Obesity in the young is a public health priority. The prevalence of overweight children in the United States has risen almost threefold in the last two decades. An association between weight and oral health has been suggested in adults, whereas evidence supporting this association in children is controversial at best. The aim of our study was to evaluate the association between weight and dental caries in a random prospective cohort of children at their initial visit at an urban dental school. One hundred and thirty-five children were recruited in a four-month period. The DS/ds index was used to assess caries, and BMI percentile was calculated based on age and gender-adjusted published scales. Correlation analyses, linear, and multivariate regression including age, gender, and BMI were calculated with a significance threshold of p>0.05. No correlation between dental decay in obese and non-obese children was detected (p=0.99). These findings support recent U.S. population-based literature that reports an inverse association between caries and weight in certain pediatric groups. Nevertheless, the impact of interventions to address the epidemic in the dental setting has not been investigated. As part of a health care team, dental students should be exposed to the changing demographics and sequelae of overweight in children.

A Coulter-orifice pulse-height analyzer system was used to measure volume spectra of mammalian cells in suspension at different times after the addition of an equal volume of water. In appropriate hypotonic medium, cultured mammalian cells rapidly increase in volume and then shrink, more slowly, approaching their initial volumes within 20 to 30 minutes at 37.5"C. 'The shrinking phase was found to be reversibly inhibited by ouabain and inhibited in both K--free and Na+-free solutions; neither choline+ nor Lil could substitute for extracellular Na+ in supporting the shrinking phenomenon but Fib+ and Cs+ were fairly good substitutes for K+.Under conditions similar to those with which the shrinking phenomenon was observed with cultured cells, it was not found with either human or mouse red blood cells.Two methods were used to determine intracellular Na+ and K-content in osmotically shocked cells and in unshocked controls. An isotope equilibration method was employed with L5178-Y mouse lymphoblasts and a chemical determination by flame photometry was used with Ehrlich ascites tumor cells. The K+ content was significantly reduced and the Na+ content was unchanged or somewhat increased in cells which had returned to their original volumes in hypotonic medium. The K+ content was even more reduced but the Na+ content was greatly increased in cells which wcre osmotically shocked in the presence of ouabain.

Children with grossly observable physical activity during intraoral injection have significant heart rate accelerations. Children in whom movement is absent or confined to the muscles of facial expression experience heart rate deceleration. Both groups of children show anxiety, hence heart rate cannot be used to index anxiety. Moreover, anxiety cannot be described along a single dimension of arousal.

No abstract

The cardiac glyoside, ouabain, normally kills HeLa cells at concentrations of about 10-7 M or greater. By treating a population of HeLa cells with increasingly higher concentrations of the drug, a vaiant population was obtained of HeLa cells capable of growing in medium containing 10-4 M ouabain. Inhibition of volume regulation of cells subjected to hypotonic shock was used as a measure of inhibition of active transport of Na across the plasma membrane. In that way of dose-response curves for the rapid effects of ouabain and other inhibitors of active Na transport were obtained with both the original, ouabain-sensitive (OS) and the variant, ouabain-resistant (OR) cells. Three other cardiac glycosides (digoxin, digtoxin and hellebrin) and two aglycones (digitoxigenin and strophanthidin) were found to be equally as effective as ouabain in inhibiting volume regulation of the OS cells; the concentration whichproduced half-maximum inhibition, I(max/2), was about 6X 10-7 M in each case. Similar inhibition of the OR population by ouabain was observed only when the concentration exceeded 10-4 M [I(max/2-2.5 X 10-4 M], and the other steroid compounds had no effect on the variant cells at the highest concentrations tested (-2 X 10-5 M). OR and OS cells different also in their sensitivities to its cardoactive erythrophleum alkaloid, coumingine; I(max/2) for OS and OR cells was 5 X 10-8 M and 6 X 10-7 M, respectively. These results in addition to results of ouabain binding experiments and measurements of the rates of reversal of inhibition of volume regulation, suggest that a major reason for the differential sensitivities of the two phenotypes to these drugs is different affinities of their sodium pumps for inhibitors of active transport.