This report is from the morbidity and mortality weekly report and is from the centre for disease control and prevention collaboration.
Arthritis is costly (86 billion dollars annually), highly prevalent (affecting 43 million U.S. adults), the leading cause of disability, and associated with substantial disparities in pain, activity limitations, and compromised quality of life.
State-based estimates of arthritis prevalence and impact help define the burden of arthritis and provide state arthritis programs with data for program planning. This report summarizes results from the 2003 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey on state-specific prevalence of self-reported doctor-diagnosed arthritis and arthritis-attributable activity limitation in 50 states, the District of Columbia, and three territories.
The findings indicated that the prevalence of adults with self-reported doctor-diagnosed arthritis ranged from 17.9% to 37.2% (state median: 27.0%) and with arthritis-attributable activity limitation ranged from 6.3% to 16.7% (state median: 9.9%); the proportion of adults with arthritis-attributable activity limitation among those with self-reported doctor-diagnosed arthritis ranged from 30.1% to 49.8% (state median: 37.4%). These high rates of arthritis prevalence and activity limitation are projected to increase with the aging of the population, requiring increased intervention measures to reduce this impact.
This is from the May issue and canbe found on page 477 of volume5:55. the pubmed identifier is 16675943.
Do you want some facts about the food your eating? Certain
fast food contains grease and salt. Want to start a diet and need some facts on nutrition? Reading the nutrition facts on the side of your groceries could help you drop lbs.
Posted in Facts May 9th, 2006 by admin | No comments
This article is from A pawlik and colleagues from the Herczynska group at Szczecin in Poland (they can be found in the Pomeranian medical school department of pharmo-kinetics).
Rheumatoid arthritis is a chronic inflammatory disease in which interleukin (IL)-18 plays an important role. However, there are controversial reports on IL-18 promoter polymorphism as an independent marker of rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility. T
he aim of the present study was to examine the IL-18 promoter polymorphism in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and its association with disease susceptibility, activity and severity. We examined 309 patients with rheumatoid arthritis from a Polish population diagnosed according to the criteria of American College of Rheumatology. An allele-specific polymerase chain reaction was used for analysis of the polymorphisms in positions - 137 and - 607 in promoter region of IL-18 gene.
A significantly decreased number of subjects with AC/AC and AG/AG diplotypes was observed among rheumatoid arthritis patients as compared with healthy controls (OR - 0.51, 95%CI 0.28-0.95, P = 0.045) and (OR - 0.12, 95% CI 0.02-0.97, P = 0.042), respectively. Nevertheless, there was no significant association with disease activity, joint erosions, extra-articular manifestations, rheumatoid factor.
The above results suggest that IL-18-137 and - 607 promoter polymorphisms are not the significant factors influencing rheumatoid arthritis course and severity in a Polish population.
This abstract was sourced from pubmed id number 16671950. It is in the May issue, and the full article can be found from there if you have a subscription it is in the May 2006 edition and starts on page four hundred and fifteen.
Posted in rheumatoid arthritis May 8th, 2006 by admin | No comments
This abstract comes from the work of J Tomaka from the niversity of Texas in El Paso USA.
OBJECTIVE: This study examined relations between social isolation, loneliness, and social support to health outcomes in a sample of New Mexico seniors.
METHOD: We used random-digit dialing to obtain a random sample of 755 southern New Mexico seniors. Participants answered questions pertaining to demographics, social isolation and loneliness, social support, and disease diagnosis including diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, liver disease, arthritis, emphysema, tuberculosis, kidney disease, cancer, asthma, and stroke. The sample allowed for comparison of Caucasian and Hispanic participants.
RESULTS: Correlational and logistic analyses indicated that belongingness support related most consistently to health outcomes. Ethnic subgroup analysis revealed similarities and differences in the pattern of associations among the predictor and outcome variables.
DISCUSSION: The results demonstrate the importance of social variables for predicting disease outcomes in the elderly and across ethnic groups.
The abstract was published in the June 2006 edition of the journal of aging and health. the pubmed identifier is 16648391 and the article starts on page 359.
Posted in Uncategorized May 5th, 2006 by admin | No comments
