0000000000605698
AUTHOR
Ilkka Heinonen
Effects of heat and cold on health, with special reference to Finnish sauna bathing.
Environmental stress such as extremely warm or cold temperature is often considered a challenge to human health and body homeostasis. However, the human body can adapt relatively well to heat and cold environments, and recent studies have also elucidated that particularly heat stress might be even highly beneficial for human health. Consequently, the aim of the present brief review is first to discuss general cardiovascular and other responses to acute heat stress, followed by a review of beneficial effects of Finnish sauna bathing on general and cardiovascular health and mortality as well as dementia and Alzheimer's disease risk. Plausible mechanisms included are improved endothelial and …
Association between cardiorespiratory fitness and metabolic health in overweight and obese adults
Background Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) has been inversely associated with insulin resistance and clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors among overweight and obese individuals. However, most previous studies have scaled CRF by body mass (BM) possibly inflating the association between CRF and cardiometabolic health. We investigated the associations of peak oxygen uptake (V O2peak) and peak power output (Wpeak) scaled either by BM-1, fat free mass (FFM-1), or by allometric methods with individual cardiometabolic risk factors and clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors in 55 overweight or obese adults with metabolic syndrome. Methods V O2peak and Wpeak were assessed by a maximal cycl…
Myocardial blood flow and adenosine A2Areceptor density in endurance athletes and untrained men
Previous human studies have shown divergent results concerning the effects of exercise training on myocardial blood flow (MBF) at rest or during adenosine-induced hyperaemia in humans. We studied whether these responses are related to alterations in adenosine A2A receptor (A2AR) density in the left-ventricular (LV) myocardium, size and work output of the athlete's heart, or to fitness level. MBF at baseline and during intravenous adenosine infusion, and A2AR density at baseline were measured using positron emission tomography, and by a novel A2AR tracer in 10 healthy male endurance athletes (ET) and 10 healthy untrained (UT) men. Structural LV parameters were measured with echocardiography.…
Convergent Validity of a Physical Activity Questionnaire against Objectively Measured Physical Activity in Adults: The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study
Background: Traditionally, a self-reported questionnaire has been a cost-effective method of gathering information about physical activity (PA). An objective measurement, such as the use of a pedometer, can be used to validate the findings of a PA questionnaire in a large population. Objective: The study objective was to determine the convergent validity of a PA questionnaire against objectively measured PA in adults obtained with the use of a pedometer. Methods: Data from the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study (YFS) were collected from 1853 participants aged 30 - 45 years. The participants completed a self-reported questionnaire that included items on leisure time, commuting and habi…
Perfusion heterogeneity does not explain excess muscle oxygen uptake during variable intensity exercise
Previous research investigating endurance sports from a physiological perspectivehas mainly used constant or graded exercise protocols, although the nature ofsports like cross-country skiing and road cycling leads to continuous variations inworkload. Current knowledge is thus limited as regards physiological responses tovariations in exercise intensity. Therefore, the overall objective of the present thesiswas to investigate cardiovascular and metabolic responses to fluctuations inexercise intensity during exercise. The thesis is based on four studies (Studies I-IV);the first two studies use a variable intensity protocol with cardiorespiratory andblood measurements during cycling (Study I) …
Long-term Leisure-time Physical Activity and Serum Metabolome
Background— Long-term physical inactivity seems to cause many health problems. We studied whether persistent physical activity compared with inactivity has a global effect on serum metabolome toward reduced cardiometabolic disease risk. Methods and Results— Sixteen same-sex twin pairs (mean age, 60 years) were selected from a cohort of twin pairs on the basis of their >30-year discordance for physical activity. Persistently (≥5 years) active and inactive groups in 3 population-based cohorts (mean ages, 31–52 years) were also studied (1037 age- and sex-matched pairs). Serum metabolome was quantified by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy. We used permutation analysis to estimate the …
Sedentary behaviours and obesity in adults: the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study
Objective Sedentary behaviour may contribute to the development of obesity. We investigated the relations between different types of sedentary behaviour and adiposity markers in a well-characterised adult population after controlling for a wide range of potential confounders. Design Cross-sectional study. Setting The Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Multicenter Study. Participants Sedentary time (TV viewing, computer time, reading, music/radio listening and other relaxation) was assessed with a questionnaire for 1084 women and 909 men aged 30–45 years. Other study variables included occupational and leisure-time physical activity, sleep duration, socioeconomic status, smoking, alcohol con…
Standing time and daily proportion of sedentary time are associated with pain-related disability in a one month accelerometer measurement in adults with overweight or obesity
Abstract Objectives The association between the subjective experience of pain-related disability (PRD) and device-measured physical activity (PA) and sedentary behavior (SB) in overweight and obese adults is not well known. The aim of this study was to investigate the associations of pain markers with accelerometer-measured SB duration and different intensities of PA among physically inactive middle-aged adults with overweight or obesity. Methods This cross-sectional analysis included 72 subjects (27 men) with mean age of 57.9 (SD 6.7) years and mean BMI of 31.6 (SD 4.1) kg/m2. SB and standing time (ST), breaks in sedentary time, light physical activity (LPA) and moderate-to-vigorous physic…