Researchers at the National Institutes of Health and other institutions have found that exposure to lead in childhood may delay the onset of puberty in young girls, with higher doses increasing the chance for later maturation.

The researchers analyzed data on blood drawn from more than 700 girls ages 6 to 11. They found that girls with elevated levels of lead (at or above five micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood) were 75 percent less likely than girls with low levels of lead to have key adolescent hormones at levels that are associated with the beginning of puberty. In girls with elevated levels of both lead and cadmium, this pattern was even more pronounced.

The researchers speculate that lead, alone or in concert with cadmium, might suppress the ovary’s production of hormones that prepare a young girl’s body to ovulate, or release an egg, for the first time.

Previous studies have shown that exposure to such heavy metals can disrupt normal hormone patterns or, in some cases, reproductive development. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advise treatment for lead exposure at levels exceeding 10 micrograms of lead per deciliter of blood (http://ephtracking.cdc.gov/showChildhoodLeadPoisoning.action), but the study authors believe their findings suggest that lead exposure may have harmful effects at even lower levels.

“Our findings suggest childhood exposure to lead has worrisome effects as children age and reach adolescence,” said lead first author Audra L. Gollenberg, Ph.D., a fellow at the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), where the research was conducted. “These issues are of concern in some parts of the United States as well as in countries where children are exposed to leaded gasoline, paint or industrial pollutants.”

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the most common sources of lead exposure are deteriorating lead-based paint, lead contaminated dust, and lead contaminated residential soil (http://www.epa.gov/lead/).

Gollenberg worked with NICHD colleagues Mary L. Hediger, Ph.D., and Germaine M. Buck Louis, Ph.D., Peter A. Lee, M.D., of Penn State College of Medicine, Hershey, Pa. and John H. Himes, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Minneapolis.

Their findings appear in Environmental Health Perspectives, published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

The researchers worked with data on blood and urine samples taken as part of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 1988 and 1994. They compared levels of lead and cadmium to levels of the reproductive hormone inhibin B, an indicator of the development of previously dormant egg cells in the ovaries. Inhibin B is known to increase steadily before the start of puberty.

Designating a specific threshold level for inhibin B, which indicated puberty, the researchers calculated the likelihood that girls with low, medium, or high levels of exposure to lead would reach that threshold. For all age groups, the researchers found that girls with higher blood levels of lead had reduced levels of inhibin B, and so were less likely to reach the threshold. High levels of lead and cadmium together were even more likely to be associated with low levels of inhibin B. (Cadmium levels of .27-3.7 nanograms per milliliter of urine were considered to be high.) According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cadmium damages the kidneys, lungs and bones and increases the risk for cancer. Breathing cigarette smoke is a principal source of cadmium exposure (http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts5.html).

In addition, the findings suggested the pubertal delay associated with lead was more prevalent in girls with iron deficiencies. Girls with even moderate levels of lead and low iron levels were much less likely to have reached the inhibin B threshold levels indicating puberty than their counterparts with low lead exposure and normal iron levels.

“Iron deficiency appears to be a critical factor in the context of lead exposure,” Dr. Gollenberg said. “Health care providers may wish to pay particular attention to the importance of screening for iron deficiency among girls at high risk for exposure to lead.”

After giving birth, adult wildlife must forage to provide food for themselves and their young. That requires the adult animals to leave their newborns for short periods. The little one may look like it’s been abandoned, but that seldom is the case.

Common targets of unnecessary rescues are baby deer, temporarily left in a safe place while their mothers feed nearby.

“In most cases, it is absolutely not in the fawn’s best interest to try and rescue it,” said Allan Hallman, wildlife biologist at the FWC’s Camp Blanding field office.

Hallman says what typically happens is someone discovers a young deer waiting for its mother. Often, people stumble onto fawns in palmetto patches or in recently burned areas, where a doe has placed her new offspring for protection. These settings tend to help mask the fawn’s scent, thus providing good protection from the keen nose of a predator.

People discover these seemingly abandoned baby deer and become concerned when the parent is nowhere in sight. The would-be rescuers falsely believe the young animal will perish unless they save it or take it to a wildlife rehabilitation center.

“Unfortunately, actions of this kind usually have the opposite effect of a rescue,” Hallman said. “The stress created by changing the animal’s diet and surroundings is often fatal.

“If the rescued fawn manages to survive, its return to the wild is practically impossible because of human imprinting or a lack of survival skills. If it had remained wild, the young deer would have learned the necessary survival skills from its mother,” Hallman said.

Another way to help with the survival of the young animals is to not feed them. Although that may sound odd, feeding can cause problems – ranging from poor nutrition to making the animal dependent on humans for food to loss of foraging skills – all of which can decrease the critter’s chances of survival.

“These animals have survived for a long time without assistance. They can continue to survive without handouts,” Hallman said.

The FWC recommends that if you find a fawn or other baby animal, don’t touch it, and quietly leave the area. Touching the animal may cause the mother to reject it because it is contaminated with human scent.

On the other hand, songbirds have almost no sense of smell and can be returned to their nest without much chance of rejection. Young songbirds are commonly found on the ground at this time of year, looking a bit dazed or confused. The youngster may be trying to hide in tall grass or in low bushes to avoid being seen by predators. These young birds are going through a process called fledging.

Baby Mockingbird

When they’re ready to fledge, young birds have grown all the adult feathers they’ll need to fly, but they still must learn to fly. During this process, the immature birds sometimes end up on the ground, where they may spend several days before they learn all their flight skills.

“While on the ground, the juvenile birds’ parents watch over them, feeding them and helping them learn necessary survival skills.  Pet owners can help protect vulnerable young birds by keeping dogs and cats away from them,” Hallman said. “Please don’t interfere in this crucial learning process.”

Here are some important facts that can help determine if a baby bird needs rescuing. According to biologists, the only time a baby songbird should be rescued is when it is on the ground and has almost no feathers, when the bird is injured by pets or its tail is less than a half-inch long and it cannot hop around on its own.

If you find a baby songbird you are sure needs rescuing, place the baby bird in a tissue-lined box that has air holes in the top. Keep the box in a warm spot away from drafts and air conditioning and out of direct sunlight. Do not give it food or water. Call a licensed wildlife rehabilitator in your area.  The FWC’s regional offices have lists of local rehabbers. Many local veterinarians also work closely with wildlife rehabilitators and also can be a good source of advice.

Another suggestion is to place the bird in a lined box and attach the box to the tree from where the bird fell.  Sometimes the parents will come to the baby in the new box and feed it there.  This gives the birds a chance to be raised properly by their parents.

“Most parents will come back to care for the fledgling. Sometimes, however, they reject the chick because of a limited food supply, an inability to care for the young chick, or for other reasons we may not understand,” Hallman said. “If the parents don’t return, then the chick should be taken to a rehab center. Migratory birds are protected and need to be cared for by a licensed facility.”

The FWC asks you to remember that removing an animal from the wild to save it may actually have the opposite effect. Seek advice from wildlife professionals before attempting to rescue any animal, and remember: in most cases, it is better to leave wildlife wild.

A study by researchers at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Oxford supports the widespread belief that stress may reduce a woman’s chance of becoming pregnant. The study is the first of its kind to document, among women without a history of fertility problems, an association between high levels of a substance indicative of stress and a reduced chance of becoming pregnant.

This line graph shows the saliva levels of alpha-amylase for women in the study, and categorizes the data into the highest 25 percent, the lowest 25 percent, and the medium group. For each of the five days before ovulation, the day of ovulation, and the day after ovulation, the 25 percent of women with the highest alpha-amylase levels had a 12 percent overall reduction in fertility, when compared to the 25 percent of women with the lowest levels.

The researchers showed that women who had higher levels of a substance called alpha-amylase were less likely to get pregnant than were women with lower levels of the substance. Alpha-amylase is secreted into saliva by the parotid gland, the largest of the salivary glands. Although alpha-amylase digests starch, in recent years many researchers have used it as a barometer of the body’s response to physical or psychological stress. The substance is secreted when the nervous system produces catecholamines, compounds that initiate a type of stress response.

In addition to researchers at the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) and the University of Oxford, England, the study also includes an author from The Ohio State University College of Medicine, Columbus.

“The study results suggest that finding safe ways to alleviate stress may play a role in helping couples become pregnant,” said Alan E. Guttmacher, M.D., director of the NICHD.

The study was published online in Fertility and Sterility.

To conduct the study, the researchers charted the ovulation cycles of 274 English women aged 18-40 years who were trying to conceive, and who participated in the Oxford Conception Study led by Cecilia Pyper, MB.BS. This clinical study sought to determine whether daily information from a fertility-monitoring device would increase the conception rate in women wishing to achieve pregnancy. The women were given at-home fertility test kits to track the phases of their monthly cycles.

“This is the first study to show an association between a biomarker of stress and a reduction in women’s chances of conceiving throughout the fertile window — underscoring the importance of considering stress when attempting to identify the determinants of conception,” Dr. Pyper said.

On the sixth day of her cycle, each woman collected a sample of her saliva, which was subsequently tested for alpha-amylase. The women’s saliva samples were also analyzed for cortisol, another hormone produced by the adrenal glands in response to stress. Each woman took part in the study until she became pregnant, or at the end of six menstrual cycles.

The researchers found that, all other factors being equal, women with high alpha-amylase levels were less likely to conceive than were women with low levels, during the fertile window — the six days when conception is most likely to occur. The researchers did not find a correlation between cortisol levels and the chances of conception.

“Overall, the 25 percent of women in the study who had the highest alpha-amylase levels had roughly an estimated 12 percent reduction in getting pregnant each cycle in comparison to women with the lowest concentrations,” said the study’s first author, Germaine Buck Louis, Ph.D., M.S., director of the NICHD’s Division of Epidemiology, Statistics, and Prevention Research.

Dr. Buck Louis added that she and her colleagues are currently conducting a study with a larger group of women to confirm the findings. Similarly, they also hope to learn whether stress is associated with infertility.

“It has been suggested that stress may increase with the disappointment of several failed attempts at getting pregnant, setting off a cycle in which pregnancy becomes even more difficult to achieve,” she said.

The current findings also suggest the need for finding appropriate ways to help women alleviate stress while trying to conceive.

“The question is, ‘what do you do to help women to relax?’ People often turn to alcohol or tobacco to relieve stress, but these substances also reduce the likelihood of pregnancy,” Dr. Buck Louis said. She added that additional research may be needed to determine whether relaxation techniques such as meditation, biofeedback, yoga, or increasing social support can assist women having difficulty conceiving.

Treating High Cholesterol

By Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D.

August 3, 2010

If you’re older than 45, there’s a good chance that you or someone you know has high cholesterol. It’s so common that treating high cholesterol led to 44 million doctor visits in 2006.

High cholesterol may be widespread, but understanding how to treat it can be confusing. However, lowering high cholesterol can prevent heart attacks and strokes. It could even save your life.

That’s why my agency, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), offers a guide called Treating High Cholesterol. The guide explains in plain English how this common medical condition is treated and the pros and cons of different cholesterol medicines.

Cholesterol is vital to your body. Your liver makes cholesterol, which is found in your blood. We all need some cholesterol, but too much is harmful. Your diet and family history affect your cholesterol levels.

There are two main types of cholesterol—good (HDL) and bad (LDL) cholesterol. When your cholesterol is too high, that refers to your bad cholesterol, or your LDL level. When bad cholesterol builds up and leaves deposits (called plaque) in the walls of your arteries, it can limit blood flow and cause a heart attack or stroke.

A simple blood test can determine your cholesterol level and your risk for heart disease. The more risk factors you have, the higher the chance you have high cholesterol. Risk factors include:

• Age (being 45 or older for men or 55 or older for women).
• Family history of early heart disease.
• Smoking.
• High blood pressure.
• Low levels of good (HDL) cholesterol.
• Diabetes or certain other conditions.

Your doctor can help you determine your level of risk. The first step in controlling your cholesterol is a balanced diet and more exercise. Your doctor or nurse may recommend a diet that includes fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, while limiting foods that are high in fat. However, even with a good diet and exercise habits, you may need medicine to lower your cholesterol.

Different kinds of medicines work in different ways to improve cholesterol levels. Some block the liver from making cholesterol, while others decrease the amount of fat absorbed from food.

Most people start with a medicine called a statin, which works to lower bad (LDL) cholesterol. If your bad cholesterol remains high, your doctor or nurse may increase your statin dose or add a different kind of medicine to help you reach healthy levels.

Our guide Treating High Cholesterol, based on a review of more than 100 research studies of cholesterol medicines, shows that all such medicines can cause minor side effects. These side effects include heartburn, upset stomach, and diarrhea. These problems often go away and are not usually serious. But you should tell your doctor if any symptoms do not disappear.

It’s important to talk with your doctor or nurse about your high cholesterol. Good topics include:

• Diet and exercise. Everyone with high cholesterol should be on a cholesterol-lowering diet. Exercise helps, too. Ask if diet and exercise alone can help meet your cholesterol goals.
• Medicines. Talk to your doctor about how and when to take cholesterol medicines. Once you start taking medicine to lower cholesterol levels, you will probably need to continue.
• Cost. Some medicines are available as generics, which cost less than brand-name drugs. Check with your health insurance plan about the cost. Our guide offers resources if you need help paying for your medicines or have other questions.
• Other steps for a healthy heart. Lowering high cholesterol is vital. But it’s also important to control other health problems, like diabetes and high blood pressure. Stopping smoking will also help.

AHRQ’s guides can help make complex decisions—including how to treat high cholesterol—easier to understand. By understanding the benefits and risks of treatments, you can work with your doctor to make decisions that are right for you.

I’m Dr. Carolyn Clancy, and that’s my advice on how to navigate the health care system.

Harry Chapin Food Bank and The Salvation Army will provide food to those in need. The Glades County Health Department will made free health screens available and Catholic Charities will assist those eligible for the Food Stamp Program.  United Way 211 will provide information and referral to human services available in the area. Photo and interview opportunities will be plentiful.

The United Way of Hendry and Glades includes 34 local human service agencies. .  These agencies include: The Salvation Army, Catholic Charities, Harry Chapin Food Bank, the Children’s Advocacy Center, Child Care of Southwest Florida, Healthy Families and many others.  The LaBelle United Way House is a part of the United Way network and brings the services of many health and human service agencies to the House.

In addition to raising funds for human service organizations in our community, the United Way promotes partnerships and collaborations among agencies and initiatives, helping them to work together focusing on issues and solutions that continue to improve lives.

The United Way of Lee, Hendry and Glades has been “the way the community cares” since it was established in 1957.  For more information please call United Way of Lee, Hendry and Glades at (239) 433-2000 or visit www.unitedwaylee.org.
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FOOD DISTRIBUTION FLYER ATTACHED

Louise Hawthorne
Communications/Marketing Manager

UNITED WAY OF LEE, HENDRY & GLADES
7273 Concourse Drive
Fort Myers, FL 33908

239-433-2000 Ext. 225
239-433-5692 (FAX)
239-989-7480 (Cell)

“Rabies is a fatal disease.  There is no known cure for rabies, only vaccination.  Therefore, it is critical that people not touch bats or other wild animals with their bare hands.  If a bat is visible during the day the likelihood is that it’s sick, so don’t touch it” said Dr. Judith A. Hartner, M.D., M.P.H., M.P.A., Director of the Lee County Health Department.

In order to protect yourself and family from rabies it is important to have your veterinarian vaccinate all household pets against rabies.  In addition, do not allow your pets to be unattended outside or feed them outside.  Outdoor food attracts wild and stray animals which increases the likelihood of coming in contact with a rabid animal.

Everyone is reminded to avoid contact with wild or stray animals. For more information about rabies please visit the following website:

Florida Department of Health website:
http://www.doh.state.fl.us/environment/medicine/rabies/rabies-education.html