Month: November 2023

Nov 29

Why Your Cardiovascular Fitness Matters

CARDIOVASCULAR FITNESS IS, quite simply, the cornerstone of complete health and wellbeing. It’s the engine that powers your body, ensuring that your heart and lungs function optimally, powering your workouts. Understanding and prioritising your level of cardiovascular fitness is just as important as taking care of other forms of conditioning. You wouldn’t attempt a bench press personal best with an aching shoulder, so why would you do it if your cardiovascular fitness isn’t up to scratch? Cardiovascular fitness might not be the first area that comes to mind when preparing for a particularly taxing workout, but it should be. The impact of improving cardiovascular fitness can be extensive and far-reaching. If this is the first time the importance of cardiovascular fitness has occurred to you, don’t worry. We’ll help you understand it and provide a variety of practical tips to boost it. What is cardiovascular fitness? Cardiovascular fitness, occasionally called aerobic fitness or more simply, cardio, refers to the ability of your cardiovascular system to efficiently transport oxygen and nutrients to your muscles and organs while removing waste products. It can be measured by tracking your heart rate during exercise. Someone with good cardiovascular fitness will be able to keep their heart rate low and steady during periods of strenuous exercise, and subsequently be able to exercise for longer. It’s as good a test of your overall fitness as there ever was. To understand cardiovascular fitness in practice, consider that while a bulked-up powerlifter with an outsized physique may be able to lift heavy, they could struggle in comparison to a guy who goes on a tri-weekly run if it came to a test of cardiovascular fitness. Such tests prioritise endurance and stamina over short bursts of energy—and big muscles. Hence why a veritable gym junkie who pumps iron almost everyday might not be as fit as someone who pounds the pavement with consistency. While cardiovascular fitness is a good indicator of overall health, it isn’t the only indicator. Overall health ultimately depends on the relationship between your cardiovascular, respiratory, muscular and skeletal systems. Why is cardiovascular fitness important? Cardiovascular fitness is important in the same way that fitness in general is important. As even the most remotely health-conscious person will know, strong personal fitness is necessary if you want to live a long and healthy life—and cardiovascular fitness plays a pivotal part in that. The impact of improving cardiovascular fitness can be felt across many different areas of health. Let’s break them down. Heart Health: Cardiovascular fitness strengthens your heart, making it more efficient at pumping blood and reducing the risk of heart diseases, such as coronary artery disease and high blood pressure. Lung Function: Regular cardiovascular exercise improves lung capacity and oxygen exchange, which can prevent respiratory issues and increase your stamina. Weight Management: An obvious benefit here. Engaging in exercise that improves cardiovascular fitness can help you burn calories, aiding in weight management and reducing the risk of obesity. Mood Enhancement: Cardiovascular workouts trigger the release of endorphins, which can help alleviate stress, anxiety, and depression, improving your overall mental health. Energy Levels: Improved cardiovascular fitness means your body can efficiently utilise oxygen, giving you more energy to carry out daily activities. Quality of Life: In case you weren’t already convinced of its supreme importance, strong cardiovascular fitness is even linked to a higher quality of life and increased longevity. How can you improve your cardiovascular fitness? Now that we understand the importance of cardiovascular fitness, let’s dive into how you can improve it. Here’s our comprehensive guide to improving cardiovascular fitness. Start slowly: If you’re entirely unfamiliar with cardio exercise and don’t know how to get started, begin with low-impact activities like walking, swimming, or cycling. Gradually increase the intensity and duration of your workouts. The same goes for those already experienced in cardio workouts. The journey to improved cardiovascular fitness doesn’t begin with a sudden jolt into far more intense exercise, but with a steady rise. Set realistic goals: It’s important not to set your sights too high, at least at the start. Establish clear fitness goals and create a plan that includes both short-term and long-term objectives. Mix it up: Variety is key to maintaining motivation and challenging your body. Include a mix of activities to keep things interesting, or you could risk boredom becoming your biggest barrier to success. Consistency is key: Aim for at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise or 75 minutes of high-intensity exercise per week, as recommended by the World Health Organisation. Going all out in a single, sweat-swamping session each week isn’t going to yield beneficial long-term results. Monitor your heart rate: Invest in a heart rate monitor to ensure you’re working out in the right heart rate zone. This helps you maximise the benefits of your workouts and avoid overexertion. Strength training: Incorporate strength training into your routine to complement your cardiovascular workouts. Strong muscles can improve overall endurance and performance. And no, cardio won’t kill your gains. Listen to your body: Pay attention to your body’s signals. Rest when needed, stay hydrated, and fuel your body with a balanced diet to support your cardiovascular fitness journey. Get professional guidance: If you’re unsure of where to start, or aren’t getting the desired results, consider consulting with a fitness trainer or healthcare professional for a personalised plan. What are good cardiovascular exercises? Technically, anything that gets your heart rate up can be counted as cardiovascular exercise, but some methods are far more effective than others. Outside of the gym, running is an effective, easy to do exercise that is almost guaranteed to deliver improved cardiovascular fitness. Swimming will do the same, with the added benefit of a lower impact on your ailing body. Walking and cycling can also produce positive results. In the gym, it’s all about the equipment. Spending time on a treadmill, elliptical machine, stair climber, rowing machine, or an exercise bike will no doubt work some magic. At home, further simple steps can be

Nov 29

Traffic pollution can raise a driver’s blood pressure, study says

Traffic pollution can raise a driver’s blood pressure, study says – CBS Boston Watch CBS News A new study found that pollution from tailpipe exhaust, brake and tire wear, and road dust can raise your blood pressure while you’re sitting in the car. View CBS News In Be the first to know Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Not Now Turn On

Nov 29

Cheyenne Regional Medical Center now offers needle-free blood draws via new device

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — Cheyenne Regional Medical Center is improving patient care in southeast Wyoming as one of the first in the state to offer new, needle-free blood draw technology called the PIVO Pro Needle-free Blood Collection Device. The PIVO Pro Device is a single-use, disposable sterile device that temporarily attaches to a patient’s existing peripheral IV catheter – typically placed in the hand or arm – to collect a blood sample, according to a news release from Cheyenne Regional Medical Center. The device was developed by Becton-Dickinson, one of the largest global medical companies in the world. Traditionally when using a peripheral IV catheter, blood return can be limited due to blockages or obstructions in the catheter. The PIVO Pro Device eliminates these obstacles, allowing clinicians to collect reliable blood samples without creating additional pain and anxiety for the patient. The purpose of the device is to improve the patient experience by minimizing the pain and anxiety of frequent needlesticks. “Blood draws are common in health care, but with more than 60 percent of the adult population having a fear of needles, it can be stressful on the patient,” said Tracy Garcia, CRMC chief nursing officer in the news release. “We are already seeing positive reactions from our patients when they are offered needle-free blood draws.” Since its trial period at CRMC started in November 2023, the PIVO Pro Device has saved 44 patients from additional needlesticks for blood draws. Response from patients has been overwhelmingly positive. “They always have a hard time with my veins, and I get anxiety around needles,” one hospital patient said. “Any hospital that pokes me less will always be the hospital I want to go to.” “This is fascinating. I am a hard stick, and I can’t believe how easy and painless this is,” another patient said about the device. By offering this new standard of care, the medical center is among a growing number of health systems nationwide to join the “One-Stick Hospital Stay” movement to create a better experience for clinicians and patients.

Nov 29

Cardiac Rehabilitation Use Low in Distressed Communities

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 29, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Although community-level distress is associated with lower cardiac rehabilitation (CR) participation, the clinical benefits are universal across all communities, according to a study published in the November issue of Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes. Michael P. Thompson, Ph.D., from Michigan Medicine in Ann Arbor, and colleagues evaluated the relationship between community-level distress and CR participation, access to CR facilities, and clinical outcomes. The analysis included 414,730 Medicare beneficiaries undergoing inpatient coronary revascularization between July 2016 and December 2018. The researchers found that any CR use was lower for beneficiaries in distressed versus prosperous communities (26.0 versus 46.1 percent), which remained significant after multivariable adjustment (odds ratio, 0.41). One-quarter of beneficiaries (23.7 percent) had a CR facility within their ZIP code, which increased from 16.3 percent in prosperous communities to 26.6 percent in distressed communities. There was an association observed between any CR use and absolute reductions in mortality (−6.8 percent), all-cause hospitalization (−5.9 percent), and acute myocardial infarction hospitalization (−1.3 percent), which were similar across Distressed Community Index quintiles. “Addressing barriers to participation in cardiac rehabilitation in distressed communities may improve outcomes for these patients and reduce longstanding disparities in such outcomes,” Thompson said in a statement. One author disclosed ties to Medtronic, Abbott, FineHeart, and CH Biomedical. Abstract/Full Text (subscription or payment may be required)

Nov 29

Cardiologist receives $7M for 5-year study to boost care for heart failure patients

Larry Allen, MD, a cardiologist with the University of Colorado School of Medicine, has received $7 million in funding from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) to investigate the use of electronic resources among heart failure patients. The study is expected to last five years and include a total of five health systems. It could enroll as many as 2,000 patients. While $2.5 million will go to the University of Colorado, $2.5 million will go to the four other health systems: Yale New Haven Health in Connecticut, Northwestern Medicine in Illinois, University of Utah Health and Sutter Health in California. The final $2 million will help fund the actual development and structure of the study. “Heart failure is one of the most common chronic diseases in the United States, especially among older people,” Allen said in a prepared statement announcing the news. “It’s a significant problem. It’s associated with many symptoms, like shortness of breath and a lot of fatigue. It’s the most common cause of hospitalization among Medicare beneficiaries.”

Nov 29

Dosage Sensor Ensures Mammalian Biallelic Expression

Gene dosage mechanisms are required to maintain the expression of haploinsufficient genes properly, which, if misregulated, can lead to many developmental disorders. For the first time, researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics have shown that a protein called MSL2 can recognize these dosage-sensitive genes and ensure they are expressed in both forms in the right tissue or stage of development. Understanding how MSL2, an epigenetic regulator, keeps certain dosage-sensitive genes expressed on both alleles opens the door to studying other factors that play a part in allelic dosage compensation in mammalian cells. This has important implications for human health conditions linked to haploinsufficiency, including congenital disorders and neurodevelopmental diseases. The research article “MSL2 ensures biallelic gene expression in mammals” was published in Nature. MSL2 is an evolutionarily conserved epigenetic dosage-sensor In sexually reproducing organisms, each parent contributes one copy of a chromosome, resulting in the offspring’s somatic cells being diploid. Most genes show balanced expression resulting from both maternal and paternal alleles. Genes that are haploinsufficient show obligate biallelic expression because they need two copies of the gene to make enough protein to work. The loss of expression of one of a haploinsufficient gene’s two alleles can result in disease. In flies and mammals, males are the heterogametic sex exhibiting hemizygosity of X-linked genes. Dosage compensation is required to adjust the allelic expression of X-linked genes to compensate for differences in gene dosage between the sexes. In mammals, one of the X chromosomes is turned off in females. But in flies, the MSL complex—a histone acetyltransferase—increases transcription of the single male X chromosome to match the expression levels of the two X chromosomes in females. Whether and how a biallelic or monoallelic state is determined at individual loci in different cell types and stages of development has been challenging to unravel. This study found a role for MSL2 in regulating allelic expression in a cell-type-specific manner in mammals. If you do not have MSL2, a group of genes goes from having two copies to only one copy. One allele stays active, keeping histone modifications and transcription factor binding, while the other allele is turned off, losing promoter-enhancer contacts and gaining DNA methylation. The fact that MSL2-knockout mice die before birth and have different phenotypes during embryonic development lends credence to the idea that MSL2 regulates gene dosage. This concept of MSL2-regulated gene dosage is evolutionarily conserved and extends to humans. For example, haploinsufficiency of the MSL2 target gene BCL11A is associated with Dias-Logan syndrome, resulting in variable neurological phenotypes. This discovery opens up new avenues for further research into the modulation of gene dosage within our cells. MSL2 may be just one example of an allelic regulator, implying the existence of other factors playing similar roles. This newfound knowledge has far-reaching implications for understanding diseases and holds great promise for developing potential treatments.

Nov 29

Atlanta daycare worker dies from blood clot a day after Thanksgiving

ATLANTA — A community is mourning the loss of a beloved daycare worker, but hoping her death can help make others aware of the dangers of blood clots. Sydney Carter, 27, died from blood clots the day after Thanksgiving. She worked at the Trinity Early Learning Center on Howell Mill Road in Atlanta. Channel 2′s Tyisha Fernandes learned that blood clots are killing more than 100,000 people every year. Carter tried to get to the hospital when she didn’t feel right last week, but it was too late. [DOWNLOAD: Free WSB-TV News app for alerts as news breaks] “It’s a major public health crisis,” Leslie Lake with the National Blood Clot Alliance said. Lake told Fernandes she began working with the National Blood Clot Alliance after she had a blood clot that nearly killed her. She says she had been at the hospital for nine hours before doctors performed any tests to check for blood clots. “Almost a million people get a blood clot, and of those who do get one, a lot of them have long-term complications,” Lake explained. “But a lot of it is preventable with more education and awareness which doesn’t exist other than us. This is a public health crisis that really needs to be tackled by the government.” TRENDING STORIES: She also said that Black men and women get more blood clots than anyone else and the rate can be as much as 60% higher than Caucasian people. Typically, blood clots form in your arms or legs and can be deadly if they travel to your lungs. If you have pain, discoloration or your skin is hot for no reason, you should get tested. A state representative here in Georgia is also looking to designate March as Blood Clot Awareness Month. [SIGN UP: WSB-TV Daily Headlines Newsletter] IN OTHER NEWS: Paw-don me, but are you fur real? DeKalb firefighters rescue kitten stuck on I-285 ©2023 Cox Media Group

Nov 29

Deadly Bacteria Responsible for 50 Million Infections Each Year Could Become Immune to Drugs That Treat It

One of the most common bacterial illnesses in the world could soon become harder to treat, biologists warn after the findings of their latest study. Researchers at the Santa Fe Institute, in New Mexico, found that the bacteria Escherichia coli — known as E. coli — is remarkably adept at evolving to survive exposure to antibiotics. This could pose a major problem for doctors and patients hoping to fight E. coli infections in the future. “In essence, this study suggests that bacteria like E. coli may be more adept at evolving resistance to antibiotics than we initially thought, and this has broader implications for understanding how various systems in evolutionary biology, chemistry, and other fields adapt and evolve,” Andreas Wagner, Ph.D., a Swiss researcher who contributed to the study, said in a statement. For their research, published Friday in the journal Science, they wanted to test the concept of a “rugged fitness landscape” in evolutionary biology. Basically, researchers wanted to determine whether organisms such as E. coli that have not optimally evolved over the years could ever reach their biological “peak” — or its strongest and most optimal form for replicating. Using CRISPR technology, they intentionally created the inefficient, or “rugged”, fitness landscape among bacteria. Out of the 260,000 mutations they intentionally introduced, 75% of the bacteria evolved in the lab environment gained traits that would increase their resistance to antibiotics. The findings suggest that the bacteria has better evolutionary fitness than previously believed—a worrying prospect. E. coli is responsible for nearly 50 million infections in the U.S. each year, according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It is responsible for 3,000 deaths in America every year, mostly children under the age of 5 and seniors aged 65 and older. It usually causes infections after a person consumes contaminated food, including raw beef or milk. Global health experts fear that many bacteria that cause infections in humans could evolve to resist the antibiotics used to treat them in hospitals around the world. The World Health Organization describes antibiotic resistance as one of the world’s top public health threats. A majority of E. coli infections, however, can be combated with limited medical intervention. Symptoms of infection usually include cramps, vomiting and diarrhea. However, in severe cases a patient may be prescribed antibiotics to deal with the illness.