People who have been exposed to paint, varnish and other solvents and who also carry genes that make them more susceptible to developing multiple sclerosis (MS) may be at much greater risk of developing the disease than people who have only the exposure to solvents or the MS genes, according to a study published in the July 3, 2018, online issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.
People with exposure to paint or other solvents are 50% more likely to develop MS than people with no exposure. People with exposure to solvents who also carry the genes that make them more susceptible to MS are nearly seven times as likely to develop the disease as people with no solvent exposure who do not carry the MS genes.
For people who have been smokers, the risk is even greater. Those who have been smokers with solvent exposure and the MS genes are 30 times more likely to develop MS than those who have never smoked or been exposed to solvents and who do not have the genetic risk factors.
"These are significant interactions where the factors have a much greater effect in combination than they do on their own," said study author Anna Hedström, MD, PhD, of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden. "More research is needed to understand how these factors interact to create this risk. It's possible that exposure to solvents and smoking may both involve lung inflammation and irritation that leads to an immune reaction in the lungs."
For the study, researchers identified 2,042 people who had recently been diagnosed with MS in Sweden and matched them with 2,947 people of the same age and sex. Blood tests were used to determine whether the participants had two human leukocyte antigen gene variants, one of which makes people more likely to develop MS and the other reduces the risk of MS. The participants were also asked whether they had been exposed to organic solvents, painting products or varnish and whether they had ever been a smoker.
In the group with neither of the MS genes and no smoking or exposure to solvents, there were 139 people with MS and 525 people without the disease. In the group with the MS genes and exposure to solvents but no smoking, there were 34 people with MS and 19 people without the disease. In the group with MS genes and exposure to solvents and smoking, there were 40 people with MS and five people without the disease.
The researchers determined that the MS genes and exposure to solvents combined were responsible for an estimated 60% of the risk of developing MS.
"How this cocktail of MS genes, organic solvents and smoking contributes so significantly to MS risk warrants investigation," said Gabriele C. DeLuca, MD, DPhil, of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and a member of the American Academy of Neurology, in an accompanying editorial. "In the meantime, avoiding cigarette smoke and unnecessary exposure to organic solvents, particularly in combination with each other, would seem reasonable lifestyle changes people can take to reduce the risk of MS, especially in people with a family history of the disease."
One limitation of the study was that participants were asked to remember any exposure they had to solvents, so it is possible that they may not have remembered correctly.
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Compliance Date for Some Provisions of the Beryllium Standard Extended to August 9
OSHA has announced a delay in enforcing certain requirements of the final rule on occupational exposure to beryllium in general industry. These requirements will not be enforced until August 9, 2018.
The requirements include beryllium work areas, regulated work areas, methods of compliance, personal protective clothing and equipment, hygiene areas and practices, housekeeping, communication of hazards, and recordkeeping.
On June 1, 2018, OSHA published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to further extend the compliance dates of the remaining requirements until December 12, 2018.
On May 11, 2018, OSHA began enforcing the permissible exposure limits for the construction and maritime industries, as well as other requirements of the general industry standard. However, the Agency will not enforce any other provisions for beryllium exposure in those standards unless it provides notice. Certain compliance dates outlined in the rule remain unchanged. Enforcement of the general industry requirements for change rooms and showers will begin March 11, 2019, and requirements for engineering controls will begin March 10, 2020.
How Vibrations in Cars Make Drivers Sleepy
With about 20% of fatal road crashes involving driver fatigue, RMIT University researchers hope their findings can be used by manufacturers to improve car seat designs to help keep drivers awake.
Professor Stephen Robinson said the effects of physical vibration on drivers were not well understood, despite growing evidence that vibration contributes to feelings of sleepiness.
“We know 1 in 5 Australians have fallen asleep at the wheel and we know that drowsy driving is a significant issue for road safety,” Robinson said.
“When you’re tired, it doesn’t take much to start nodding off and we’ve found that the gentle vibrations made by car seats as you drive can lull your brain and body.
“Our study shows steady vibrations at low frequencies—the kind we experience when driving cars and trucks—progressively induce sleepiness even among people who are well rested and healthy.
“From 15 minutes of getting in the car, drowsiness has already begun to take hold. In half an hour, it’s making a significant impact on your ability to stay concentrated and alert.
“To improve road safety, we hope that future car seat designs can build in features that disrupt this lulling effect and fight vibration-induced sleepiness.”
Led by chief investigators Associate Professor Mohammad Fard and Professor Stephen Robinson, the research team tested 15 volunteers in a virtual simulator that replicates the experience of driving on a monotonous two-lane highway. The simulator was set up on a platform that could be vibrated on different frequencies, with the volunteers tested twice—once with vibrations at low frequencies (4-7Hz) and once with no vibration.
The tiredness induced by vibration makes it psychologically and physiologically harder to perform mental tasks, so the body’s nervous system activates to compensate, leading to changes in the heartbeat.
By looking at the volunteers’ heart rate variability (HRV), researchers were able to gain an objective measure of how drowsy they were feeling as the 60-minute test progressed. Within 15 minutes of starting the vibrating test, volunteers were showing signs of drowsiness. Within 30 minutes, the drowsiness was significant, requiring substantial effort to maintain alertness and cognitive performance.
The drowsiness increased progressively over the test, peaking at 60 minutes.
Associate Professor Mohammad Fard said more work was needed to build on the findings and examine how vibrations affected people across different demographics.
"We want to study a larger cohort, particularly to investigate how age may affect someone's vulnerability to vibration-induced drowsiness as well as the impact of health problems such as sleep apnea," he said.
"Our research also suggests that vibrations at some frequencies may have the opposite effect and help keep people awake.
"So we also want to examine a wider range of frequencies, to inform car designs that could potentially harness those 'good vibrations'."
The cross-disciplinary RMIT research team brought together expertise in human body vibration and automotive engineering, sleep physiology and virtual reality from the schools of Engineering, Health and Biomedical Sciences, and Media and Communication.
The paper, "The Effects of Physical Vibration on Heart Rate Variability as a Measure of Drowsiness,” (lead author PhD researcher Neng Zhang), was published this month in the journal Ergonomics.
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