'Motivate': the effect of a Football in the Community delivered weight loss programme on over 35-year old men and women's cardiovascular risk factors

The purpose of this study was to examine whether an innovative, inclusive and integrated 12-week exercise, behaviour change and nutrition advice-based weight management programme could significantly improve the cardiovascular risk factors of overweight and obese men and women over the age of 35. One hundred and ninety-four men and 98 women (mean age = 52.28 ± 9.74 and 51.19 ± 9.04) attending a community-based intervention delivered by Notts County Football in the Community over one year, took part in the study. Height (m), weight (kg), fitness (meters covered during a 6 min walk) and waist circumference (cm) were measured at weeks 1 and 12 as part of the intervention. Changes in body weight, waist circumference and fitness for men and women were measured by a 2-way repeated measures ANOVA, with significance set to p < 0.05.Weight, waist circumference and fitness significantly improved over time in both men (4.96 kg, 6.29 cm, 70.22 m; p < 0.05) and women (4.26 kg, 5.90 cm, 35.29 m; p < 0.05). The results demonstrated that the FITC lead weight loss intervention was successful in significantly improving cardiovascular risk factors in both men and women. In particular, the weight loss reductions achieved were comparable to those seen in similar, more costly men-only programmes. This is the first study to demonstrate the efficacy of such an intervention in an inclusive, mixed gender programme and more specifically, in women

Manuel Sacristán at the Onset of Ecological Marxism after Stalinism

Thirty-one years ago, in 1985, Manuel Sacristán died in Barcelona at the age of 59. After the publication in 2014 of a volume with some of his writings translated into English (Llorente 2014), it is time to help non-Spanish-speaking readers to know more about him. Yet it is not easy to explain to generations born after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 that Manuel Sacristán was a most important Marxist philosopher and at the same time one of the few pioneers introducing political ecology and antinuclear peace movement during the last quarter of the 20th century in Spain. Many people believe that Marxism, environmentalism and pacifism are views that exclude each other. Most of what has been said and done on behalf of Marxism since Stalin took over the leadership of the Communist Party of the USSR in the 1930s, up to its dissolution in 1991, contributes to sustaining this belief. The fast industrialization of the Old Russian Empire undertaken by the Soviet State was nowhere near taking into account ecological sustainability. Its socio-environmental impact turned out to be comparable or even worse than the ones caused by capitalist industrialization

Changes in acute pulmonary vascular responsiveness to hypoxia during a progressive ascent to high altitude (5,300 m)

We sought to determine whether changes in pulmonary artery pressure responses to hypoxia suggestive of vascular remodeling occur during progressive exposure to high altitude and whether such alterations are related to changes in concentrations of circulating biomarkers with known or suspected actions on the pulmonary vasculature during ascent. We measured tricuspid valve transvalvular pressure gradients (TVPG) in healthy volunteers breathing air at sea level (London, UK) and under hypoxic conditions simulating the PI O2 at two locations in Nepal, Namche Bazaar (NB, elevation 3,500 m) and Everest Base Camp (EBC, elevation 5,300 m). During a subsequent thirteen day trek, TVPG was measured at NB and EBC while volunteers breathed air and hyperoxic or hypoxic mixtures simulating the PI O2 at the other locations. For each location, we determined the slope of the relationship between TVPG and arterial oxygen saturation (Sa O2 ) to estimate the pulmonary vascular response to hypoxia. Mean TVPG breathing air was higher at any Sa O2 at EBC than at sea level or NB, but there was no change in the slope of the relationship between Sa O2 and TVPG between locations. Nitric oxide availability remained unchanged despite increases in oxidative stress (elevated 8-isoprostane). Erythropoietin, pro-ANP and IL-18 levels progressively increased on ascent. Associations with TVPG were only observed with erythropoietin, 8-isoprostane, nitrite and cGMP. While the increased TVPG for any given Sa O2 at EBC suggests pulmonary vascular remodeling may occur during 2 weeks of progressive hypoxia, the lack of change in the slope of the relationship between TVPG and Sa O2 indicates that the acute pulmonary vascular responsiveness to changes in oxygenation does not vary within this time frame. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.</p

Language as Power: Gabriel Okara's The Voice as a Paradigm

World Englishes52-3249-264WOEN