Trace elements levels in centenarian ‘dodgers’
Trace element bioavailability can play a role in several metabolic and physiological pathways known to be altered during the aging process. We aimed to explore the association of trace elements with increased lifespan by analyzing the circulating levels of seven trace elements (Cr, Cu, Fe, Mn, Mo, Se and Zn) in a cohort of healthy centenarians or ‘dodgers’ (≥100 years, free of major age-related diseases) in comparison with sex-matched younger elderly controls. Centenarians showed significant lower Cu (783.7 (76.7, 1608.9) vs 962.5 (676.3, 2064.4) μg/mL, P < 0.001), but higher Fe (1.3 (0.4, 4.7) vs 1.1 (0.5, 8.4) μg/mL, P = 0.003) and Se (85.7 (43.0, 256.7) vs 77.8 (24.3, 143.8) ng/mL, P = 0…
Benefits of skeletal-muscle exercise training in pulmonary arterial hypertension: The WHOLEi + 12 trial
Pulmonary arterial hypertension is often associated with skeletal-muscle weakness. The purpose of this randomized controlled trial was to determine the effects of an 8-week intervention combining muscle resistance, aerobic and inspiratory pressure-load exercises on upper/lower-body muscle power and other functional variables in patients with this disease. Participants were allocated to a control (standard care) or intervention (exercise) group (n = 20 each, 45 ± 12 and 46 ± 11 years, 60% women and 10% patients with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension per group). The intervention included five, three and six supervised (inhospital) sessions/week of aerobic, resistance and inspirato…
Physical inactivity and low fitness deserve more attention to alter cancer risk and prognosis.
Abstract Sedentary lifestyle is associated with elevated cancer risk whereas regular physical activity (PA) and high cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) have the opposite effect, with several biologic mechanisms mediating such associations. There is a need for lifestyle interventions aimed at increasing the PA levels and CRF of the general population and particularly cancer survivors. Furthermore, provocative data suggest a dose-dependent benefit of increasing levels of PA and/or CRF against cancer risk or mortality. Thus, current PA guidelines (≥150 min/wk of moderate-to-vigorous PA) may not be sufficiently rigorous for preventing cancer nor for extending cancer survivorship. Research targetin…
Strenuous exercise and the heart: are we not seeing the wood for the trees?
The health benefits of regular moderate-intensity physical activity (e.g. brisk walking, jogging) are well established and include, among others, a lower risk of all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease (CVD). Yet whether such benefits, especially with regard to CVD, are also conferred by higher exercise levels is a matter of growing controversy in the medical literature. For instance, Guash and Mont recently expressed understandable concern about the link between regular strenuous endurance exercise. 4.036 JCR (2014) Q1, 29/123 Cardiac and cardiovascular systems UEM
Effects of Exercise on the Immune Function of Pediatric Patients With Solid Tumors
The purpose of this study was to assess the effects of an in-hospital exercise intervention during neoadjuvant chemotherapy on the inflammatory profile and immune cell subpopulation in 20 children with solid tumors (control [n = 11] and exercise group [n = 9]). Although no significant interaction (group × time) effect was found with an analysis of variance test, we found a trend toward an interaction effect for natural killer cells expressing the immunoglobulin-like receptor KIR2DS4, with their numbers remaining stable in the exercise group but increasing in controls. Our data support that exercise interventions are safe in pediatric cancer patients with solid tumors during chemotherapy tre…
Exercise as the master polypill of the 21st century for the prevention of cardiovascular disease
To the Editor,The growing pandemic of cardiovascular diseases (CVD) has para-doxically paralleled advances in pharmacology, and CVD remains theleading cause of death worldwide. Therapeutic strategies aiming atcontrolling several CVD risk factors simultaneously in individualswithout evidence of CVD are expensive and difficult to implement.Thus, the development of fixed-dose drug combinations of antiplatelettogether with blood pressure (BP) and cholesterol-lowering drugs,i.e., polypills, is gaining attention to prevent CVD [1,2] and all-causemortality [3], even after an acute coronary syndrome [4]. Despite thepotential of polypills to increase adherence at a lower cost [5], peoplerandomized to …
Elite athletes live longer than the general population: a meta-analysis
OBJECTIVE: To perform a meta-analysis of cohort studies aimed at providing an accurate overview of mortality in elite athletes. PATIENTS AND METHODS: We reviewed English-language scientific articles available in Medline and Web of Science databases following the recommendations of the Meta-analyses Of Observational Studies in Epidemiology group. We searched for publications on longevity and professional or elite athletes (with no restriction on the starting date and up to March 31, 2014). RESULTS: Ten studies, including data from a total of 42,807 athletes (707 women), met all inclusion criteria. The all-cause pooled standard mortality ratio (SMR) was 0.67 (95% CI, 0.55-0.81; P<.001) with n…