February 18, 2008
Research Roundup
Metabolic syndrome affects nearly 1 in 10 U.S.
teens
About 9 percent of teenagers may have metabolic
syndrome, a clustering of risk factors that put them on the path toward
heart disease and diabetes in adulthood, according to a study by Stephen
Cook, assistant professor of pediatrics.
Published in February’s Journal of Pediatrics in a
collection of reports on pediatric metabolic syndrome, the Cook study shows
that using the definition he developed in Rochester, some 2.9 million
teens—9.4 percent of teens overall, and over a third of obese
teens—meet the definition of the metabolic syndrome.
“We are not saying that adolescents who meet a
definition for metabolic syndrome are going to develop diabetes or have a
heart attack in the next few years, but some of the longitudinal studies
presented at this meeting showed they were at very high risk for developing
diabetes or heart disease in their 30s,” Cook says.
“When you consider all the success we’ve
had with lowering the death rate from heart disease for middle aged and
older adults, it’s really disheartening to see actual data showing
heart disease going up in young adults.”
Ultrasound technology licensed to GE
An ultrasound image-sharpening technology developed at
the University’s Rochester Center for Biomedical Ultrasound has been
licensed to General Electric Company, the world’s largest producer of
ultrasound equipment. Now that General Electric joins Royal Philips
Electronics, Siemens, and others as a licensee of the technology, 80
percent of the U.S. ultrasound manufacturing will now use the
University-developed innovation.
Babies excrete vaccine-mercury quickly
February’s issue of Pediatrics offers another
reason to rethink blaming the spike in autism diagnoses on thimerosal, a
mercury-containing preservative routinely used in several childhood
vaccines until the late ’90s.
New University research suggests that infants’
bodies expel the thimerosal mercury much faster than originally
thought–thereby leaving little chance for a progressive building up
of the toxic metal. This debunks the myth, believed by some parents and
some pediatricians, that the gauntlet of thimerosal-containing shots many
infants received in the 1990s–when the average number of vaccines
kids received increased sharply–had put them at risk for
developmental disorders.
“Though it’s reassuring to affirm that
these immunizations have always been safe, our findings really have greater
implications for world health,” Pichichero says. “Replacing the
thimerosal in vaccines globally would put these vaccines beyond what the
world community could afford for its children. It’s a relief we
haven’t cause to do that.”
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