Acid

Elderly black people who are chronic users of acid-inhibiting drugs in the family that includes Zantac, Pepcid and Tagamet have 2 1/2 times the normal risk of developing dementia, Indiana researchers report. The drugs block production of stomach acid by inhibiting histamine-2 receptors; the stomach releases hydrochloric acid when stimulated by histamines. But they also inhibit the brain's cholinergic system, which is involved in memory and cognition. Low levels of cholinergic activity have been linked to dementia.

Almost anyone who has faced a test or a deadline probably wished there was a smart pill to pop. New research suggests that this may eventually be possible. University of Maryland scientists have linked a brain compound called kynurenic acid to cognition, potentially opening the door to development of a drug that could aid learning in healthy people — and in those with disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. "Workers might want to take a pill so they can work harder, and college students would be interested because they already are taking amphetamine-type pills so they will be sharper," said Robert Schwarcz, professor of psychiatry, pediatrics and pharmacology and experimental therapeutics at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

The culprit might be, as one criminologist says, a sociopath seeking to inject fear into a setting for lighthearted family fun. Or maybe a sadist who set a trap and lay in wait to watch a victim fall into it. More likely, Baltimore County's police chief says, the person who doused a playground slide with acid last weekend at a Middle River elementary school was a youngster from the neighborhood. "For some inexplicable reason, we've got somebody from this neighborhood, I believe no doubt young, who got some sort of emotional high," Chief Terrence B. Sheridan said yesterday.

WITH A watershed draining six states via some 40 significant tributary rivers and creeks, you cannot say precisely where it is the Chesapeake Bay begins.But you can certainly say where the flows of water that ultimately gather in the estuary get off to their most troubled start.That would be here near Kempton, Maryland's southwesternmost town. Just past the old mining town, across the line into West Virginia, rises the North Branch of the Potomac, the bay's second-largest tributary, with about 12 percent of its total freshwater inflow.

Several residents in the 1900 block of Aliceanna St. in Fells Point were evacuated from their homes for several hours last night while a Fire Department hazardous-materials team neutralized a potentially explosive chemical inside a business, a department spokesman said. There were no injuries. Traffic was detoured from the scene. About 8:30 p.m., an employee of Powell Labs Limited noticed a small glass vial containing dry picric acid, a poisonous and explosive yellow crystalline solid used to etch stainless steel, that had been sitting on a shelf for a long time, said Chief Kevin Cartwright, the spokesman.

A Fairfield chemical plant, the scene of two chemical emissions this summer that briefly closed the Harbor Tunnel, agreed yesterday to drastically cut its releases of two toxic chemicals, the state Department of the Environment said.Vista Chemical Co., in the 3400 block of Fairfield Road, makes chemical components of detergents and other chemicals, such as hydrochloric acid, and employs 190 people on its 70-acre site.According to the state, up to 29,000 pounds of the solvent benzene was evaporating from the company's wastewater treatment tanks into the air each year, and some 24,000 pounds of hydrochloric acid was escaping when the acid was loaded onto tanker trucks for shipment.

Last week I developed a painful swollen knee and went to my doctor, who did some tests and said I had pseudogout. What is the difference between gout and pseudogout?In both pseudogout and gout, the accumulation of crystals within a joint produces an acute inflammation and arthritis. The two disorders, however, differ in a number of important ways. The crystals in gout are composed of sodium urate and are associated with elevated levels of uric acid in the blood. In seudogout the crystals are made up of calcium pyrophosphate, and blood uric acid levels are usually normal.

Regional emergency responders will stage their annual hazardous materials drill tomorrow in Brooklyn. Here's the scenario: A rail car loaded with an extremely strong, reactive acid will derail at 9:30 a.m. just west of the Rhodia Inc. chemical plant on Fairfield Road. The derailment - which under the drill scenario could have been an accident or might have been caused by terrorism - releases chlorosulfuric acid that injures about 25 people and threatens workers at nearby businesses and participants at a city vehicle auction.

Does sugar make kids hyperactive? Parents of young children never believe this, but the answer, at least according to some experts, is no. The American Academy of Pediatrics, in a book called The Official, Complete Home Reference Guide to Your Child's Nutrition, says that "when put to the test, the sugar-behavior link does not hold up." One study referenced by the doctors' group found "no effect on behavior or the ability to concentrate when sugar intake was far above normal, even among those whom parents identified as `sugar sensitive.

Drug company executives are getting nervous about the potential collapse of a $5 billion market in ulcer medicine.Highly profitable drugs such as Zantac, Tagamet, Pepcid and Prilosec are threatened by new research suggesting many ulcers are caused by infection instead of stress.For decades doctors were trained to believe "no acid, no ulcer." The ulcer-prone personality was characterized as a high-pressure, type-A individual driven in his career. Typically he (or she) would carry Maalox, Mylanta or Tums wherever he went.