Human insulin induces a higher glucagon response to induced hypoglycemia in short normal children, compared to porcine insulin.

After transfer of diabetic patients from porcine to human insulin, many reports emerged supporting an increased hypoglycemia unawareness. Several studies were then undertaken in both diabetic and healthy adults to investigate counterregulatory hormone responses to both porcine and human insulin-induced hypoglycemia as a possible underlying cause for this different hypoglycemia awareness. Most studies demonstrated similar neuroendocrine responses to both insulin species in adults.

Definition and prevalence of sedentarism in an urban population.

Objectives: The present study sought to formulate a precise definition of sedentarism and to identify activities performed by active people that could serve as effective preventive goals.

Methods: A population-based sample of 919 residents of Geneva, Switzerland, aged 35 to 74 years, completed a 24-hour recall. Sedentary people were defined as those expending less than 10% of their daily energy in the performance of moderate- and high-intensity activities (at least 4 times the basal metabolism rate).

Multiple myeloma presenting with external ear canal mass.

The manifestations of multiple myeloma are protean and related to bony osteolytic lesions, and to medullar and renal insufficiency. We report a patient who presented with otalgia as the inaugural symptom of multiple myeloma. Local irradiation combined with systemic chemotherapy led to the disappearance of the temporal bone mass and the accompanying symptoms.

Human immunodeficiency virus activity in rib allografts.

Purpose: The use of bone allografts involves the risk of transmitting infectious agents from the donor to the recipient as shown by historical surveys. A study was therefore undertaken to test the hypothesis that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) activity can still be present after the freezing and thawing of ribs taken from an acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) patient at autopsy.

Materials And Methods: Rib samples were harvested under sterile conditions and frozen at -80 degrees C.

Immediate function of temporomandibular joint after total resection and reconstruction.

Two patients with recurrent parotid gland carcinoma required subtotal petrosectomy and infratemporal fossa type C approach. To achieve en bloc resection, the ascending mandibular ramus and the entire temporomandibular joint, including the adjacent temporal bone, were removed. An original technique for immediate reconstruction of the infratemporal region, including the glenoid fossa and the ramus of the mandible, is described.

Microscopic tonsillectomy: a double-blind randomized trial.

Objective: To evaluate microsurgical bipolar cautery tonsillectomy (TEmic) by comparing it with traditional blunt dissection tonsillectomy (TEtrad).

Design: A double-blind prospective randomized trial with stratification in two age groups.

Patients: 200 consecutive patients undergoing tonsillectomy for tonsillar hypertrophy, or recurrent or chronic tonsillitis.

Passive smoking, active smoking, and education: their relationship to weight history in women in Geneva.

Objectives: This study was undertaken to determine the relationship of education and tobacco smoke to lifetime weight history in women.

Methods: Information on passive smoking, active smoking, and weight history was collected from 928 women aged 29 to 74 years selected from the general population of Geneva, Switzerland. Multivariate analysis of variance was performed for weight, weight at age 20, and weight changes since age 20.

Smoking prevalence in neighborhood and hospital controls: implications for hospital-based case-control studies.

It is widely believed that the prevalence of smoking among hospital patients is greater than that of the general population because many conditions for which patients are hospitalized are caused by or associated with smoking, and that this increased prevalence may bias results of case-control studies of tobacco-related diseases. For this reason, many authors have suggested excluding from the control series patients hospitalized for tobacco-related illnesses. The present study investigated potential selection bias for hospital compared to neighborhood controls in studying tobacco-related diseases.

Retinoids and ageing.

The observation that topical retinoic acid could attenuate wrinkles and other features of skin photoageing has projected this molecule into the media spotlight. Behind this effect are in fact major basic biological issues related to the role of retinoids in tissue maintenance and their possible interference with the molecular biology of cellular ageing.

Poppers, Kaposi's sarcoma, and HIV infection: empirical example of a strong confounding effect?

Are there empirical examples of strong confounding effects? Textbooks usually show examples of weak confounding or use hypothetical examples of strong confounding to illustrate the paradoxical consequences of not separating out the effect of the studied exposure from that of second factor acting as a confounder. HIV infection is a candidate strong confounder of the spuriously high association reported between consumption of poppers, a sexual stimulant, and risk of Kaposi's sarcoma in the early phase of the AIDS epidemic. To examine this hypothesis, assumptions must be made on the prevalence of HIV infection among cases of Kaposi's sarcoma and on the prevalence of heavy popper consumption according to HIV infection in cases and controls.

Turner's syndrome and hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism: thalassemia major and hemochromatosis.

We report here the first case of an association between thalassemia major, hemochromatosis, hypogonadotrophic hypogonadism and Turner's syndrome. The patient is an Albanese girl born in 1980; thalassemia major was diagnosed at 1 year and she was started on a transfusion program; in 1987 iron chelation therapy was started. Six years ago, at 7 years of age, her short stature was observed and she was referred to the endocrinology clinic for evaluation; the basal and stimulation tests done at that time failed to reveal growth hormone deficiency, hypothyroidism or any other disease.

An unusual case of infantile dermal mucinosis.

Dermal mucinosis occurred in a 3-month-old and persisted for six years. The features suggest is represents a novel type of childhood mucinosis.

The major cicatricial pemphigoid antigen is a 180-kD protein that shows immunologic cross-reactivities with the bullous pemphigoid antigen.

Recent studies have shown that sera from patients with cicatricial pemphigoid (CP) contained autoantibodies against epidermal antigens of molecular weight 230 kD and/or 180 kD by immunoblotting, similar to those recognized by bullous pemphigoid (BP) sera. Previous immunoprecipitation studies have shown that BP sera only precipitated the 230-kD antigen. To characterize the CP antigen(s) we tested 10 CP sera, 10 BP sera, and four controls by both immunoprecipitation of radiolabeled cells and immunoblotting of epidermal extracts.

Thyroid hormones and duration of ovulatory activity in the etiology of breast cancer.

We conducted the present study with the hypothesis that conflicting reports on the association between mild hypothyroidism and breast cancer may be due to failure to consider the potential interaction between thyroid and ovarian hormones. Seventy-three cases of breast cancer and 75 hospital controls were studied. The overall matched multivariate odds ratio of breast cancer for the lowest tertile of free T4 (< or = 1.

Geographic variation in cancer incidence in the USSR: estimating the proportion of avoidable cancer.

BACKGROUND. The Soviet Union offers a unique frame in which to study geographic variation in cancer incidence because of its uniform registration system of all newly diagnosed cancer cases throughout its 15 republics and 162 oblasts (administrative units). Variation in cancer rates is stronger when examined by oblasts than it is when examined by republics.

Comparison between short- and long-term insulin-like growth factor response to recombinant human growth hormone.

Eight growth-hormone-deficient children were treated with recombinant human GH (rhGH). Results of the short-term metabolic response to rhGH performed at the start of therapy during a 5-day introduction period and long-term results on growth were analyzed. We could not find any correlation between the effects on the short-term metabolic test and the growth response during long-term therapy, namely between the urea and insulin-like growth factor-I response during the short test and the increase in growth velocity.

On the origin of Hill's causal criteria.

The rules to assess causation formulated by the eighteenth century Scottish philosopher David Hume are compared to Sir Austin Bradford Hill's causal criteria. The strength of the analogy between Hume's rules and Hill's causal criteria suggests that, irrespective of whether Hume's work was known to Hill or Hill's predecessors, Hume's thinking expresses a point of view still widely shared by contemporary epidemiologists. The lack of systematic experimental proof to causal inferences in epidemiology may explain the analogy of Hume's and Hill's, as opposed to Popper's, logic.

Risks of jet injection of insulin in children.

The aim of our study was to assess whether a non-invasive insulin injector could improve the metabolic control of ten diabetic children complaining of painful injections with syringe and needle. The cumulative study period amounted to 1347 days. Whereas a non-significant rise in insulin needs was observed (from 0.

Growth in a case of Russell-Silver syndrome treated for hypopituitarism.

The growth characteristics of Russell-Silver syndrome (RSS) include dwarfism of prenatal onset, moderate retardation of bone age and normal postnatal height velocity. We describe a case of hypopituitarism in a girl with typical RSS who suffered from a severe trauma at birth. Signs of hypopituitarism appeared during childhood.

Physiology of puberty.

Adolescence represents the period of important somatic changes which lead to sexual maturation, pubertal growth and active functions of reproduction. Mean ages of onset of puberty are 10.9 and 11.