Capsules

FAT CHANCE

Fat folks have long made the familiar claim, "My metabolism is off." Doctors have long answered that they just eat too much. Lately, though, scientists have been more willing to entertain the notion that biochemistry may indeed play a critical role in weight control. How else to explain thin people who gorge but never gain a pound and hefties who eat little? Now three researchers have announced evidence of a link between obesity and a biochemical abnormality. Drs. Jeffrey Flier, Mario De Luise and George Blackburn at Boston's Beth Israel Hospital compared blood samples taken from 28 normal adults with those from 21 obese individuals. They found that the levels of the enzyme adenosine triphosphatase, or ATPase, were 22% lower in the red blood cells of the fat subjects, and that the heavier the person the lower the enzyme level. ATPase is critical to a basic process, the pumping of sodium and potassium across cell membranes. The exchange generates an estimated 20% to 50% of the body's total heat production and consumes considerable calories. Low levels of ATPase, speculates Dr. Flier, may "predispose people to be overweight by causing fewer calories to be burned up as heat and more to be stored as fat."

BLACK CANCER

Though a diagnosis of cancer is grim news, it is not necessarily a death sentence. Today about 40% of all Americans so diagnosed survive the disease for at least five years. But new statistics released by the National Cancer Institute emphasize a striking disparity in survival rates of blacks and whites. Only 19% of black males with cancer of the rectum live five years after diagnosis, compared with 42% of white males. For black women with breast cancer the survival rate is 49%, vs. 68% for white women. Specialists blame environmental differences and inadequate medical care for the discouraging black statistics. Blacks generally seek treatment later than whites. Even when cancer is diagnosed at about the same stage, blacks do not survive as long. One reason: they are less likely to be referred to cancer centers where first-class treatment is available.

HEARING DOGS

In a two-story house in Englewood, Colo., a Denver suburb, ordinary mutts are learning to perk up their ears for people whose own hearing has been lost. This is the training center of the American Humane Association's Hearing Dog Program. Each pooch is put through a four-month training period, in which it is taught to use a cold nose or insistent paw to alert its owner to various sounds: a knock at the door, a telephone ringing, a baby crying, even a sizzling frying pan. The dog locates the source of the sound, then makes physical contact with its master and trots back to the noise. The program graduates 50 canines a year at a cost of some $2,500 per. So far, about 130 animals have been placed, free, with deaf recipients. The AHA has succeeded in amending Seeing-Eye statutes to allow hearing canines to accompany their masters into restaurants and onto planes and buses. For three years, the Federal Government has met half of the $150,000-to-$180,000 annual budget. But in June charitable organizations and local sponsors will have to meet all costs.

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