PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

M Henneberg

Publications and source records attributed to M Henneberg.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1995

Average menarcheal age of higher socioeconomic status urban Cape coloured girls assessed by means of status quo and recall methods.

The age of the onset of menstruation has been determined for the urban middle-class Cape Coloured population. From 1987 to 1992 data were collected from 857 girls aged 8 to 20 years attending primary and secondary schools in Cape Town. The schools were specifically selected for the highest socioeconomic status (SES) of pupils' parents. Three-quarters of parents fell into the higher three categories of the 5-category SES standard. Girls were interviewed with respect to their menarcheal status and those who were postmenarcheal were also asked to report when they had started to menstruate. The probit analysis of the status quo data yielded average of 12.61 years and a standard deviation (s) of 1.25 years. The retrospective method was applied only to recall data of 258 girls falling into fully postmenearcheal categories (16-20 years). It yielded an average of 12.75 (s = 1.32), insignificantly different from that obtained from the probit analysis. The menarcheal age of higher SES Cape Coloured girls is significantly lower than that of white girls in Cape Town (13.30 years) and much lower than that of any group of black South African girls. It falls close to the lower limit of the range reported worldwide. Body heights, weights, and Body Mass Index indicate good growth status of girls studied.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1995

Possible secular trend in the incidence of an anatomical variant: median artery of the forearm.

Occurrence of a secular trend in the presence of a common anatomical variant-median artery of the forearm is studied. Data from the literature indicated the incidence of the median artery to be between 4.4 and 8.3% in adult cadavers studied before 1960 while our recent study found a frequency of 27.2%. In 224 adult and 60 infant cadavers of people born between 1900 and 1991 studied using a uniform method the incidence of the median artery in the birth cohort 1900-1910 was 15.0% of individuals, it rose to 29.7% in 1921-1930 and further to 38.1% in 1951-1960 to become 52.8% in 1980-1991. This trend is statistically significant. Since the median artery is deemed to dwindle away in most individuals around the 7th week of the intrauterine life, the increasing proportion of individuals who retain it into postnatal life may indicate a recent trend in human intrauterine development.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

A further study of the high incidence of the median artery of the forearm in Southern Africa.

Sixty-two forearms from 36 cadavers of South Africans of European extraction were dissected. The frequency of the median artery per forearm was 27.4%. There was neither bilateral difference nor sexual dimorphism in the incidence of the artery. These findings compare well with a previous study of black South Africans (Henneberg & George, 1992) where frequency per forearm was 27.1%. Our findings are much higher than those of earlier studies. This discrepancy may be explained either by differences in the thoroughness of the observations or regional variation, or by the occurrence of a secular trend in the development of vasculature.

Adult↗
PubMed1992

High incidence of the median artery of the forearm in a sample of recent southern African cadavers.

Observations of the presence of the median artery, providing substantial blood supply to the hand, were conducted on 96 dissected forearms of 15 adult African females and 49 adult males. The artery has a much higher incidence (27.1%) than previously reported by any author. There is no significant difference in its occurrence between sexes, nor between right and left limbs. The artery seems to occur more often bilaterally than unilaterally. The presence of the artery is not related to age. From a theoretical standpoint it is difficult to accept that a structure present in more than 1 in 4 of individuals should be considered an 'anomaly' or a 'variant'. A different approach to description of normal human anatomy is therefore necessary--that of presenting alternative anatomical patterns of equal standing rather than a single 'normal' pattern.

Arteries↗
PubMed1990

Test of socioeconomic causation of secular trend: stature changes among favored and oppressed South Africans are parallel.

Secular trends in body height, however common, run at different rates and even in opposite directions in various populations. The standard explanation is that direction and tempo of the trend are reflections of changes in the socioeconomic situation. The aim of this work is to test this hypothesis by examining trends in different socioeconomic groups living in the same country. Our observations on affluent South Africans of European extraction (AE) and on Polish medical students are compared with the data on statures of other affluent and poor peoples from the two countries measured at various dates during the 19th and 20th centuries. The trend among native Southern Africans is erratic (Tobias: South African Journal of Medical Science 40:145-164, 1975), but the overall direction is positive with a slow rate (0.24 cm/decade for 72 Negroid male groups and 0.48 cm/d for 28 Khoisan male samples). Magnitude of the trend among adult AE (0.41 cm/d for females, 0.59 for males) does not differ significantly from that among natives. The trend was absent in the data for 10-year-old AE boys and girls. The rate of trend among AE is much lower than that in their countries of origin (mainly Holland and Britain). The trend among AE medical students is markedly weaker than the trend among Polish medical students (1.21 cm/d), who in turn parallel Polish general conscripts (1.24 cm/d). It follows that the explanation of the secular trend as being an ecosensitive response of individuals to changing levels of well-being is insufficient.

Adult↗
PubMed1989

Effects of seat slope and hip flexion on spinal angles in sitting.

Lumbar and thoracic spinal angles of 25 male and 25 female subjects were measured in four sitting postures, with standing angles used as reference. Subjects sat with either 90 deg or 65 deg of hip flexion on either flat or forward-sloping seats. Lumbar kyphosis was greatest when the flat seat/90-deg posture was adopted and least when the sloping seat/65-deg posture was adopted. The opposite was observed for the thoracic angles, and intermediate results were observed for the other two sitting postures. No statistically significant interactions were observed among seat slope, hip flexion, and subject sex. The findings are discussed with reference to the anatomy of sitting and factors influencing pelvic tilt and the implications for the ergonomic design of chairs.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

Growth of the fetal biparietal diameter in urban Cape coloured families.

Ultrasonic measurements of biparietal diameter (BPD) between the 12th week of menstrual age (MA) and delivery were taken longitudinally on a group of 98 Cape Coloured employees of Groote Schuur Hospital. The socio-economic situation of subjects was above average for the community; this was reflected in their larger body size and the increased birth weight of observed fetuses. A growth chart showing MA as a function of BPD has been constructed for clinical use. This chart can be regarded as representing a 'norm' closer to the ideal than to the average in the population.

Adult↗
PubMed1988

[The effect of thoracic peridural analgesia on the cortisol and glucose response in surgery of the abdominal aorta].

UNLABELLED: It has been shown that the stress response to lower abdominal surgery can be inhibited by epidural analgesia (EA). But EA seems to have little influence on the stress reaction to major abdominal surgery. The purpose of our study was to find out whether EA is able to diminish the cortisol and glucose response to major transabdominal surgery. METHODS: 31 patients undergoing elective surgery of the abdominal aorta were subdivided at random into 3 different anaesthesia groups: 1. halothane anesthesia, 2. neuroleptanalgesia (NLA) and 3. thoracic EA with bupivacaine (0.5%) in combination with a light general anesthesia. Some patients of each group received an intravenous infusion of 5% glucose. Blood samples were drawn before anesthesia, after intubation, 5 times during surgery and at the end of the operation and were analysed for cortisol and glucose. During the early postoperative period, 1, 2 and 24 h after surgery, only cortisol was measured. RESULTS: Only the glucose levels of patients who received no carbohydrate-containing infusion fluids were used for evaluation of the stress response. In the halothane group, there was a significant increase of the mean cortisol and glucose levels after the start of surgery. No intraoperative elevations of blood glucose and cortisol were seen in the EA group. Patients of the NLA group showed no hyperglycaemia and only mild elevations of the cortisol levels during the intraoperative period.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Aged↗
PubMed1984

An original 'street test' for urine screening for morphine and its evaluation.

We have developed a rapid test for the detection of morphine and its metabolites in urine by adsorption on cation-exchange resin-coated plastic rods. The method is sufficiently specific to differentiate morphine from synthetic opiates such as pethidine. The sensitivity of this method is down to 1.0 microgram/ml for morphine and 0.1 microgram/ml for pethidine, being similar to that of the thin-layer chromatographic (TLC) method and superior to some screening kit procedures. Our method makes it possible and easy to detect opiates in urine samples on the spot and to easily transport the coated rods to the laboratory for subsequent analysis. The sensitivity, specificity and validity of the method were examined and compared with those of the TLC and radio-immunoassay (RIA) procedures.

Cation Exchange Resins↗
PubMed1981

Mortality changes in a Polish rural community (1350--1972) and estimation of their evolutionary significance.

Changes in the mortality profiles of the population of 13 villages in central Poland have been studied for the medieval and nineteenth-century periods. Three measures, derived from the demographic data, were analyzed within an evolutionary context: (1) Im, the opportunity for selection through differential mortality, (2) Rpot, the potential gross reproductive rate, and (3) Ibs, the index of biological state. Changes in these indicators over time denote sharp differences in the opportunity for natural selection through differential mortality. The greatest changes are associated with technological and organizational transformations of the social system, especially during the first half of the nineteenth century.

Actuarial Analysis↗