VIDEO: Patients With Upper GI Tract Disorders More Likely to Get Other Illnesses, Traffic Noise Linked With Hypertension, Scientists Decode Late Blight Pathogen

10.09.2009 | 1:55 min

(September 10, 2009 - Insidermedicine) From The Netherlands - According to research published in the journal BMC Family Practice, patients with upper gastrointestinal disorders are more likely to experience other illnesses as well. Researchers analyzed information on over 26, 000 people who had participated in a 2001 Dutch survey regarding  patient presentations to primary care physicians. They found that patients with upper GI disorders visited their doctors twice as often as patients without these problems. From Sweden - The sound of traffic may increase the risk of high blood pressure, according to a report published in the journal Environmental Health. Swedish researchers surveyed over 24, 000 adults, gathering data regarding the average road noise near the participant's homes. Results showed that exposure to 60 decibels of traffic noise was strongly associated with hypertension. According to the report, most city people are exposed to at least 55 decibels of road noise. And finally, from Scotland - Researchers have identified the DNA information of the bacteria that caused the great potato famine in Ireland in the mid 1800s, according to a report published in the journal Nature. Scientists discovered that this pathogen--known as late blight--has a genome size that is twice as big as related species, an aspect that enables it to rapidly evolve and quickly destroy entire crops of its plant hosts. Late blight ravaged crops in Ireland in the 1850s, causing mass starvation, famine, and emigration.
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