Richard C. Adelman

Death makes news: the social impact of disease on newspaper coverage.

UNLABELLED This paper is an integrated analysis of newspaper coverage, epidemiological rates, and recent social history of six prominent diseases. HYPOTHESES Newspaper coverage of a disease has three developmental stages (emergence, maturation, and decline & death). Trends in newspaper coverage of a disease reflect trends in its mortality, prevalence, and incidence. Magnitudes of newspaper coverage of diseases reflect their differential mortality rates. DATA Using the LEXIS-NEXIS news archive for major U.S. newspapers, we retrieve articles about cancer, heart disease, AIDS, diabetes, Alzheimer disease, and arthritis for the period 1977-1997. We also obtain mortality, prevalence, and incidence trends for the six diseases. RESULTS During the two decades, newspaper coverage emerges for AIDS and Alzheimer disease and is in the mature stage for the other diseases; declines begin for heart disease and AIDS. Trends in news coverage closely parallel mortality trends, and less consistently prevalence and incidence trends. Sharp downturns and upturns in mortality are mirrored in news volume. High-mortality diseases prompt both the most news coverage and the largest proportions of articles with death topics. CONCLUSION Newspaper coverage of diseases is responsive to their mortality levels and trends.

Secretion of Insulin During Aging

ecognition of and response to environmental challenge are expressed in part by the availability and efficacy of circulating hormones for R the modulation of intermediary metabolism in target cells. One example of such adaptive capability that changes during aging is the impact of dietary glucose on its insulin-sensitive metabolism by liver and peripheral tissues. This paper provides a critical review of published research that addresses the pivotal role of insulin secretion in that adaptive sequence during aging. According to most, but not all, published reports, the regulation of insulin secretion by glucose changes during aging. However, interpretation of these data is complicated by numerous factors, most prominent of which include 1) the extent to which it is possible to evaluate insulin secretion in vivo by measurement of hormone levels in peripheral blood; 2) the distribution of functionally heterogeneous populations of pancreatic islets of Langerhans; 3) distinctions between growth, obesity, and aging; and 4) the frequent failure to acknowledge relevant, previously published literature. The present paper will examine these data both in the context of such complications and from the perspective of the pursuit of further insight into the fundamental biological processes of aging that are expressed in the absence of disease and inappropriate lifestyle.

The capability for regulation of insulin secretion by somatostatin in purified pancreatic islet B cells during aging

Pancreatic islet B cells from Sprague-Dawley and Fisher 344 rats aged 3-27 months were separated from A and D cells by centrifugation over a linear percoll density gradient, and incubated in vitro with various concentrations of glucose and somatostatin. Elevation of glucose concentration in the incubation medium from 2.6 to 16.7 mM provokes an insulin secretory response that is independent of rat donor age. Inhibition of the insulin secretory response by somatostatin is independent of rat donor age beyond 12 months. These data indicate that the impaired regulation of insulin secretion during aging observed previously in vivo and in vitro in intact islets may not be intrinsic to the B cells, but instead reflect changes in islet paracrine regulatory mechanisms that relate to the quality and/or quantity of endogenous somatostatin and/or glucagon.

The Alzheimerization of Aging: A Brief Update

This article extends the previously published opinion that the NIA disproportionately supports research related to Alzheimers Disease at the expense of a more comprehensive research agenda. Letters to the editor, as well as newspaper interviews of partisans from the research community, both affirm and reject the opinion. The broader basic science community must overcome its traditional political apathy to pursue a more balanced research agenda at the NIA.

John Updike's Thought Experiment on Ageism

This article extracts from John Updikes novel, Seek My Face (2002), a thought experiment in which intergenerational learning enables a younger person to overcome ageism by recognition of an older persons inner beauty. The fictional interaction entails an interview of a 78-year-old female artist by a 27-year-old female journalist from New York City at the older womans home in central Vermont during a single day in the early spring of 2001. The literary thought experiment is a viable tool for gerontological research.

THE DILEMMA OF RESEARCH TRAINING IN GERONTOLOGY

This dilemma of research training in gerontology is the need for rigor of disciplinary science with intradisciplinary awareness. The specific aims of this article are to elaborate upon the nature of the problem, to relate the problem to organizational features of the Association for Gerontology in Higher Education and the Gerontological Society of America, and to summarize a preliminary educational approach to possible resolution of the problem at The University of Michigan Institute of Gerontology. The sources used are based on the personal observations of the author, who is an experienced researcher, educator and administrator in gerontology. The implications are that it is possible to promote intradisciplinary awareness, appreciation and research while maintaining the traditional rigor of disciplinary science.