What Does Law Have to Do With It? The Jury\u27s Role in Cases Alleging Violations of Law, Custom and Standards

Rules telling people how to act come from many sources. Statutory law governs a wide range of conduct—driving an auto-mobile, operating a business, building a home. Non-governmental standards reach just as far. Individuals run their businesses in accordance with the law, but also by observing professional standards and industry customs. A hotel owner might look to state or local law to determine how to fence the hotel pool or whether to have a lifeguard on duty. The owner might also decide what to do by looking to industry customs or non-govern-mental safety guidelines, such as those a private body has issued.2 A failure to comply with any type of safety standard can result in tragedy—a child might drown in a hotel’s unfenced or unguarded pool. And, in any case, the child’s parents are likely to argue that the hotel was negligent in failing to follow the governing standards

Welcoming Lakeesha and Vincenzo to the \u3ci\u3eRestatement of Torts\u3c/i\u3e

Illustrations are a crucial part of all Restatements. Illustrations show how the law applies to different situations and how it affects specific people. Restatements of Torts have not simply explained landowners’ duties, for example, but have provided examples of how landowner liability doctrines work in practice. The Second Restatement of Torts discusses the duty a possessor of land owes to someone who enters the property by discussing the liability of “A Company” to “B, the daughter of one of the A Company’s workmen,” who was bringing dinner to her father at the plant. The Third Restatement gives the example of “Ed and Margaret,” who carpool to work and park in the Viner Hospital lot. Margaret walks to her office building and Ed visits his brother in the hospital. The illustrations reflect a major substantive change in the Restatements. The Second Restatement explains that B is a licensee to whom the company is liable. The Third Restatement eliminates the distinction between invitees, licensees, and trespassers; it would find the hospital liable to both Ed and Margaret when they fall in the icy lot even though Margaret is technically a trespasser. The substantive legal changes in the Third Restatement have been the subject of extensive commentary. But the Restatement has received no attention for the dramatic change at play in the background: the illustrations. The illustrations refer to the parties by name

Lipid Peroxidation and Depressed Mood in Community-Dwelling Older Men and Women

It has been hypothesized that cellular damage caused by oxidative stress is associated with late-life depression but\ud epidemiological evidence is limited. In the present study we evaluated the association between urinary 8-iso-prostaglandin\ud F2a (8-iso-PGF2a), a biomarker of lipid peroxidation, and depressed mood in a large sample of community-dwelling older\ud adults. Participants were selected from the Health, Aging and Body Composition study, a community-based longitudinal\ud study of older persons (aged 70–79 years). The present analyses was based on a subsample of 1027 men and 948 women\ud free of mobility disability. Urinary concentration of 8-iso-PGF2a was measured by radioimmunoassay methods and adjusted\ud for urinary creatinine. Depressed mood was defined as a score greater than 5 on the 15-item Geriatric Depression Scale and/\ud or use of antidepressant medications. Depressed mood was present in 3.0% of men and 5.5% of women. Depressed men\ud presented higher urinary concentrations of 8-iso-PGF2a than non-depressed men even after adjustment for multiple\ud sociodemographic, lifestyle and health factors (p=0.03, Cohen’s d = 0.30). This association was not present in women\ud (depressed status-by-sex interaction p = 0.04). Our study showed that oxidative damage may be linked to depression in\ud older men from a large sample of the general population. Further studies are needed to explore whether the modulation of\ud oxidative stress may break down the link between late-life depression and its deleterious health consequences

Association of urinary uromodulin with kidney function decline and mortality: the health ABC study .

BackgroundUrine uromodulin (uUMOD) is a protein secreted by the kidney tubule. Recent studies have suggested that higher uUMOD may be associated with improved kidney and mortality outcomes.MethodsUsing a case-cohort design, we evaluated the association between baseline uUMOD levels and ≥ 30% estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) decline, incident chronic kidney disease (CKD), rapid kidney function decline, and mortality using standard and modified Cox proportional hazards regression.ResultsThe median value of uUMOD was 25.8 µg/mL, mean age of participants was 74 years, 48% were women, and 39% were black. Persons with higher uUMOD had lower prevalence of diabetes and coronary artery disease (CAD), and had lower systolic blood pressure. Persons with higher uUMOD also had higher eGFR, lower urinary albumin to creatinine ratio (ACR), and lower C-reactive protein (CRP). There was no association of uUMOD with > 30% eGFR decline. In comparison to those in the lowest quartile of uUMOD, those in the highest quartile had a significantly (53%) lower risk of incident CKD (CI 73%, 18%) and a 51% lower risk of rapid kidney function decline (CI 76%, 1%) after multivariable adjustment. Higher uUMOD was associated with lower risk of mortality in demographic adjusted models, but not after multivariable adjustment.ConclusionHigher levels of uUMOD are associated with lower risk of incident CKD and rapid kidney function decline. Additional studies are needed in the general population and in persons with advanced CKD to confirm these findings.


Hypercholesterolaemia and Atherosclerosis Induced in Vervet l\'lonkeys by Cholesterol-free, Semisynthetic Diets

Vervet monkeys (Cercopithecus aethiops pygerethrus) were fed diets containing 40% carbohydrate, 25% casein and 14% hydrogenated coconut oil for 6 months. Three carbohydrates were fed: glucose, fructose and sucrose. All three diets were cholesterolaemic, the most severe cholesterolaemias being observed in the fructose and sucrose groups. All diets led to aortic sudanophilia. The fructose diet resulted in the most severe atherosclerosis and sudanophilia. This study' demonstrates the feasibility of using semisynthetic, cholesterol-free diets for the induction of hyperlipaemia and atherosclerosis in monkeys