Effects of Hormone Replacement Therapy on Systemic Arterial Properties in Post-Menopausal Women

ABSTRACTEFFECTS OF HORMONE REPLACEMENT THERAPY ON SYSTEMIC ARTERIAL PROPERTIES IN POST-MENOPAUSAL WOMENEric Alps Chen, B.S.University of Pittsburgh, 2002Vascular stiffness properties contribute significantly to the arterial system hydraulic load. There is evidence that vascular stiffness plays a role in cardiovascular remodeling and may be an independent cardiovascular risk factor. Menopause accelerates age-associated increase in arterial stiffness and estrogen administration, which has vasodilating properties, can potentially mitigate this post-menopausal increase in stiffness. The present study examined the effects of chronic hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on systemic arterial mechanical properties in 35 post-menopausal women, divided into two groups: those receiving no HRT (Control, n = 25) and those receiving HRT (HRT-all, n = 10). The HRT-all group consisted of two subgroups: estrogen alone (HRT-E, n = 5) and a combination of estrogen and progesterone (HRT-EP, n = 5). Noninvasive data were collected serially at five times: once at the baseline during the first visit and during four subsequent visits after the initiation of the study at 19±1, 108±5, 193±4, and 388±8 days, respectively. Heart rate (HR), stroke volume (SV), and cardiac output (CO) did not change significantly in the control group throughout the study. This was also true for both HRT groups, except for a small decrease in HR at Visits 3 and 4 for the HRT-E group and an increase in CO at Visit 3 in the HRT-EP group. Mean arterial pressure decreased over time in control and both HRT groups, reaching statistical significance at later times (fifth visit). Systemic vascular resistance did not change significantly in control and both HRT groups. Global arterial compliance (AC) was unchanged for the control group but tended to increase in the HRT-all group, although no statistical significance was reached. In contrast, the subgroup analysis revealed that AC increased for the HRT-E subgroup, reaching statistical significance at the fifth visit. Similarly, significant decrements in pulse wave velocity (PWV), an index of regional vascular stiffness, were observed only for the HRT-E group. In conclusion, AC increased (vascular stiffness decreased) in subjects receiving chronic estrogen therapy only. The inclusion of progesterone seems to counteract the estrogen-mediated decrease in vascular stiffness, indicating that the vascular stiffness-associated cardio-protective effects of HRT, if any, may be limited to estrogen administration alone

Luminescence properties of chlorine molecules in glassy SiO2 and optical fibre waveguides

The support from Latvian Research Program IMIS 2, project “Photonics and materials for photonics” is acknowledged. K.K. was partially supported by the Collaborative Research Project of Materials and Structures Laboratory, Tokyo Institute of Technology. The publication costs of this article were covered by the Estonian Academy of Sciences and the University of Tartu.Glassy SiO2 is the basic material for optical fibre waveguides and manufacturing-induced Cl impurities reduce their transparency in UV spectral range. This work reports in-depth study/spectroscopic parameters of the near-infrared (1.23 eV) low-temperature photo-luminescence (PL) of interstitial Cl2 molecules in SiO2. The zero-phonon line position was estimated at 2.075 eV on the basis of anharmonicity of Cl2 PL vibronic data. The vibronic sub-bands are broadened by coupling to phonons and by an additional contribution from the glassy disorder. The Huang‒Rhys factor is ≈13. The PL decay time is between 1 and 10 ms in the temperature range 100 K‒13 K and can be reproduced by 3 exponents. Cl2 PL retains relatively high quantum yield and its characteristic structured shape, when the temperature is increased from 13 K to the liquid nitrogen temperature. This allows using it conveniently as a high-sensitivity diagnostic tool for detecting Cl2 impurities in optical fibre waveguides. Time-resolved measurements of optical fibre waveguides indicate that the lower detection limit is below 1010 Cl2/cm3.Tokyo Institute of Technology, MSD K.K.,Center of Excellence has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme H2020-WIDESPREAD-01-2016-2017-TeamingPhase2 under grant agreement No. 739508, project CAMART²