Neurobiology: 'Baby Bells' Carry Molecular Dialogue Critical to Fertility Health Care Policy: First National Healthplan 'Report Cards' Being Built From the Ground Up Pediatrics: Angelman Gene Not One of the Usual Suspects Education: NFL Jock Turns HMS Doc (To Be) Public Health Study Finds Diet Affects Diabetes Risk Second Route Found to Initiate Immune Response of T Helper Cells Change in Sleep Pattern Causes Mood Swing Letter to the Editor Students Receive Kellogg Fellowships First Chair in Urology at MGH Named for Walter S. Kerr Honors & Advances News Briefs Being Down to Earth is Never Simple for Returned Astronauts Caught Between Fact and Fiction Front Page

RESEARCH BRIEFS Public Health Study Finds Diet Affects Diabetes Risk Eating too many refined carbohydrates such as white bread, mashed potatoes, and French fries while skimping on high-fiber foods such as whole-grain bread, beans, and peanut butter may increase a woman's risk of developing diabetes. A team of HSPH researchers found that women who consumed a diet with a high glycemic load--carbohydrates that increase blood glucose levels--and low intake of cereal fiber were two and a half times more likely to develop adult-onset diabetes than women with a low glycemic load and high cereal intake. Data came from the Nurses' Health Study, funded through Brigham and Women's Hospital. The study is published in the February 12 Journal of the American Medical Association.     Adult-onset, or Type II, diabetes affects 16 million Americans. It increases the risk of heart disease and stroke six-fold in women and is the leading cause of new adult cases of blindness, kidney failure, and nerve damage.     "Because these results are so strong and consistent with previous evidence about the protective benefits of a high fiber diet, we suggest that grains be consumed in a minimally refined form to reduce the risk of diabetes," comments co-author JoAnn Manson, HMS associate professor of medicine and HSPH associate professor of epidemiology. Other authors are Jorge Salmerón, research fellow in the Department of Nutrition at HSPH; Walter Willett, Fredrick Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at HSPH and professor of medicine at HMS; Meir Stampfer, HSPH professor of epidemiology and nutrition and HMS associate professor of medicine; Graham Colditz, associate professor of epidemiology at HSPH; and Alvin Wing, senior programmer analyst in the department of epidemiology at HSPH. Second Route Found To Initiate Immune Response of T Helper Cells Type 2 T helper cells (TH2) develop from naive T cells with the aid of interleukin-4, a chemical signal produced by other immune cells. Because natural killer-like T cells, a particular kind of lymphocyte, secrete large amounts of interleukin-4, they were thought to be important for the initiation of a helper T cell response. Natural killer-like (NK-like) T cells, for their part, are believed to rely on CD1 molecules for development.     A team of HSPH researchers created a strain of mice lacking the CD1 molecule. They report in the February 14 Science that while the mice lacked NK-like T cells, they could still mount an immune response. "Although dependent on CD1 for their development, IL-4-secreting NK-like T cells are not required for TH2 responses," write the HSPH authors. They are Stephen T. Smiley, research associate in cancer biology; Mark H. Kaplan, research associate in cancer biology; and Michael Grusby, assistant professor of molecular immunology and HMS assistant professor of medicine. Change in Sleep Pattern Causes Mood Swing Varying when you sleep can significantly affect your mood, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital report in the February issue of the American Medical Association's Archives of General Psychiatry. Twenty-four healthy young subjects (16 men and eight women) were put on either a 30-hour sleep-wake schedule for approximately three weeks, or a 28-hour schedule for approximately five weeks. Both schedules led to a mismatch between the subjects' sleep-wake cycle and their circadian timing system, which is based on a cycle of about 24 hours.     "Mood improved, deteriorated, or remained stable when subjects remained awake at different times of their internal clock," says Diane Boivin, HMS research fellow in medicine, and lead author of the study. On average, the subjects' mood was lowest when the middle of the first 16 hours of wakefulness occurred around 6 a.m. Mood scores were highest when the middle of the 16-hour wakefulness episode occurred between 2 p.m. and 10 p.m. Letter to the Editor To the Editor: I want to make everyone at HMS aware of the controversy over the annual Norman E. Zinberg Memorial Award to be given to the U.S. drug czar, Gen. Barry McCaffrey, at the March 7 continuing education course offered by the Department of Psychiatry at Cambridge Hospital and the Division on Addictions. This controversy has led Dr. Lester Grinspoon, an eminent drug researcher, to resign from the faculty of the Zinberg Center for Addiction Studies. Those of us who support Dr. Grinspoon's position respect Gen. McCaffrey's right to speak and be heard at Harvard, or to receive an award from a military academy. But McCaffrey is undeserving of an award from a medical institution--an award whose previous recipients had made significant contributions to knowledge about the addictions.     A career military man, Gen. McCaffrey has no record of achievement as a researcher or clinician. (Nor does his corecipient, former Senator George McGovern.) He will not engage in open scholarly debate with people of differing views. He advocates cracking down on physicians who recommend the medicinal use of marijuana--a policy New England Journal of Medicine editor Jerome Kassirer calls "misguided, heavy-handed, and inhumane." While asking the Institute of Medicine to study the therapeutic efficacy of marijuana, McCaffrey ignores the institute's finding that needle-exchange programs for drug users save lives and slow the spread of AIDS.     Finally, it dishonors the memory of Norman Zinberg to give an award in his name to a knee-jerk antidrug enforcer. Dr. Zinberg argued eloquently for flexible, pragmatic drug policies based on scientific knowledge, not the cultural prejudices that McCaffrey perpetuates. If the conference organizers really value controversy and debate, they should invite a speaker qualified to reassert Dr. Zinberg's viewpoint in Gen. McCaffrey's presence. Archie Brodsky Research Associate, Program in Psychiatry and the Law, Dept. of Psychiatry, Massachusetts Mental Health Center Back to Top