Cardiovascular risk factors and cardiovascular risk assessment in professional divers

Background: The professional diver’s activity implies body cardiovascular stress. Little data on cardiovascular risk factors is available. Some studies report a high prevalence of tobacco consumption. The purpose of this study is to investigate the cardiovascular risk factors of professional divers and calculate the predicted 5-year risk and the predicted 10-year risk of an acute coronary event. Materials and methods: In one medical centre, data on dives and cardiovascular risk factors were analysed on Epidata® software, by Pearson c2 test or by Fisher’s exact test, by analysis of variance test or by Kruskal-Wallis test, and by Spearman correlation coefficient. Cardiovascular risk scores at 5 and 10 years were calculated using SCORE. Results: A total 200 professional divers were included. Of these, 31% were smokers or had stopped smoking for less than 3 years; 40% had an abnormal body mass index; 50% had raised total cholesterol levels; 11% had an advanced age; 6.5% had high blood pressure; 81% had at least one risk factor; 66% had an alterable risk factor; 25.5% had a 5-year risk greater than that of the general population of the same age; 2.5% had a high cardiovascular risk at 10 years; and 34% were at intermediate risk. Conclusions: The majority of divers had at least one cardiovascular risk factor. Cardiovascular risk scores were lower than that of the general population. However, some of this population is at high risk. One third of the divers had an intermediate risk, which should lead to the consideration of conducting additional biological examinations to better assess their risk

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements

Molecular mechanisms of cell death: recommendations of the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death 2018.

Over the past decade, the Nomenclature Committee on Cell Death (NCCD) has formulated guidelines for the definition and interpretation of cell death from morphological, biochemical, and functional perspectives. Since the field continues to expand and novel mechanisms that orchestrate multiple cell death pathways are unveiled, we propose an updated classification of cell death subroutines focusing on mechanistic and essential (as opposed to correlative and dispensable) aspects of the process. As we provide molecularly oriented definitions of terms including intrinsic apoptosis, extrinsic apoptosis, mitochondrial permeability transition (MPT)-driven necrosis, necroptosis, ferroptosis, pyroptosis, parthanatos, entotic cell death, NETotic cell death, lysosome-dependent cell death, autophagy-dependent cell death, immunogenic cell death, cellular senescence, and mitotic catastrophe, we discuss the utility of neologisms that refer to highly specialized instances of these processes. The mission of the NCCD is to provide a widely accepted nomenclature on cell death in support of the continued development of the field