Cardiovascular diseases risk factors in male population from mining vocational schools of the Lublin Coal Basin.

Contrary to certain industrial countries which secure an impressive decrease in coronary heart mortality, Poland has had, especially in the last decade, the significant increase of morbidity and mortality caused by cardiovascular diseases. Although this phenomenon concerns mainly the middle-age mean groups, special care for the whole population should be undertaken. The successful way to decrease the death rate and morbidity attributed to coronary heart disease (CHD) are the long-term prevention programs as for example Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial, Belgian Heart Disease Prevention Project, Lipid Research Clinics Coronary Primary Prevention Trial and others. Because there is some evidence that certain risk factors occur also among children, it seems that the effectiveness and efficacy of such prevention programs may be increased when started in the young population.

Evaluation of lung function in male population from vocational mining schools of the Lublin Coal Basin.

Occupational exposure to dust and other environmental factors in coal miners may impair the lung function of workers. Besides the coal workers' pneumoconiosis, the inhaled dust may cause decreased ventilatory capacity as a due to chronic bronchitis (9, 13). The same diseases, especially chronic bronchitis, are common in general population and may arise not only from occupational reasons (11, 12). The involvement of the genetic factors, environmental pollutions and cigarette smoking should be considered.