The rarity of colorectal cancer in Africa suggested to Burkitt several decades ago that the high-fiber diet of Africans was protective against colorectal cancer.¹ Since then, dietary fiber has been postulated to prevent colorectal cancer by diluting or ...

Demand for effective therapy for infertility has often led to practices that become accepted without the benefit of data from clinical trials. Two common treatments for infertility are induction of superovulation, in which the ovaries are stimulated with ...

Trench fever, the first reported clinical manifestation of infection with Bartonella quintana, was first recognized during World War I, when it is estimated to have affected more than 1 million people, with outbreaks reported in Russia and on the European ...

Patients consistently report that vomiting and nausea are among the most unpleasant and distressing aspects of chemotherapy.¹ Vomiting due to anticancer drugs reduces the quality of life² and may cause patients to delay or refuse potentially curative ...

Figure 1. As a 5-month-old infant and his 30-month-old brother sat together for an informal portrait, the pressure of the infant's right great toe against his left sole induced reflex dorsiflexion of the left great toe. This reflex phenomenon constitutes ...

In 1979 and 1980, the chemical structures of the material previously known as slow-reacting substance of anaphylaxis were elucidated as 5(S)- hydroxy- 6(R)-glutathionyl- 7,9-trans-11,14- cis - eico- satetraenoic acid¹ and its cysteinyl-glycyl and ...

Sepsis is an infection-induced syndrome defined as the presence of two or more of the following features of systemic inflammation: fever or hypothermia, leukocytosis or leukopenia, tachycardia, and tachypnea or a supranormal minute ventilation.¹ When an ...

Presentation of Case

A 15-year-old girl was referred to the hospital because of abdominal pain and bloody stools.

The patient had been in excellent health until 26 weeks earlier, when she began to have mild periumbilical pain, usually after the evening ...

The idea that unrefined foods have an important influence on health goes back at least to Hippocrates. Writing in 1585, Stubs asked pointedly: “Doe we not see the poore man that eateth browne bread health fuller, stronger, fayrer complectioned and longer ...

The proportion of women in the United States who think they have a fertility problem increased from 5.7 percent in 1988 to 7.7 percent in 1995.¹ This growing perception of infertility is likely to be related to improvements in assisted reproductive ...

For more than two decades, the intravenous administration of high doses of IgG pooled from the plasma of healthy donors (immune globulin therapy, also known as “IVIg”) has benefited patients with a variety of autoimmune disorders. Although its mechanism ...

In the United States there has been a radical shift in the power to determine when health care is medically necessary and therefore covered by insurance. From the 1950s through the late 1970s, physicians' medical opinions largely dictated coverage and ...

To the Editor: Even if one accepts the results of Teret et al. (Sept. 17 issue),¹ showing that there is strong public support for strategies to regulate firearms, why are they deemed to support new policies to regulate firearms as consumer products? If ...

To the Editor: We have recently seen declining CD4 T-lymphocyte counts in a man with long-term, nonprogressive infection with only nef-deleted forms of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1). This patient was described in the January 26, 1995, issue ...

To the Editor: In their well-conducted study of the prevalence of chlamydial infections in female military recruits, Gaydos et al. (Sept. 10 issue)¹ discuss possible criteria for cost-effective screening.

It is not clear whether the partners of the ...

To the Editor: In the September 3 issue, Sharer et al.¹ and Cohn et al.² reported an association between chronic pancreatitis and mutations in the cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) gene. Sharer et al. concluded that none of their ...

To the Editor: An adolescent boy with Crohn's disease and enterocutaneous fistulas had a response to treatment with granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (filgrastim) after all standard treatments had failed. The patient presented at the age of eight ...

To the Editor: I would like to add to the comments in the August 27 issue about Dr. Manian's article on DEFs, or deficiencies, errors, and frustrations (mistakenly cited as being in the April 19 issue; actually it was in the April 9 issue).¹

Not one ...

To the Editor: We report a serious esophageal injury caused by a bagel.

A 38-year-old woman experienced sudden odynophagia and severe upper substernal precordial pain while eating a bagel that had been baked within the previous eight hours. She had no ...

It is difficult not to feel sympathy for (or fearful identification with) David Baltimore, who endured an ordeal of epic proportions over more than a decade because he objected to the tactics of his inquisitors. After all, it is hard to feel good about a ...

Worldwide fears arising from an outbreak of Ebola virus in Africa, the controversy generated in the genetics community resulting from the eugenics law in China, and the turmoil on the editorial pages of the Journal provoked by AIDS research in third-world ...

On June 7, 1998, after a seesaw battle on television and in the press, Swiss voters rejected a referendum that would have severely limited research in genetic engineering. The debate featured arguments about man-made monstrosities and the ethical ...

Management of Life-Threatening Acid–Base Disorders Review Article, N Engl J Med 1998:338;26-34.. On page 27, the sentence that begins on line 7 of the right-hand column should have read, “This complication can be avoided by adding two 50-ml ampules of ...

Most Americans rely on their employers for health insurance. In 1997, of the 167.5 million nonelderly Americans with private health insurance, 151.7 million belonged to employer-provided health plans.¹ In response to the escalating cost of health ...