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Background: The adverse effects of tobacco use on the health of an individual are well known. It is essential to identify factors leading to tobacco use to plan strategies to limit its use. Education is known to influence the prevalence of tobacco use. We aimed to determine the prevalence and patterns of tobacco use in a rural community with a high literacy rate and to examine the socioeconomic and demographic correlates of tobacco consumption in the area., Methods: A cross-sectional survey using personal interviews was carried out on 832 individuals > 15 years of age. The prevalence of current daily use of tobacco was used as the outcome measure. The main analytical methods used were chi-square test and multiple logistic regression analysis., Results: The prevalence of tobacco use was 17.5%, being common among older persons, the lower socioeconomic group and those who were less educated. Tobacco was used predominantly in smokeless forms (chewing, snuff or both). The commonest reason cited for initiating tobacco use was to relieve toothache., Conclusions: Our findings in this rural community suggest that improvement in the educational and socioeconomic status may lead to a decline in the use of tobacco. Health education to improve dental hygiene may also help to reduce tobacco use in this community as it is predominantly used in the chewing form.

Introduction: The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to quantify the treatment effects of en-masse retraction of anterior teeth with mini-implants as anchor units in bialveolar dental protrusion patients undergoing extraction of all 4 first premolars., Methods: A total of 40 patients (mean age, 17.5 years; SD, 3.2 years) were randomly assigned either to group 1 (G1), anterior space closure with mini-implants as anchor units, or group 2 (G2), anterior space closure with conventional methods of anchorage (without mini-implants). Skeletal, dental, and soft-tissue changes were analyzed in both groups on lateral cephalograms taken before retraction and after space closure., Results: Student paired and unpaired t tests were used to analyze the treatment changes in the 2 groups. For the skeletal parameters, a statistically significant decrease in the facial vertical dimensions was seen in G1, but the variables in G2 showed no significant differences (P >0.05). Anchorage loss, in both the horizontal and vertical directions, was noted in G2, whereas G1 showed distalization (anchorage gain) and intrusion of molars. Although the soft-tissue response was variable, facial convexity angle, nasolabial angle, and lower lip protrusion had greater changes in G1. No differences were found in the amount of upper lip retraction between the groups (P >0.05)., Conclusions: Mini-implants provided absolute anchorage to allow greater skeletal, dental, and esthetic changes in patients requiring maximum anterior retraction, when compared with other conventional methods of space closure. The treatment changes were favorable. However, no differences in the mean retraction time were noted between the 2 groups.

This case report describes the treatment of an adult female with a severe Class II malocclusion and congenitally missing mandibular incisors. It was decided to extract the maxillary first premolars and use mini-implants for en masse retraction of the maxillary anterior teeth. More than 13 mm of maxillary incisor retraction was obtained, with little change in the mandibular incisor inclination. The patient's facial esthetics showed dramatic improvement. The upper and lower lips were retracted by 6 mm and 7 mm, respectively. This helped reduce the mentalis strain and improve chin projection. In the mandibular arch, the canines were reshaped to substitute for lateral incisors and the first premolars were used as canines. After 25 months of retention, the results have been maintained. In this report, mini-implants proved to be an effective alternative to orthognathic surgery.

Background: The antiplatelet effect of aspirin is attributed to platelet cyclooxygenase-1 inhibition. Controversy exists on the prevalence of platelet resistance to aspirin in patients with coronary artery disease and effects of aspirin dose on inhibition. Our primary aim was to determine the degree of platelet aspirin responsiveness in patients, as measured by commonly used methods, and to study the relation of aspirin dose to platelet inhibition., Methods and Results: We prospectively studied the effect of aspirin dosing on platelet function in 125 stable outpatients with coronary artery disease randomized in a double-blind, double-crossover investigation (81, 162, and 325 mg/d for 4 weeks each over a 12-week period). At all doses of aspirin, platelet function was low as indicated by arachidonic acid (AA)-induced light transmittance aggregation, thrombelastography, and VerifyNow. At any 1 dose, resistance to aspirin was 0% to 6% in the overall group when AA was used as the agonist, whereas it was 1% to 27% by other methods [collagen and ADP-induced light transmittance aggregation, platelet function analyzer (PFA-100)]. Platelet response to aspirin as measured by collagen-induced light transmittance aggregation, ADP-induced light transmittance aggregation, PFA-100 (81 mg versus 162 mg, P < or = 0.05), and urinary 11-dehydrothromboxane B2 was dose-related (81 mg versus 325 mg, P = 0.003). No carryover effects were observed., Conclusions: The assessment of aspirin resistance is highly assay-dependent; aspirin is an effective blocker of AA-induced platelet function at all doses, whereas higher estimates of resistance were observed with methods that do not use AA as the stimulus. The observation of dose-dependent effects despite nearly complete inhibition of AA-induced aggregation suggests that aspirin may exert antiplatelet properties through non-cyclooxygenase-1 pathways and deserves further investigation.

Neural cell-adhesion molecules (CAMs) are powerful initiators of neurite outgrowth during neural differentiation. In addition, their interactions with cytoskeletal components are often conserved and highly regulated. How these two aspects of neural CAM function relate to each other is not well understood. However, a recent publication from the Felsenfeld laboratory ( http://www.mssm.edu/labs/felsenfeld) fills a gap in our knowledge of how the interaction of L1-type CAMs with the membrane skeleton adaptor protein ankyrin is severed by phosphorylation and suggests a feedback mechanism whereby the neurite-stimulating activity of L1-CAM is inversely connected to its cytoskeleton binding.

Objective: Suicide is a global public health problem, but relatively little epidemiological investigation of the phenomenon has occurred in developing countries. This paper aims to (1) examine the availability of rate data in developing countries, (2) provide a description of the frequency and distribution of suicide in those countries for which data are available, and (3) explore the relationship between country-level socioeconomic factors and suicide rates. It is accompanied by two companion papers that consider risk factors and preventive efforts associated with suicide in developing countries, respectively., Method: Using World Health Organization data, we calculated the average annual male, female, and total suicide rates during the 1990s for individual countries and regions (classified according to the Human Development Index [HDI]), and examined the association between a range of socioeconomic indicators and suicide rates., Results: For reasons of data availability, we concentrated on medium HDI countries. Suicide rates in these countries were variable. They were generally comparable with those in high HDI countries from the same region, with some exceptions. High education levels, high telephone density, and high per capita levels of cigarette consumption were associated with high suicide rates; high levels of inequality were associated with low suicide rates., Conclusion: Epidemiological investigations of this kind have the potential to inform suicide prevention efforts in developing countries, and should be encouraged.

The antioxidants and lipid peroxidation products are being extensively studied because of their potential importance and pathogenetic role in several non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular diseases and cancer, but the data on hypertension is scanty. Therefore, the present study aimed to assess the levels of lipid peroxidation and antioxidants besides dislipidemia changes among 32 newly diagnosed male hypertensives by comparing them with an equal sample of normotensives. Significant increase in serum lipid peroxide levels and decrease in antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase and vitamins E and A were observed among hypertensives than the controls. Hypertensives had higher total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, body mass index and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels than normotensives. The percentage prevalence of hypercholesterolemia, hypertriglyceridemia, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol and obesity was higher in study subjects. Obese hypertensives had significantly higher levels of lipid peroxides and lipids with no change in antioxidant status than normal-weight hypertensives. Our results suggest that hypertensive patients may have elevated lipid peroxidation, lipids and reduced protection from antioxidants, which may contribute to the propensity in such patients to develop cardiovascular diseases, and to correct this, antioxidant supplementation besides weight reduction may be helpful to reduce the severity of burden.