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The study was designed to examine how intensity of anti-smoking media campaigns and differing types of anti-smoking community-based programs influence young adolescents tobacco use and related psychosocial variables. Sixth grade students attending 11 middle schools in eight study communities assigned to varying intervention conditions were assessed by a pre-intervention survey conducted in spring 2000. The assessment was followed by summer and fall 2000 media and community interventions that were evaluated by post-intervention data collection taking place with a new cohort of sixth graders in the same 11 schools in late fall 2000. In analyses conducted at the school level, the enhanced school and comprehensive community program conditions outperformed the no intervention program condition to reduce tobacco use and intentions to use tobacco. Combining the intensive or low media campaign with the comprehensive community program was most effective in suppressing positive attitudes toward smoking, while the enhanced school program alone was less effective in influencing attitudes. The most consistent changes, at least short-term, to reduce teen tobacco use, susceptibility to smoking and pro-smoking attitudes were achieved by combining the intensive media campaign with the comprehensive community program condition. (Contains 3 tables and 4 figures.)

Background: Troglitazone promotes adipocyte differentiation in vitro and increases insulin sensitivity in vivo. Therefore, troglitazone may have therapeutic benefit in lipoatrophic diabetes.Objective: To determine whether troglitazone ameliorates hyperglycemia and hypertriglyceridemia or increases fat mass in lipoatrophic patients.Design: Open-labeled prospective study.Setting: United States and Canada.Patients: 20 patients with various syndromes associated with lipoatrophy or lipodystrophy.Intervention: 6 months of therapy with troglitazone, 200 to 600 mg/d.Measurements: Levels of hemoglobin A1c triglycerides, free fatty acids, and insulin; respiratory quotient; percentage of body fat; liver volume; and regional fat mass.Results: In the 13 patients with diabetes who completed 6 months of troglitazone therapy, hemoglobin A1c levels decreased by a mean of 2.8% (95% CI, 1.9% to 3.7%; P < 0.001). In all 19 study patients, fasting triglyceride levels decreased by 2.6 mmol/L (230 mg/dL) (CI, 0.7 to 4.5 mmol/L [62 to 398 mg/dL]; P = 0.019) and free fatty acid levels decreased by 325 micromol/L (CI, 135 to 515 micromol/L; P = 0.035). The respiratory quotient decreased by a mean of 0.12 (CI, 0.08 to 0.16; P < 0.001), suggesting that troglitazone promoted oxidation of fat. Body fat increased by a mean of 2.4 percentage points (CI, 1.3 to 4.5 percentage points; P = 0.044). Magnetic resonance imaging showed an increase in subcutaneous adipose tissue but not in visceral fat. In one patient, the serum alanine aminotransferase level increased eightfold during the 10th months of troglitazone treatment but normalized 3 months after discontinuation of treatment Liver biopsy revealed an eosinophilic infiltrate, suggesting hypersensitivity reaction as a cause of hepatotoxicity.Conclusion: Troglitazone therapy improved metabolic control and increased body fat in patients with lipoatrophic diabetes. The substantial benefits of troglitazone must be balanced against the risk for hepatotoxicity, which can occur relatively late in the treatment course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effects of gold compounds on the functional activities of rheumatoid synovial fluid and normal serum Cl, C4, and C2 were investigated In vitro. Commercial and purified gold sodium thiomalate in concentrations, us low as 1-25/ig/m! (expressed as elemental gold) inactivated native CT and highly purified CTs, whereas equivalent or higher concentrations of thiomalate had no effect. CT inactivation was caused also by other gold compounds such as gold chloride and gold sodium thiosulphate. The CT inactivation was not reversible following extensive dialysis. The partial protection of C4 and C2, the two natural substrates for CT. indirectly verified the CT inactivation. This is the first study to show that gold compounds inactivate CT, one of the reactants in the pathogenesis and/or perpetuation of rheumatoid arthritis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We identified bilateral carpal tunnel syndrome in 19 of 43 living persons of a nonconsanguineous family. No single common etiologic feature was seen. Sixty-three percent of the afflicted kindred had symptomatic digital flexor tenosynovitis. Noninflammatory thickening of the flexor retinaculum or tendon sheaths, or both, was the commonest surgical finding. The 44% prevalence, early age of onset, and equal sex ratio differ from idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome. Family pedigree suggests an inheritable disorder transmitted by an autosomal dominant gene with a high degree of penetrance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]