2014 Summary Diabetes mellitus is a global health problem, where WHO recognized it as a chronic, debilitating and costly disease associated with severe complications, which poses severe risks for families, Member States and the entire world. This medical problem has put three Gulf Cooperation Council countries so far among the top ten countries facing high prevalence at a global level, to the e...

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused the death of a large number of seabirds in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. However, the long term consequences of oil exposure on migratory birds overwintering in this area have received limited attention. The present study aimed to investigate the impact of oil contamination (e.g., polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)) on the circulating status of prolacti...

The origin of sedimentary organic matter and the influence of microbial reworking in the Hauraki Gulf, New Zealand, were determined using the stable carbon isotopic compositions of sedimentary Dand L-amino acids. Core top sediments from three offshore and five inner Gulf sites were collected using a multi-corer. After correction for microbial alteration of original source materials, source appo...

A large, annually recurring region of hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico has been attributed to water stratification and nutrient loading of nitrogen and phosphorus delivered by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers. This nutrient loading increased nearly 300% since 1950, primarily due to increased use of agricultural fertilizers. Over this same time period, the red snapper (Lutjanus campe...

Brown pelicans (Pelecanus occidentalis) were listed as endangered in the United States in 1970, largely due to reproductive failure and mortality caused by organochlorine contaminants, such as DDT. The southeast population, P.o. carolinensis, was delisted in 1985, while the west coast population, P.o. californicus, was not delisted until 2009. As fish-eating coastal seabirds, brown pelicans may...

SPAtially Referenced Regressions On Watershed attributes (SPARROW) models were developed to estimate nutrient inputs [total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP)] to the northwestern part of the Gulf of Mexico from streams in the South-Central United States (U.S.). This area included drainages of the Lower Mississippi, Arkansas-White-Red, and Texas-Gulf hydrologic regions. The models were sta...

Gulf of Mexico versus Atlantic populations of several coastal species in the southeastern United States are known to differ sharply in genetic composition, but most transitional zones have not previously been examined in detail. Here we employ molecular markers from mitochondrial and nuclear loci to characterize cytonuclear genetic associations at meso- and microgeographic scales along an easte...

In a recent study on Gulf War veterans who developed delayed neurotoxicity symptoms, we found their levels of serum paraoxonase (PON1) isozyme type Q to be significantly lower than in the control, unaffected veteran group. These results were obtained in 25 ill veterans and 20 well control subjects, of which 10 were deployed and 10 were nondeployed battalion members who remained in the United St...

BACKGROUND: Several health conditions and concerns have been reported to be increased among Gulf War veterans including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), CFS-like illness, and unexplained multi-symptom illness (MSI). As the cohort of Gulf War veterans advance in age, they are likely to be at risk of not only certain deployment-related health conditions but a...

BACKGROUND UK veterans of the Gulf War report more ill health than servicemen who were not deployed to the Gulf War. We investigated whether the pattern of symptom reporting by veterans of the Gulf War differed from that in active servicemen who had not fought in the Gulf War or who had fought in other conflicts. METHODS We used a population-based cross-sectional design. We sent a standardise...