Nutritional Ecology and Human Health.

In contrast to the spectacular advances in the first half of the twentieth century with micronutrient-related diseases, human nutrition science has failed to stem the more recent rise of obesity and associated cardiometabolic disease (OACD). This failure has triggered debate on the problems and limitations of the field and what change is needed to address these. We briefly review the two broad historical phases of human nutrition science and then provide an overview of the main problems that have been implicated in the poor progress of the field with solving OACD. We next introduce the field of nutritional ecology and show how its ecological-evolutionary foundations can enrich human nutrition science by providing the theory to help address its limitations. We end by introducing a modeling approach from nutritional ecology, termed nutritional geometry, and demonstrate how it can help to implement ecological and evolutionary theory in human nutrition to provide new direction and to better understand and manage OACD.

United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine: Warfighter research focusing on the past 25 years.

The United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine (USARIEM) celebrated its 50th anniversary on July 1, 2011. This article reviews its history, evolution, and transition of its research programs as well as its scientific and military accomplishments, emphasizing the past 25 yr. During the 1990s, USARIEM published a series of pocket guides providing guidance for sustaining Warfighter health and performance in Southwest Asia, Somalia, the former Republic of Yugoslavia, Rwanda, and Haiti. Issues identified during Operation Desert Storm elicited research that improved nutritional guidelines for protracted desert operations; safer use of nuclear, chemical, and biological protective clothing; equipment, development, and fielding of efficient microclimate cooling systems; and effective evaluation of pharmaceuticals to protect soldiers from chemical and biological threats. During the first decade of the 21st century, USARIEM and the Department of the Army published official medical/performance doctrines for operations in the heat and cold and at high altitude. The current Global War on Terrorism focused research to improve doctrines for hot, cold, and high-altitude operations, reduce musculoskeletal training injuries, provide improved field nutrition, more efficient planning for operational water requirements, and improve both military clothing and materiel. This article also describes the critically important interactions and communications between USARIEM and deployed units and the benefits to Warfighters from this association. This report presents USARIEM's unique and world-class facilities, organizational changes, scientific and support personnel, and major research accomplishments, including the publication of 2,200 scientific papers over the past 25 yr.

The First 75 Years Timeline of United States Army Preventive, Occupational and Environmental Medicine, and Public Health History.

In 2017, the US Army Public Health Center (USAPHC) at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, celebrated its 75th Anniversary. The organization began in 1942 at The Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, as the US Army Industrial Hygiene Laboratory to provide Occupational Medicine, Industrial Hygiene and other Occupational Health services in support of the World War II military industrial base. In 1945, the organization moved to the Edgewood Area of Aberdeen Proving Ground and underwent organizational changes, mission changes and name changes. In 1960 it was renamed the US Army Environmental Hygiene Agency or AEHA, and under that name was widely recognized for significant accomplishments in Occupational and Environmental Health. In 1994, it became the US Army Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine (USACHPPM) and took on an expanded role in Public Health. A later reorganization brought in Veterinary services. In 2015, it became the USAPHC. This publication provides a timeline of important accomplishments, mission modifications, administrative changes, challenges and threats in the organization's first 75 years. To help readers put these events in perspective, abbreviated timelines of significant events in military and civilian Preventive, Occupational and Environmental Medicine and Public Health history, legal and regulatory actions related to Public Health and US military history are also included.

Pesticides, soft-tissue sarcoma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma--historical aspects on the precautionary principle in cancer prevention.

BACKGROUND: After the 2(nd) World War a long range of chemical agents have been introduced on the market, both in Sweden and most other countries. From the 1950's several pesticides gained increasing use in agriculture and forestry. In the 1970's public concern increased in Sweden especially regarding use of phenoxy herbicides to combat deciduous wood, although statements from different authorities were reassuring of the safety. MATERIALS AND METHODS: At the end of the 1970's the author and his colleagues published the first scientific evidence of an association between exposure to phenoxyacetic acids, chlorophenols and certain malignant tumours, i.e., soft-tissue sarcoma and malignant lymphoma. The study subjects were also exposed to contaminating dioxins such as 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD). Later studies showed also an association between certain persistent organic pollutants such as polychlorinated biphenyls and non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) with an interaction with titers of antibodies to Epstein-Barr virus early antigen. These results have been corroborated in other studies. DISCUSSION: Over the years industry and its allied experts have attacked our studies, but in 1997 IARC classified TCDD as a human carcinogen, Group I. The increasing incidence of NHL in Sweden levelled off about 1990. The author postulated that the regulation or ban of the use of chlorophenols, certain phenoxy herbicides and some persistent organic pollutants in Sweden back in the 1970s has contributed to the now decreasing incidence of NHL. Unfounded criticism from industry experts may prohibit the precautionary principle and early warnings of cancer risk can be ignored. Cancer risks by certain chlorinated phenols may serve as a model of how the precautionary principle should be used by taking early warnings seriously.

Analogy in causal inference: rethinking Austin Bradford Hill's neglected consideration.

The purpose of this article was to rethink and resurrect Austin Bradford Hill's "criterion" of analogy as an important consideration in causal inference. In epidemiology today, analogy is either completely ignored (e.g., in many textbooks), or equated with biologic plausibility or coherence, or aligned with the scientist's imagination. None of these examples, however, captures Hill's description of analogy. His words suggest that there may be something gained by contrasting two bodies of evidence, one from an established causal relationship, the other not. Coupled with developments in the methods of systematic assessments of evidence-including but not limited to meta-analysis-analogy can be restructured as a key component in causal inference. This new approach will require that a collection-a library-of known cases of causal inference (i.e., bodies of evidence involving established causal relationships) be developed. This library would likely include causal assessments by organizations such as the International Agency for Research on Cancer, the National Toxicology Program, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, a process for describing key features of a causal relationship would need to be developed along with what will be considered paradigm cases of causation. Finally, it will be important to develop ways to objectively compare a "new" body of evidence with the relevant paradigm case of causation. Analogy, along with all other existing methods and causal considerations, may improve our ability to identify causal relationships.

American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM): a professional association in service to industry.

The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) is a professional association that represents the interests of its company-employed physician members. Fifty years ago the ACOEM began to assert itself in the legislative arena as an advocate of limited regulation and enforcement of occupational health and safety standards and laws, and environmental protection. Today the ACOEM provides a legitimizing professional association for company doctors, and continues to provide a vehicle to advance the agendas of their corporate sponsors. Company doctors in ACOEM recently blocked attempts to have the organization take a stand on global warming. Company doctors employed by the petrochemical industry even blocked the ACOEM from taking a position on particulate air pollution. Industry money and influence pervade every aspect of occupational and environmental medicine. The controlling influence of industry over the ACOEM physicians should cease. The conflict of interests inherent in the practice of occupational and environmental medicine is not resolved by the ineffectual efforts of the ACOEM to establish a pretentious code of conduct. The conflicted interests within the ACOEM have become too deeply embedded to be resolved by merely a self-governing code of conduct. The specialty practice of occupational and environmental medicine has the opportunity and obligation to join the public health movement. If it does, the ACOEM will have no further purpose as it exists, and specialists in occupational and environmental medicine will meet with and be represented by public health associations. This paper chronicles the history of occupational medicine and industry physicians as influenced and even controlled by corporate leaders.

Multiple chemical sensitivity: pseudodisease in historical perspective.

Multiple chemical sensitivity as a "disease" has emerged as a descendant of food allergy, which, in the 1920s and 1930s, was considered to be responsible for much human suffering and symptoms of disease. After the onmarch of the clinical ecological movement in the 1950s, interest has been focused on the environment, and concern about food allergies and chemical sensitivity has reached epidemic proportions. "Active hazardous waste sites" and "workers exposed to toxic chemicals" are at the top of the list of public worries. The public believes manufactured chemicals to be more dangerous than natural ones, although toxicologists regard the risks as equal. Originally, symptoms of patients were explained as "allergies", but since the 1960s the concept of "chemical sensitivities" has become a big-time diagnosis. The ideas of the clinical ecologists diffused rapidly into the community aided by public media. Today organizations like "Chemical Victims" and "National Foundation for the Chemically Hypersensitive" have thousands of members. Although the diagnosis of the disease is very vague, suffering patients believe that the clinical ecologists can offer them something that traditional medicine cannot: sympathy, recognition of pain and suffering, a physical explanation for their suffering, and active participation in medical care. Ecologic medicine thus soared in the patients' esteem, not just because of the content of the objective diagnoses that ecologic practitioners were able to supply, but because of the subjective nature of the doctor-patient relationship they were able to offer.

Toxicology: past, present, and future.

Toxicology is the study of poisons and poisoning and has an ancient and venerable history. Although there have been numerous notorious poisonings throughout the ages and rather astute descriptions of toxic agents, the scientific study of toxicology did not commence until the 19th century. There was rapid development of analytical methods in the late 19th century and then an acceleration of both method and scientific development in the latter half of the 20th century. Toxicology today can be subdivided into clinical toxicology, forensic toxicology, industrial or occupational toxicology, environmental toxicology, pharmaceutical toxicology, experimental toxicology, and workplace drug testing. The historical development of these overlapping areas of toxicology will be discussed, culminating in a prediction as to what the future may bring.

August Gärtner and building, housing and communal hygiene 100 years of housing hygiene in Jena.

August Gärtner who had been called to the first Chair of Hygiene in Jena in 1886 has provided impulses decisive for the development of hygiene in the fields of construction, housing and communities. He has formulated important requirements for indoor climate, e.g. for heating, ventilation, indoor air temperature, indoor air humidity, avoidance of temperature asymmetry and thermal insulation of houses. His requirements to ensure adequate insulation, e.g. a ratio between window area and floor area of 1:8-1:10, have remained valid until today. Missing attention to his findings with regard to sewage disposal gained on the occasions of two typhoid outbreaks in Jena as early as in 1901 and 1915 resulted in the last water-borne typhoid outbreak in Germany in 1980, in the same place.

The Nordic Council for Arctic Medical Research. History, aims and achievements.

The Organization of Nordic Council for Arctic Medical Research (NCAMR, or NoSAMF in Scandinavian languages) was initiated by the governmental Nordic Council in 1966. The new council was charged with the task of promoting arctic medical research in the Nordic countries. It began its duties in 1969. Originally the council covered Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden; Iceland joined as a member in 1977. During the first years the NCAMR held two to three conferences a year, the proceedings of which were communicated in the Nordic Council for Arctic Medical Research Reports series, distributed in about 1500 copies, free of charge. In 1971, 1981, 1987 and 1993, the NCAMR hosted the International Congress on Circumpolar Health and played a pivotal role in the establishment of the International Union for Circumpolar Health (IUCH) in 1986. Thereafter, the activities of the NCAMR developed a much more international character. Accident prevention, cold research, pollution, family health and, in later years, the health of indigenous peoples, became priorities, along with the establishment of international research networks. The NCAMR's report series soon developed into an established international journal under the title Arctic Medical Research. The inter-governmental financial support to the NCAMR was discontinued at the end of 1996. Thereafter, the secretariat operated under the auspices of the University of Oulu. The International Journal for Circumpolar Health, as it was named from 1997, continued to flourish, being published by the IUCH, the Nordic Society for Circumpolar Health and the University of Oulu.

At the margin: continuing crisis in British environmental history?

An understanding of historical relations between gender and nature, whether within the context of 'untouched wilderness' or the pulsating vibrancy of the industrial city, is central to collective self-knowledge in the world in which we all live. However, have British historians been less successful than their American counterparts in engaging with key aspects of the environmental past?