Word: sodium
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DIAGNOSIS: radioisotopes of iodine, sodium and potassium have already proved helpful in appraising several disorders of body chemistry, e.g., in cases of heart and kidney disease, to help establish the kind of treatment the patient can stand. Other isotopes are helpful in locating brain tumors...
...fall. Two years ago, despite surgery and X rays, Norman was wasting away with a spreading cancer of the thyroid. Then his doctor got him into the little (30-bed) hospital at Oak Ridge, Tenn., which is set aside for atomic medicine. There, Norman had an "atomic cocktail"-radioactive sodium iodide dissolved in water. The cancer colonies soaked up the iodine; from each radioactive atom, beta particles and gamma rays shot out to destroy cancerous cells. Norman goes back to Oak Ridge regularly for checkups, and sometimes he gets another radioactive drink. He eats well and has gained 30 pounds...
Atoms for Diagnosis. In the long run, atomic medicine may prove to be more important as a tool kit to help doctors in diagnosis than as a shelf of cures. Already, radio-sodium is extremely valuable as a treatment gauge in certain types of kidney disease of which children are most often the victims. It is all very well to keep these little patients, with their puffy eyes, on a diet from which salt is rigorously excluded. But doctors need to be sure that they are not going too far: if the system is really salt-starved (and hence, sodium...
...captured them all, have Seattle citizens been so threshed up. Their city (pop. 463,000) is deep in a round of newspaper debates, public meetings, private arguments and brawls. Friendships have been strained, and Christian Scientists have taken counsel with medical doctors-all because of a proposal to put sodium fluoride in Seattle's drinking water...
What About Nymphomania? Pro-fluoride people pointed once more to their statistics. When used properly, they said, sodium fluoride affects nothing but children's teeth. And it does them a world of good, e.g., in Newburgh, N.Y. it has cut cavities among children by 30%. The cost would be negligible (about 10? a month for each householder). No fewer than 194 communities are using fluorides already, and 70 or 80 more are preparing...