Environment: Research

Meatless Monday

Amid the hubbub of contradictory messages about health and nutrition, one warning remains constant: The average American consumes too much saturated fat, and a lot of it comes from meat. That’s the inspiration for “Meatless Monday,” a School-associated public awareness campaign. The goal: Reduce U.S. consumption of saturated fats by 15 percent by 2010.

Levels of mercury

Sicilian fishermen heft a bluefin tuna into their boat—a potentially valuable catch at a time when seafood is an increasingly popular source of dietary protein. But concerns have been raised about levels of mercury in some fish because of studies like that of epidemiologist Eliseo Guallar. In 2002, Guallar—who grew up eating seafood regularly in Zaragoza, Spain—found that Israeli and European men with the highest levels of mercury in their systems were more than twice as likely to have a heart attack as men with the lowest mercury levels. Researchers have found high levels of mercury in tilefish, swordfish, and shark. On the other hand, some seafood—particularly salmon, oysters, sardines, and shrimp—has little mercury.

Polluted air

The very young, the very old, and people who are already ill are particularly susceptible to the dangers of polluted air. The Bloomberg School’s Clarke Tankersley and fellow researchers used a special strain of mice to study what happens in the lungs of the ill and elderly that makes them more vulnerable. Because these mice abruptly lose weight about five weeks before death, it was easy to tell healthy from dying mice. The researchers exposed the mice to inert radioisotopes that, when breathed in, could be followed through the body. In dying mice, the radioisotopes move much more quickly from the lungs to the kidneys and bladder. This suggests that, at advanced age or in serious illness, structural changes occur that make the lungs more permeable and less effective at shielding vital organs from airborne contaminants.

Dead Zone

The Gulf of Mexico’s “Dead Zone” —which in some summers grows to the size of New Jersey—is an area so depleted of oxygen that it can hardly support marine life. It results from Mississippi River runoff of high-nutrient agricultural fertilizers. Researchers at the School’s Center for a Livable Future point out that the worldwide use of fertilizers increased more than 10-fold between 1950 and 1998. “The food choices we make have environmental consequences,” warns Center director Robert S. Lawrence.