Asbestos is the generic commercial designation for a group of naturally occurring mineral silicate fibres of the serpentine and amphibole series. These include the serpentine mineral chrysotile (also known as ‘white asbestos’), and the five amphibole minerals – actinolite, amosite (also known as ‘brown asbestos’), anthophyllite, crocidolite (also known as ‘blue asbestos’), and tremolite (IARC, ...

There are few good sources of natural food folates apart from green leafy vegetables and these may have a limited potential to increase folate status because of substantial losses that can occur during cooking. Fortified foods can overcome this but are controversial because of safety concerns regarding chronic exposure to high-dose folic acid (FA; the synthetic form). The aim of the present stu...

In 2007, research was carried out to determine the type and amount of asbestos fibers in a Croatian factory with a long history of making asbestos-containing products.Since the 1970s, asbestos fibres have been considered carcinogenic in humans i.e as a known cancer-causing agent. In the environment, asbestos fibres are inactive and naturally resist biodegradation. In time, fibres can only be gr...

Asbestos-related diseases continue to result in approximately 120,000 deaths every year in the United States and worldwide. Although extensive research has been conducted on health effects of occupational exposures to asbestos, many issues related to environmental asbestos exposures remain unresolved. For example, environmental asbestos exposures associated with a former mine in Libby, Montana,...

Canine ehrlichiosis has emerged as one of the most clinically important tick-borne diseases affecting dogs. Eighty-five naturally infected dogs have been investigated, the most consistent clinical signs recorded were fever, emaciation and lymphoadenopathy, anemia, monocytosis, thrompocytopenia, hypoalbuminemia, elevation in liver enzymes and total bilirubin were the most remarkable changes asso...

Asbestos is a ubiquitous, naturally occurring fiber that has been linked to the development of malignant and fibrotic lung diseases. Asbestos exposure leads to apoptosis, followed by compensatory proliferation, yet many of the signaling cascades coupled to these outcomes are unclear. Because CREs (Ca(2+)/cAMP-response elements) are found in the promoters of many genes important for regulation o...

The rate of multiple births is substantially elevated in women who have had assisted reproduction treatment (ART; approximately 26%) compared to the general population ( approximately 1%), and these offspring are usually included in twin studies. Several studies have attempted to identify possible consequences of undergoing ART on the subsequent offspring. However, most studies have only includ...