Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1)
The future of chronic diseases
Kopczyński J., Wojtyniak B., Goryński P., Lewandowski Z.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):3-13
Major chronic diseases continue to be the main health scourge of the most developed countries, have only recently been retreating in frequency in the fledgling market economies, and are becoming dominant in many populous areas of the developing world. The descriptive evidence from the developments of the near past strongly suggests that much of the control outcomes have already been achieved with the existent imperfect causative knowledge. The continuation of desirable trends in major chronic diseases in some places like Central & Eastern Europe, is uncertain within the intermediate time range without gaining more etiological clues, among which...
Methods of mortality (incidence) rates interpretation for health risk assessment in small populations
Jón Z.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):14-21
Findings and procedures include in this article have been realized at Regional Public Health Office in Hradec Kralove (Czech Republic) within the period from August 1999 to February 2000. The model sample used in this article dealed only with events of neoplasms incidence in men's population in the region of Eastern Bohemia within the period from 1986 to 1997. The original experimental part concerned to the use of procedures for demographical data standardization for target group of "small populations" including of their selection and spatial distribution. As the result of it, there are topical maps of spatial distribution of incidence (event. mortality)...
Does glucose tolerance affect elderly persons' balance, gait or muscle strength?
Hiltunen L.A.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):22-25
The aim of this study was to find out if there are associations between the deterioration of glucose tolerance and balance, gait or muscle strength among non-institutionalised northern Finnish subjects aged 70 years or over. 79 % of the eligible 483 subjects participated in the study (n = 379; of whom 141 were men). 14 % (n = 19) of the men had previously diagnosed diabetes, 9 % had undiagnosed diabetes, and 32 % had impaired glucose tolerance (IGT). The corresponding figures for the women were 19 % (n = 46), 9 % (n = 21) and 35 % (n = 84). The proportion of the female subjects with good balance tended to decrease along with the deterioration of the...
Screening of TB contacts by tuberculin skin tests in a low-incidence community protected by BCG vaccination
Trnka L., Daňková D., Krejbich F., ©vandová E., Krenarová J., Spilka J.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):26-29
A 36-year-old man, an unemployed waiter, a regular patron of two bars living in a Czech city suffered for about a year from disorders caused probably by tuberculosis (TB). When hospitalised, diabetes mellitus and extensive lung TB were diagnosed. TB was found also at the post mortem examination when the patient died one week later. Screening of his contacts by tuberculin skin tests (2TU RT23 W. Tw.80) provided data for analyzing the usefulness of tuberculin tests for monitoring of propagation of TB infection among BCG vaccinated population with high TB prevalence in the past. A statistically significant difference was found in tuberculin reactivity...
Dietary guidelines in the Czech Republic III.: Challenge for the 3rd millennium
Brázdová Z., Ruprich J., Hrubá D., Petráková A.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):30-34
In developed countries, dietary guidelines are more and more often used as a source of binding information not only in public health, food production, nutrition and agricultural policy, but in ecology and economy as well. In view of that, it is imperative to formulate such guidelines that would be supported by relevant population studies and correspond to the European model of WHO/CINDI guidelines. At the turn of the millennium, the Czech guidelines were updated in order that serving sizes of 5 basic food groups were brought closer to contemporary trends emphasizing lower protein intakes and at the same time, by setting limit ranges, they were able...
Prenatal diagnosis of spinal muscular atrophy in Turkish families
Erdem H., Dayangaç D., Pehlivan S., Topaloglu H.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):35-37
Prenatal diagnosis of childhood proximal spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is carried out by the detection of homozygous deletions of survival motor neuron (SMN; exons 7 and 8) and neuronal apoptosis inhibitory protein (NAIP; exons 5 and 6) genes located in 5q13 chromosomal region. In Hacettepe University, Department of Medical Biology, 203 postnatal molecular diagnoses of SMA have been carried out since October 1994 and prenatal diagnosis in subsequent pregnancies to couples who previously had an affected child became possible. Between January 1996 and December 1999 totally 41 SMA families were analyzed by detecting homozygous deletions of SMN and NAIP...
Sensitivity of Borrelia burgdorferi strains isolated in the Czech Republic
Janovská D., Hulínská D., Godová T.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):38-40
We tested in vitro susceptibility of 5 strains of Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, isolated from patients in the Czech Republic, to penicillin G, ceftriaxone, cefotaxime, doxycycline and amoxycillin combined with clavulanic acid by broth macrodilution method on BSK medium. Results confirmed high efficacy of the tested drugs, particularly on B. afzelii and B. burgdorferi sensu stricto. A strain of B. garinii, isolated from cerebrospinal fluid, required a longer period of antibiotic activity before inhibitory effects were achieved. Penicillin G was effective only in higher concentrations, attainable by i. v. application. Ceftriaxone had the strongest...
Serum matrix-degrading enzymes in rats intoxicated with selenium
Olczyk K., Kucharz E.J., Komosińska-Vassev K., KoĽma E.M.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):41-43
The effect of poisoning doses of selenium on serum matrix-degrading enzymes activity was investigated in rats intoxicated with selenium. Fifteen animals were receiving orally sodium selenite in a daily dose of 300 microg/kg body weight. Intoxication with selenium was carried out for 10 weeks. The present study revealed significant increase in activities of enzymes involved in the connective tissue matrix metabolism i.e. beta-glucuronidase, N-acetyl-beta-glucosaminidase, elastase and collagen peptidase. There was no change in the cathepsin activity. The relative enzyme activities calculated over protein level resulted in higher values than those found...
Seroconversion rates of two different doses of hepatitis B vaccine in Turkish haemodialysis patients
Oguz Y., Doganci L., Vural A.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):44-45
Seroconversion rates of hepatitis B vaccination with increasing antigen doses, in 77 haemodialysis (HD) patients were studied in randomly divided two groups. The first group received the standard 20 microg recombinant HBsAg (rHBsAg) dose, and the second group 40 microg at the 0, 1st and 2nd months of HD. At the end of the study, there were no statistically significant differences between the two groups in the response rates of protective antibody, but the response was always higher in the second group. On the other hand, strong positive antibody response (> or = 100 mlU/ml) according to dates of each dose were as 7.4 %, 13.1 %, 28.9 % and 42.2 %...
Reference values of ventilatory variables for healthy adolescents aged 15-19 years
Ljuątina-Pribić R., Rončević N., Milutinović B.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):46-48
The main goal of this investigation was the formation of the reference values of ventilatory variables for group of adolescents of both sexes at the age between 15 and 19 years, what was done for the first time for the region of Vojvodina. These values are important in evaluation of respiratory data obtained from patients in the everyday routine examinations. The investigation was carried out on 1151 healthy school children - nonsmokers having the same ethnic origin from the region of Vojvodina. There were 567 males and 584 female participants. Vitalograph® dry spirometer (Vitalograph® Ltd, Moreton House, Buckingham, England)...
Civilization as a threat to human health?
Trnovec T., Cook T., Kahayová K., Nyulassy ©.
Cent Eur J Public Health 2001, 9(1):49-52
Civilization can be defined as the distinctly human attributes and attainments of a particular society. In general, the development of civilization is viewed as a positive step for the well-being of the human species, leading to an increased duration and quality of human life. The accelerated progress of civilization (mainly industrialization, urbanization and nutrition) has lead to new possibilities for adverse effects on human health. A collection of problems referred to as "civilization diseases" has become the subject of serious concern but review of available data indicates that this concept appears to add very little to our understanding of modern...