Camerongolden3684
Work of breathing ([Formula see text]) derived from a single lung volume and pleural pressure is limited and does not fully characterize the mechanical work done by the respiratory musculature. It has long been known that abdominal activation increases with increasing exercise intensity, yet the mechanical work done by these muscles is not reflected in [Formula see text]. Using optoelectronic plethysmography (OEP), we sought to show first that the volumes obtained from OEP (VCW) were comparable to volumes obtained from flow integration (Vt) during cycling and running, and second, to show that partitioned volume from OEP could be utilized to quantify the mechanical work done by the rib cage ([Formula see text]RC) and abdomen ([Formula see text]AB) during exercise. We fit 11 subjects (6 males/5 females) with reflective markers and balloon catheters. Subjects completed an incremental ramp cycling test to exhaustion and a series of submaximal running trials. We found good agreement between VCW versus Vt during cycise. Collectively, our findings indicate that pulmonary mechanics can be accurately quantified using OEP, and abdominal work performed during ventilation contributes substantially to the overall work of the respiratory musculature.Muscle atrophy and decline in muscle strength appear very rapidly with prolonged disuse or mechanical unloading after acute hospitalization or experimental bed rest. The current study analyzed data from short-, medium-, and long-term bed rest (5-120 days) in a pooled sample of 318 healthy adults and modeled the mathematical relationship between muscle strength decline and atrophy. The results show a logarithmic disuse-induced loss of strength and muscle atrophy of the weight-bearing knee extensor muscles. The greatest rate of muscle strength decline and atrophy occurred in the earliest stages of bed rest, plateauing later, and likely contributed to the rapid neuromuscular loss of function in the early period. In addition, during the first two weeks of bed rest, muscle strength decline is much faster than muscle atrophy on day 5, the ratio of muscle atrophy to strength decline as a function of bed rest duration is 4.2, falls to 2.4 on day 14, and stabilizes to a value of 1.9 after about 35 days of bed rest. Positive regression revealed that approximately 79% of the muscle strength loss may be explained by muscle atrophy, while the remaining is most likely due to alterations in single fiber mechanical properties, excitation-contraction coupling, fiber architecture, tendon stiffness, muscle denervation, neuromuscular junction damage and supraspinal changes. Future studies should focus on neural factors as well as muscular factors independent of atrophy (single fibre excitability and mechanical properties, architectural factors) and on the role of extracellular matrix changes. Bed rest results in non-uniform loss of isometric muscle strength and atrophy over time, where the magnitude of change was greater for muscle strength than for atrophy. Future research should focus on the loss of muscle function and the underlying mechanisms, which will aid in the development of countermeasures to mitigate or prevent the decline in neuromuscular efficiency.Rapid ascent to high altitude imposes an acute hypoxic and acid-base challenge, with ventilatory and renal acclimatization countering these perturbations. Specifically, ventilatory acclimatization improves oxygenation, but with concomitant hypocapnia and respiratory alkalosis. A compensatory, renally mediated relative metabolic acidosis follows via bicarbonate elimination, normalizing arterial pH(a). The time course and magnitude of these integrated acclimatization processes are highly variable between individuals. Using a previously developed metric of renal reactivity (RR), indexing the change in arterial bicarbonate concentration (Δ[HCO3-]a; renal response) over the change in arterial pressure of CO2 (Δ[Formula see text]; renal stimulus), we aimed to characterize changes in RR magnitude following rapid ascent and residence at altitude. Resident lowlanders (n = 16) were tested at 1,045 m (day [D]0) prior to ascent, on D2 within 24 h of arrival, and D9 during residence at 3,800 m. Radial artery blood draws wspite reductions in [Formula see text] upon ascent, pHa was normalized within 24 h of arrival at 3,800 m through renal compensation (i.e., bicarbonate elimination). Renal reactivity (RR) was unchanged between days 2 and 9, suggesting a lack of plasticity at moderate steady-state altitude. RR was strongly correlated with ΔpHa, suggesting that a high-gain renal response better protects pHa.The word "hypoxia" has recently come to the attention of the general public on two occasions, the Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology in 2019 and the recent COVID-19 pandemic. In the academic environment, hypoxia is a current topic of research in biology, physiology, and medicine in October 2020, there were more than 150,000 occurrences of "hypoxia" in the PubMed database. However, the first occurrence is dated to 1945, while the interest for the effects of oxygen lack on the living organisms started in the mid-19th century, when scientists explored high altitude regions and mainly used the terms "anoxia" or "anoxemia." I therefore researched online through multiple databases to look for the first appearance of "hypoxia" and related terms "hypoxemia" and "hypoxybiosis" in scientific literature published in English, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. Viault and Jolyet used "Hypohématose" in 1894, but this term has not been used since. Hypoxybiosis first appeared in 1909 in Germany, then hypoxemia in 1923 in Austria, and hypoxia in 1938 in Holland. It was then exported to the United States where it appeared in 1940 in cardiology and anesthesiology. The clinical distinction between anoxia and hypoxia was clearly defined by Carl Wiggers in 1941. Hypoxia (decrease in oxygen), by essence variable in time and in localization in the body, in contrast with anoxia (absence of oxygen), illustrates the concept of homeodynamics that defines a living organism as a complex system in permanent instability, exposed to environmental and internal perturbations.Constant routine and forced desynchrony protocols typically remove the effects of behavioral/environmental cues to examine endogenous circadian rhythms, yet this may not reflect rhythms of appetite regulation in the real world. It is therefore important to understand these rhythms within the same subjects under controlled diurnal conditions of light, sleep, and feeding. Ten healthy adults (9 M/1 F, means ±SD age, 30 ± 10 yr; body mass index, 24.1 ± 2.7 kg·m-2) rested supine in the laboratory for 37 h. All data were collected during the final 24 h of this period (i.e., 0800-0800 h). Participants were fed hourly isocaloric liquid meal replacements alongside appetite assessments during waking before a sleep opportunity from 2200 to 0700 h. Hourly blood samples were collected throughout the 24-h period. Bcl-2 protein Dim light melatonin onset occurred at 2318 ± 46 min. A diurnal rhythm in mean plasma unacylated ghrelin concentration was identified (P = 0.04), with the acrophase occurring shortly after waking (0819), falling to ghrelin, leptin, and components of subjective appetite, such as hunger, prospective consumption, and fullness. Concurrent measurement of rhythms in these variables is important to fully understand the temporal relationships between components of appetite as well as the influence of diurnal factors such as sleep, light, and feeding.Reduced middle cerebral artery blood velocity (MCAv) and flow pulsatility are contributors to age-related cerebrovascular disease pathogenesis. It is unknown whether the rate of changes in MCAv and flow pulsatility support the hypothesis of sex-specific trajectories with aging. Therefore, we sought to characterize the rate of changes in MCAv and flow pulsatility across the adult lifespan in females and males as well as within specified age ranges. Participant characteristics, mean arterial pressure, end-tidal carbon dioxide, unilateral MCAv, and flow pulsatility index (PI) were determined from study records compiled from three institutional sites. A total of 524 participants [18-90 yr; females 57 (17) yr, n = 319; males 50 (21) yr, n = 205] were included in the analysis. MCAv was significantly higher in females within the second (P less then 0.001), fifth (P = 0.01), and sixth (P less then 0.01) decades of life. Flow PI was significantly lower in females within the second decade of life (P less then 0.0 sex-specific trajectories with aging and therapeutic interventions to promote healthy brain aging should consider these findings.BACKGROUNDClostridioides difficile infection (CDI) affected an estimated 365,000 persons in the United States in 2017. Despite a nationally decreasing trend of CDI cases, the population incidence of recurrent CDI (rCDI) has not improved. Elderly individuals (aged ≥ 65 years) are at higher risk of CDI, rCDI, and complicated CDI compared with younger individuals. OBJECTIVE To analyze Medicare fee-for-service data for 12 months after an initial CDI episode, in order to obtain real-world data on health care resource utilization (HRU) and costs for elderly patients with CDI and rCDI. METHODS A retrospective cohort study of patients who were aged ≥ 65 years and had a first (index) CDI diagnosis from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2016, and continuous enrollment in Medicare Parts A, B, and D during the 12-month pre-index and 12-month post-index periods was conducted. A CDI episode was identified by either an inpatient stay with CDI diagnosis code or an outpatient medical claim with a CDI diagnosis code plus a CDI ceuticals. Nelson is an employee of Ferring Pharmaceuticals, and Scott, Boules, and Unni were employees of Ferring Pharmaceuticals at the time of this study. Teigland and Parente are employees of Avalere Health and provided consulting services to Ferring Pharmaceuticals. Feuerstadt has served as a consultant to and on the speakers bureau for Merck and Co. and has served as a consultant for Ferring Pharmaceuticals and Roche Pharmaceuticals. Portions of the data contained in this study appeared as an abstract/ePoster for the AMCP Annual Meeting 2020, April 2020.The SARS-CoV-2 virus has resulted in over 88 million cases worldwide of COVID-19 as of January 2021. The heart is one of the most commonly affected organs in COVID-19, but the nature and extent of the cardiac pathology has remained controversial. It has been shown that patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 can sustain type 1 myocardial infarction in the absence of significant atherosclerotic coronary artery disease. However, many patients present with small elevations of troponin enzymes of unclear etiology which correlate with overall COVID-19 disease outcome. Early autopsy reports indicated variable levels of typical lymphocytic myocarditis, while radiology reports have indicated that myocarditis can be a persistent problem after recovery from acute illness, raising concern about participation in college athletics. In this communication, we review the literature to date regarding the gross and microscopic findings of COVID-19 cardiac involvement, present the findings from over 40 cases from our academic medical center, and propose mechanisms by which patients develop small elevations in troponin.