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January 2007 Edition
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Kaiser Health Disparities Report: A Weekly Look At Race, Ethnicity And Health | Two studies recently released discuss health disparities among blacks related to obesity and childhood cancer. Summaries appear below.
* "The Racial Disparity Gap in Pediatric Leukemia and Lymphoma Survival Has Been Eliminated in Children but not in Older Adolescents and Young Adults," American Society of Hematology: While survival rates for those with leukemia and lymphoma have gradually improved for all age groups from zero to 29, there are racial disparities in survival rates between racial groups, according to a report released last week at the 48th annual meeting of the American Society of Hematology. For the report, researchers examined national survey data to identify trends in survival differences between whites and blacks with leukemia and lymphoma that were related to their age at time of diagnosis .....Full Story
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High Risk Patients Use Both Conventional Medicine and Alternative Therapies for Asthma; Some Alternatives Pose Risk In depth interviews with a group of low income mostly female African Americans, all of whom had severe asthma, revealed that all participants used some form of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in combination with conventional medicine. Writing in this month’s issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, Johns Hopkins University School Nursing researcher Maureen George, PhD, RN notes that "While most subjects trusted prescription asthma medicine, there was a preference for integration of CAM with conventional asthma treatment ..... Full Story
| A lot has been written about the explosion of the Hispanic/Latino community in the United States over the past 10 years. But very little attention has been given to the linguistic and cultural challenges this growth brings to the field of mental health and addiction — also known as behavioral health.
When it comes to providing culturally competent behavioral health care services, more providers are recognizing the challenge of caring for patients from diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds.
In 1990, the U.S. Census reported 31.8 million residents of the United States, 14 percent of the total population, spoke a language other than English at home. The 2005 U.S. Census estimate now places that figure at 51.9 million or 19.4 percent of the total population ..... Full Story
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| Science Daily — A new study by scientists at Children's Hospital Oakland Research Institute (CHORI) is the first to show that a mother's diet during pregnancy influences the health of her grandchildren by changing the behavior of a specific gene. The study was conducted using mice of an unique strain called "viable yellow agouti" also known as Avy in scientific terms. These mice possess a gene that influences the color of their coats as well as their tendency to become obese and develop diabetes and cancer. The new research shows that the diet consumed by a pregnant Avy mouse affects the health of not only her pups, but also their pups -- her grandchildren.
The study was published in the November issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and was conducted by CHORI Scientist David Martin, M.D., and Assistant Scientist Kenneth Beckman, Ph.D., in collaboration with Drs .....Full Story
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SPOKANE - A pair of Washington State University researchers hope to change the diet and exercise habits of seventh- and eighth-graders with a $1.3 million U.S. Department of Agriculture grant to study childhood obesity.
The three-year project by WSU faculty members Kenn Daratha and Ruth Bindler will require the cooperation of as many as 5,000 Spokane School District middle-school students and their families.
Plans are still tentative, but the project could include personal coaches who work with students to set individual health and fitness goals. School-based fitness centers might stay open in the evenings and on weekends to allow families to work out together.
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About 5,000 students at six Spokane middle schools will be eligible for the project, although participation is not mandatory, Bindler said. Changes will be monitored in several ways, including blood tests .....Full Story
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By Laura Ungar
lungar@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
Even at age 14, Jamillya Martin believes it's not right that minorities suffer more health problems than white residents.
So she's glad to be part of a program run through Louisville's new Center for Health Equity, which is designed to attack such health disparities.
"People think it's too hard to make things better," said Jamillya, a runner involved with the center's Tommie Smith Track and Field Program. But it won't be, she said, "if we help get a whole lot of people involved."
City officials are trying to do just that as they develop the center, an office of the Louisville Metro Health Department that officially opened in June and is now preparing to launch programs and studies with the help of local residents.
Located at 2422 W .....Full Story
| One mechanism helps spur, and slow, malignancy
THURSDAY, Dec. 28 (HealthDay News) -- The same mechanism that drives tumor development can also suppress tumor growth, new research shows.
A team at the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine studied mice that had cells with one or more extra or missing chromosomes -- a characteristic known as aneuploidy, a common feature of cancer cells.
"We questioned whether the wrong number of chromosomes contributed to tumor growth or was a consequence of the accrued damage in cancerous cells," Don Cleveland, a professor of medicine at UCSD, explained in a prepared statement.
"We found that, with age, having cells which inherited the wrong composition of chromosomes resulted in a larger number of spontaneous tumors," Cleveland said.
But the research also led to an unexpected finding .....Full Story
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