Approaches and reflexions on advance healthcare directives in Brazil.

Objective: to explain the approaches and discussions about the Advance Healthcare Directives spread among health professionals, lawyers and society.

Method: bibliographic search in the databases SciELO, LILACS, BDENF, in Portuguese, carried out from December 2017 to January 2018.

Results: 22 articles were considered for analysis with interviews and testimonies of physicians, intensivists and geriatricians, nurses, technicians and Nursing auxiliaries, Medical students, lawyers and Law students.

Heterogeneity of Multimedia Exposures to Neurotoxic Elements (Al, As, Cd, Pb, Mn, and Hg) in Breastfed Infants from Porto Velho, Brazil.

Infant exposure to neurotoxic elements is a public health issue that needs monitoring with regard to breast milk composition. We studied six neurotoxic elements in breast milk samples at different stages of lactation in mothers from Porto Velho, Brazil. We used a flow-injection mercury system (FIMS) to determine total Hg concentrations and an inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometer (ICP-OES) to determine the concentrations of Al, As, Cd, Pb, and Mn in 106 donors of a human milk bank.

Total and methyl-mercury in hair and milk of mothers living in the city of Porto Velho and in villages along the Rio Madeira, Amazon, Brazil.

High fish consumption and extended breastfeeding are hallmarks of traditional lifestyle in Western Amazonia. We studied sources of mercury exposure, fish-methylmercury (meHg) and dental-amalgam filling, in 75 urban and 82 rural lactating mothers. Total mercury was determined in all samples while meHg concentrations were determined in subsamples of milk (45) and hair (27) of urban mothers living in Porto Velho (PV) and in hair (46) and milk (37) of mothers living in traditional communities (TC) of the Rio Madeira.