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Hospitalized The singer allegedly collapsed while at dinner Sunday, and the situation is “really serious,” per report Tori Kelly is in the hospital after reportedly collapsing at a restaurant Sunday night and is being treated for blood clots in her legs and lungs, ABC confirmed Tuesday. Sources originally told TMZ, who was first to report the news, that the singer’s situation was “really serious” and that she had lost consciousness after being out to dinner with friends in downtown Los Angeles. The singer, per that report, said her heart rate suddenly went up before she lost consciousness. Kelly was allegedly transported by her friends to Cedars-Sinai Medical where she was taken into the ICU. Kelly reportedly had clots in her legs and lungs, and doctors were “working to determine if any clots are around her heart.” A rep for Kelly did not immediately respond to Rolling Stone‘s request for comment. Kelly’s hospitalization comes just days before she’s set to release an EP titled Tori on Friday, featuring songs with Ayra Starr and Jon Bellion. She was also set to host a show to celebrate the album launch at Los Angeles’ The Roxy. Trending “It absolutely can happen in young people,” said ABC chief medical correspondent Dr. Jennifer Ashton on Good Morning America, explaining that symptoms could be “focal tenderness or swelling” in the leg or “shortened breath, cough, chest pain” if the clot is in the lung. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 900,000 people are affected with vein thrombosis and that 33 percent of those with DVT face long-term complications.

Jul 25, 2023, 07:19 PM ET The Arizona Diamondbacks activated right-handed pitcher Merrill Kelly from the 15-day injured list to start Tuesday night’s game against the visiting St. Louis Cardinals. Kelly had been on the injured list due to a blood clot in his right calf. He last pitched for Arizona on June 24. Editor’s Picks It is the second time Kelly has dealt with a blood clot. He had one in his shoulder in 2020 that was much more dangerous. “Honestly, this one wasn’t really scary,” Kelly told MLB.com. “I was more bummed than anything. For some reason, I don’t know whether it was just the way that everyone else was treating it or maybe the fact that I’ve been through one already. I don’t know. Maybe I was a little bit more numb to it.” Kelly, 34, entered Tuesday 9-4 with a 3.22 ERA in 16 starts this season and having struck out 98 in 95 innings. Right-hander Jose Ruiz was designated for assignment in a corresponding move. Ruiz, 28, was 2-1 with a 4.43 ERA in 34 games (one start).

For most people the very thought of doing a plank raises the blood pressure. But a study suggests it is actually the most effective way to reduce it. Researchers at Canterbury Christ Church and Leicester universities compared the efficacy of different forms of exercise on reducing blood pressure and found that “isometric exercises” – which involve engaging muscles without movement such as wall sits and planks – were almost twice as effective compared with the government recommended exercise guidelines. The NHS website recommends that adults should do at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity, such as cycling or fast walking, every week, alongside dietary and other lifestyle changes to reduce blood pressure. Reducing systolic blood pressure is associated with decreased incidence of major cardiovascular disease events such as stroke, heart failure, and all-cause mortality. But this advice does not mention newer forms of exercise, such as high-intensity interval training (Hiit) and isometric exercise. The study examined 270 randomised controlled clinical trials, involving 15,827 participants, on the effects of particular forms of exercise on resting blood pressure. They were classified as aerobic; dynamic resistance training; a combination of these; Hiit; and isometric exercises. The authors analysed the effects of exercise on both systolic blood pressure, which measures arterial pressure when the heart beats, and diastolic blood pressure, which measures arterial pressure between beats. The study, published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found significant reductions in resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure after all the categories of exercise. Although other forms of exercise such as aerobic exercise, squats, weights and high-intensity interval training also reduced blood pressure, isometric exercises were the most effective. Jamie O’Driscoll, a reader in cardiovascular physiology at Canterbury Christ Church university and senior author of the report, said in isometric exercises the muscle remained contracted but did not change in length. This static contraction could squeeze the vessels that supplied blood to the working muscles – which reduced the flow of blood to the muscle during the exercise and therefore oxygen supply to the muscle. When the muscle relaxed afterwards, it caused a large flow of blood through the vessels (this was different to other modes of exercise) and was likely to be the trigger driving these greater improvements in blood flow regulation. The study calls for a review of exercise guidelines for the prevention and treatment of hypertension in light of the findings. skip past newsletter promotion after newsletter promotion “Performing 4 x 2 minutes of wall sits, with 2-minutes’ rest in between, three times per week, is an effective way to reduce your blood pressure,” said O’Driscoll. “They should be done alongside other exercise modes, to provide the maximum range of exercise choices rather than limiting them.” Dr Kush Joshi, a sports and exercise medicine consultant and fellow of the Faculty of Sport and Exercise Medicine, welcomed the study’s findings, but questioned how easy it would be for patients to put into practice. “The reality is a significant proportion of the population will not be able to do a plank or wall sits, and furthermore may not enjoy these types of activities,” he said. “Solutions need to be found to make these exercises accessible to all individuals with elevated blood pressure, and the study should provide impetus to policymakers to make exercise the bedrock of treatment of not only high blood pressure but other medical conditions and so to reduce the burden of medication for the population.” Joanne Whitmore, a senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said it was encouraging to see the benefits of other forms of exercise, as well as aerobic exercise. “We know that those who take on exercise they enjoy tend to carry on for longer, which is key in maintaining lower blood pressure.” But she said it was important to make lifestyle changes too, such as losing weight, eating more healthily and reducing alcohol consumption.

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Static isometric exercises—the sort that involve engaging muscles without movement, such as wall sits and planks—are best for lowering blood pressure, finds a pooled data analysis of the available evidence from clinical trials, published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. But cardio (aerobic exercise); dynamic resistance training, such as squats, press-ups, and weights; high intensity interval training or HIIT for short (episodic short bouts of high intensity exercise interspersed with short periods of recovery at a lower intensity) are all effective, indicate the findings. It may be time to review the current exercise guidelines for the prevention and treatment of high blood pressure, suggest the researchers. Previously published research shows that exercise in general is associated with significant reductions in blood pressure, with aerobic exercise, such as walking, running, and cycling, the type primarily recommended for managing blood pressure. But this recommendation is largely based on older data that exclude the newer forms of exercise, such as HIIT and isometric exercise, meaning that the current recommendations are probably outdated, suggest the researchers. In a bid to potentially update information on the best form of exercise for controlling blood pressure, they trawled research databases looking for clinical trials reporting the effects of an exercise training intervention lasting two or more weeks on resting blood pressure. The exercise interventions were classified as aerobic (cardio); dynamic resistance training; a combination of these; HIIT; and isometric exercises. Healthy resting blood pressure was defined as a reading below 130/85 mmHg; pre-high blood pressure as 130–139/85–89 mmHg; and high blood pressure as 140/90 mmHg or more. Systolic blood pressure, the first number in a reading, measures arterial pressure when the heart beats; diastolic blood pressure, the second number, measures arterial pressure between beats. In all, 270 randomized controlled trials published between 1990 and February 2023 were included in the final analysis, with a pooled data sample size of 15,827 participants. The pooled data analysis showed significant reductions in resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure after all the various categories of exercise, but with the largest falls in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure after isometric exercise training. The reductions in blood pressure after aerobic exercise training amounted to 4.49/ 2.53 mmHg; 4.55/3.04 mm Hg after dynamic resistance training; 6.04/2.54 mmHg after combined training; 4.08/2.50 mmHg after HIIT; and 8.24/4 mmHg after isometric exercise training. The rank order of effectiveness values for reducing systolic blood pressure were isometric exercise training (98%), combined training (76%), dynamic resistance training (46%), aerobic exercise training (40.5%) and HIIT (39%). Secondary analyses revealed wall squats (isometric) and running (aerobic) as the most effective individual exercises for reducing systolic blood pressure (90.5%) and diastolic blood pressure (91%), respectively, with isometric exercise, overall, the most effective for reducing both blood pressure elements. The researchers acknowledge that variations in the types of participants included across the clinical trials and differences in statistical and methodological processes and exercise interventions may have influenced the findings, and so should be interpreted in light of these limitations. But they nevertheless conclude, “Overall, isometric exercise training is the most effective mode in reducing both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.” “These findings provide a comprehensive data driven framework to support the development of new exercise guideline recommendations for the prevention and treatment of arterial hypertension.” More information: Exercise training and resting blood pressure: a largescale pairwise and network meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials, British Journal of Sports Medicine (2023). DOI: 10.1136/bjsports-2022-106503 Provided by British Medical Journal Citation: Static isometric exercise, such as wall sits, best for lowering blood pressure, finds analysis (2023, July 25) retrieved 25 July 2023 from https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-07-static-isometric-wall-lowering-blood.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.

Sign up for a full digest of all the best opinions of the week in our Voices Dispatches email Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter A new chemical analysis of the 15th century prince Vlad III, also known as Vlad the Impaler, revealed the terrifying military leader’s health conditions that likely inspired the creation of the literary vampire character Count Dracula. The new study, published recently in the journal Analytical Chemistry, found that Vlad probably had skin and respiratory conditions and could have even cried literal tears of blood. The ruthless prince – officially Vlad III, Voivode of Wallachia – lived in the southern region of Romania in the mid-1400s with historians estimating he killed over 80,000 people, many by impalement, earning him his nickname. He was also known as Vlad Drăculea – translating to “the son of the dragon” – which many believe inspired the popular character from the novel Dracula. In the latest study, researchers, including Vincenzo Cunsolo from the University of Catania in Italy, analysed for the first time letters penned by Vlad to learn more about the prince’s health as well as the environment he lived in over 500 years ago. Scientists say the molecules and proteins present in these documents could provide a unique understanding of the life and times of the ruthless military leader. Researchers used a special plastic film called ethylene-vinyl acetate (EVA) to extract any proteins or small molecules from the paper without damaging it. They then identified thousands of different small peptide molecules in the paper using a technique called mass spectrometry commonly used in labs to characterise chemicals. Of these molecules, scientists particularly focused their attention on the most degraded proteins as these were likely the oldest, and therefore, most likely to be from Vlad compared to newer, less-degraded proteins that could have originated from other people handling the letters more recently. They identified 16 proteins in total that were of human origin, relating to skin, breathing, and blood. The new findings suggest Vlad likely suffered from respiratory issues, and may have even had a condition called hemolacria that may have caused him to cry tears of blood – fitting for such a spooky character. “He might also have suffered from a pathological condition called hemolacria, that is, he could shed tears admixed with blood,” scientists wrote in the study. He could have been exposed to plague-related bacteria or even pesky fruit flies, scientists say. The research sheds light on how similar techniques can be used to better understand important documents of the past, as well as the people who may have written them. “It is worth noting that more medieval people may have touched these documents, which cannot be denied, but it is also presumable that the most prominent ancient proteins should be related to Prince Vlad the Impaler, who wrote and signed these letters,” scientists added.