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Schizophrenia Does Not Increase Risk Of Violent Crime
A new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet and the University of Oxford finds that the severe mental disorder schizophrenia only marginally increases the risk of committing violent crime. Rather, the overrepresentation of individuals with schizophrenia in violent crime is almost entirely attributable to concurrent substance abuse.
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Reengineering A Food Poisoning Microbe To Carry Medicines And Vaccines
Scientists have used genetic engineering to tame one of the most deadly food poisoning microbes and turn it into a potential new way of giving patients medicine and vaccines in pills rather than injections. The study is in the current issue of ACS" Molecular Pharmaceutics, a bi-monthly journal. Drugshop to buy zoloft online and other pills.
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Black Women More Likely To Have Vitamin D Deficiency, Bacterial Vaginosis, Study Finds
Black women are nearly three times as likely as white women to have a vitamin D deficiency, which is linked with an increased risk of the vaginal infection bacterial vaginosis, according to a study published in the June issue of the Journal of Nutrition, the New York Times reports. Black women likely have lower levels of vitamin D because the higher amount of pigment in their skin prevents the body from absorbing the vitamin.For the study, researchers led by Lisa Bodnar, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh, examined 209 white pregnant women and 260 black pregnant women at a Pittsburgh clinic. More than half of the women had low levels of vitamin D, the study found. Women whose vitamin D levels were 50 nanomoles or less had a 26% increased risk of BV, while women whose vitamin levels were less than 20 nanomoles had a 65% increased risk of the infection. About 52% of black women had the infection, compared with 27% of white women, the study found (Bakalar, New York Times, 5/26). The study found that 93% of women with BV had low vitamin D levels and that BV prevalence decreased as vitamin levels increased.In addition, although black women were more likely to have BV, white women who had low levels of vitamin D were as likely to have the infection as black women. Poor diets and obesity also contributed to a vitamin deficiency. Bodnar noted that black women are less likely than white women to meet dietary recommendations for vitamin D. Bodnar recommended that women discuss their level of vitamin D with their physicians and that pregnant women take a prenatal vitamin, which typically includes vitamin D.According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Bodnar"s research team has received NIH funding to conduct a study of whether vitamin D deficiency in women increases the risk of poor birth outcomes and whether high infant mortality among blacks can be attributed to factors such as obesity (Templeton, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 5/23).
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Washington Post Examines Health Toll Of Congo Conflict

The Washington Post examines the devastating toll the conflict in the Congo has had on the health of the country"s displaced civilians, as told through the death of a 36-year-old farmer, who succumbed to typhoid fever far away from the home he abandoned. The newspaper writes, "By some estimates, at least 5 million Congolese have died in more than a decade of conflict touched off by the 1994 genocide in neighboring Rwanda, which sent a flood of militiamen across the border into mineral-rich eastern Congo." While the "conflict has surged, receded and changed over time ò€¦ for the most part ò€¦ people in eastern Congo have not died in a blaze of bullets or in large-scale massacres. More often, the conflict has set off a chain reaction of less spectacular consequences that begins with fleeing through an unforgiving jungle and ends with a death." There, displaced people face injury, lack of food or clean water as well as diseases like malaria, diarrhea, and measles. The Washington Post writes that the conflict has "scattered" whole villages "across hundreds of miles," and "has overwhelmed already-dysfunctional government hospitals and left roads rutted and overgrown." "At the moment, the conflict in eastern Congo is surging once again," the Washington Post writes, adding, "Since January, at least half a million people have fled a U.N.-backed Congolese army operation targeting Rwandan rebels" - a topic Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to discuss in a visit to Congo this month" (McCrummen, 8/2). A separate Washington Post article examines the of "frequently cited death toll" data from eastern Congo and looks at some of the causes of death (McCrummen [2], 8/2). This information was reprinted from globalhealth.kff.org with kind permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Global Health Policy Report, search the archives and sign up for email delivery at globalhealth.kff.org. © Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.


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