U.S.
Food and Drug Administration
FDA Consumer magazine
September-October 2002
Table of Contents
A new Genetic and Rare Diseases Information Center is now available to the general public, health-care professionals and biomedical researchers.
Created by the National Institutes of Health's National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and Office of Rare Diseases (ORD), the center gives free and immediate access to information specialists who can answer questions on the phone, as well as by e-mail, fax and regular mail.
Information on the more than 6,000 genetic and rare diseases may be hard to find because they affect relatively few people. The center will help relieve this problem by providing authoritative information about specific illnesses from existing public domain sources, including reliable Web sites, brochures, articles and book chapters. The center does not, however, give medical advice, provide treatment or diagnose illness.
To contact the information center:
Phone: 1-888-205-2311
TTY: 1-888-205-3223
(answered Monday through Friday,
12 p.m. to 6 p.m., Eastern time)
E-mail: gardinfo@nih.gov
Fax: 202-966-5689
(available 24 hours a day)
Write:
The Genetic and Rare Diseases Information
Center
PO Box 8126
Gaithersburg, MD 20898-8126
For more information, visit the ORD Web site and the NHGRI Web site.
Breathing polluted air, especially smoky exhaust that billows from factory smokestacks and the tailpipes of some diesel-powered vehicles, is bad for people with heart disease, a new study indicates.
Many researchers have reported an association between pollution and increased heart attacks and deaths from heart disease. However, the study by Juha Pekkanen, M.D., of the National Public Health Institute in Kuopio, Finland, is the first to look at myocardial strain and to show an association between decreased oxygen supply to the heart muscle (ischemia) and particulate air pollution.
Study participants with heart disease were about three times more likely to have ischemia during exercise testing after exposure to periods of high level air pollution than when they were tested after periods of negligible air pollution, says Pekkanen.
The researchers analyzed data from 342 exercise tests that they conducted. They recorded 72 instances of exercise-induced ischemic episodes among the 45 subjects. Twenty-three patients experienced exercise-associated symptoms when air pollution was high two days before a clinic visit. The remaining 22 subjects either had no episodes of ischemia or had episodes at every visit regardless of air quality and were unable to provide information about the relationship between air pollution and myocardial ischemia.
The results were published in the July 29, 2002, rapid access issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Fine particles--those smaller than 2.5 micrometers--represent the type of pollutant mainly associated with emissions from factory smokestacks. Ultra-fine particles have a diameter less than 0.1 micrometers. This is the type of pollutant that spews from exhaust pipes. Both types of particulate air pollution increased the risk of ischemic episodes about three-fold, says Pekkanen.
Eating at least three servings of fruits and vegetables each day over an extended period of time may help protect against stroke, heart disease and other cardiovascular problems, a new study indicates.
The study by Lydia A. Bazzano, Ph.D., and colleagues, of the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, examined the relationship between fruit and vegetable consumption and the risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and stroke in a large group for an average of 19 years. They found that stroke incidence and mortality, as well as mortality from ischemic heart disease and CVD, were all significantly reduced in those who had eaten at least three servings of fruits and vegetables per day.
"Increased fruit and vegetable intakes have been recommended to prevent morbidity and mortality from cardiovascular disease," the researchers conclude in their study, published in the July 2002 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. "Our findings provide additional evidence to support this recommendation."
The study, part of the first National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES I), involved prolonged follow-up of 9,608 adults ages 25 to 74 who were randomly distributed by sex, race and sociological group. All subjects were free of CVD at the study's inception between 1971-1975. Follow-up data on dietary intake, disease and mortality were collected in 1982-1984, 1986, 1987 and 1992. In determining average daily servings of fruits and vegetables, the researchers used both a three-month food frequency questionnaire and a 24-hour dietary recall record.
People who had eaten at least three servings per day of fruits and vegetables had a 27 percent lower incidence of stroke and a 42 percent lower stroke mortality rate, when all subjects were considered. In addition, the risk of death from ischemic heart disease and CVD was reduced by 24 percent and 27 percent, respectively. Men appeared to benefit more than women and whites more than nonwhites from frequent fruit and vegetable consumption with a few exceptions, such as a 53 percent reduction in stroke mortality for women versus a 23 percent reduction for men.