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Global Threats: The Alarming Rise of Antibiotic Resistance
By Roberta Attanasio For the last 70 years, we have been winning most fights against harmful bacteria, using antibiotics as weapons. Now, we’re losing — our weapons don’t work any more, and the bacteria are fighting back. The alarming rise of antibiotic resistance is mostly due to overuse of antibiotics, both in medicine and in agriculture. In her book “The drugs don’t work“, Sally Davis, the UK chief medical officer, says that if we do not take responsibility now, in a few decades we may start dying from the most commonplace of operations and ailments that can today be treated easily. About a year ago (March 2013), she recommended to add antibiotic resistance to…
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Prenatal Exposure to Persistent Organic Pollutants: Influence on Masculine and Feminine Behavior in School-Age Children
By Roberta Attanasio Persistent environmental pollutants – such as DDT, dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls – are a major global health threat. These toxic chemicals resist degradation and persist in the environment for long periods of time. They can be transported by wind and water across international boundaries, and reach regions far from where they are produced or used. People are exposed to these chemicals mostly by eating contaminated fish, meat, and dairy products and, once exposed, may develop a variety of adverse health effects, including birth defects, dysfunctions of the immune and reproductive systems, damage to the central and peripheral nervous systems, and certain cancers. Now, results from a study…
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Climate Change: Influence on the Spread of Lyme Disease
By Roberta Attanasio Blacklegged ticks feed on blood — they attach to the skin of humans and many animals and, slowly, suck for several days. To get there, they patiently wait on the tip of grasses and shrubs using their lower legs to hold on, until a human or an animal passes by. Ticks can’t jump or fly, so they keep their upper pair of legs outstretched, ready to climb aboard. Once there, they insert their feeding tube into the skin and start to suck the blood — this is how they become infected by or transmit Borrelia burgdorferi, the micro-organism that causes Lyme disease. Lyme disease is one of the most common infectious diseases in…
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Tuberculosis in China: A Success Story for a Global Problem
By Roberta Attanasio Sometimes called “The Silent Killer”, tuberculosis, or TB for short, is a huge worldwide public health problem — according to the World Health Organization (WHO), one-third of the human population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the micro-organism that causes the disease. In 2012, an estimated 8.6 million people developed TB and 1.3 million died from it. The number of TB deaths is unacceptably large, given that most are preventable — indeed, a cure for TB, consisting of a six-month course of drugs, has been available for more than 50 years. If treatment is incomplete, TB can come back, often in a form resistant to treatment. Years ago, the WHO developed a strategy known…
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Psychological Stress in Children: Effects on the Immune Response
By Roberta Attanasio Stress is part of life — but while a little bit of it (good stress) may keep us active and alert, and sometimes even motivate us, the long-term type (bad stress) can have negative effects on our health. Elevated blood pressure and heart disease are just some examples of the so-called “stress-related diseases”. In addition to good stress and bad stress, there is another type of stress — toxic stress. Professor Pat Levitt defines toxic stress as “a term used by psychologists and developmental neurobiologists to describe the kinds of experiences, particularly in childhood, that can affect brain architecture and brain chemistry. They typically are experiences that are…
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Breastfeeding: Benefits of Early Exposure to Maternal Antibodies
By Roberta Attanasio “Breastfeeding is the normal way of providing young infants with the nutrients they need for healthy growth and development. Virtually all mothers can breastfeed, provided they have accurate information, and the support of their family, the health care system and society at large. Colostrum, the yellowish, sticky breast milk produced at the end of pregnancy, is recommended by World Health Organization as the perfect food for the newborn, and feeding should be initiated within the first hour after birth.” According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, “Babies are born ready to learn to breastfeed. During pregnancy a woman’s body gains weight and changes to support breastfeeding. Think of the first…
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Sex Differences in the Immune Response to Vaccines
By Roberta Attanasio Women and men respond differently to infectious microbes and vaccines – it is said, indeed, that the immune system of women is stronger than the immune system of men. Stronger or weaker, one thing is certain – men and women are not the same in terms of immune response. A few years ago, the journal Lancet Infectious Diseases published “ The Xs and Y of immune responses to viral vaccines” – a comprehensive article that clearly shows how the biological differences between sexes influence the immune response to vaccines, as for example the influenza, yellow fever and hepatitis vaccines. There are not many published studies on the…
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H7N9 Influenza Virus: Ethnicity and Protection from Infection
By Roberta Attanasio In March 2013, a new flu virus — the H7N9 — was identified in China. By early May, before retreating and disappearing, it had infected 131 people and killed 26 of them. However, less than two weeks ago (January 17), the New York Times reported that “China is disclosing a steadily growing number of cases of H7N9 bird flu, including four more cases announced on Friday, reviving concerns among health experts that the disease may be spreading and could pose a further threat as the world’s largest annual human migration begins ahead of Chinese New Year.” The H7N9 virus is a “reassortant” — it includes combined elements from three…
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Lead Exposure in Infants: The Role of Breastfeeding
By Roberta Attanasio Lead, a toxic heavy metal, is the well-known cause of a global epidemic. It has acute and chronic effects on human health, causing neurological, cardiovascular, renal, gastrointestinal, haematological and reproductive effects. Children under the age of 6 are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can severely and adversely influence mental and physical development. In the U.S., lead poisoning has been called the “silent epidemic” — children are exposed mostly because of the remodeling of old houses painted before lead paint was banned in 1978. Indeed, lead paint is one of the most common health hazards. Children exposed to lead experience brain damage, behavioral problems and developmental delays. Recently (December 2013), a…
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A Toxoplasma’s Journey: From Cats to Sea Otters
By Roberta Attanasio Toxoplasma gondii is a single-celled parasite that infects most warm blooded animals. In 2012, it landed in the news because of its ability to hijack the arousal circuitry of rats — the parasite activates a part of the brain normally engaged in sexual attraction. Rats infected with it are not afraid to approach cats and behave as they would in the presence of a sexually receptive female rat. What happens next? The cat easily catches and eats the infected rat and, in doing so, also catches the parasite — the parasite is happy as it reproduces sexually only in cats. The parasite’s oocysts — sometimes called “eggs”…
