[Assessment of the impact of socio-economic factors on the health state of the population of the Sverdlovsk region in the system of social-hygienic monitoring].

There was investigated the impact of socioeconomic factors on medical and demographic processes in working age population. For the assessment of the impact of living conditions and environmental factors on mortality rate in a population of the Sverdlovsk region factor-typological, correlation and regression analyzes were applied There was shown an availability of statistically significant correlation relationships between mortality of the population of working age and socio-economic characteristics (degree of home improvement, quality of medical care, the level of social tension, the level of the demographic load), as well as between their increments with taking into account the time shifts. The effect of the value of the purchasing power on the mortality rate of the working population has been established The purchasing power was shown to be connected with a mortality rate of working population from external causes more stronger than death from all causes.

[Hygienic evaluation of direct heating of the air delivered to the shaft].

The paper gives the results of exploring a test pre-heating system for the air (APHS) delivered to the shaft. The system has been first used in the Urals. The supply air is heated by burning natural gas in the air current.

[Nanotechnologies: prediction of the possible negative effect of insoluble nanoparticles on the body].

In addition to the devices given in the guidelines of the Russian Inspectorate for the Protection of Consumer Rights and Human Welfare "Evaluation of the Safety of Nanomaterials" (2007) to characterize the biological activity of nanoparticles, one should use a chemiluminometer, a cheaper and easy-to-use device that gives unique information on the activation of the nonspecific bactericidal system of phagocytes in contact with nanoparticles. According to the nature of activation, all nanomaterials can be divided into 5 classes of potential hazard and carcinogenicity.

[The importance of social stress and effective occupational motivation in the forming of life-style, population health, and the development of demographic processes in Russia].

The body of pathogenetic mechanisms that have caused super high and super early mortality of able-bodied people due to socioeconomic reforms is caused by a special form of stress, the so called "social stress", having a specific origin. The reason for it is loss of effective occupational motivation by population, a motivation based on the ability to provide decent existence for oneself and one's family with honest labor. Within the 20th century there were only four periods when population health improved, and all these periods were associated with a rise in occupational motivation.

[Changes in the functional status of the liver in the course of chronic obstructive bronchitis].

Hypoxia conditioned by chronic pulmonary insufficiency is associated in patients with chronic obstructive bronchitis with a more intense free-radical oxidation. A reduced ventilation of the lungs is concurrent in patients with a higher level of malonic aldehyde, as well as with a lower activity of superoxide dismutase and catalase. The liver is involved into the pathological process as a back-feed mechanism in response to the oxidation shift in tissues.

[Pathogenicity basis in medical and social strategies in preventive health services].

Pathogenetic processes inherent in the social reform course pre-conditioning an extra high and extra young mortality of population and the worsened physical development of children were analyzed. Four main factors, which confirm that the below processes are involved in the above phenomenon, are defined; they are: CNS (dynamic stereotype of the higher nervous activity) neuroendocrinal regulation (stress), free radical oxidation (phenoptosis) and population gene pool (heterozygosity). Social (deliberate labor motivation) and medical (individual prevention) priorities are substantiated to improve the health state in Russia.

[Pathogenesis and classification of dust-related disease].

The author justifies basic principles for new dust diseases classification resting upon contemporary ideas concerning pathogenesis of occupational respiratory diseases caused by dust.

[The key task of human ecology in Russia].

All major medical and demographic indices changed for the worse in the country during the reform years. Due to the prevalence of mortality over the birth rate, the country's population has been decreasing at a growing pace topping, now, one million people annually. Therefore, the overcoming of the medical-and-demographic crisis alongside with searching for ways of how to preserve the ecological balance must now be on the top of the agenda of human ecology in Russia.

[The pathogenetic approach to studying the influence of the environmental factors on the population health].

The pathogenetic approach to studying the influence of the environmental factors on the population health does not regard the organism as a "black box" and makes it possible not only to evaluate a scope of risk or to substantiate the parameters of the safe impact degree, it also can be used to specify the biological mechanisms of the influence of the above factors. This can be a foundation for the elaboration of actual methods for the medical-and-biological prevention, treatment and rehabilitation. The pathogenetic approach rests on the knowledge of mechanisms of the organism protection from unfavorable impacts.

[Human ecology. Which is the main challenge to Russia?].

The main direction in the study of human ecology in Russia today is to provide evidence for how to maintain environmental balance in the biosphere of the Earth, though the above factor also exerts a constantly growing negative impact on the health and life quality of the population. During the years of the reforms in the country, all the principal medical and demographic indices have undergone negative changes. To overcome the medicodemographic crisis should be now a priority problem to be solved in human ecology in Russia.

[Reforms and demographic crisis].

During reformation years all basic medical and demographic indices have undergone negative changes in Russia. Since 1992 there has been a steady-state decrease in the population due to the fact that mortality rates are extremely greater than birth ones. In 2001, the Russian population reduced in number by nearly a million.

[Molecular and cellular mechanisms for protecting the respiratory organs from hazardous effects].

Knowledge of the mechanisms of the body's defense from poor exposures underlies the pathogenetical approach to examining the influence of environmental factors on human health. The respiratory organs are protected from poor exposures by several interrelated systems and mechanisms. The most important ones are an inspired air conditioning system, a respiratory tract self-cleansing system, a pulmonary non-specific bactericidal protection system, an alveolar respiratory surface self-cleansing system, a toxic substance metabolic and neutralizing system, and a specific immune defense system.

[Free radical oxidation as a link of early and prolonged adaptation to environmental factors].

Analyzing his own findings and the data available in the literature, the author has found that free radicals are a connecting link in the development of early and prolonged adaptation. With rapid adaptation, they make a weighty contribution to the body's bactericidal protection and antimicrobial constitutional immunity. This role is mainly played by the oxygen-dependent phagocytic bactericidal system that generates active oxygen forms and by the inducible arginine-dependent connective tissue cell system that synthesizes nitrogen oxide.

[Fibrogenicity of dust emitted by highly aluminiferous refractories].

The authors proved variable clinical and pathogenetic features of disease in workers under long occupational exposure to dust of kaolin and its baking products. Therefore, special experimental studies should cover kaolin and mullite as primary and final product in entire technologic sequence of high-alumina refractories production. Natural refractory clay and mullite dust were administered to rats intratracheally during chronic experiments.

[Medicine strategy in population's health care on the eve of 21-st century].

The reforms have done great damage to the population's health and reduced birth rates in Russia. They were implemented as "shock therapy" which broke up a "dynamic stereotype" in the vast majority of individuals. The break-up of the "dynamic stereotype" was due to the fact that there were persons who had been grown under market economy in Russia at all.

[Catalytic properties of dust as criteria of its occupational hazards].

The catalytic properties of fire clay (kaolin) and mullet dusts versus quartz, asbestos, and coal ones were studied. Kaolin and mullet were found to have different catalytic capacities mainly of forming free radicals. The dust of kaolin increased the level of superoxide anion radical and hydrogen peroxide in the granulocytic suspension and H2O2/O2 ratio to a lesser extent than that of mullet and quartz.

[The influence of "rigidity" and structure of fibrous dust on their biological activity].

The authors represent experimental data on cytotoxic, fibrogenic and mutagenic effects of fibrous dusts--"soft" pulp fibers and "stiff" ones (chrysotile-asbestos, carbon, basalt and fiber glass) in comparison with the nonfibrous analogs (antigorit, quartz DQ-12 and others). Viability of peritoneal macrophages was depressed more dramatically by "stiff" fibers vs. the "soft" ones.

[Effect of chrysotile-asbestos and zeolites dust on generations of reactive oxygen species by alveolar macrophages and granulocytes].

Different characteristics of the influence of dusts of chrysotile--asbestos, mordenite, erionite and klinoptilolite on the total generation of the active forms of oxygen by the alveolar macrophages and the generation of O2- and H2O2 by the granulocytes give the possibility to connect some of these characteristics with the peculiarity of biological action these dusts. It is discovered the most strong activating properties has the dust of chrysotile--asbestos, and the most cytotoxic effect has the dust of klinoptilolite.

[Corpuscular mutagenesis and its prevention].

The carcinogenic and mutagenic activity of dust containing chrysotile-asbestos and zeolites, as well as the role of active oxygen species in their cytotoxic and mutagenic actions are discussed. Superoxide dismutase (50 mg/ml) was demonstrated to prevent the mutagenic effects of chrysotile-asbestos and latex, catalase (20 mg/ml) to prevent the same of zeolites in experiments on cultured human whole blood. The intraperitoneal administration of dusts of chrysotile-asbestos and zeolites in a dose of 50 mg/kg to C57B1/6 mice was found to elevate the count of cells with chromosomal aberrations in the peritoneal liquid and bone marrow cells of mice, which was dependent on dust exposure time.