We concluded that inanimate surfaces near affected patients commonly become contaminated with MRSA and that the frequency of contamination is affected by the body site at which patients are colonized or infected. That personnel may contaminate their gloves (or possibly their hands) by touching such surfaces suggests that contaminated environmental surfaces may serve as a reservoir of MRSA in hospitals.

We concluded that inanimate surfaces near affected patients commonly become contaminated with MRSA and that the frequency of contamination is affected by the body site at which patients are colonized or infected. That personnel may contaminate their gloves (or possibly their hands) by touching such surfaces suggests that contaminated environmental surfaces may serve as a reservoir of MRSA in hospitals.

Oral anabolic steroids produce striking reductions in serum concentrations of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. We hypothesized that this effect related to their route of administration and was unrelated to their androgenic potency. We administered oral stanozolol (6 mg/d) or supraphysiological doses of intramuscular testosterone enanthate (200 mg/wk) to 11 male weight lifters for six weeks in a crossover design. Stanozolol reduced HDL-cholesterol and the HDL2 subfraction by 33% and 71%, respectively. In contrast, testosterone decreased HDL-cholesterol concentration by only 9% and the decrease was in the HDL3 subfraction. Apolipoprotein A-I level decreased 40% during stanozolol but only 8% during testosterone treatment. The low-density lipoprotein cholesterol concentration increased 29% with stanozolol and decreased 16% with testosterone treatment. Stanozolol, moreover, increased postheparin hepatic triglyceride lipase activity by 123%, whereas the maximum change during testosterone therapy (+25%) was not significant. Weight gain was similar with both drugs, but testosterone was more effective in suppressing gonadotropic hormones. We conclude that the undesirable lipoprotein effects of 17-alpha-alkylated steroids given orally are different from those of parenteral testosterone and that the latter may be preferable in many clinical situations.

BACKGROUND Endurance athletes have higher high density lipoprotein (HDL) concentrations than sedentary controls. To examine the mechanism for this effect, we compared HDL apoprotein metabolism in 10 endurance athletes aged 34 +/- 6 years (mean +/- SD) and 10 sedentary men aged 36 +/- 8 years. METHODS AND RESULTS Subjects were maintained on controlled diets for 4 weeks, and metabolic studies using autologously labeled 125I HDL were performed during the final 2 weeks. Lipids and lipoproteins were measured daily during these 2 weeks, and the average of 14 values was used in the analysis. HDL cholesterol (58 +/- 14 versus 41 +/- 10 mg/dl), HDL2 cholesterol (26 +/- 10 versus 12 +/- 8 mg/dl), and apolipoprotein A-I (apo A-I) (144 +/- 18 versus 115 +/- 22 mg/dl) were higher in the athletes, whereas triglyceride concentrations (60 +/- 18 versus 110 +/- 48 mg/dl) were lower (p less than 0.01 for all). Postheparin lipoprotein lipase activity was not different, but hepatic triglyceride lipase activity was 27% lower (p less than 0.06) in the athletes. The athletes' mean clearance rate of triglycerides after an infusion of Travamulsion (1 ml/kg) was nearly twofold that of the inactive men (5.8 +/- 1.5 versus 3.2 +/- 0.9%/min, p less than 0.001). There was no differences in HDL apoprotein synthetic rates, whereas the catabolic rates of both apo A-I (0.15 +/- 0.02 versus 0.22 +/- 0.05 pools per day, p less than 0.01) and apolipoprotein A-II (apo A-II) (0.15 +/- 0.02 versus 0.20 +/- 0.04 pools per day, p less than 0.05) were reduced in the trained men. Apo A-I and apo A-II half-lives correlated with HDL cholesterol in each group (r greater than 0.76, p less than 0.05 for all) but not consistently with lipase activities or fat clearance rates. This relation between apoprotein catabolism and HDL cholesterol was strongest at HDL cholesterol concentrations of less than 60 mg/dl. CONCLUSIONS We conclude that higher HDL levels in active men are associated with increased HDL protein survival. The mechanisms mediating this effect require better definition, and other factors appear to contribute to HDL cholesterol and protein concentrations among individual subjects.