Developmental Origins of Cardiovascular Disease: Understanding High Mortality Rates in the American South.

While many social scientists view heart disease as the outcome of current conditions, this cannot fully explain the significant geographic disparities in cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality rates in the USA. The developmental origins hypothesis proposes that CVD vulnerability is created by poor conditions in utero that underbuilds major organs relative to those needed to process lush nutrition later in life. The American South underwent an economic transformation from persistent poverty to rapid economic growth in the post-World War II era.

The hidden cost of moving up: type 2 diabetes and the escape from persistent poverty in the American South.

Objectives: The paper tests the thrifty phenotype hypothesis, according to which nonharmonious growth trajectories are costly for adult health.

Methods: The American surge in the prevalence of type 2 diabetes is concentrated in the South, a region characterized by a long history of poverty followed by rapid economic growth beginning in the 1960s. Civil rights legislation further accelerated income growth for African-Americans in the region.

Use of an inguinal approach adapted from equine surgery for cryptorchidectomy in dogs and cats: 26 cases (1999-2010).

OBJECTIVE-To determine whether a surgical technique used in cryptorchid horses can be used successfully to remove testicles retained in the inguinal region or abdominal cavity in dogs and cats. DESIGN-Retrospective case series. ANIMALS-22 dogs and 4 cats with cryptorchidism.