The Effects of an Exercise Program on Cardiovascular Risk Factors at a Faith Based University

Physical inactivity is a significant risk factor for heart disease, hypertension, stroke, diabetes, and certain types of cancer according to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2013). A simple form of physical activity that improves health and also has a high adherence rate is walking (Dishman, 1994). Walking has been shown to lower fasting blood glucose, decrease total cholesterol, and reduce hypertension when introduced to college faculty and staff as part of a comprehensive wellness program (Haines, 2007). PURPOSE: To determine if a walking program would lower cardiovascular risk factors for faculty and staff who adhere to a faith based values lifestyle. METHODS: Forty seven non-smoking, non-drinking faculty and staff participated in this 12 week study (31 females, 16 males; mean age= 49). Measurements taken at the beginning and end of the program included the 1 mile Rockport walking test, waist circumference, resting blood pressure, fasting blood glucose and cholesterol blood tests. Participants were required to walk for 30 minutes on at least 4 days of the week and log their exercise in a web based system. A Repeated Measures ANOVA was used to determine changes in the biometric measurements. RESULTS: While results trended toward improved biometric measurements, statistically significant improvement was only found in reduced systolic and diastolic blood pressure (p \u3e .05). The number of participants who showed improvements in systolic blood pressure was 91%, in diastolic blood pressure: 95%, in total cholesterol: 71%, in waist circumference: 80%, and in fasting blood glucose: 72%. CONCLUSION: While a 4 day a week walking program did show improvements in biometric risk factor measurements, it showed limited statistically significant changes in this group of participants. Results may be due to the faith based values lifestyle of the participants or the short length of the study

#TreatmentResistantDepression: a qualitative content analysis of Tweets about difficult-to-treat depression

Introduction Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is depression unresponsive to antidepressants and affects 55% of British primary care users with depression. Current evidence is from secondary care, but long referral times mean general practitioners (GPs) manage TRD. Studies show that people with depression use Twitter to form community and document symptoms. However, Twitter remains a largely unexplored space of documented patient experience. Twitter data could provide valuable insights into learning about primary care experiences of TRD. In this study, we explored Twitter comments and conversations about TRD and produced patient-driven recommendations. Methods Tweets from UK-based users were collected manually and using a browser extension in June 2021. Conventional content analysis was used to provide an overview of the Tweets, followed by interpretation to understand why Twitter may be important to people with TRD. Results A total of 415 Tweets were organised into five clusters: self-diagnosis, symptoms, support, small wins and condition experts. These Tweets were interpreted as showing Twitter as a community for people with TRD. People had a collective sense of illness identity and were united in their experiences of TRD. However, users in the community also highlighted the absence of effective GP care, leading users to position themselves as condition experts. Users shared advice from a place of lived experience with the community but also shared potentially harmful information, including recommendations about nonevidence-based medications. Conclusions Findings illuminate the benefits of the TRD Twitter community and also highlight that the perception of a lack of knowledge and support from GPs may lead community members to advise nonevidenced-based medications. Patient and Public Contribution This study was led by a person with lived experience of TRD and bipolar. Two public contributors with mental health conditions gave feedback on our study protocol and results

A broad distribution of the alternative oxidase in microsporidian parasites

Microsporidia are a group of obligate intracellular parasitic eukaryotes that were considered to be amitochondriate until the recent discovery of highly reduced mitochondrial organelles called mitosomes. Analysis of the complete genome of Encephalitozoon cuniculi revealed a highly reduced set of proteins in the organelle, mostly related to the assembly of ironsulphur clusters. Oxidative phosphorylation and the Krebs cycle proteins were absent, in keeping with the notion that the microsporidia and their mitosomes are anaerobic, as is the case for other mitosome bearing eukaryotes, such as Giardia. Here we provide evidence opening the possibility that mitosomes in a number of microsporidian lineages are not completely anaerobic. Specifically, we have identified and characterized a gene encoding the alternative oxidase (AOX), a typically mitochondrial terminal oxidase in eukaryotes, in the genomes of several distantly related microsporidian species, even though this gene is absent from the complete genome of E. cuniculi. In order to confirm that these genes encode functional proteins, AOX genes from both A. locustae and T. hominis were over-expressed in E. coli and AOX activity measured spectrophotometrically using ubiquinol-1 (UQ-1) as substrate. Both A. locustae and T. hominis AOX proteins reduced UQ-1 in a cyanide and antimycin-resistant manner that was sensitive to ascofuranone, a potent inhibitor of the trypanosomal AOX. The physiological role of AOX microsporidia may be to reoxidise reducing equivalents produced by glycolysis, in a manner comparable to that observed in trypanosome