EMBARGOED FOR PUBLICATION OR BROADCAST UNTIL 00:01 GMT ON 23rd September

Issue 103

September 2009

If you report a story, we ask that you credit Elsevier’s journal as the source.

Welcome to the 103rd edition of Flash, our bi-weekly alert for science, health and medical journalists. Flash is a courtesy service with access to ScienceDirect, Elsevier’s online platform, providing full text access to some 2,000 scientific, technical and medical journals.

Please use your Flash login and password to access each article’s full text on ScienceDirect. For a new password, forgotten passwords or if you have any feedback, please contact Anna Hogrebe at newsroom@elsevier.com or at +31 20 485 3269.

ARTICLES

1. NEW RESEARCH LOOKS TO PREDICT THE AGE OF MENOPAUSE FOR INDIVIDUAL WOMEN

The modern day woman, with her college degree, career and driven ambitions, is often delaying pregnancy. But when it comes times to settle down and start a family, the question always remains as to how easy or difficult it will be to get pregnant. Predicting the age of natural menopause could certainly help, allowing women to make informed choices about when to have children, but is science there yet?

A new review in Elsevier’s Maturitas examines the physiology of ovarian ageing, with the menopause being the final outcome. Both long- and short-term predictive markers of the age of the menopause and the preceding natural infertility are evaluated. Changes in concentrations of estradiol, progesterone, luteinising hormone and inhibin, as well as follicle dynamics, are a few indicators. Chronological age, family history, anti-Mullerian hormone, poor response to in vitro fertilization, basal follicle-stimulating hormone and the antral follicle count can be used for long-term prediction. For short-term prediction, cycle shortening and occurrence of vasomotor symptoms may prove useful.

Even as the research grows, science today cannot tell a woman with sufficient reliability and certainty when her final menstrual period will occur. The researchers hope longitudinal studies will provide better predictive models for individual use in the future. Use of genetic profiles may add to the accuracy of currently known markers.

———————————-

2. RESIDENTIAL PROXIMITY TO AGRICULTURAL PESTICIDE APPLICATIONS - COULD THERE BE A LINK TO CHILDHOOD ACUTE LYMPHOBLASTIC LEUKAEMIA?

Live near a farm that could be using pesticides? You may want to read this article. While previous case-control studies have observed an increased risk of childhood leukaemia associated with household pesticide use and parental exposures to pesticides in occupational settings, Elsevier’s latest Environmental Research illustrates there could also be a link between agricultural pesticide applications and residential proximity.

Using residential histories collected by the University of California, Berkeley from the families of 213 acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) cases and 268 matched controls enrolled in the Northern California Childhood Leukaemia Study, scientists at the Northern California Cancer Center and collaborating institutions assessed residential proximity within a half-mile of pesticide applications by linking address histories with reports of agricultural pesticide use. Proximity was assessed during different periods, including the first year of life and the child’s lifetime through the date of diagnosis for cases or reference for controls. Since over 600 different pesticide active ingredients were used during the testing time, 118 agents were selected to measure since they were used the most frequently.

Results revealed an elevated ALL risk associated with lifetime moderate exposure, but not high exposure, to certain physicochemical categories of pesticides, including organophosphates, chlorinated phenols and triazines, and with pesticides classified as insecticides or fumigants. Future research should focus on specific pesticides that may provide additional clarity on the role they could play in the aetiology of childhood leukaemia.

———————————-

3.DEPRESSION, HOSTILITY AND LOWER SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS – A LETHAL COMBINATION FOR YOUR HEART?

Obesity, stress, poor diet. These things we know to be linked with heart disease. But can hostility and depressive symptoms be bad for your heart too? And how does your socioeconomic status factor into the healthy heart equation?

Elsevier’s latest issue of Social Science & Medicine examines 12-year longitudinal data from the Dutch GLOBE study to examine the relative contributions of hostility and depressive symptoms to the income gradient in ischemic heart disease (IHD), as well as potential gender differences. Of a total sample of 2,374 individuals, 106 respondents underwent hospital admission for incident IHD between 1991 and 2003. Hostility and depressive attributes were measured and socioeconomic and health data was collected.

Overall, men were more likely to suffer an IHD event than women. Additionally, lower income levels were associated with a higher risk of incident IHD in both men and women. Respondents with depressive symptoms had a 66 percent higher risk of incident IHD compared to respondents without these symptoms. Although men reported more hostility than women, it was unfavourable for cardiac health in women only.

This study adds to a growing body of research illustrating that individuals in lower socioeconomic groups are more likely to end up in jobs with lower autonomy and control, have limited resources and fewer options to pull out of their slump. Combined, this could result in more negative responses like depression or hostility, which ultimately could lead to a greater risk for heart disease , especially in women.

———————————-

The Scirus tool bar makes it easier than ever to find scientific, technical and medical information on the Web and is quick and easy to install. After installing, the Scirus toolbar conveniently appears below your Internet Explorer address bar, meaning you have scientific searches at your fingertips, wherever you are on the Web. Link to Scirus: http://www.scirus.com/srsapp/toolbar/ If your browser does not support HTML, you may need to copy the links below and paste them into your browser to access the articles:

1. doi:10.1016/j.maturitas.2009.06.007
2. doi:10.1016/j.envres.2009.07.014
3. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.07.031