Evidence is increasing from multiple scientific fields that exposure to the natural environment can improve human health.
In a new study by the U.S. Forest Service, the presence of trees was associated with human health.
For Geoffrey Donovan, a research forester at the Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station, and his colleagues, the loss of 100 million trees in the eastern and midwestern United States was an unprecedented opportunity to study the impact of a major change in the natural environment on human health.
In an analysis of 18 years of data from 1,296 counties in 15 states, researchers found that Americans living in areas infested by the emerald ash borer, a beetle that kills ash trees, suffered from an additional 15,000 deaths from cardiovascular disease and 6,000 more deaths from lower respiratory disease when compared to uninfected areas.
When emerald ash borer comes into a community, city streets lined with ash trees become treeless.
The researchers analyzed demographic, human mortality, and forest health data at the county level between 1990 and 2007.
The data came from counties in states with at least one confirmed case of the emerald ash borer in 2010.
The findings – which hold true after accounting for the influence of demographic differences, like income, race and education – are published in the current issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
“There's a natural tendency to see our findings and conclude that, surely, the higher mortality rates are because of some confounding variable, like income or education, and not the loss of trees,” said Donovan. “But we saw the same pattern repeated over and over in counties with very different demographic makeups.”
Although the study shows the association between loss of trees and human mortality from cardiovascular and lower respiratory disease, it did not prove a causal link. The reason for the association is yet to be determined.
The emerald ash borer was first discovered near Detroit, Michigan, in 2002. The borer attacks all 22 species of North American ash and kills virtually all of the trees it infests.
The study was conducted in collaboration with David Butry, with the National Institute of Standards and Technology; Yvonne Michael, with Drexel University; and Jeffrey Prestemon, Andrew Liebhold, Demetrios Gatziolis, and Megan Mao, with the Forest Service's Southern, Northern, and Pacific Northwest Research Stations.
The Pacific Northwest Research Station – headquartered in Portland, Ore. – generates and communicates scientific knowledge that helps people make informed choices about natural resources and the environment. Learn more online at http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw .
Every 30 seconds somebody in the world is amputated as a consequence of foot complication due to diabetes.
A new study at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, confirms that shoe inserts, podiatry, regular checkups and other simple interventions can reduce the number of amputations by more than 50 percent.
Orthotic researchers at Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, have studied diabetic foot complications ever since 2008.
They have focused on protecting the foot from overloading the foot sole in order to minimize the risk of ulcers, which may eventually lead to amputation.
The researchers have now completed a study of 114 Swedish patients with diabetes at risk of developing such ulcers.
The results show that shoe inserts, podiatry, information and regular checkups can prevent ulcers, which would reduce the number of amputations by more than 50 percent.
The participants in the study – to be presented at the International Conference on Prosthetics and Orthotics in Hyderabad, India this February – have an averaged 58 years of age and 12 years since their initial diagnosis of diabetes.
The participant wore one of three different types of shoe inserts over a period of two years.
Only 0.9 percent of the participants developed new foot ulcers during the first year, as opposed to the figure of 3 to 8 percent that has been reported for similar diabetic populations.
“We found that good shoes and inserts can reduce pressure on the foot by 50 percent compared with going barefoot,” doctoral student Ulla Tang said. “Our conclusion at the end of one year is that all three types of inserts effectively distribute pressure under the sole in order to minimize the risk of ulcers.”
The study also revealed that only 67 percent of diabetes patients had been offered podiatry despite the fact that 83 percent had calluses.
“An insert costs anywhere from SEK 850 to SEK 1,450,” Ms. Tang says. “Healing a diabetic foot ulcer averages SEK 70,000, while an amputation demands up to SEK 1 million in social and health care resources. Ulcer prevention is not only a way of relieving suffering but a sound financial investment.”
The researchers also are planning to introduce a new digital tool that they have developed in collaboration with the Västra Götaland region. With the digital tool assessment of the risk for foot ulcer will be easier and reliable.
The idea is that orthotist will use the instrument as a basis for the prescription of suitable shoes and insoles.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved Flublok, the first trivalent influenza vaccine made using an insect virus (baculovirus) expression system and recombinant DNA technology.
Flublok is approved for the prevention of seasonal influenza in people 18 through 49 years of age.
Unlike current flu vaccines, Flublok does not use the influenza virus or eggs in its production.
Flublok’s novel manufacturing technology allows for production of large quantities of the influenza virus protein, hemagglutinin (HA) – the active ingredient in all inactivated influenza vaccines that is essential for entry of the virus into cells in the body.
The majority of antibodies that prevent influenza virus infection are directed against HA. While the technology is new to flu vaccine production, it is used to make vaccines that have been approved by the FDA to prevent other infectious diseases.
“This approval represents a technological advance in the manufacturing of an influenza vaccine,” said Karen Midthun, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research. “The new technology offers the potential for faster start-up of the vaccine manufacturing process in the event of a pandemic, because it is not dependent on an egg supply or on availability of the influenza virus.”
FDA Assistant Secretary Nicole Lurie said the nation has reached “a landmark in influenza vaccine history” with the approval of the new vaccine.
Lurie said the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, which began in 2006, partnered with the vaccine’s manufacturer, Protein Sciences Corp. of Meriden, Conn., once the vaccine reached an advanced development stage.
Each year, the FDA, World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other public health experts collaborate on the review of influenza disease surveillance and laboratory data collected from around the world in an effort to identify strains that may cause the most illness in the upcoming season.
Based on that information and on the recommendations of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, the FDA selects the different influenza strains each year that manufacturers should include in their vaccines for the U.S. population for the upcoming influenza season.
The closer the match between the circulating strains causing disease and the strains in the vaccine, the better the protection against influenza.
Flublok contains three, full-length, recombinant HA proteins to help protect against two influenza virus A strains, H1N1 and H3N2, and one influenza virus B strain.
As it does with all influenza vaccines, the FDA will evaluate Flublok annually prior to use by the public each flu season.
The recombinant HA proteins produced in the baculovirus expression system and included in Flublok will be assessed by the FDA.
The effectiveness of Flublok was evaluated in a study conducted at various sites in the United States that compared the use of Flublok in about 2,300 people to a placebo that was given to a control group of similar size.
Flublok was about 44.6 percent effective against all circulating influenza strains, not just the strains that matched the strains included in the vaccine.
Flublok’s safety evaluation was conducted in a study of about 2,500 people who were vaccinated with Flublok.
The most commonly reported adverse events included pain at the site of injection, headache, fatigue and muscle aches, events also typical for conventional egg-based, inactivated influenza vaccines.
Flublok has a shelf life of 16 weeks from the date of manufacture. Health care providers should check the expiration date before administering Flublok.
Norwegian pregnant women who received a vaccine against the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus showed no increased risk of pregnancy loss, while pregnant women who experienced influenza during pregnancy had an increased risk of miscarriages and still births, a study has found.
The study suggests that influenza infection may increase the risk of fetal loss.
Scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH) published their findings online Jan. 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The research was conducted following the H1N1 influenza pandemic that took place between spring 2009 and fall 2010.
The researchers at the NIH were from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS).
Norwegian public health officials had urged pregnant women to be vaccinated. However, media reports of pregnancy losses after flu shots caused some expectant mothers to forgo vaccination.
First author Siri Haberg, M.D., Ph.D., of the NIPH and colleagues initiated the study to help address the question of vaccine safety, by taking advantage of Norway’s excellent registries and medical records system.
Haberg spent one year of her postdoctoral fellowship in the NIEHS Epidemiology Branch before returning home to Norway during the pandemic.
NIEHS researcher and co-author Allen Wilcox, M.D., Ph.D., said the NIPH researchers combined data from obstetrical visits, birth records, and vaccination registries to investigate whether the influenza vaccination posed a risk to pregnancy.
The study found that influenza infection increased the risk of fetal loss by up to twofold. Influenza vaccination did not increase the risk of loss. Instead, the results suggest that vaccination reduces the risk of fetal loss.
“Most important is that vaccinations protect pregnant women against influenza illness, which could be harmful for both the mother and the baby,” Wilcox said. “If pregnant women are worried about their fetus, then getting a flu shot is a good thing to do.”
Haberg added, “Pregnant women should find it reassuring that we found no harmful effects on the fetus associated with H1N1 vaccination.”