More than eight tons a month. That’s how much organic material in the form of spent coffee grounds the Austin-based Ground to Ground program diverts from area landfills and makes available to people in the community as compost.
Overweight children who were exposed to higher levels of perfluorinated chemicals tended to show early signs of developing the metabolic syndrome, according to a new study published in The Endocrine Society’s Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
Regulatory agencies face barriers and often take limited action when confronted with public health concerns resulting from industrial food animal production operations.
Nobel Laureate Sir John B. Gurdon, DPhil, DSc, FRS, will kick off the largest gathering of toxicologists in the world at the Society of Toxicology Annual Meeting and ToxExpo. The meeting from March 23-27, 2014, will feature almost 170 scientific sessions and 2,900 abstracts.
This time of year might feel too late for making new year’s resolutions, or too early for spring cleaning, but it’s just the right time for taking an important step to protect the health your family: testing your home for radon, the second-leading cause of lung cancer.
• Domoic acid accumulates in seafood and is toxic to the brain • The toxin damages kidneys at concentrations that are 100 times lower than what causes neurological effects.
With the winter weather still going strong, lots of people will be restocking the wood pile next to their fireplaces and wood burning stoves. Can using a wood burning stove or fireplace pose a threat to my health?
Overweight or obese adults can breathe 7-50% more air per day than an adult with healthy weight does, which makes them more vulnerable to air contaminants causing asthma and other pulmonary diseases, according to a study by Dr. Pierre Brochu, a professor at Université de Montréal’s School of Public Health.
Previous studies have shown the certain pesticides can increase the risk for developing Parkinson’s disease. Now, UCLA researchers have now found that the strength of that risk depends on an individual’s genetic makeup, which in the most pesticide-exposed populations could increase the chances of developing the debilitating disease by two- to six-fold.
New research shows how pesticides may increase the risk of Parkinson’s disease and that people with certain gene variants may be more susceptible to the disease. The research is published in the February 4, 2014, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
Preparing for visits to our doctors or other healthcare providers is an important step to a successful outcome. Give your questions and concerns to your providers ahead of time, so that they can help address them and find additional resources as needed.
Scientists have known for more than 40 years that the synthetic pesticide DDT is harmful to bird habitats and a threat to the environment. Now researchers at Rutgers University, writing in JAMA Neurology, say exposure to DDT – banned in the United States since 1972 but still used as a pesticide in other countries – may also increase the risk and severity of Alzheimer’s disease in some people, particularly those over the age of 60.
Mesothelioma is a very aggressive cancer associated with asbestos exposure, which is usually diagnosed in an advanced stage. So far no therapeutic strategy has proven effective against this deadly cancer and the prognosis remains very poor with only few exceptions.
Fetal exposure to a commonly used plasticizer found in products such as water bottles, soup can liners and paper receipts can increase the risk for prostate cancer later in life, according to a study from the University of Illinois at Chicago published Jan. 7 online in the journal Endocrinology.
Using advanced monitoring to assess health risk from air pollution, environmental health scientists hope to demonstrate for the first time in a real-world setting that air pollution can and should be regulated based on toxicology variables rather than simply on the volume of particles in the air.
Urban children with asthma are fighting a daily battle to breathe. Their families are finding little help to remove the mold and cockroach infestation in their homes, which can cause asthma attacks. But according to the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) there is help for these families – help which shouldn’t be kept a secret.
Early studies of alligators led Dr. Guillette to realize that something in the environment was affecting their reproduction. Juvenile female alligators had malformed ovaries, while males had lower than average testosterone levels and a small penis. He and his colleagues discovered that the changes were caused by environmental contaminants, which were acting as endocrine disruptors.
A controversial oil and natural gas drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, uses many chemicals that can disrupt the body’s hormones, according to new research accepted for publication in The Endocrine Society’s journal Endocrinology.
Duke Medicine has established a new research program to investigate the relationship between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke during pregnancy and childhood and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children.
Study uses patient-derived stem cells to show that a mutation in the α-synuclein gene causes increased vulnerability to pesticides, leading to Parkinson’s disease.
Although PCBs have been banned in the United States since 1979, University of Montreal and CHU Sainte-Justine researcher Maryse Bouchard has found that higher levels of the toxin was associated with lower cognitive performance in seniors.
A new study identified which of 15 published heat wave definitions were most closely associated with non-accidental deaths and pre-term births found in Alabama vital records, along with what those definitions had in common.
A new paper from members of the HEAL (Health & Ecosystems: Analysis of Linkages) consortium delineates a new branch of environmental health that focuses on the public health risks of human-caused changes to Earth’s natural systems.
Residents of major cities with high levels of air pollution have an increased risk of dry eye syndrome, according to a study presented at the world's largest ophthalmic conference, the 117th Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, in New Orleans. Study subjects in and around Chicago and New York City were found to be three to four times more likely to be diagnosed with dry eye syndrome compared to less urban areas with relatively little air pollution.
Highlight • Among first responders at Ground Zero following the 9/11 tragedy, those exposed to high levels of particulate matter experienced significant kidney damage.
For the first time, researchers have linked high levels of inhaled particulate matter by first responders at Ground Zero to kidney damage.
A Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center-led study has found that two organochlorine pesticides are associated with an increased risk of endometriosis, a condition that affects up to 10 percent of reproductive-age women.
Microbes in tap water are mostly harmless, with a few exceptions. A Virginia Tech research team is investigating four harmful pathogens that have been documented in tap water and suggest a natural, probiotic way to deal with dangerous germs.
A new analysis by Johns Hopkins University Center for a Livable Future (CLF) finds that the Administration and Congress have acted “regressively” in policymaking on industrial food animal system issues.
What can be done on farms to limit the spread of antibiotic resistant genes?
Antibiotic resistant (ABR) pathogens are an emerging, critical human health issue. ABR has been found in soils dating back for millennia. Current research illustrates the need for considering natural, background resistance in soils in any scientific study examining the effects of antibiotics on the environment.
A class of flame retardants that has been linked to learning difficulties in children has rapidly declined in pregnant women’s blood since the chemicals were banned in California a decade ago, according to a study led by researchers at UC San Francisco.
Approximately 30 million pounds of fumigant pesticides are used each year on soil that yields valuable California crops. Determining whether these pesticides are as safe as possible falls to one state entity, the Department of Pesticide Regulation. But in 2010, a neurotoxic, carcinogenic pesticide called methyl iodide was approved for use with strawberries. The science was incomplete, the approval was rushed, and while it stayed on the market, lives were endangered. A case study has been conducted by UCLA's Sustainable Technology and Policy Program that details the flaws in the system, and makes recommendations to prevent this from happening again..
After more than four decades of research, strong evidence now shows that Kawasaki disease has a distinct seasonal occurrence shared by regions across the Northern hemisphere.
In an editorial published in Endocrinology, a journal of The Endocrine Society, endocrine experts agreed that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) pose a threat to human health and to the ecosystems of the earth. The editorial comes in response to a commentary (Dietrich et al. Chem Biol Interact) signed by a number of editors of toxicology journals that dismisses the state-of-the-science on EDCs and argues for the status quo in the regulation of these hazardous substances.
For the first time researchers have found an association between living in proximity to high-density livestock production and community-acquired infections with MRSA. Their analysis concluded that approximately 11% of community-acquired MRSA and soft tissue infections in the study population could be attributed to crop fields fertilized with swine manure. The study is the first to examine the association between high-density livestock operations and manure-applied crop fields and MRSA infections in the community.
Microbes that live in rice paddies, northern peat bogs and other previously unexpected environments are among the bacteria that can generate highly toxic methylmercury, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center have learned.
In a recent article, Eng et al. (2013) found that higher levels of bisphenol A were associated with several measures of obesity in children. Specifically, children exposed to higher levels of bisphenol A had increased odds of having a body mass index in the 95th percentile (i.e., greater than 95% of all children) and a waist circumference to height ratio (WC) greater than a value of 0.5. However, several other measures of obesity were unaffected, such as abnormal body fat percentage, BMI and WC thresholds below 95th percentile, and other laboratory measurements of cardiovascular disease and diabetes (e.g., total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, fasting triglycerides, insulin resistance, and fasting glucose).
Sandia National Laboratories scientists are building on decades of sensor work to invent tiny detectors that can sniff out everything from explosives and biotoxins to smuggled humans.
University of Michigan researchers today released seven technical reports that together form the most comprehensive Michigan-focused resource on hydraulic fracturing, the controversial natural gas and oil extraction process commonly known as fracking.
The American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM), supports the introduction of S.1009, the Chemical Safety Improvement Act (CSIA), legislation that would for the first time require that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency review the safety of all chemicals in commerce.
After studying the functioning of the lungs of birds and the swim bladders of fish, scientists described how they created an improved method to capture carbon dioxide that acts like a reverse natural lung, breathing in the polluting gas. Their study on the best way to arrange tubes in a carbon dioxide capture unit was presented at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
Nature has provided the food industry with the perfect packages to imitate in the drive to embrace a new genre of sustainable packaging material, according to a presentation on the topic here today. Speaking at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, Sara Risch, Ph.D., said that new packaging materials must meet the criteria for being sustainable without sacrificing the security, freshness and visibility of the food inside.
Honey bees should be on everyone’s worry list, and not because of the risk of a nasty sting, an expert on the health of those beneficial insects said here today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society. Despite years of intensive research, scientists do not understand the cause, nor can they provide remedies, for what is killing honey bees.
“Biofuel” is a global buzzword, with cars and trucks powered by fuel made from corn, switchgrass and waste cooking oil, envisioned as a way to stretch out supplies of crude oil and cope with global warming. A symposium being held here today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society considers: What are the health and environmental effects of alternative fuels, and how do they compare with conventional fuels?
In an advance toward providing mosquito-plagued people, pets and livestock with an invisibility cloak against these blood-sucking insects, scientists today described discovery of substances that block mosquitoes’ ability to smell and target their victims. The presentation was among almost 7,000 scheduled this week at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.
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