Metabolic genotype in relation to individual susceptibility to environmental carcinogens.

Earlier research indicates that within the human population there are considerable differences in the response to the carcinogenic activity of environmental carcinogens. Genetic polymorphism associated with several variants of the gene products participating in the biotransformation of various xenobiotics (including carcinogens) found in human populations constitutes a major cause of those differences. Enzymes coded by different variants of the same gene can differ in their catalytic activities.

Medical causes of female sickness absence during economic transition in Poland.

The current transformation of property relations and economic restructuring, along with many other factors, influence the health condition of workers. The present study was undertaken to investigate the trends in the rate and causes of female sickness absence during the period of economic transition in Poland, based on the absence analysis in one of the largest (before the process of restructuring) plants of the motor car industry. Vital for the current trends in the workers' absenteeism is the reduction in the rate of employment.

The biomarkers detecting early changes in the human organism exposed to occupational carcinogens.

Epidemiological studies and clinical data confirm that occupational exposure to carcinogenic agents plays an important role in cancer etiology. Recent tremendous progress in understanding of the mechanisms of carcinogenesis, and also introduction of new tests to recognize changes occurring in the exposed organism have made it possible for the occupational medicine to detect the earliest cancer stages which occur during the latent phase of the disease. Detecting pre-neoplastic changes which precede an overt form of cancer and identification of measurable indicators of those changes has been one of the fundamental aims of molecular biology research.

Ischaemic heart disease as an effect of obesity-related metabolic disturbances.

Obesity results from excessive accumulation of fats in adipose tissue and constitutes one of the essential sources of increased incidence of some diseases harassing the highly industrialized and urbanized societies. Obesity-related metabolic disorders may be associated with the risk of circulatory diseases. The mechanism causing that obesity enhances the incidence of the metabolic disorders have not been explained to the full extent.