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Drop In U.S. Births Began Before Recession, Census Data Show
Newly released Census Bureau data show that even before the current economic recession began in September 2008, population growth among children younger than age one began to decline, the AP/Kansas City Star reports. Between July 2007 and July 2008, the number of children younger than age one in the U.S. increased 0.9%, compared with a record 2.7% increase the previous year. Although births tend to drop during economic downturns as more people decide that they cannot afford to support children, experts said it is not clear why the recent drop began months before the current recession emerged. Stephanie Ventura, a demographer for the National Center for Health Statistics, said that it will be impossible to know what factors contributed to the change until demographic breakdowns are available later this year. The AP/Star reports that increases in teenage births had been driving up birth rates in recent years.Historically, birth rates have declined during poor economic times -- including the recessions of 1973, 1982 and 2001 -- and births dropped nearly 26% during the Great Depression. Mark Mather, an associate vice president at the Population Research Bureau, said, "The economy does matter. If prospects look worse for families, they"re going to be very likely to have fewer kids" (Yen/Wagster Pettus, AP/Kansas City Star, 5/19).
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Time To Fill The Gaps In NHS Dentistry
Which? is challenging the belief that it"s impossible to get an appointment with an NHS dentist as its new research shows that nine out of 10 people* who have tried in the last two years were, in fact, able to get one.
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Officials Hope Health Reform Reaches Rural America
Rural Americans are hopeful that health reform includes funding for clinics and health care services in their communities, where the cost of care is often high, CNN reports.
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Protecting The Heart With Glucocorticoid Drugs

Glucocorticoids are steroid hormones that have numerous functions; for example, they regulate the response to stress and suppress inflammation. Synthetic glucocorticoids are used clinically in many situations, most famously to treat asthma, allergies, and autoimmunity. They have also been shown in animals and humans to help protect the heart from the damaging effects of heart attack, and this has been attributed to their anti-inflammatory effects. However, Motoaki Sano and colleagues, at Keio University School of Medicine, Japan, have now determined another mechanism by which glucocorticoids protect rodent hearts from the damaging effects of heart attack. Specifically, glucocorticoids, acting via the glucocorticoid receptor (GR), induced mouse and rat heart muscle cells to produce PGD2, and this was responsible for the ability of glucocorticoids to reduce damage to mouse hearts in both an ex vivo and an in vivo model of heart attack. The authors therefore suggest that GR-selective glucocorticoids might be more beneficial to humans following heart attack than glucocorticoids that activate both GR and the MR protein, activation of which occurs in response to stress and might have unwanted consequences. TITLE: Glucocorticoid protects rodent hearts from ischemia/reperfusion injury by activating lipocalin-type prostaglandin D synthase-derived PGD2 biosynthesis AUTHOR CONTACT: Motoaki Sano Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan. View the PDF of this article at: https://www.the-jci.org/article.php?id=37413 Karen Honey Journal of Clinical Investigation


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