Global MPH student Dr. Ricardo Restrepo-Guzman (Health Promotion, Disease Prevention and Human Migration, '08) is the author of two chapters in the recently published book "The 5-Minute Clinical Companion to Women's Health", edited by McGarry and Tong and published by Wolters Kluwer Health / Lippincot Williams and Wilkins. Dr. Restrepo-Guzman is the author of the chapters "Alcohol Use and Abuse" and "Abuse and Sexual Assault". The book is a quick-reference guide to the diagnosis and management of symptoms and disorders that commonly occur in women.

A study by a New York University dental research team has discovered evidence that pregnant women with periodontal (gum) disease are more likely to develop gestational diabetes mellitus than pregnant women with healthy gums.

The study, led by Dr. Ananda P. Dasanayake, a Global MPH faculty member and professor of epidemiology & health promotion at the NYU College of Dentistry, followed 256 women at New York’s Bellevue Hospital Center through their first six months of pregnancy. Twenty-two women developed gestational diabetes. Those women had significantly higher levels of periodontal bacteria and inflammation than the other women in the study.

The findings, published in the April 2008 issue of the Journal of Dental Research, underscore how important it is for expectant mothers to maintain good oral health.

A team of researchers, including NYU Global MPH Director and NYU School of Medicine Professor of Medical Parasitology Dr. Karen Day, believe they have figured out why a genetic blood disorder found in the tropics protects against death from malaria. Their work was featured in the March 18, 2008 editions of The New York Times and New Scientist magazine.

Their research focused on a disease called alpha thalassemia that causes children to produce abnormally small red blood cells. It has long been known by parasitologists that the disease protects against malaria, and it has been speculated that it somehow blocked the malaria parasite from entering the cell.

But Dr. Day and the rest of the research team from NYU and Oxford University studied 800 children in Papua New Guinea and found parasites in the blood cells of children with thalassemia. Children with thalassemia produce more red blood cells than average, with less hemoglobin per cell. Dr. Day and her colleagues propose that this protects them because parasites destroy a smaller percentage of their blood cells.

Their paper, "Increased Microerythrocyte Count in Homozygous {lower case alpha}⁺-Thalassaemia Contributes to Protection against Severe Malarial Anaemia" (manuscript number 07-PLME-RA-0238R2) was published in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine, and can be viewed online at http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050056