Association of physical fitness with health-related quality of life in early postmenopause

OBJECTIVE: To assess the association of different components of physical fitness with HRQoL in early postmenopause and to test which physical fitness components are independently associated with the physical and mental components of HRQoL. METHODS: The final sample comprised 67 early postmenopausal women. Physical fitness was assessed with the Senior Fitness Test battery (additionally including handgrip strength test), and HRQoL was evaluated with the Short-Form Health Survey-36 (SF-36). We also analyzed plasma gonadotropic hormones and estradiol. RESULTS: Overall, most of the fitness components were positively associated with HRQoL. Lower-body flexibility, upper-body muscle strength and cardiorespiratory fitness were the fitness components more strongly associated with HRQoL (r range from 0.28 to 0.56). Static balance was especially associated with mental health (r = −0.46, P < 0.001). Lower-body flexibility (assessed with the chair sit-and-reach test) and upper-body muscle strength (assessed with handgrip dynamometry) were independently associated with the SF-36 Physical Component Summary (both, P < 0.001). Upper-body muscle strength (P < 0.01) and cardiorespiratory fitness (assessed with the 6-min walk test, P < 0.05) were independently associated with the SF-36 Mental Component Summary. CONCLUSIONS: Higher physical fitness is associated with better HRQoL in early postmenopause. Lower-body flexibility and upper-body muscle strength were the most important independent fitness indicators, explaining ~30 % of HRQoL

The associations between physical fitness and cardiometabolic risk and body-size phenotypes in perimenopausal women

Objective: To study the association between physical fitness and body-size phenotypes, and to test which aspects of physical fitness show the greatest independent association with cardiometabolic risk in perimenopausal women. Study design: This cross-sectional study involved 228 women aged 53 +/- 5 years from southern Spain. Main outcome measurements: Physical fitness was assessed by means of the Senior Fitness Test Battery (additionally including handgrip strength and timed up-and-go tests). Anthropometry, resting heart rate, blood pressure and plasma markers of lipid, glycaemic and inflammatory status were measured by standard procedures. The harmonized definition of the 'metabolically healthy but obese' (MHO) phenotype was employed to classify individuals. Results: The overall prevalence of the MHO phenotype was 13% but was 43% among the obese women. Apart from traditional markers, metabolically healthy non-obese women had lower levels of C-reactive protein than women with the other phenotypes (p <0.001), and levels of glycosylated haemoglobin were lower in MHO women than in metabolically abnormal non-obese women (overall p = 0.004). Most of the components of physical fitness differed with body-size phenotypes. The 6-min walk and the back-scratch tests presented the most robust differences (both p <0.001). Moreover, the women's performance on the back-scratch (beta = 0.32; p <0.001) and the 6-min walk (beta = 0.22; p = 0.003) tests was independently associated with the clustered cardiometabolic risk. The back-scratch test explained 10% of the variability (step 1, p <0.001), and the final model, which also included the 6-min walk test (step 2, p = 0.003), explained 14% of the variability. Conclusion: Low upper-body flexibility was the most important fitness indicator of cardiometabolic risk in perimenopausal women, but cardiorespiratory fitness also played an important role. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (4th edition)

In 2008, we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, this topic has received increasing attention, and many scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Thus, it is important to formulate on a regular basis updated guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Despite numerous reviews, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to evaluate autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. Here, we present a set of guidelines for investigators to select and interpret methods to examine autophagy and related processes, and for reviewers to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of reports that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a dogmatic set of rules, because the appropriateness of any assay largely depends on the question being asked and the system being used. Moreover, no individual assay is perfect for every situation, calling for the use of multiple techniques to properly monitor autophagy in each experimental setting. Finally, several core components of the autophagy machinery have been implicated in distinct autophagic processes (canonical and noncanonical autophagy), implying that genetic approaches to block autophagy should rely on targeting two or more autophagy-related genes that ideally participate in distinct steps of the pathway. Along similar lines, because multiple proteins involved in autophagy also regulate other cellular pathways including apoptosis, not all of them can be used as a specific marker for bona fide autophagic responses. Here, we critically discuss current methods of assessing autophagy and the information they can, or cannot, provide. Our ultimate goal is to encourage intellectual and technical innovation in the field