Search results for "HEALTHY"
showing 10 items of 824 documents
Perceiving numbers alters time perception.
2008
The representation of time, space and numbers are strictly linked in the primate's cognitive system. Here we show that merely looking at number symbols biases a temporal judgment on their duration depending upon the number's magnitude. In a first experiment, a group of healthy subjects was submitted to a time estimation task, requiring to judge whether the duration of a test stimulus was longer or shorter than that of a previous reference fixed stimulus (digit 5; duration 300 ms). Test stimuli were the digits 1, 5 and 9 ranging between 250 and 350 ms. The main results showed that temporal perception was biased according to the magnitude expressed by the digit: low digits (i.e. 1) leading to…
Serum irisin levels, precocious myocardial infarction, and healthy exceptional longevity.
2014
Abstract Background Skeletal muscles produce irisin. Growing controversy exists on the association between this myokine and chronic disease risk. On the basis of the potential protective effects that irisin could exert on both vascular function and skeletal muscle mass, we hypothesized that an elevated level of this molecule may contribute to successful aging. Methods Serum irisin levels were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay in disease-free centenarians, young healthy controls, and patients with precocious acute myocardial infarction. Results We found the highest levels of serum irisin in disease-free centenarians (35.3 ± 5.5 ng/mL) compared with young healthy controls (20.7…
Urinary adiponectin excretion rises with increasing albuminuria in type 1 diabetes
2013
Urinary adiponectin (u-adiponectin) excretion has been suggested to reflect early glomerular damage. Inspired by this, we studied the levels of u-adiponectin in type 1 diabetic patients with different levels of urinary albumin excretion (UAE).U-adiponectin was analysed by ELISA in type 1 diabetic patients: Fifty-eight with normoalbuminuria (30mg albumin/24h), 43 with persistent microalbuminuria (30-300mg/24h) and 44 with persistent macroalbuminuria (300mg/24h). For comparison, a control group of 55 healthy individuals was included.U-adiponectin increased with increasing levels of UAE (p0.01). U-adiponectin median (interquartile range): Normoalbuminuria 0.38 (0.14-1.31), microalbuminuria 1.1…
Investigating cardiac and respiratory determinants of heart rate variability in an information-theoretic framework.
2014
This study was aimed at comparing two alternative information-theoretic approaches for the combined analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) and respiration variability (RV). The approaches decompose the predictive information about HRV in two terms, quantifying respectively the information stored into HRV and that transferred to HRV from RV. Storage and transfer were assessed by the popular self entropy (SE) and transfer entropy (TE) measures, as well as by the alternative conditional SE (cSE) and cross entropy (CE) measures. The comparison was performed at a theoretical level, computing the exact values of the four measures for simulated cardiorespiratory dynamics, and on real data, estim…
Causal relationships in the variability of cardiovascular system evoked by orthostatic stress by transfer entropy.
2015
The coupling between cardiac and vascular systems in healthy volunteers, elicited by the head-up tilt test is estimated by means of transfer entropy with non-uniform embedding. The method applied to beat-to-beat recordings with heart periods and systolic blood pressure, supports the commonly accepted model, that baroreflex is the key factor in maintaining homeostatic blood distribution after tilting. However the method applied to changes of heart periods and changes of blood pressure, display switches in the driving system, from vascular in the early tilt, to cardiac just after the early tilt and back to vascular in the late tilt.
Domains of Physical Activity in Relation to Stiffness Index in the General Population.
2021
Background Regular exercise training represents an important modifier of arterial stiffness (AS). Therefore, sex‐specific relations between domains of physical activity (PA; commuting, domestic, and leisure‐time PA, including active sport and occupational PA) with AS were investigated. Methods and Results Stiffness index by digital photoplethysmography was investigated in 12 650 subjects from the GHS (Gutenberg Health Study). Self‐reported PA was evaluated by the “Short Questionnaire to Assess Health‐Enhancing Physical Activity” and reported as activity score peer week, being a combined measure of duration, frequency, and intensity of PA. Multivariable linear regression analysis demonstrat…
Effect of exercise training on in vitro LDL oxidation and free radical-induced hemolysis: the HERITAGE Family Study.
2006
Oxidant stress and overproduction of reactive oxygen species (ROS) contribute to the development of cardiovascular disease. Oxidative modifications of low-density lipoproteins (LDL) are thought to play an early and critical role in atherogenesis. LDL oxidation can be reproduced in vitro, but results usually show a large interindividual variation not entirely explained by the environment. Free radical-induced hemolysis is also proposed to reveal the overall antioxidant capacity. The roles of genetic factors and exercise on the variability of both measures were investigated. The study was conducted in 146 healthy individuals from 28 families participating in a 20-week exercise-training progra…
Reduction of negative alliesthesia for sweet gustatory stimuli by cyproheptadine, a serotonin antagonist
1990
Cyproheptadine (CH) is a serotonin antagonist that increases food intake and body weight. In order to elucidate its mechanism of action on the control of food intake, hunger ratings, pleasure-displeasure to sweet gustatory stimuli and negative alliesthesia induced by a 50 g glucose load were compared in 14 healthy subjects after they had received a placebo or 16 mg of CH. Cyproheptadine did not affect the hunger rating, nor the affective rating in fasted subjects, but it reduced significantly the negative alimentary alliesthesia induced by the glucose load. It was concluded that CH increases food intake more by reducing satiation than by increasing hunger. This is in line with the anti-sero…
Stage of change and motivation to healthier lifestyle in non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.
2013
Backgrounds & Aims: Healthy diet and physical activity are the treatment cornerstones of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD); their effectiveness is however limited by difficulties in implementing lifestyle changes. We aimed at determining the stage of change and associated psychological factors as a prerequisite to refine strategies to implement behavior changes. Methods: We studied 138 consecutive NAFLD patients (73% male, age 19-73 years). The diagnosis was confirmed by liver biopsy in 64 cases (steatohepatitis, 47%). All cases completed the validated EMME-3 questionnaire, consisting of two parallel sets of instruments (for diet and physical activity, respectively) and providing st…
Patterns of evidence integration in schizophrenia and delusion.
2011
Previous studies documented a bias against disconfirmatory evidence (BADE) in patients affected by schizophrenia spectrum disorders, with some discrepant findings on its relationship with delusions. In order to further investigate the patterns of evidence integration in schizophrenia and delusion, we recruited 40 deluded and non-deluded patients with schizophrenia and 40 healthy control subjects. Participants were administered the BADE test, which consisted of 30 delusion-neutral scenarios, each one progressively described by three subsequent disambiguating statements and providing four types of interpretation to rate for plausibility; at every additional evidence presentation, participants…