Association of blood lead levels with onset of puberty in Russian boys.

Background: Epidemiologic studies suggest a temporal trend of earlier onset and longer duration of puberty, raising concerns regarding the potential impact of environmental factors on pubertal development. Lead exposure has been associated with delayed pubertal onset in girls; however, epidemiologic data in boys are limited.

Methods: We used multivariable logistic regression models to explore the cross-sectional association of blood lead levels with growth and pubertal onset based on physician-assessed testicular volume (TV) and pubertal staging in 489 boys 8-9 years of age from Chapaevsk, Russia.

Alveolar macrophage cytokine response to air pollution particles: oxidant mechanisms.

Alveolar macrophages (AMs) primed with LPS and treated with concentrated ambient air particles (CAPs) showed enhanced release of tumor necrosis factor (TNF) and provide an in vitro model for the amplified effects of air pollution particles seen in people with preexisting lung disease. To investigate the mechanism(s) by which CAPs mediate TNF release in primed rat AMs, we first tested the effect of a panel of antioxidants. N-Acetyl-l-cysteine (20 mM), dimethyl thiourea (20 mM) and catalase (5 microM) significantly inhibited TNF release by primed AMs incubated with CAPs.

Critical care medicine in a private hospital.

Technologic advances in the past ten years, coupled with the advent of a new specialty of critical care medicine, have made it possible for patients to survive major surgical procedures and critical illnesses which, ten years ago, would have resulted in certain death. In 1979, a group of emergency physicians, with training and experience in critical care medicine, initiated a program of critical care at Cedars of Lebanon Health Care Center, a private nonprofit hospital. This program provides critical care physician (intensivist) coverage similar to that presently available in emergency departments throughout the country.