Search

Copyright of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia is the property of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia Editorial Board and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Il sistema endocrino degli organismi animali è il risultato di milioni di anni di evoluzione, e rappresenta un collaudatissimo dispositivo di controllo delle attività fisiologiche. Con l'espressione "interferenti endocrini" viene normalmente identificata una classe di composti chimici di sintesi in grado di alterare gli aspetti funzionali di questo fondamentale sistema di regolazione biologica. Alcune delle evidenze oggi più solide mostrano, per esempio, che certi inquinanti noti per essere ormai ubiquitari dal punto di vista della loro presenza e persistenza ambientale, come molti pesticidi, sottoprodotti industriali e un certo numero di farmaci, possono interferire con la biochimica e la fisiologia dell'organismo animale (uomo incluso) amplificando, oppure, al contrario, ostacolando i normali processi di controllo ormonale del metabolismo e di una lunga serie di funzioni fondamentali per l'omeostasi. Cresce quindi il timore che gli interferenti endocrini possano diventare una sfida di salute pubblica di portata globale, per i loro effetti sulla salute della biodiversità animale, di cui l'uomo è parte. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia is the property of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia Editorial Board and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia is the property of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia Editorial Board and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia is the property of Giornale Italiano di Medicina del Lavoro ed Ergonomia Editorial Board and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A traditional belief widespread across the biomedical community was that dietary habits and genetic predisposition were the basic factors causing colorectal cancer. In more recent times, however, a growing evidence has shown that other determinants can be very important in increasing (or reducing) incidence of this malignancy. The hypothesis that environmental and occupational risk factors are associated with colorectal cancer is gaining ground, and high risks of colorectal cancer have been reported among workers in some industrial branches. The aim of this study was to investigate the epidemiologic relationship between colorectal cancer and occupational exposures to several industrial activities, by means of a scientific literature review and meta-analysis. This work pointed out increased risks of colorectal cancer for labourers occupied in industries with a wide use of chemical compounds, such as leather (RR = 1.70, 95%CI: 1.24-2.34), basic metals (RR = 1.32, 95%CI: 1.07-1.65), plastic and rubber manufacturing (RR = 1.30, 95%CI: 0.98-1.71 and RR = 1.27, 95%CI: 0.92-1.76, respectively), besides workers in the sector of repair and installation of machinery exposed to asbestos (RR = 1.40, 95%CI: 1.07-1.84). Based on our results, the estimated crude excess risk fraction attributable to occupational exposure ranged from about 11% to about 15%. However, homogeneous pattern of association between colorectal cancer and industrial branches did not emerge from this review.

Background: The role of occupational exposures in breast cancer development is still uncertain. A recent paper showed increased risks in some occupational sectors in Lombardy, Italy. We deepened this analysis at the level of single provinces of the same Italian region., Methods: Based on administrative data, a case-control study was carried out recruiting all incident cases of female breast cancer in the period 2002-2009, aged between 35 and 69 years, residing in Lombardy, Italy. Controls were randomly sampled from all women residing in Lombardy as of December 31, 2005. Occupational histories, including blue collar status, were available from 1974 through record linkage with a social security pension database, and were obtained for 11188 cases and 25329 controls. Adjusted odds ratios (ORs) and corresponding 90% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated using multiple unconditional logistic regression models. Analyses were performed also by single provinces of Lombardy, Italy. Multiple comparisons were accounted for according to the Benjamini-Hochberg method., Results: The ORs for female breast cancer were modestly but significantly increased for employment in electrical manufacturing (OR 1.12, 90% CI 1.04-121), textile (OR 1.08, 90% CI 1.02-1.15), paper (OR 1.25, 90% CI 1.06-1.46) and rubber (OR 1.26, 90% CI 1.03-1.54) industries. Analysis by province showed significantly increased ORs for electrical manufacturing in the Milano province. After adjustment for multiple comparisons no estimates remained statistically significant, except OR for electrical manufacturing in the Milano province., Conclusions: Although with several limitations, our results point to a possible role of exposures in electrical manufacturing, textile, paper and rubber industries in the process leading to breast cancer. An in-dept study for the electrical manufacturing industry has been already planned in Milano province.

Objectives: The aim of the study is to explore possible relationships between occupational exposures and Multiple Sclerosis (MS), whose etiology is not well defined yet. To date, only few literature data are available on this subject., Methods: We carried out a case-control study, where cases were MS patients included in the MS Register of the Province of Pavia, Northern Italy, and controls, 1:4 matched by sex and age (5 years classes), were randomly selected from the National Health Service population files. The occupational histories were obtained from Italian Institute for Social Security (INPS) archives by automatic linkage using Italian Occupational Cancer Monitoring (OCCAM) method that estimates the risk of specific occupational cancers, by geographic area and industrial sector. OR adjusted for sex and age and corresponding 90% confidence intervals were used to estimate the association between exposure and disease., Results: We included in the study 227 MS patients (130 (57.3%) female, 97 (42.7%) male) and 907 controls (514 (56.7%) female, 393 (43.3%) male). Our results suggest an increased risk for men in mechanical manufacturing industry (OR 1.71, 90% CI 1.03-2.85) and agriculture (OR 2.47, 90% CI 1.03-5.91). Women show an increased risk in mechanical manufacturing industry (OR 2.05, 90% CI 1.22-3.45), agriculture (OR 2.57, 90% CI 1.09-6.09) and leather/shoe industry (OR 2.34, 90% CI 1.06-5.20)., Conclusions: Our preliminary findings indicate that solvent exposures could be related to the risk of MS, as both shoe/leather workers and mechanical manufacturing industry workers are exposed to organic solvents. Interestingly, a major risk of MS was also found among workers engaged in agriculture, suggesting a role of pesticides, whose neurotoxic effect is well known.

The announcement of "Artificial Life" by the Craig Venter group, and the media stir that arose from the news, provoked thoughts about the current technologies in contemporary science and the cultural tension of such projections on the media. The increasingly blurred boundaries between specialist and generalist media, while promising a wider appreciation of scientific discovery, potentially allow unrealistic, ideological claims to dictate scientific research. This is particularly evident in biology, where the pervading paradigm is still dominated by a physically naïve reductionism in which the only relevant causative layer is the molecular one. The reductionist hypothesis is that everything one observes is the result of an underlying molecular mechanism almost independent of the context in which it operates. Molecular mechanisms are often necessarily studied in isolation and therefore operate in unnatural conditions. The mechanistic view of biological regulation implies that we think of genes as intelligent agents. Here we try to critically analyze the motivations behind the spread of such unrealistic simplifications.

A contemporary pathology of science is outlined. This pathology suggests that "previous knowledge" drastically limits innovative thinking in science. In very raw "Bayesian" terms it is affirmed that a too rich and flexible a priori knowledge is detrimental to the appreciation of novelty coming from experimental results by both lowering the relative weight assigned to a posteriori contrasting evidence and adapting potentially revolutionary findings to an already existing frame.