Each year the Levy Library chooses a programming theme that focuses on a department or audience directly related to the Mount Sinai and Icahn School of Medicine communities and develops events and workshops, and builds out a collection of resources around that theme. This year, after much thought and deliberation, the Library has decided to tweak the year of criteria and focus on a current topic that that extends beyond the walls of the Mount Sinai Health System and Icahn School of Medicine communities.
The Levy Library is excited to announce that 2020 is the Year of Environmental Health. The Library chose on this theme to raise awareness, share knowledge, and open up a dialogue about environment health and how our daily interactions with the environment can affect our quality of life. The Library has no plans to debate with our communities about whether climate change is real or not, (we’ll leave those debates to the presidential candidates!) but will instead focus on sharing facts, data, information, and resources based on the 6 themes from Healthy People 2020 Environmental Health by the Office for Disease Prevention and Health Promotions. Each theme highlights an element of environmental health:
- Outdoor air quality
- Surface and ground water quality
- Toxic substances and hazardous wastes
- Homes and communities
- Infrastructure and surveillance
- Global environmental health
To learn more about each theme in detail, you can check out the healthypeople.gov website here: https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/environmental-health
So to get things rolling on the Year of Environmental Health, we wanted to answer some foundational questions about Environmental Health:
What is Environmental Health?
Why is Environmental Health Important?
According to HealthyPeople.gov, maintaining a healthy environment is central to increasing quality of life and years of healthy life. Globally, 23% of all deaths and 26% of deaths among children under age 5 are due to preventable environmental factors. Environmental factors are diverse and far reaching. They include:
- Exposure to hazardous substances in the air, water, soil, and food
- Natural and technological disasters
- Climate change
- Occupational hazards
- The built environment
How does the environment affect us?
From air quality, natural disasters, to even the noise and congestion in your own city, when it comes to your health, the surrounding environment can have a major impact on both your physical and mental well being.
These are just a few tidbits of information but if you are interested in learning more about Environmental Health, be sure to check out the library’s collection of resources on Environment Health at library.mssm.edu.
Stay tuned for more information on Year of Environmental Health, as we will continue to share more interesting facts, data, and news throughout the year.
Each month Levy Library showcases the achievements of Mount Sinai faculty and researchers by highlighting an article and its altmetrics. Altmetrics are alternative measures of impact that capture non-traditional data like abstract views, article downloads, and social media activity. Our altmetrics data is provided by the PlumX platform.
This month we highlight: Advanced glycation end products are elevated in estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer patients, alter response to therapy, and can be targeted by lifestyle intervention. This article was written in part by Zahi A. Fayad, Jaime Uribarri, Venkatesh Mani, Girish N Nadkarni, and Gary E. Striker.
PURPOSE
Lifestyle factors associated with personal behavior can alter tumor-associated biological pathways and thereby increase cancer risk, growth, and disease recurrence. Advanced glycation end products (AGEs) are reactive metabolites produced endogenously as a by-product of normal metabolism. A Western lifestyle also promotes AGE accumulation in the body which is associated with disease phenotypes through modification of the genome, protein crosslinking/dysfunction, and aberrant cell signaling. Given the links between lifestyle, AGEs, and disease, we examined the association between dietary-AGEs and breast cancer.
METHODS
We evaluated AGE levels in bio-specimens from estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) and estrogen receptor-negative (ER−) breast cancer patients, examined their role in therapy resistance, and assessed the ability of lifestyle intervention to reduce circulating AGE levels in ER+ breast cancer survivors.
RESULTS
An association between ER status and AGE levels was observed in tumor and serum samples. AGE treatment of ER+ breast cancer cells altered ERα phosphorylation and promoted resistance to tamoxifen therapy. In a proof of concept study, physical activity and dietary intervention was shown to be viable options for reducing circulating AGE levels in breast cancer survivors.
CONCLUSIONS
There is a potential prognostic and therapeutic role for lifestyle derived AGEs in breast cancer. Given the potential benefits of lifestyle intervention on incidence and mortality, opportunities exist for the development of community health and nutritional programs aimed at reducing AGE exposure in order to improve breast cancer prevention and treatment outcomes.
View the PlumX article profile