HRV in active-duty special forces and public order military personnel

Heart rate variability (HRV) is a simple, non-invasive, real-time analyzable, and highly reproducible measurement that captures incidences for assessing a person’s health and physical condition. Public security jobs are characterized by major exposure to risk factors known to influence the cardiovascular response to stimuli, e.g., night shifts, highly physically demanding activity, and acute stress activity. This study aimed to evaluate the HRV parameters in a population of 112 male personnel of the special forces and public order of the Carabinieri, aged 25-59, when engaged in several duty tasks, such as paratroopers, night shift police station officers, night shift patrol, dynamic precision shooting evaluative team, dynamic precision shooting non-evaluative team, and office clerks (used as control group). During the specific task of each participant, the HRV parameters were collected with wearable devices and processed. The HRV parameters in the time and frequency domains collected were average heart rate, standard deviation of all normal RR intervals, root mean square of successive differences in adjacent normal-to-normal (NN) intervals, very-low-frequency power, low-frequency power, high-frequency power, stress index, parasympathetic nervous system activity index, and sympathetic nervous system activity index. Parametric tests for independent series to compare the HRV parameters by subgroups within the study subjects were used. A multivariate linear regression analysis was conducted to evaluate the association between the HRV parameters and some personal and organizational factors. The comparison between different subgroups showed that activities with a high demand for concentration and precision, as is the case with paratroopers and dynamic precision shooters, differ significantly from activities that can be defined as routine, such as office work. Other activities, such as patrolling or remote management from operations centers, although including critical elements, did not deviate significantly from the control group. The study of HRV parameters is therefore a useful tool for occupational physicians, both for addressing work suitability assessments and for better targeting health promotion campaigns, to be considered as being aimed at monitoring the subject’s physiological parameters, and not at the diagnosis of any pathological condition, which should always be carried out by the medical specialist

IS RAGE THE SO FAR UNIDENTIFIED TRAIT D'UNION BETWEEN VASCULAR RISK FACTORS AND ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE?

889 IS RAGE THE SO FAR UNIDENTIFIED TRAIT D'UNION BETWEEN VASCULAR RISK FACTORS AND ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE? Rita Businaro1, L. Capriotti1, M. Corsi1, M. Leopizzi1, V. Nicolia2, A. Fuso2 1Medico-Surgical Sciences and Biotechnologies, Sapienza University of Rome, Latina, 2Surgery 'P. Valdoni', Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy Aim: The receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE), is considered to be a key mediator of atherogenesis. Recent findings indicate the important role played by RAGE in the progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD). It has been shown that RAGE signaling contributes to the production of proinflammatory cytokines, leading to the impairment of neuronal functions and to the amyloid accumulation. Moreover, atherosclerosis, stroke and cardiac disease in the aging individual, could result in cerebrovascular dysfunction and trigger AD pathology. It is known that diet depleted in folate and vitamins B6 and B12 promotes an enhanced expression of RAGE and leads to hyperhomocysteinemia, a well-known risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease as well as for late onset AD. This work aims at evaluating the effects of hyperhomocysteinemia, induced by B vitamin deficiency, on RAGE expression. Methods: TgCNRD8 mice carrying a Indiana/Swedish mutated APP transgene, an animal model of AD, were grown either with control or B vitamin deficient diet. We measured RAGE by immunohistochemistry, western blots, real-time PCR. Results: B vitamin deficiency enhances RAGE expression in particular at the level of frontal and parietal microvasculature. Both neurons and endothelium in the hippocampus were stained, showing an increase in the number of positive cells as well as in the amount of reaction, compared to the animals fed with a standard diet. Conclusions: B vitamin deficiency and hyperomocysteinemia are able to modulate RAGE expression, promoting in this way atherosclerosis progression and the transport of beta Amyloid across the BBB

Late-onset systemic lupus erythematosus presenting as polymyalgia rheumatica

Two patients (male, 60 and 66 years of age) who developed systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) in the 6th decade are described. Both patients presented with a polymyalgia rheumatica (PMR) syndrome. In both cases there was an underlying muscle involvement (nonspecific in the first case and true myositis in the second case) as well as findings compatible with nonclassic type of temporal arteritis. © 1989 Springer-Verlag

RAGE and LRP1 modulation in TgCRND8 mice under condition of B vitamin deficiency.

[no abstract

DNA methylation profiles of selected pro-inflammatory cytokines in Alzheimer disease

By means of functional genomics analysis, we recently described the mRNA expression profiles of various genes involved in the neuroinflammatory response in the brains of subjects with late-onset Alzheimer Disease (LOAD). Some of these genes, namely interleukin (IL)-1b and IL-6, showed distinct expression profiles with peak expression during the first stages of the disease and control-like levels at later stages. IL-1b and IL-6 genes are modulated by DNA methylation in different chronic and degenerative diseases; it is also well known that LOAD may have an epigenetic basis. Indeed, we and others have previously reported gene-specific DNA methylation alterations in LOAD and in related animal models. Based on these data, we studied the DNA methylation profiles, at single cytosine resolution, of IL-1b and IL-6 5'-flanking region by bisulphite modification in the cortex of healthy controls and LOAD patients at 2 different disease stages: Braak I-II/A and Braak V-VI/C. Our analysis provides evidence that neuroinflammation in LOAD is associated with (and possibly mediated by) epigenetic modifications

CpG and non-CpG Presenilin1 methylation pattern in course of neurodevelopment and neurodegeneration is associated with gene expression in human and murine brain

The Presenilin1 (PSEN1) gene encodes the catalytic peptide of the γ-secretase complex, a key enzyme that cleaves the amyloid-β protein precursor (AβPP), to generate the amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides, involved in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD). Other substrates of the γ-secretase, such as E-cadherin and Notch1, are involved in neurodevelopment and haematopoiesis. Gene-specific DNA methylation influences PSEN1 expression in AD animal models. Here we evaluated canonical and non-canonical cytosine methylation patterns of the PSEN1 5ʹ-flanking during brain development and AD progression, in DNA extracted from the frontal cortex of AD transgenic mice (TgCRND8) and post-mortem human brain. Mapping CpG and non-CpG methylation revealed different methylation profiles in mice and humans. PSEN1 expression only correlated with DNA methylation in adult female mice. However, in post-mortem human brain, lower methylation, both at CpG and non-CpG sites, correlated closely with higher PSEN1 expression during brain development and in disease progression. PSEN1 methylation in blood DNA was significantly lower in AD patients than in controls. The present study is the first to demonstrate a temporal correlation between dynamic changes in PSEN1 CpG and non-CpG methylation patterns and mRNA expression during neurodevelopment and AD neurodegeneration. These observations were made possible by the use of an improved bisulphite methylation assay employing primers that are not biased towards non-CpG methylation. Our findings deepen the understanding of γ-secretase regulation and support the hypothesis that epigenetic changes can promote the pathophysiology of AD. Moreover, they suggest that PSEN1 DNA methylation in peripheral blood may provide a biomarker for AD

Overview and Breeding Strategies of Table Potato Production in Sweden and the Fennoscandian Region

Recent reductions in the public commitment to potato breeding in Sweden, Norway and Finland call for an evaluation of the current situation regarding the commercial basis for, and structure of, potato breeding in these countries. We here review the extent of cultivation, processing and consumption of table potato in Sweden, as well as provide an overview of the potato breeding tools and programmes in the three countries. We then discuss various strategies to provide long-term stability and increase the impact of public potato breeding, based on the similar overall conditions for potato cultivation across the Fennoscandian region. The conclusions are twofold; first, an increased long-term funding of the public potato breeding programmes is necessary to maintain a minimum level of material, and second, a coordination of the breeding activities in the Fennoscandian region would be of great benefit to all involved stakeholders and allow an enhancement of the current national breeding programmes. In addition, we propose a minimum first field year population size for potato breeding