Fear of exercise and health-related quality of life in patients with an implantable cardioverter defibrillator

Several studies have reported improved survival rates thanks to the use of an implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) in the treatment of patients with life-threatening arrhythmia. However, the effects of the ICD on health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) of these patients are not clear. The aim of this study is to describe HR-QoL and fear of exercise in ICD patients. Eighty-nine ICD patients from the University Hospital in Groningen, the Netherlands, participated in this study. HR-QoL was measured using the Rand-36 and the Quality of Life After Myocardial Infarction Dutch language version questionnaires. Fear of exercise was measured using the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia, Dutch version and the Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire, Dutch version. Association between outcome variables was analysed by linear regression analyses. Study results show that the HR-QoL of patients with ICDs in our study population is significantly worse than that of normal healthy people. Furthermore, fear of exercise is negatively associated with HR-QoL corrected for sex, age and number of years living with an ICD. After implantation of the ICD, patients with a clear fear of exercise should be identified and interventions should be considered in order to increase their HR-QoL

Sub-Typing of Rheumatic Diseases Based on a Systems Diagnosis Questionnaire

The future of personalized medicine depends on advanced diagnostic tools to characterize responders and non-responders to treatment. Systems diagnosis is a new approach which aims to capture a large amount of symptom information from patients to characterize relevant sub-groups.49 patients with a rheumatic disease were characterized using a systems diagnosis questionnaire containing 106 questions based on Chinese and Western medicine symptoms. Categorical principal component analysis (CATPCA) was used to discover differences in symptom patterns between the patients. Two Chinese medicine experts where subsequently asked to rank the Cold and Heat status of all the patients based on the questionnaires. These rankings were used to study the Cold and Heat symptoms used by these practitioners.The CATPCA analysis results in three dimensions. The first dimension is a general factor (40.2% explained variance). In the second dimension (12.5% explained variance) 'anxious', 'worrying', 'uneasy feeling' and 'distressed' were interpreted as the Internal disease stage, and 'aggravate in wind', 'fear of wind' and 'aversion to cold' as the External disease stage. In the third dimension (10.4% explained variance) 'panting s', 'superficial breathing', 'shortness of breath s', 'shortness of breath f' and 'aversion to cold' were interpreted as Cold and 'restless', 'nervous', 'warm feeling', 'dry mouth s' and 'thirst' as Heat related. 'Aversion to cold', 'fear of wind' and 'pain aggravates with cold' are most related to the experts Cold rankings and 'aversion to heat', 'fullness of chest' and 'dry mouth' to the Heat rankings.This study shows that the presented systems diagnosis questionnaire is able to identify groups of symptoms that are relevant for sub-typing patients with a rheumatic disease

Phenotypic flexibility as key factor in the human nutrition and health relationship

Analytical BioScience

Imaging of Ultra-Weak Photon Emission in a Rheumatoid Arthritis Mouse Model

Analytical BioScience

Identification of an urinary metabolite profile associated with osteoarthritis

OBJECTIVE: Osteoarthritis (OA) is one of the most common diseases among the elderly. The main characteristic is the progressive destruction of articular cartilage. We lack quantitative and sensitive biomarkers for OA to detect changes in the joints in an early stage of the disease. In this study, we investigated whether a urinary metabolite profile could be found that could serve as a diagnostic biomarker for OA in humans. We also compared the profile we obtained previously in the guinea pig spontaneous OA model. METHODS: Urine samples of 92 participants (47 non-OA controls and 45 individuals with radiographic OA of the knees or hips) were selected from the Johnston County Osteoarthritis Project (North Carolina, USA). Participants ranged in age from 60 to 84 years. Samples were measured by 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) with subsequent principal component discriminant analysis and partial least squares regression analysis. RESULTS: Differences were observed between urine NMR spectra of OA cases and controls (P<0.001 for both male and female subjects). A metabolite profile could be determined which was strongly associated with OA. This profile largely resembled the profile previously identified for guinea pigs with OA (approximately 40 out of the approximately 125 signals of the human profile were present in the guinea pig profile as well). A correlation was found between the metabolite profile and radiographic OA severity (R2 = 0.82 (male); R2 = 0.93 (female)). CONCLUSION: This study showed that a urine metabolite profile may serve as a novel discriminating biomarker of OA

Statistical validation of megavariate effects in ASCA

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licens

Traditional Chinese Medicine-Based Subtyping of Early-Stage Type 2 Diabetes Using Plasma Metabolomics Combined with Ultra-Weak Photon Emission

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is increasing rapidly worldwide. Because of the limited success of generic interventions, the focus of the disease study has shifted toward personalized strategies, particularly in the early stages of the disease. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is based on a systems view combined with personalized strategies and has improved our knowledge of personalized diagnostics. From a systems biology perspective, the understanding of personalized diagnostics can be improved to yield a biochemical basis for such strategies; for example, metabolomics can be used in combination with other system-based diagnostic methods such as ultra-weak photon emission (UPE). In this study, we investigated the feasibility of using plasma metabolomics obtained from 44 pre-T2DM subjects to stratify the following TCM-based subtypes: Qi-Yin deficiency, Qi-Yin deficiency with dampness, and Qi-Yin deficiency with stagnation. We studied the relationship between plasma metabolomics and UPE with respect to TCM-based subtyping in order to obtain biochemical information for further interpreting disease subtypes. Principal component analysis of plasma metabolites revealed differences among the TCM-based pre-T2DM subtypes. Relatively high levels of lipids (e.g., cholesterol esters and triglycerides) were important discriminators of two of the three subtypes and may be associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. Plasma metabolomics data indicate that the lipid profile is an essential component captured by UPE with respect to stratifying subtypes of T2DM. The results suggest that metabolic differences exist among different TCM-based subtypes of pre-T2DM, and profiling plasma metabolites can be used to discriminate among these subtypes. Plasma metabolomics thus provides biochemical insights into system-based UPE measurements. (C) 2019 THE AUTHORS. Published by Elsevier LTD on behalf of Chinese Academy of Engineering and Higher Education Press Limited Company.Analytical BioScience

Ultraweak Photon Emission as a Non-Invasive Health Assessment: A Systematic Review

Analytical BioScience

Orvieto, Angiolo

Objective. Although regular physical activity is an effective secondary prevention strategy for patients with a chronic disease, it is unclear whether patients change their daily physical activity after being diagnosed. Therefore, the aims of this study were to (1) describe changes in levels of physical activity in middle-aged women before and after diagnosis with a chronic disease (heart disease, diabetes, asthma, breast cancer, arthritis, depression); and to (2) examine whether diagnosis with a chronic disease affects levels of physical activity in these women. Methods. Data from 5 surveys (1998-2010) of the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health (ALSWH) were used. Participants (N = 4840, born 1946-1951) completed surveys every three years, with questions about diseases and leisure time physical activity. The main outcome measure was physical activity, categorized as: nil/sedentary, low active, moderately active, highly active. Results. At each survey approximately half the middle-aged women did not meet the recommended level of physical activity. Between consecutive surveys, 41%-46% of the women did not change, 24%-30% decreased, and 24%-31% increased their physical activity level. These proportions of change were similar directly after diagnosis with a chronic disease, and in the years before or after diagnosis. Generalized estimating equations showed that there was no statistically significant effect of diagnosis with a chronic disease on levels of physical activity in women. Conclusion. Despite the importance of physical activity for the management of chronic diseases, most women did not increase their physical activity after diagnosis. This illustrates a need for tailored interventions to enhance physical activity in newly diagnosed patients. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved

Similarities and differences in lipidomics profiles among healthy monozygotic twin pairs.

Differences in genetic background and/or environmental exposure among individuals are expected to give rise to differences in measurable characteristics, or phenotypes. Consequently, genetic resemblance and similarities in environment should manifest as similarities in phenotypes. The metabolome reflects many of the system properties, and is therefore an important part of the phenotype. Nevertheless, it has not yet been examined to what extent individuals sharing part of their genome and/or environment indeed have similar metabolomes. Here we present the results of hierarchical clustering of blood plasma lipid profile data obtained by liquid chromatographymass spectrometry from 23 healthy, 18-year-old twin pairs, of which 21 pairs were monozygotic, and 8 of their siblings. For 13 monozygotic twin pairs, within-pair similarities in relative concentrations of the detected lipids were indeed larger than the similarities with any other study participant. We demonstrate such high coclustering to be unexpected on basis of chance. The similarities between dizygotic twins and between nontwin siblings, as well as between nonfamilial participants, were less pronounced. In a number of twin pairs, within-pair dissimilarity of lipid profiles positively correlated with increased blood plasma concentrations of C-reactive protein in one twin. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that in healthy individuals, the individual genetic background contributes to the blood plasma lipid profile. Furthermore, lipid profiling may prove useful in monitoring health status, for example, in the context of personalized medicine. © 2008 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. Chemicals / CAS: C-Reactive Protein, 9007-41-4; Lipid