Disease control future trends

Future trends in trace element analysis will put even greater pressure on the need to provide unbiased determinations. Increasing interest in the role of trace elements in health and disease will provide the stimulus for the better provision of quantitative determinations on which important decisions are made (Centers for Disease Control, 1991 Moukarzel et al., 1992). Increased public awareness and legislation are likely to bring about substantial reductions in the currently acceptable levels of occupational and environmental exposure to some non-essential elements such as lead, cadmium and aluminium. Determinations that are made as part of the assessment of such exposure will need to be both carefully validated and reproducible over many years or decades (Braithwaite and Brown, 1988 Brown, 1991), which will have a serious impact on laboratory costs. However, reproducible trace element determination with a low bias in biological fluids represents the cornerstone of any proper understanding of the role of trace elements in human health and disease. 

The question of insomnia effects on morbidity is more difficult. Since insomnia complaints are associated with depression, anxiety, neuroticism, and a wide variety of medical illnesses (44,49,54,55), it may be difficult to distinguish effects of insomnia from effects of the comorbid processes. In some cases, medications taken by insomniacs may be responsible for impairment. One attempt to assess disability related to insomnia found no association meeting Bonferroni criteria, after adjustment for age, gender, chronic disease, and major depression (56). It is possible that the trend for association would have been entirely eliminated had control been done for subthreshold depression, which was prevalent in the sample. Although sleep symptoms do predict future depression, they are less... 

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