• Dietary Supplements: What Do You Know? What Should You Know?
• Through the Looking Glass: The Future of Medicine and the Building of the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center
• Evidence-Based Education: Preventing Reading Failure in America
• The Biomechanics of Human Movement: Could Leonardo da Vinci Fly?
• Addiction to Medications: What Are the Risks and Who Is Vulnerable?
• Viruses, Vaccines, and Emerging Health Threats

Medicine for the Public features physician-researchers working on the frontiers of medical discovery at the National Institutes of Health. The lecture series, now in its 28th year, helps people understand the latest developments in medicine with an emphasis on topics of current relevance presented by speakers who can relate stories of science to the lay public. The above topics will be covered in the 2004 series. Sponsored by the NIH Clinical Center, the lectures are held at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays in the Clinical Center's Masur Auditorium, National Institutes of Health, 9000 Rockville Pike, Building 10, in Bethesda, Maryland. All lectures are free and open to the public.

October 5, 2004
Dietary Supplements: What Do You Know? What Should You Know?
Paul M. Coates, Ph.D., Director, Office of Dietary Supplements, National Institutes of Health
Dietary supplements are widely used by the public with more than 100 million Americans taking them. Current knowledge about these supplements is incomplete. More needs to be done to determine what they can do and to dispel common misconceptions. Dietary supplements offer fertile ground for answering such questions as how to assess the health effects of supplements and whether extracts of biologically-active substances marketed as supplements like isoflavones and antioxidants work the same way they do in food. NIH researchers are studying the many and varied aspects of dietary supplements. Through examples of dietary supplements such as substances derived from plants, nutrient ingredients like vitamins, or food components like omega-3 fatty acids derived from fish, learn what a dietary supplement is, how it is different from a food or a drug, and who takes them and why. The regulation and evaluation of diet supplements will be presented. Hear what is really known about these supplements and equally important, what is not known about them.

October 12, 2004
Through the Looking Glass: The Future of Medicine and the Building of the Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center
John I. Gallin, M.D., Director, Clinical Center, National Institutes of Health
Robert Frasca, Partner-in-Charge of Design, Zimmer Gunsul Frasca Partnership
This lecture will explore medical research at the NIH Clinical Center, the largest clinical research hospital in the world, and the first to situate research laboratories in close proximity to patient beds. It will examine how clinical research has changed since the Clinical Center was built in the 1950s and how those changes led to the building of the new Mark O. Hatfield Clinical Research Center. Hear, from the architect's perspective, about the importance of the patient environment in medical research and how this led to the innovative design of NIH's new hospital.

October 19, 2004
Evidence-Based Education: Preventing Reading Failure in America G. Reid Lyon, Ph.D., Research Psychologist and Chief Child Development and Behavioral Branch, Center for Research for Mothers and Children, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
Reading proficiency is critical to academic learning and success in school. Studies show that children who learn to read in the early grades are more likely to become better students. In the United States, about 40 percent of children are left behind in reading. Scientists are researching how children learn to read and why some children have difficulty reading. Learn about the progress to date of a comprehensive study that examines children's reading abilities during the early years, including the efforts to understand how to prevent reading failure.

October 26, 2004
The Biomechanics of Human Movement: Could Leonardo da Vinci Fly?
Steven Stanhope, Ph.D., Director, Physical Disabilities Branch, Rehabilitation Medicine Department, NIH Clinical Center and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
The human body can be thought of as a biolocomotion or living machine with the power to move from place to place. This movement requires more than 150 moving parts simultaneously controlled by more than 200 drive systems. If you can walk, you are exerting the force of those tools. An estimated 35-to-49 million Americans have a disability that limits their everyday activities and disability-related costs for healthcare exceed $170 billion. With 23 million of those Americans mobility-impaired, doctors and therapists are working to grasp the complex yet elegant process that converts muscular effort into graceful and highly functional movements. In recent years, the basic principles of biomechanics-the application of physics and mechanics to biological problems-have merged with powerful new clinical movement analysis techniques to provide better ways to assess and treat children with cerebral palsy, patients suffering the effects of stroke or traumatic brain injuries, and a host of orthopedic, arthritic and neurological conditions. Learn about the history of science and engineering underlying biomechanics and clinical movement analysis methods. Their value to medicine will be demonstrated through a series of lively demonstrations and intriguing patient case studies.

November 9, 2004
Addition to Medications: What Are the Risks and Who Is Vulnerable?
Nora D. Volkow, M.D., Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse
Most people who take prescriptions medications take them responsibly, but the non-medical use of these drugs can be dangerous. Non-medical use of certain prescription drugs can lead to abuse and dependence, characterized by compulsive drug-seeking and use. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, an estimated 6.2 million people used prescription medications non-medically in 2002. The National Institute on Drug Abuse's annual Monitoring the Future survey found a staggeringly high increase in reported rates of non-medical use of two pain medications among 12th graders. One-in-ten high school seniors took Vicodin® last year, making it the second-most commonly reported illicit drug used by high school seniors, after marijuana. This is of great concern because of both the addictive potential and the serious medical consequences that can result from overdose with oxycodone- and hydrocodone-based medications, which include OxyContin® and Vicodin®. Continued research will help to better understand how these drugs affect the brain and body. The development of new medications to treat pain with less potential for abuse and addiction is an area of great promise thanks to recent scientific advances in the understanding of how drugs of abuse exert their effects. Hear the latest research findings and learn about the risks of misusing and abusing prescription drugs, how to better assist physicians in treatment decisions and in talking with patients about responsible use of these drugs.

For further information on specific topics or speakers, call 301-496-2563, or visit the Medicine for the Public website at: http://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/about/news/mfp.shtml.