Diabetes is a major public health problem in North Carolina, affecting all sociodemographic groups. This commentary examines diabetes incidence, prevalence, disparities, morbidity, mortality, and costs. It also facilitates discussion about how the meaningful use of electronic health records can create new opportunities for collaboration between public health and clinical care professionals and organizations.

Over the past decade, there has been an increasing interest in meditation as a mind-body approach, given its potential to alleviate emotional distress and promote improved well being in a variety of populations. The overall purpose of this review is to provide the practicing rheumatologist with an overview of mindfulness and how it can be applied to Western medical treatment plans to enhance both the medical and psychological care of patients.

BACKGROUND:: The aim of the Oklahoma City (OKC) bombing retrospective review was to investigate the relationship between physical injury, environmental contributors, and psychiatric disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in an event-based, matched design study focused on injury. METHODS:: The 182 selected participants were a random subset of the 1,092 direct survivors from the OKC bombing. Only 124 of these 182 cases had a full complement of medical/clinical data in the OKC database. These 124 cases were assessed to explore relationships among PTSD diagnoses, levels of blast exposure, and physical injuries. Associations among variables were statistically tested using contingency analysis and logistic regression. RESULTS:: Comparison of the PTSD cases to symptoms/diagnoses reported in the medical records reveals a statistically significant association between PTSD and head/brain injuries associated with head acceleration. PTSD was not highly correlated with other injuries. Although blast pressure and impulse were highly correlated with head injuries, the correlation with PTSD was not statistically significant. Thus, a correlation between blast pressure and PTSD may exist, but higher fidelity pressure calculations are required to elucidate this potential relationship. CONCLUSIONS:: This study provides clear evidence that head injury is associated with subsequent PTSD, giving caregivers' information on what physical injuries may suggest the development of psychologic disorders to aid them in developing a profile for the identification of future survivors of terrorist attacks and Warfighters with brain injuries and potential PTSD.

Context: Little is known about the role of testosterone and estradiol on cognition in healthy older men. Objective: The cognitive effects of increasing or lowering testosterone or estradiol were examined. Design: Cognition was assessed before and after 6 wk of double-blind placebo-controlled hormone modification. Setting: The study was conducted at an academic medical center. Participants: Healthy older (ages 60-80 yr) and younger men (ages 25-35 yr) were recruited from the community. Intervention: Men were randomized to one of four treatments: 1) maintain testosterone and estradiol at eugonadal levels for young men (GnRH agonist + testosterone gel); 2) block testosterone's conversion to estradiol (GnRH agonist + testosterone gel + aromatase inhibitor); 3) induce hypogonadism (GnRH agonist alone); and 4) all placebo. Main Outcome Measures: Measures of executive function, memory, and spatial cognition were obtained before and after treatment. Hormone levels were obtained 10 times over the course of the study. Results: Counter to expectations, hormone treatment did not affect cognition (P > 0.10). Free testosterone was positively related to spatial cognition in older men after treatment and controlling for age and estradiol level or exclusion of the hypogonadal men (P = 0.02). Estradiol was negatively associated with working memory controlling for the same variables (P = 0.01). Blinding to treatment assignment was maintained, with the exception of the hypogonadal group. Conclusions: A significant change in sex hormone status, including complete hypogonadism, does not modify cognition in men. These findings, along with studies that show a risk for neurodegenerative disease in those with low testosterone, suggest that sex hormone status may be important for neuroprotection in aging but not modulation of normal day-to-day cognitive function.

UVB-induced lesions in mammalian cellular DNA can, through the process of mutagenesis, lead to carcinogenesis. However, eukaryotic cells have evolved complex mechanisms of genomic surveillance and DNA damage repair to counteract the effects of UVB radiation. We show that following UVB DNA damage, there is an overall inhibition of protein synthesis and translational reprogramming. This reprogramming allows selective synthesis of DDR proteins, such as ERCC1, ERCC5, DDB1, XPA, XPD, and OGG1 and relies on upstream ORFs in the 5' untranslated region of these mRNAs. Experiments with DNA-PKcs-deficient cell lines and a specific DNA-PKcs inhibitor demonstrate that both the general repression of mRNA translation and the preferential translation of specific mRNAs depend on DNA-PKcs activity, and therefore our data establish a link between a key DNA damage signaling component and protein synthesis.

Behavioral and physiological data suggest that the striatal dopaminergic system is important in the production and execution of sequential movements. Striatal function is also modulated by sex hormones, and previous studies show that estradiol is related to sequential movement in women. The authors examined whether sex hormones are involved in the production of sequential movement in healthy older and younger men. Testosterone was modified for a 6-week period such that levels in older men matched those of younger men, the conversion of testosterone to estradiol was blocked, the production of testosterone was blocked, or the men received no treatment (placebo). Sequential movement was measured before and after hormone treatment. Older men were slower and more accurate than younger men on the sequential movement task pre- and posttreatment. Hormone manipulation had no effect on movement speed. Hormone levels were not correlated with sequential movement performance in either older or younger men, suggesting that sex hormones do not modulate sequential movement in men, and hormone replacement may not restore a loss of sequential movement ability in elderly men or men with Parkinson's disease.(PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved).

The New Horizons (NH) spacecraft observed Io's aurora in eclipse on four occasions during spring 2007. NH Alice ultraviolet spectroscopy and concurrent Hubble Space Telescope ultraviolet imaging in eclipse investigate the relative contribution of volcanoes to Io's atmosphere and its interaction with Jupiter's magnetosphere. Auroral brightness and morphology variations after eclipse ingress and egress reveal changes in the relative contribution of sublimation and volcanic sources to the atmosphere. Brightnesses viewed at different geometries are best explained by a dramatic difference between the dayside and nightside atmospheric density. Far-ultraviolet aurora morphology reveals the influence of plumes on Io's electrodynamic interaction with Jupiter's magnetosphere. Comparisons to detailed simulations of Io's aurora indicate that volcanoes supply 1 to 3% of the dayside atmosphere.

Observations of Jupiter's nightside airglow (nightglow) and aurora obtained during the flyby of the New Horizons spacecraft show an unexpected lack of ultraviolet nightglow emissions, in contrast to the case during the Voyager flybys in 1979. The flux and average energy of precipitating electrons generally decrease with increasing local time across the nightside, consistent with a possible source region along the dusk flank of Jupiter's magnetosphere. Visible emissions associated with the interaction of Jupiter and its satellite Io extend to a surprisingly high altitude, indicating localized low-energy electron precipitation. These results indicate that the interaction between Jupiter's upper atmosphere and near-space environment is variable and poorly understood; extensive observations of the day side are no guide to what goes on at night.

Although lightning has been seen on other planets, including Jupiter, polar lightning has been known only on Earth. Optical observations from the New Horizons spacecraft have identified lightning at high latitudes above Jupiter up to 80 degrees N and 74 degrees S. Lightning rates and optical powers were similar at each pole, and the mean optical flux is comparable to that at nonpolar latitudes, which is consistent with the notion that internal heat is the main driver of convection. Both near-infrared and ground-based 5-micrometer thermal imagery reveal that cloud cover has thinned substantially since the 2000 Cassini flyby, particularly in the turbulent wake of the Great Red Spot and in the southern half of the equatorial region, demonstrating that vertical dynamical processes are time-varying on seasonal scales at mid- and low latitudes on Jupiter.