The proportion of adults in the United States who were overweight increased markedly between 1978 and 1990.¹ The reported prevalence of smoking in the country declined steadily during the same period.² These two important public health issues are ...

People with Gilbert's syndrome have mild, chronic unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia in the absence of liver disease or overt hemolysis.¹,² Although the syndrome is inherited, many people do not have a clear family history.³ An autosomal mode of inheritance ...

From late 1991 through 1993, epidemic neuropathy affected more than 50,000 people in Cuba,¹ peaking in March 1993, when there were 3000 to 4000 cases per week. Two forms of neuropathy were reported: an optic form, characterized by decreased visual acuity ...

Figure 1. Scanning electron microscopy (×5000) reveals numerous acanthocytes diagnostic of spur-cell anemia in a peripheral-blood specimen from a jaundiced 43-year-old woman with alcoholic cirrhosis and anemia. Several putative factors, including an ...

The projected increase in the number of disabled older persons poses a challenge for health care and social services.¹ Comprehensive geriatric assessment has been used primarily for the evaluation and rehabilitation of chronically ill patients.²,³ More ...

Congestive heart failure is the most common indication for hospitalization among adults over 65 years of age,¹ and the rate of admission to treat this condition has increased progressively over the past two decades.² Elderly patients with heart failure ...

Cigarettes are among the most addicting products known, and the vast majority of people who quit smoking relapse within days.¹,² In the United States, less than 10 percent of the nearly 20 million people who quit smoking for a day remain abstinent one ...

Gene therapy is a novel form of drug delivery that enlists the synthetic machinery of the patient's cells to produce a therapeutic agent. Using the body to treat its own disease overcomes the need to manufacture highly purified proteins. It also ...

Stage

A 55-year-old woman presented with polyarticular arthritis. She had had several attacks of symmetric arthritis during the previous few months, involving particularly the ankles, shoulders, and metacarpophalangeal and proximal interphalangeal joints. ...

Home care is popular, and its many supporters are quick to point out that care delivered in a patient's home should cost far less than similar care in a hospital or nursing home. Nonetheless, it has been hard to prove that home care saves money. The ...

In early 1977, as the newly appointed Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare, I interviewed 150 top physicians and public health professionals for positions in the department and asked how each would mount a national health-promotion and disease-...

Gilbert's syndrome consists of chronic, mild, unconjugated hyperbilirubinemia in the absence of overt hemolysis or evidence of structural or functional liver disease.¹–³ The elevated serum bilirubin concentration is usually noted first in adolescence, ...

To the Editor: You provide such an excellent analysis of the problems resulting from the way managed-care organizations currently function (July 6 issue)¹ that I am amazed that you blame this situation on market forces and values in general, as if all ...

To the Editor: In their review of chronic pancreatitis, Steer et al. (June 1 issue)¹ imply that the best treatment for pseudocysts due to chronic pancreatitis is laparotomy. Data from several surgical and endoscopic or radiographic series suggest ...

To the Editor: Sheremata et al. (June 8 issue)¹ reported severe necrotizing cutaneous lesions complicating treatment with interferon beta-1b in a patient with multiple sclerosis. They indicated that it was a new complication of treatment with interferon ...

To the Editor: In their study of patients with chronic post-transfusion hepatitis C who were seen at a referral center, Tong et al. (June 1 issue)¹ concluded that the disease was progressive and, in some patients, led to death from liver failure or ...

To the Editor: The clinical manifestations and evolution of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection are thought to be influenced by the viral genotype and by the immunoreactivity of the infected person.¹ These factors sometimes also determine the appearance of ...

To the Editor: Dr. Kessler (July 20 issue)¹ correctly identifies the obvious problem of increasing nicotine addiction among adolescents but fails to recognize the sociopolitical condition that has created this circumstance and likewise misses the ...

When the Dutch pharmaceutical firm Solvay Duphar was in the process of developing the antiaggressive drug eltoprazine, it approached a number of clinicians in Europe and America to discuss clinical testing. The drug, a serenic compound — a new class of ...

The subversion of criminal responsibility by psychiatry is the subject of this well-researched, exhaustively footnoted book by law professor Ralph Slovenko. Two hundred thoughtful pages that scrutinize the insanity defense and its consequences are ...

There have been worldwide declines in mortality and fertility and increases in life expectancy and the control of infectious diseases, accompanied by economic changes and social upheavals. These major demographic changes, as well as ethnic conflicts, the ...

This book, written in response to requests from graduate students in the Psychiatric Epidemiology Training Program at Harvard, deals with a very important subject. Psychiatric epidemiology attempts to account for the incidence, prevalence, severity, ...

The publication of Research in Psychoanalysis is most timely, coming as it does during a time in which strong and fundamental questions about psychoanalysis are being debated. Is there evidence of the validity of psychoanalytic theory? What data support ...

Americans under the age of 65 have a higher mortality rate than the citizens of many European countries and Japan.¹ Between the ages of 65 and 80 the differences in mortality diminish. Until recently, lack of data precluded reliable comparisons at later ...

DNA on Trial Correspondence, N Engl J Med 1995:333;602.. A second paragraph and a second reference should have appeared with Dr. Billings's letter, as follows:

Analysis of the use of this identification technique in forensic settings illuminates aspects ...