Immune System Diseases Commons^™

Aspartame: An Investigation Of The Use Of Artificial Sweeteners, Carlson John, Alvin Page, Bsc

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

Aspartame is an artificial, non-saccharide sweetener used as a sugar substitute in many foods and beverages. Aspartame is two hundred times sweeter than regular sugar. Many people prefer to use artificial sweeteners like aspartame as it does not affect blood sugar in the same way as natural sweeteners, does not promote tooth decay, and has been shown to be beneficial in weight control. However, it has also been linked with the development or aggravation of diabetes mellitus, convulsions, headaches, depression, hypertension, arthritis, and other medical conditions. We hypothesize that natural sweeteners are healthier than artificial sweeteners, like Splenda.

Artificial sweeteners …

A Pilot Self-Care Group Intervention For Low-Income Hiv-Positive Women, Maithe Enriquez, Margaret S. Miles, Jacki Witt, Paul Gore, Nancy Lackey

Journal of Health Disparities Research and Practice

This article describes the development of a self-care intervention and examines its efficacy with low-income HIV-positive women (n=34) in the Midwestern United States. Adapted from an individual nurse-led intervention, this effort focused on increasing self-care behaviors through enhancing self-esteem and social support. The investigators used a community-based participatory approach and partnered with three HIV-positive women to adapt and pilot test the new group intervention. A within-group, repeated-measures, pre-/post-test design, together with participant interviews, was used to evaluate the intervention. Mean scores on measures of self-care behaviors, self-esteem, social support and depressive symptoms all changed in the clinically desirable direction. Group …

Health Effects Associated With Foreclosure: A Secondary Analysis Of Hospital Discharge Data, Nancy N. Menzel, Sheniz Moonie, Melva Thompson-Robinson

Environmental & Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess the health effects of high home foreclosure rates in an area of the United States of America and the utility of hospital discharge data for this purpose.

Methods: We analyzed hospital discharge data from three postal zip codes using the principal diagnosis for 25 Diagnostic Related Groups associated with stress. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize hospital discharge rates for each condition by year and zip code. To test for differences across time, the Cochran-Armitage trend test was performed.

Results: Most conditions did not demonstrate a statistical change between 2005 and …