Will new diagnostic criteria for diabetes mellitus change phenotype of patients with diabetes? Reanalysis of European epidemiological data

Objective: To evaluate the impact of the revised diagnostic criteria for diabetes mellitus adopted by the American Diabetes Association on prevalence of diabetes and on classification of patients. For epidemiological purposes the American criteria use a fasting plasma glucose concentration ⩾7.0 mmol/l in contrast with the current World Health Organisation criteria of 2 hour glucose concentration ⩾11.1 mmol/l.

Loss of speciation rate will impoverish future diversity

Human activities have greatly reduced the amount of the earth's area available to wild species. As the area they have left declines, so will their rates of speciation. This loss of speciation will occur for two reasons: species with larger geographical ranges speciate faster; and loss of area drives up extinction rates, thus reducing the number of species available for speciation. Theory predicts steady states in species diversity, and fossils suggest that these have typified life for most of the past 500 million years. Modern and fossil evidence indicates that, at the scale of the whole earth and its major biogeographical provinces, those steady states respond linearly, or nearly so, to available area. Hence, a loss of x% of area will produce a loss of about x% of species. Local samples of habitats merely echo the diversity available in the whole province of which they are a part. So, conservation tactics that rely on remnant patches to preserve diversity cannot succeed for long. Instead, diversity will decay to a depauperate steady state in two phases. The first will involve deterministic extinctions, reflecting the loss of all areas in which a species can ordinarily sustain its demographics. The second will be stochastic, reflecting accidents brought on by global warming, new diseases, and commingling the species of the separate bio-provinces. A new kind of conservation effort, reconciliation ecology, can avoid this decay. Reconciliation ecology discovers how to modify and diversify anthropogenic habitats so that they harbor a wide variety of species. It develops management techniques that allow humans to share their geographical range with wild species.

The growth of demand will limit output growth for food over the next quarter century

The rate of growth of world food demand will be much slower for 1990–2010 than it was for the prior three decades. The major factor determining the increase in food demand is population growth. Income growth has a much smaller effect. From 1960 to 1990, population growth accounted for approximately three fourths of the growth in demand or use of grain. For 1990–2010, it is anticipated that population growth will account for nearly all of the increase in world demand for grain. The rate of population growth from 1990 to 2020 is projected to be at an annual rate of 1.3% compared with 1.9% for 1960 to 1990—a decline of more than 30%. World per capita use of grain will increase very little—perhaps by 4%. The increase in grain use is projected to be 40% less than in 1960–1990. It is anticipated that real grain prices will decline during the period, although not nearly as much as the 40% decline in the previous three decades. Concern has been expressed concerning the deterioration of the quality and productivity of the world’s farmland. A study for China and Indonesia indicates that there has been no significant change in the productive capacity of the land over the past 50 years. Contrary to numerous claims, the depth of the topsoil has not changed, indicating that erosion has had little or no impact.

Will austerity cuts dismantle the Spanish healthcare system?

In the face of austerity, a series of disconnected “reforms” could, without corrective measures, lead to the effective dismantling of large parts of the Spanish healthcare system, with potentially detrimental effects on health. Helena Legido-Quigley and colleagues explain.

Father Abbey's Will, undated

Handwritten copy of Father Abbey's Will, on one leaf of unlined paper. The Cambridge verse is written on the front of the document, and the New Haven verse is written on the verso. The document is attached to a second leaf of blank paper bearing the handwritten title "Copy of Old Ballad" on the verso.

Fragment of Father Ab--y's Will, [ca. 1739]

Goodspeed 1.

Father Abbey's Will Cambridge, Dec. 1731. Some time since..., [ca. 1780]

Goodspeed 5, Ford 615.

Father Abbey's Will, Cambridge, Dec. 1731. Some time since..., [ca. 1780]

Goodspeed 6.

Father Abbey's Will, To which is now added, a letter of courtship to his virtuous..., undated

Goodspeed 9, Ford 609.

Father Abdy's Will. "Cambridge, December 1730. Some time since..., undated

Goodspeed 11, Ford 614.