The usage of calcium phosphate systems for onsite defluoridation treatment.

Over 200 million people in over 35 countries are affected by excessive fluoride in their waters. For people that do not have access to a centralized water treatment plant, there is a need for an on-site defluoridation system that requires no special operational expertise, does not use hazardous chemicals, and is sustainable by the local population. 8 different calcium phosphate precipitation systems were analyzed and tested for fluoride removal effectiveness. An effective system would have final fluoride concentrations less than 1.5 mg/L and final solutions with pH within drinkable limits. Phosphoric acid with the addition of a calcium carbonate source was found to have a 99.8% fluoride removal rate. Monosodium phosphate with addition of slaked lime was also found to be effective with a 99.98% fluoride removal rate. An optimal slaked lime to monosodium phosphate ratio that achieved effective fluoride removal and neutral pH was found. With 0.45 g of Ca(OH)2 and 1 g of NaH2PO4, initial fluoride concentrations up to 100 mg/L or more could be reduced to near zero concentrations, and a volume of approximately 337 mL of water with a concentration of 5 mg/L F- could to be reduced to less than 1.5 mg/L F-.

Konjac-Mannan and American ginsing: emerging alternative therapies for type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Despite significant achievements in treatment modalities and preventive measures, the prevalence of diabetes has risen exponentially in the last decade. Because of these limitations there is a continued need for new and more effective therapies. An increasing number of people are using dietary and herbal supplements, even though there is a general lack of evidence for their safety and efficacy. Consequently, science based medical and government regulators are calling for more randomized clinical studies to provide evidence of efficacy and safety. Our research group has selected two such promising and functionally complementary therapies for further investigation as potentially emerging alternative therapies for type 2 diabetes: Konjac-mannan (KJM) and American ginseng (AG). We have generated a mounting body of evidence to support the claim that rheologically-selected, highly-viscous KJM, and AG with a specific composition may be useful in improving diabetes control, reducing associated risk factors such as hyperlipidemia and hypertension, and ameliorating insulin resistance. KJM has a demonstrated ability to modulate the rate of absorption of nutrients from the small bowel, whereas AG has post-absorptive effects. Consequently, it appears that KJM and AG are acting through different, yet complementary, mechanisms: KJM by increasing insulin sensitivity and AG likely by enhancing insulin secretion. Before the therapeutic potential of KJM and AG as novel prandial agents for treatment of diabetes can be fully realized, further controlled trials with larger sample sizes and of longer duration are required. A determination of the active ingredients in AG, and the rheology-biology relationship of KJM are also warranted.

Quality adjusted life years (QALYs) and dose-response models in environmental health policy analysis -- methodological considerations.

Analyses of competing risks are currently limited by the lack of empirically well-founded and generalizable quantitative methods. Specifically, quantitative methods for comparative risk analysis require the consideration of the population impacted, the duration of impact, the health endpoints at risk, and the impact on individual quality of life. Whereas risk analysis can be used to provide quantitative estimates of disease incidence, environmental health policy analyses do not often account for differences in health impact from alternative disease states. We discuss the methodological issues related to the use of quality adjusted life years (QALY) as a metric for normalizing expected disease incidence to account for health impact. Through a case study of the risks and benefits of fish consumption, we demonstrate the use of QALY weights with dose-response models for environmental health policy decision making. We suggest that, although this approach can be generalized for use in comparative risk and health policy analysis, it is informationally intensive and requires additional assumptions to those used in traditional safety/risk assessment.

Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) for detection of HER-2/neu amplification in breast cancer: a multicenter portability study.

Amplification and/or overexpression of HER-2/neu has been shown to be both a prognostic and predictive marker in breast cancer. Recent studies have also confirmed the efficacy of Herceptin (trastuzumab) as adjuvant therapy for patients with overexpression of HER-2/neu. Therefore, it is critical that precise and reproducible assays be used in the clinical laboratory setting for determination of the HER-2/neu status in patients with breast cancer. The objective of this study was to determine the portability (reproducibility between different institutions) of the PathVysion HER-2 fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) assay used for detection of amplification of the HER-2/neu gene in formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue sections of invasive ductal carcinoma of the breast. Study specimens consisted of one breast tumor with a normal HER-2/neu copy number, two tumors with a low level, and one tumor with a high level of HER-2/neu amplification. The PathVysion HER-2 assay was shown to be highly reproducible on different assay days (n = 3) and between different institutions (n = 5) in the detection of amplification of the HER-2/neu gene in routinely processed clinical specimens of breast carcinoma. In addition, this study examined the feasibility of enumerating FISH signals in 20 nuclei in contrast to 60 nuclei per specimen. Although a modest increase in variation was observed when analyzing 20 compared to 60 nuclei, the mean ratios were similar. Therefore, analysis of as few as 20 nuclei with this FISH HER-2/neu assay may be sufficient for determining the amplification level of the HER-2/neu gene.