The Ongoing Environmental Destruction and Degradation of Gaza: The Resulting Public Health Crisis.

This essay examines the resulting environmental health conditions in Gaza since October 2023. Evidence is drawn from international agency reports and peer-reviewed literature to document destruction and public health impacts over 18 months. Key themes include water, sanitation, contamination, noise and air pollution, food insecurity, susceptible populations, health system collapse, and trauma.

A Call for Pediatric Clinicians to Address Environmental Health Concerns in Rural Settings.

Children in rural communities encounter unique environmental exposures, many of which can result in negative long-term health consequences. Children are particularly at risk from these exposures due to their close interaction with the environment and developing physiology. The authors describe 3 rural environmental hazards: wood stove smoke, well water contaminants, and agricultural pollutants.

The Folic Acid and Creatine Trial: Treatment Effects of Supplementation on Arsenic Methylation Indices and Metabolite Concentrations in Blood in a Bangladeshi Population.

Background: Chronic arsenic (As) exposure is a global environmental health issue. Inorganic As (InAs) undergoes methylation to monomethyl (MMAs) and dimethyl-arsenical species (DMAs); full methylation to DMAs facilitates urinary excretion and is associated with reduced risk for As-related health outcomes. Nutritional factors, including folate and creatine, influence one-carbon metabolism, the biochemical pathway that provides methyl groups for As methylation.

Nutrition, one-carbon metabolism and arsenic methylation.

Exposure to arsenic (As) is a major public health concern globally. Inorganic As (InAs) undergoes hepatic methylation to form monomethyl (MMAs)- and dimethyl (DMAs)-arsenical species, facilitating urinary As elimination. MMAs is considerably more toxic than either InAs or DMAs, and a higher proportion of MMAs in urine has been associated with risk for a wide range of adverse health outcomes.

Association between body mass index and arsenic methylation in three studies of Bangladeshi adults and adolescents.

Background: Water-borne arsenic (As) exposure is a global health problem. Once ingested, inorganic As (iAs) is methylated to mono-methyl (MMA) and dimethyl (DMA) arsenicals via one-carbon metabolism (OCM). People with higher relative percentage of MMA (MMA%) in urine (inefficient As methylation), have been shown to have a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and several cancers but appear to have a lower risk of diabetes and obesity in populations from the US, Mexico, and Taiwan.

Early-Life Arsenic Exposure, Nutritional Status, and Adult Diabetes Risk.

Purpose Of Review: In utero influences, including nutrition and environmental chemicals, may induce long-term metabolic changes and increase diabetes risk in adulthood. This review evaluates the experimental and epidemiological evidence on the association of early-life arsenic exposure on diabetes and diabetes-related outcomes, as well as the influence of maternal nutritional status on arsenic-related metabolic effects.

Recent Findings: Five studies in rodents have evaluated the role of in utero arsenic exposure with diabetes in the offspring.

An overview of methods to address distinct research questions on environmental mixtures: an application to persistent organic pollutants and leukocyte telomere length.

Background: Numerous methods exist to analyze complex environmental mixtures in health studies. As an illustration of the different uses of mixture methods, we employed methods geared toward distinct research questions concerning persistent organic chemicals (POPs) as a mixture and leukocyte telomere length (LTL) as an outcome.

Methods: With information on 18 POPs and LTL among 1,003 U.

Thymoquinone Modulates Blood Coagulation in Vitro via Its Effects on Inflammatory and Coagulation Pathways.

Thymoquinone (THQ) is a major component of black seeds. Given that both THQ and black seeds exhibit anti-cancer and anti-inflammatory activities, we hypothesized that THQ will affect cancer-associated thrombosis (CAT), which is primarily triggered by tissue factor (TF) and inflammation. The effect of both black seed-extracted and purchased ("pure") THQ on normal blood coagulation was tested with in vitro thromboelastography (TEG) and activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) coagulation assays.