Risk factors for cardiovascular disease in Sardinia from 1978 to 2001: a comparative study with Italian mainland.

Background: This study is a survey of cardiovascular risk factors in Sardinia in the years 1999-2001 and allows us to update previously observed trends of such factors and to compare them with those in the Italian mainland.

Methods: Random samples of free living population of the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, Italy, were collected. Overall, 6818 subjects, 50% of each sex, and aged 20-80+ years constituted the sample.

Prevalence of diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes mellitus and impaired fasting glucose in Sardinia.

We aimed at updating the prevalence of impaired fasting glucose (IFG) and of undiagnosed (UD) and diagnosed diabetes (DD) among the Sardinian population. The survey was carried out from 2002 to 2005 on 4.737 subjects aged 20-80+ years.

Reexpression of normal stem cells in erythroleukemia during remission.

A patient with erythroleukemia and heterozygous for the Mediterranean variant of the X-linked enzyme glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) was studied to determine the number and type of progenitor cells in which the disease arose. G6PD mosaicism was assessed by the different rate of utilization of 2-deoxy-glucose-6-phosphate (2dG6P) by normal and Mediterranean variants of G6PD. Erythroleukemia is established as a clonal disease involving a precursor cell common to the erythroid and myeloid lines.

Hemoglobin A1 in subjects with G-6-PD deficiency during and after hemolytic crises due to favism.

HbA1 was determined in 15 G-6-PD-deficient subjects during a hemolytic crisis with hemoglobinuria due to ingestion of fresh fava beans. The same G-6-PD-deficient subjects were studied again 4 months after the crisis, when they were asymptomatic. 15 normal healthy children served as controls.