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Biomedical subjects

A M Adelstein

Publications and source records attributed to A M Adelstein.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

Diet and fecal steroid profile in a South Asian population with a low colon-cancer rate.

South Asian immigrants to England and Wales have low mortality from colon cancer and high mortality from coronary heart disease compared with the general population. In a survey of a predominantly Gujarati population in northwest London, both vegetarians and nonvegetarians had similar total dietary fat intake to the native British population but higher dietary fiber intake. Total fecal bile acid and neutral animal sterol concentrations were lower in South Asians than in a native British comparison group. Sixty-two percent of South Asians excreted detectable quantities of free primary bile acids, which were not present in stools from native British subjects. The ratio of fecal coprostanol to total neutral animal sterols was also lower in South Asians. Low risk of colon cancer in this population may be related to reduced microbial activity in the bowel and low levels of tumor-promoting secondary bile acids.

Asia, Southeastern

Diet and risk factors for coronary heart disease in Asians in northwest London.

Asian immigrants to England and Wales have high mortality from coronary heart disease but low mortality from colon cancer. A survey of Asians in the London boroughs of Brent and Harrow was undertaken with the object of investigating this. Compared with the British population, the Asians consumed less saturated (S) fat and cholesterol and more polyunsaturated (P) fat and vegetable fibre. The P/S ratio of the Asians' diet was 0.85 compared with 0.28 in the British population: this was reflected in the very high linoleic acid content of their plasma lipids. The plasma total cholesterol and high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol of Asian men was similar to that of a British comparison group; the concentrations in Asian women were much lower than in British women. Smoking rates were low in both Asian men and Asian women. The high rates of coronary heart disease in Asian immigrants are not explained by the levels of these risk factors.

Adult

Fatal asthma.

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Adolescent

Cancer mortality in 1970-1972 among Polish-born migrants to England and Wales.

The 1970-72 cancer mortality of Polish migrants to England and Wales is compared with the cancer mortality prevailing in England and Wales and in Poland. Small numbers limit the analyses to the most frequent cancer sites only. The main findings are: (a) Compared with mortality rates in both their country of birth and of adoption, Polish migrants displayed intermediate values for cancers of the stomach, intestinal tract, and lung. For age-groups over 74 years, lung-cancer mortality among the migrants appears, however, to be higher than in both Poland and England and Wales. (b) A distinctly higher mortality among Polish migrants than either in Poland or England and Wales was apparent for lymphomas in both sexes, and for leukaemia and oesophageal cancer in males. (c) Female breast-cancer mortality among Polish migrants was much higher than in Poland, being close to the high mortality rates prevailing in England and Wales. The present findings are compared with the results of similar studies of Polish migrants to the United States and Australia and reasons for observed differences are advanced.

Adult

Changing social-class distribution of heart disease.

Analysis of mortality trends over 40 years in England and Wales showed that mortality from coronary heart disease had become progressively more common in working-class men and women than in those from the middle and upper classes. The change was most noticeable for men. Whereas in 1931 and 1951 heart disease was more common in men of social classes I and II, by 1961 it was more common in men of classes IV and V. This change in social-class distribution can only partly be explained by changes in diagnostic methods. The worsening mortality of classes IV and V correlated with relatively more smoking, a higher consumption of sugar, and a lower consumption of wholemeal bread in these classes. There was no correlation between change in heart disease and change in the social-class pattern of fat consumption.

Adult

Occupational mortality: work or way of life?

For more than 100 years the Registrar General has reviewed mortality in depth in a series of supplements relating extra information provided by decennial censuses to deaths in a period before and after the census. The volume describing occupationl mortiality in 1970--72 was recently published (Registrar General, 1978). Here we consider in more detail one of the questions raised by occupational mortality studies: how much does mortality of an occupation group reflect work environment and how much way of life? We first describe the traditional method of distinguishing these direct and indirect influences (that is, the comparison of the mortality of men following an occupation with that of their wives) and then introduce an alternative which we call 'social class standardisation'.

Adolescent

Maternal drug histories and congenital abnormalities.

We obtained drug histories for the first trimester of pregnancy for 836 mothers of congenitally malformed babies and for an equal number of control mothers of normal babies from the same doctors' practices. There was an association between the use of a hormonal pregnancy test and the subsequent birht of a malformed baby. There was also a greater use of barbiturates by mothers of affected children compared with mothers of control babies, mainly accounted for by treatment of epileptic mothers with phenobarbitone. For all other drugs usage was similar in both sets of mothers.

Abnormalities, Drug-Induced

Multiple sclerosis among immigrants in Greater London.

Among immigrants resident in greater London from Europe, Ireland, the USSR, the old Commonwealth countries of Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, North and South America, Egypt, Turkey, and Iran the incidence of admission to hospital for probable multiple sclerosis (MS) between 1960 and 1972 was high or moderately high. The incidence was the same order as that found in those born in the United Kingdom. Immigrants from India, Pakistan, and other Asian countries and from new Commonwealth Africa and America, which includes the West Indies, had a low incidence of hospital admission for MS. Immigrants from countries where the risk of MS is low whose parents were born in Europe had a reduced incidence of admission to hospital but not the very low incidence found in those parents were also born in these countries. Emigrating to England from low risk parts of the world did not seem to increase the risk of developing MS.

Africa

Policies of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. Philosophy and constraints.

The Medical Division of the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys (OPCS) organizes and indexes general systems of records for medical research and administration. The main sources of records are the census, registrations of births and of deaths, hospital discharge records, registered cases of cancer and of congenital malformations, surveys by the Social Surveys Division, and samples of records in general practice. Results take the form of regularly published series of statistics and commentaries and of studies in depth, often by scientists in the National Health Service (NHS), and research institutions which are encouraged to use the systems for prospective and retrospective surveys. The surveys are facilitated by the central registry where a note of every death in the country is attached to the relevant record (and the causes of death are available). Recent developments include studies of records of general practitioners; the causes of deaths among immigrants in England and Wales; the fertility, migration, and mortality of a cohort of about 1 percent of the population. The publication policy of OPCS is described.

Confidentiality

Cancer mortality and saccharin consumption in diabetics.

The mortality experience of 5971 members of the British Diabetic Association (BDA) was followed-up for between five and eight years to mid-1973. Overall, 1207 deaths occurred compared with 778 expected from the mortality of the population of England and Wales in 1972. This excess of deaths was due almost entirely to diabetes mellitus and ischaemic heart disease. Deaths from cancer (128) were significantly fewer than expected (168), mainly because of a deficit in the number of deaths from cancers related to smoking (cancers of the buccal cavity and pharynx, oesophagus, respiratory system, and bladder). There was also a lower than expected mortality from chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Data on saccharin consumption by BDA members showed that more than half of them used saccharin tablets daily, with an overall daily intake of three to six tablets, depending on age and sex. Information on a small sample of survivors from the mortality study suggested that about 23% of them would have taken saccharin daily for 10 years or more and 10% for 25 years or more by the end of the follow-up. It was concluded that these relatively high levels of saccharin intake had not increased the risk of cancer in general among BDA members.

Adult