Lowering of plasma cholesterol levels in free-living adolescent males; use of natural and synthetic polyunsaturated foods to provide balanced fat diets.

Two hundred and twenty-nine adolescent male pupils, attending two boarding schools, participated in a study, under free-living dietary conditions, designed to assess the effects on plasma lipids of altering only the type and not the amount of dietary fat. The students were monitored for 6 weeks on three different diets. During the first study period, dietary changes comprised substituting a polyunsaturated dried "filled" milk and products derived therefrom for conventional dairy products (diet A).

Hepatitis B (surface) antigen in mothers and their infants.

Hepatitis B (surface) antigen (HBSAg) was found in the serum of 8 out of 4 245 women attending the antenatal clinic of the Queen Victoria Maternity Hospital Seven (0, 16%) were asymptomatic carriers of the antigen, while the eigth suffered from polyarteritis nodosa. Seven of the 8 babies born to these mothers were followed-up over periods of up to 18 months, and 1 has become a chronic carrier of HBSAg. The antigen was not detected in the colostrum (breast milk) of the 6 positive mothers tested, but it was present in amniotic fluid, placenta and cord blood of some of the mother-infant couples.

Hypercholesterolaemia in primary cancer of the liver.

Hepatic synthesis of cholesterol in higher animals is normally markedly suppressed by dietary cholesterol. This feedback regulation has been shown to be absent in all experimental hepatomas studied, and also in the only 2 humans with primary hepatocellular cancer (PHC) who have been investigated. Another patient who presented with hypercholesterolaemia is described in whom cholesterogenesis in the tumour was not suppressed by cholesterol feeding.

Metabolic bone disease in the elderly. Biochemical studies in three different racial groups living in South Africa.

In an attempt to detect biochemical evidence of metabolic bone disease in the aged, we measured plasma parathyroid hormone (PTH) concentrations, in addition to plasma calcium, phosphorus, alkaline phosphatase and creatinine levels, in elderly White, Black and Indian women. All three ethnic groups demonstrated raised mean PTH concentrations. The Black patients, however, showed the greatest mean PTH elevation and the lowest plasma calcium level.