THERE are large differences among persons of a given age and sex in body fat content and regional distribution of body fat. The reasons for such differences are not known, but it is increasingly recognized that inheritance is a factor in obesity and ...

RECENT studies have established the influence of genetic factors in human obesity.^{1 , 2} Adoption studies have revealed that the body-mass index (weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) of adoptees resembles that of their ...

ONLY one agent, zidovudine (or AZT), has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration as being effective in reducing the signs and symptoms of infection and in prolonging survival in patients with the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS).¹ ...

LIPOPROTEIN(a) was described over 25 years ago by Berg as a genetic trait found in human plasma.¹ Subsequent workers characterized its physicochemical properties and distribution in plasma, as well as the association of high levels of lipoprotein(a) with ...

ORTHOTOPIC liver transplantation is an effective therapy for end-stage liver disease and has proved to be a major advance in the treatment of liver disease in children.¹ The foremost obstacle faced by transplantation units worldwide has been the relative ...

CYTOGENETIC analysis plays an integral part in the diagnostic workup of a number of hematologic neoplasms. In addition to the convincing association of specific chromosomal rearrangements with distinguishing hematologic features, chromosomal abnormalities ...

HEALTH care costs have increased from 8 percent of the gross national product in 1980¹ to almost 12 percent in 1988² and are expected to reach 15 percent by the year 2000.² Physicians control up to 80 percent of these costs,³ and some authors have warned ...

The centennial anniversary of this distinguished lecture series provides an opportunity to survey our profession from a long perspective, one that encompasses decades and perhaps even centuries. I would like to speak briefly about the physicians in the ...

Presentation of Case

A 21-year-old man was admitted to the hospital because of recurrent episodes of left-sided pneumonia, asthma, increasing dyspnea, and a productive cough.

The patient was in a good state of health until 39 months earlier, when ...

Does destiny indeed, as the Bard wrote, shape our ends (and middles)? In this issue of the Journal, Stunkard et al.¹ and Macdonald and Stunkard² have provided the most definitive answer to date to the question of whether childhood environment or genetic ...

Medical research has traditionally been driven by a search for the truth, whether it relates to the fundamental biologic basis of health and disease or to the use of such knowledge to improve diagnosis and therapy. There has been an implicit expectation ...

To the Editor: The study of deprenyl by the Parkinson Study Group (Nov. 16 issue)¹ and the rationale for its conclusions and early termination raise a serious concern. Did the investigators observe a delay in the need for treatment among patients with ...

To the Editor: Rooks and colleagues (Dec. 28 issue)¹ provided findings about the safety of birth centers. It is remarkable, however, that the authors were not required to define birth centers more carefully. Thus, many readers undoubtedly may be left ...

To the Editor: We describe familial influences on the body-mass index (weight in kilograms divided by the square of the height in meters) of pairs of monozygotic twins who were separated early in life (47 percent at birth and 63 percent at six months) ...

To the Editor: Dr. Kahan presents a comprehensive review on cyclosporine (Dec. 21 issue).¹ One of the most dreaded complications of prolonged immunosuppressive treatment is the increased frequency of malignant neoplasms associated with this mode of ...

To the Editor: With respect to the letter by Strandness and associates (Nov. 16 issue),¹ I wish to comment on several of the issues raised concerning the use of laser-assisted angioplasty. First, I agree that patients and physicians are often unaware of ...

To the Editor: In patients with recurrent neurally mediated syncope, injection of isoproterenol (isoprenaline) during head-up tilting at 60 degrees can reproduce syncope.^{1 2 3} Vigorous contraction of an underfilled ventricle may isolate some regions of ...

To the Editor: Intrathecal baclofen, supplied by implanted drugdelivery systems, has now been established as an effective treatment for spinal spasticity¹ and is currently being explored for its usefulness in treating supraspinal spasticity.² Overdosage ...

To the Editor: Nearly two years ago, Seibel and Levitz expressed their dissatisfaction with the limited representation of minority and female physicians in a six-month sample of advertisements in the Journal.¹ As a follow-up, we evaluated two six-month ...

The reputation of neurology among practitioners of medicine has never been good. Even among otherwise knowledgeable internists, the specialty has been thought to depend on an involved and tedious examination aimed at diagnosing rare, invariably fatal ...

The practice of neurology as an independent discipline has grown phenomenally during the second half of this century. Nevertheless, most neurologists recognize the important interrelations between their field and internal medicine, the specialty that ...

This introductory book of neurology is intended primarily for medical students or medical residents in neurology. The text is well organized and follows an outline format, beginning with a chapter on the recognition of neurologic disorders based on the ...

The second edition of this book has been updated and improved. It is well organized, has excellent photographs, and often includes correlated computerized tomographic scans. The tables and diagrams on the demyelinating and degenerative disorders are very ...

This is a well-organized, well-written, concise, and informative guide to the use and evaluation of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of central nervous system diseases. The descriptions and discussions are necessarily brief, because the authors cover a ...

This book, written by a group of 18 distinguished physicians (German and American), is based on 8516 cases of intracranial disease that have been encountered over the years; it is a revised and expanded edition of the authors' previous book (1981). ...

Public Health

Conception to Birth: Epidemiology of prenatal development. By Jennie Kline, Zena Stein, and Mervyn Susser. 433 pp. New York, Oxford University Press, 1989. $55.

Deterrence and Juvenile Crime. (Research in Criminology.) By Anne L. Schneider. ...

FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SOCIETIES FOR EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY

The following conferences will take place in Saxtons River, Vt., unless otherwise noted: "Neural Mechanisms in Cardiovascular Regulation" (June 10–15); "Retinoids" (June 17–22); "Receptors" (June ...

Accuracy of Diagnostic Coding for Medicare Patients under the Prospective-Payment System (February 11, 1988; 318:352–5). On page 354, in Table 3, in the second column under the heading "No. of Hospital Beds," the number of misspecifications should have ...

High Blood Alcohol Levels in Women: The Role of Decreased Gastric Alcohol Dehydrogenase Activity and First-Pass Metabolism (January 11, 1990; 322:95–9). On page 96, in the left-hand column, the next-to-last line of text under the subheading "Gastric ...