Strenuous Physical Labor Research Articles

From the Feds

From the Feds

Semiconstrained total elbow replacement for the treatment of post-traumatic osteoarthrosis.

Forty-one consecutive patients were managed for post-traumatic osteoarthrosis or dysfunction of the elbow with use of a non-customized semiconstrained Coonrad-Morrey total elbow prosthesis. The average age at the time of the operation was fifty-seven years (range, thirty-two to eighty-two years). The patients were followed for an average of five years and eight months (range, two to twelve years). Radiographs were made at least two years postoperatively (average, five years and one month; range, two to twelve years) for thirty-nine of the forty-one patients. According to the Mayo elbow performance score, sixteen patients (39 per cent) had an excellent result, eighteen (44 per cent) had a good result, five (12 per cent) had a fair result, and two (5 per cent) had a poor result. Thirty-six (95 per cent) of the thirty-eight patients who had a functioning implant at the time of follow-up considered the outcome to be satisfactory. Preoperatively, thirty-seven patients (90 per cent) had moderate or severe pain; postoperatively, thirty (73 per cent) had no or only mild discomfort. Motion improved from an average arc of flexion of 40 to 118 degrees preoperatively to an average arc of flexion of 27 to 131 degrees postoperatively. All thirty-eight functioning implants rendered the elbow stable. Eleven patients (27 per cent) had a major complication. Nine of them (22 per cent of the series) needed an additional operation. There was no aseptic loosening, and most of the complications were primarily due to so-called mechanical failure. The ulnar component fractured in five patients (12 per cent), and the polyethylene bushings wore out in two (5 per cent). These complications were attributed principally to the performance of strenuous physical labor, such as lifting more than ten kilograms on a regular basis, against the advice of the surgeon; excessive preoperative deformity of the joint; or an unstable traumatic injury. Two patients (5 per cent) had an infection. Semiconstrained joint replacement of the elbow can be a reliable form of treatment, and frequently is the only viable option, for the difficult problems encountered with post-traumatic destruction of a joint. Restoration of function, relief of pain, and patient satisfaction can be achieved even when a patient is less than sixty years old if that patient has low demands and a low level of activity. However, the mechanical failures underscore the fact that this procedure is relatively contraindicated in patients who anticipate strenuous physical activity or who are not expected to comply with the postoperative protocol. This observation reflects the tendency for increased and excessive use of a previously functionless joint, after it has been rendered stable and pain-free, to lead to mechanical failure.

Overcoming Social and Economic Differences in Labor

Measures implemented throughout the nation to accelerate social production, to complete its conversion to the intensive path of development, to improve the economic mechanism, and to raise the role of labor collectives are closely intertwined with tasks relating to overcoming social and economic differences in labor. All the various processes in the obliteration of social distinctions in Soviet society are specifically based on changes in social labor, and the further socialization of labor is one of the most important economic processes that exerts the greatest influence on social relations under the conditions of developed socialism. The realization of a broad system of measures to overcome social differences in labor means equalizing the content and character of various kinds of labor by modernizing all production equipment, by planning technical progress on the basis of the elimination of manual unskilled and strenuous physical labor, and by raising the share of highly skilled labor. Much attention wa...

Habitual physical activity and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in men with primary hypercholesterolemia. The Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary Prevention Trial.

The association of habitual physical activity with plasma high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and total triglyceride (TG) was examined in 7106 asymptomatic 35-59-year-old white men with primary type II hyperlipoproteinemia who attended the second screening visit of the Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary Prevention Trial. Subjects were rated by usual level of physical activity at work and outside of work and the frequency of strenuous physical labor or exercise. By each of these three criteria, physical activity was monotonically related to HDL cholesterol and TG: the most physically active men had the highest HDL cholesterol and lowest TG levels. With respect to physical activity outside of work, for example, mean HDL cholesterol and TG were 46.4 and 152.1 mg/dl, respectively, in the most active group, and 41.4 and 186.7 mg/dl in the most sedentary group. Physical activity remained significantly predictive of HDL cholesterol and TG when other known correlates of these plasma constituents--age, Quetelet index, plasma total cholesterol, cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, and clinic--were controlled individually by two-way analyses of variance or jointly by analysis of covariance. The association of physical activity with very low density lipoprotein cholesterol was parallel to but weaker than its association with TG. Low-density lipoprotein and total cholesterol were not significantly related to physical activity.

Population, Food Intake, and Fertility

Historical data provide support for the hypothesis that poor nutrition strenuous physical labor and substandard living conditions may account for the relatively small completed family size of the lower socioeconomic classes in Britain in 1850-60. The relatively late age at menarche (15.5-16.5 years) and late attainment of adult height suggests that some submaximal fecundity in combination with a late age at marriage may have also contributed to the small completed fertility of the upper classes. Married couples of this historical period produced only 6-7 children during a time when contraceptive devices were expensive and ineffective. Nutrition hard work and disease can affect fertility because reproduction requires energy and is synchronized with physical development. The undernourished female has later menarche and earlier menopause and a higher frequency of anovulatory menstrual cycles. In the adult male severe undernutrition results in loss of libido a decrease in sperm count a decrease in prostate fluid a loss of sperm mobility and even the cessation of sperm production. Historical reports indicate that about 25% of female mill workers suffered from retarded or suppressed menses and absolute sterility occurred in about 15% of marriages. Children who worked in factories had extremely slow physical growth and hence later sexual maturation. Undernutrition not the widespread use of traditional methods of contraception may also be the explanation of the completed family size of 6-7 children found in many developing countries today.

The Chinese in California: As Reported by Henryk Sienkiewicz

Foreword?Probably the smallest and most short-lived of the California Utopian communities was the one founded at Anaheim in 1876 by a group of ten Poles. Dissatisfied with the oppressive atmosphere of their Russian-dominated home land and fascinated by fabulous tales of life in the American west, they traversed nearly half the globe to settle on a small Anaheim farm where they nursed brilliant hopes of making fortunes out of the fertile ground of California.1 Undertaken rather lightheartedly, the venture had little chance of success, for the soft-handed intellectuals who composed the group possessed no previous knowl edge of practical agriculture nor were they accustomed to strenuous physical labor. After a few months of contact with the realities of pioneer farm life and after suffering considerable financial loss, the small band of disillusioned enthu siasts dispersed. Their experiment is deserving of note, however, because two of the participants were eventually to achieve international reputations in their re spective professional fields. Helena Modjeska, wife of the settlement's financial sponsor, went to San Francisco after the demise of the colony and soon embarked upon her highly-successful American stage career. Henryk Sienkiewicz, the young journalist in the party, became within a few years one of the foremost novelists of Poland and received in 1905 the Nobel prize for literature for his book Quo Vadis? It was during his two-year sojourn in the United States (1876-1878) that the youthful Sienkiewicz began to attract the attention of his countrymen. In the Warsaw Gazeta Polska they read with great interest, and frequently with amuse ment, his impressions of American life. They were fascinated by his description of New York, Chicago, the transcontinental railroad, and California, and by his observations on American democracy, American women, and life on the Ameri can frontier. Long after Sienkiewicz's return to Poland, his Listy z podrozy do Ameryki [Letters from my Travels in America] continued to enjoy a wide audi ence and were republished with each new edition of his works.2 Today, the pres ent Communist regime in Poland is using the letters as propaganda to discredit America in the eyes of the Polish people. The Polish ministry of national defence 301