Lead Toxicity and Pollution in Poland.

Background: Human exposure to lead can occur in a variety of ways, all of which involve exposure to potentially toxic elements as environmental pollutants. Lead enters the body via ingestion and inhalation from sources such as soil, food, lead dust and lead in products of everyday use and in the workplace. The aim of this review is to describe the toxic effects of lead on the human body from conception to adulthood, and to review the situation regarding lead toxicity in Poland.

Low-density lipoprotein particle number predicts coronary artery calcification in asymptomatic adults at intermediate risk of cardiovascular disease.

Background: Clinicians require more discriminating measures of cardiovascular risk than those currently used in most clinical settings. A promising avenue of research concerns the relationship of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) subfractions to subclinical atherosclerosis.

Objective: To assess cross-sectional associations between subfractions of LDL cholesterol and coronary artery calcification (CAC).

A randomized control trial of continuous support in labor by a lay doula.

Objective: To compare labor outcomes in women accompanied by an additional support person (doula group) with outcomes in women who did not have this additional support person (control group).

Design: Randomized controlled trial.

Setting: A women's ambulatory care center at a tertiary perinatal care hospital in New Jersey.

Quantitative approaches to nutrient density for public health nutrition.

Nutrient density, the vitamin or mineral content of a food or diet per unit energy, has long been a useful concept in the nutritional sciences. However, few nutritionists have applied the idea in quantitative, population-based nutrition planning and assessment. This paper discusses the conceptual issues related to the calculation of a nutrient density value that, if consumed, should meet the nutrient needs of most individuals in a population or sub-population, and outlines several methods for estimating this value.

Interrelationships between power-related and belief-related factors determine nutrition in populations.

The vast majority of social research in nutrition has focused either on economic, material and political factors ("power-related" variables) or on psychological, cultural and attitudinal factors ("belief-related" variables). Even when data on both classes of factors are collected, the orientation in analysis is to treat one of the two classes as "confounding" or "control" variables. Although single-focus studies have yielded essential knowledge about the role of specific factors, they fail to reveal the mechanisms through which belief-related and power-related variables interact to produce nutritional outcomes.

Diet and iron status of nonpregnant women in rural Central Mexico.

Background: Few studies have examined the relation of iron status to diet in populations from developing countries with high levels of iron deficiency and diets of poor quality.

Objective: The objective was to identify nutrients, dietary constituents, and foods that are associated with better iron status in a rural Mexican population.

Design: A prospective cohort study was conducted in rural central Mexico.

The history and future of food fortification in the United States: a public health perspective.

For more than 50 years, the United States federal government has regulated food fortification. During this time, the nutritional situation in the United States has improved greatly, whereas scientific information about the role of vitamins and minerals in human growth and development has increased exponentially. Concurrently, government authority to regulate food fortification has declined.