolized by phosphatases and kinases. In this study, we have designed stable analogs of myo-inositol 4,5-bisphosphate [Ins(4,5)P(2)] and Ins(1,4,5)P(3) that retain the cyclohexane scaffold, but lack hydroxyl groups that might be phosphorylated and have phosphate groups replaced with phosphatase-resistant phosphorothioates.

Kinetics and mechanism of the sensitized photodegradation of lignin model compounds.

The kinetics of the sensitized photodegradation of a variety of well-defined lignin model compounds was studied to determine the mechanisms responsible for lignin's photochemically-mediated oxidation. Monomeric and dimeric models representing lignin's phenolic end groups and nonphenolic dimers representing its inner core were studied. It was determined that the rate constants for the reaction of the deprotonated phenolic models with singlet oxygen (1O2) range from 0.