|
A.
What Women Should Know About Estrogen Therapy
Narrator:
This is Science Today. For years, doctors have believed
that estrogen plays a large role in determining
who gets breast cancer. Now, studies have shown
that higher levels of estrogen are linked closely
with a higher risk. Dr. Steven Cummings of the University
of California, San Francisco, says for post-menopausal
women, an increase in estrogen is the best predictor
of the disease.
Cummings:
If you take estrogen therapy, for example, your estrogen
levels are… way out there…because estrogen therapy
does increase your estrodial concentration about 5
to 10 fold more than natural post-menopausal levels.
Narrator:
Estrogen
levels drop dramatically at menopause in all women.
But Cummings says those with the very lowest levels
of estrodial-the strongest form of the hormone-have
by far the lowest risk of developing breast cancer.
Cummings:
If someone's breast cancer risk… is really low because
they have low estrogen levels, what do you expect
if they start taking estrogen therapy? …Their risk
will go up.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
B.
Researchers Study Pesticide Use and Children
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Young children are more susceptible
than adults are to the harmful health effects of pesticides.
Because of this, many regulatory agencies are taking
a special interest in protecting children from harmful
pesticide exposure. Environmental health scientist,
Thomas McKone of the University of California, Berkeley,
is involved in a project looking into the use of pesticides
and the levels in people.
McKone:
The overall goal of the project is to look at health
effects, but a key part of that is to understand where
it's coming from when you see it in the children.
So they're taking a lot of blood samples and tissue
samples to look at levels of pesticides.
Narrator: In the past, McKone says researchers
have always looked at adults to understand the relationship
between intake of chemicals and levels in our environment.
McKone:
And
that doesn't help us when you look at children because
they interact in a much more intimate and oral way
with their environment. So they have a lot more contact
with surfaces and of course, a lot of the pesticides
- we find them in the dust, we find them on surfaces
inside of homes.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
C.
How Populations at High Risk of Diabetes Can Ward
Off the Disease
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Obesity is a bigger problem
in the U.S. than ever before. Not coincidentally,
so is diabetes. Dr. Alka Kanaya of the University
of California, San Francisco is working to figure
out what the growing number of people at risk for
diabetes can do to ward off the disease.
Kanaya:
Very, very small amounts of weight loss will make
a big difference in a diabetic. So if you weigh 400
pounds and you lose 12-14 lbs, it makes a huge difference.
If you weigh a hundred fifty pounds and you lose 12
lbs, it makes a big difference.
Narrator:
A recent long-term study found that obese people who
were at risk for diabetes could prevent the disease
with only small lifestyle changes. These changes include
losing only a few pounds and making time for moderate
exercise.
Kanaya:
What I mean by moderate exercise was brisk walking.
So this isn't running on a treadmill, this isn't aerobics.
It's going out with your friend, going around the
block. So you walk about 30 minutes at kind of a moderate
pace.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
D.
3-D Animation Programs Boost Deaf Education
Narrator:
This is Science Today. Three-dimensional animation
programs have boosted efforts to help deaf and hard-of-hearing
children develop better language and reading skills.
Dominic Massaro, a professor of psychology at the
University of California, Santa Cruz, has been working
on synthetic speech for years and is co-creator of
'Baldi' - a computerized talking head.
Massaro:
What we hope to do with our talking head is to
tutor these children in the spoken language so that
they can become better speakers of the language and
obviously, you could do that with natural faces, too
and certainly people have done this. There are a couple
advantages that our talking head has and one is that
it's simply a cyberhead - it doesn't get tired or
bored or upset and so on.
Narrator:
More importantly, you can do things with a cyberhead
that you can't do with a real person - namely, show
the inside of the mouth during speech.
Massaro:
So that the child can see these things and practice
and therefore, learn from them.
Narrator:
For Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
E.
HIV Patients and Organ Transplantation
Narrator:
This is Science Today. People living with HIV can
now expect to live longer, healthier lives, thanks
to new drug treatments. But with longer lives comes
a whole array of other health problems - those suffered
by all aging people. Doctor Michelle Roland is directing
a new study at the University of California, San Francisco
to see how people with HIV react to organ transplants.
Roland:
The concern is if you take a person who has a disease
that's characterized by immuno-suppression, and then
you have to give them immuno-suppressing drugs after
the transplant so their body doesn't reject this organ
that they see as foreign, that you might make the
disease progress much more quickly and make them do
worse.
Narrator:
So far in a small local study, the transplant success
rate seems very good. Now Roland hopes to answer some
lingering questions with the larger study.
Roland:
The safety question is do the immuno-suppressant drugs
required for transplant make HIV worse, and the effectiveness
question is, does HIV make the transplant not work
as well.
Narrator:
For
Science Today, I'm Larissa Branin.
|
