RESEARCHERS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA AND A MINNEAPOLIS HOSPITAL HAVE DISCOVERED LINKS BETWEEN RECENT REDUCTIONS IN FOOD-STAMP ALLOWANCES AND HUNGER AND POOR HEALTH.

When patients started showing up at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis with life-threatening diabetic reactions, Dr. Nicole Lurie, a U of M medicine and public health professor, started asking why. Lurie, with the help of third-year internal medicine resident Karin Nelson and graduate student Margaret Brown, talked with 567 patients. They discovered half had been receiving food stamps and, of those, half had had their food-stamp allotments cut--by enough, in some cases, to cause diabetic reactions and/or hospitalizations.

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The effects of welfare reform can be felt in the job market and in the hospital:

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FOR 15 YEARS, A U OF M BIOCHEMIST HAS SOUGHT THE REAL MECHANISM OF BLOOD CLOTTING. IN THE LAST TWO YEARS HE FOUND IT. AND IT'S CONNECTED DIRECTLY WITH PROTEINS THAT NEED VITAMIN K TO WORK. UNDERSTANDING THAT, HE MADE ONE
VITAMIN K-FOSTERED PROTEIN BETTER. AND THIS ALTERED PROTEIN WORKS BETTER AT CLOTTING.

In a person with hemophilia (a disease that doesn't allow blood to clot) there is a missing protein, called a clotting factor. To fix the situation is costly. U of M biochemist Gary Nelsestuen has discovered a relatively simple and inexpensive way to boost the effectiveness of a crucial clotting factor used to treat severe hemophilia, and at the same time use less of it.

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Blood clotting is a complicated procedure. One University of Minnesota researcher has discovered how it works and how to make the process better:

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