Effects of Methoxyisoflavone, Ecdysterone, and Sulfo-Polysaccharide Supplementation on Training Adaptations in Resistance-Trained Males

PURPOSE: Methoxyisoflavone (M), 20-hydroxyecdysone (E), and sulfo-polysaccharide (CSP3) have been marketed to athletes as dietary supplements that can increase strength and muscle mass during resistancetraining. However, little is known about their potential ergogenic value. The purpose of this study was to determine whether these supplements affect training adaptations and/or markers of muscle anabolism/catabolism in resistance-trained athletes. METHODS: Forty-five resistance-trained males (20.5±3 yrs; 179±7 cm, 84±16 kg, 17.3±9 % body fat) were matched according to FFM and randomly assigned to ingest in a double blind manner supplements containing either a placebo (P); 800 mg/day of M; 200 mg of E; or, 1,000 mg/day of CSP3 for 8-weeks during training. At 0, 4, and 8-weeks, subjects donated fasting blood samples and completed comprehensive muscular strength, muscular endurance, anaerobic capacity, and body composition analysis. Data were analyzed by repeated measures ANOVA. RESULTS: No significant differences (p>0.05) were observed in training adaptations among groups in the variables FFM, percent body fat, bench press 1RM, leg press 1RM or sprint peak power. Anabolic/catabolic analysis revealed no significant differences among groups in active testosterone (AT), free testosterone (FT), cortisol, the AT to cortisol ratio, urea nitrogen, creatinine, the blood urea nitrogen to creatinine ratio. In addition, no significant differences were seen from pr

Effects of continuous positive airway pressure on blood pressure in obstructive sleep apnea

Introduction: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has been previously linked to the development of hypertension, possibly through the proposed mechanism of recurrent episodes of intermittent hypoxia leading to endothelial dysfunction, inflammation, and metabolic dysregulation. This study aims to investigate continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy, a first-line therapy for OSA, and its effects on blood pressure in patients with moderate to severe OSA. We hypothesize that compliance to CPAP leads to a decrease in average annual systolic and diastolic blood pressure, compared to noncompliant and non-CPAP use. Methods: Our study is a combined retrospective and prospective EPIC chart review study. Moderate to severe OSA patients will be categorized into treatment compliant and noncompliant control groups, with nightly hours of CPAP usage as a continuous predictor variable. Systolic and diastolic blood pressures will be collected and averaged annually over the duration of the study period. Results: Our pilot study findings from the EPIC charts of 10 patients show [xyz]. While this initial sample size of 10 patients is inadequately powered to prove or disprove our study hypothesis, our study goal is a patient sample size of n=5000 over the coming year. Discussion: Some previous studies have failed to demonstrate an improvement in blood pressure outcomes following the treatment of CPAP in OSA patients. However, these studies were limited by poor CPAP compliance and small sample size. We anticipate that our larger-sample size and higher CPAP compliance rates will enable us to determine whether increased CPAP usage has a beneficial and sustained impact on blood pressure

Effects of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure on Cardiovascular Risk in Obstructive Sleep Apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has been shown to significantly promote cardiovascular risk, in part possibly due to activation of the sympathetic nervous system during respiratory events in sleep and its subsequent effects on blood pressure and heart rate. Previous studies have also found associations between long term variability of blood pressure and heart rate with cardiovascular outcomes. We hypothesize that compliance to continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy will decrease the incidence of cardiovascular events in a dose dependent fashion in patients with moderate to severe OSA. This retrospective study population consists of patients from the Jefferson Sleep Center with moderate to severe OSA. CPAP adherence was used as both a categorical (adherent/non-adherent) and continuous predictor variable. The primary endpoint for the parent study is major adverse cardiovascular events. In this subproject, we focused on the secondary cardiovascular risk endpoints: blood pressure and heart rate variability, assessed using data collected from primary care/sleep medicine office visits. Our study hypothesis is that increased CPAP usage will be associated with a decrease in cardiovascular events along with decreased blood pressure and heart rate variability, which may partially mediate improved cardiovascular outcomes as well. Our pilot study findings in 10 patients [insert pending data here] support this hypothesis. These findings highlight the importance of CPAP therapy in managing both OSA and long-term cardiovascular health and complications. Further elucidating the role of cardiovascular risk factors in OSA in combination with the effects of CPAP usage will be clinically significant for this patient population

Continuous positive airway pressure therapy effects on lipid and hepatic function test values

Introduction : Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) therapy is an established therapy for patients diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The following study aims to measure the impact of CPAP therapy on lipid and liver profiles of patients diagnosed with OSA. We hypothesize that CPAP therapy will improve patient serum lipid and liver measures in this patient population compared to patient baseline prior to CPAP therapy. Furthermore, we also will examine differences in hepatic ultrasound results for OSA patients on CPAP therapy. Methods: The target patient population has moderate-severe OSA, defined as an Apnea-Hypopnea Index greater than 15. The intervention is defined as a minimum of four hours of CPAP therapy use nightly on average. For lipid panel outcomes, we recorded high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL), low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), total cholesterol (TC), and triglycerides (TG). For liver panel outcomes, we measured aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) values. All values were compared to each patients’ averaged baseline values six months prior to initiation of CPAP therapy. Furthermore, we also examined hepatic ultrasound results prior to and after beginning CPAP therapy. Results: Data collection is currently ongoing. We expect preliminary data of ten chart reviews of eligible subjects show lower HDL, LDL, TC, TG, AST, and ALT on lipid and liver function tests after consistent CPAP use compared to baseline. Unfortunately, due to this initial small pilot sample size, no significant findings with regard to hepatic ultrasound results have been observed. Discussion: Our results demonstrate that consistent CPAP therapy use helps to lower liver function and lipid tests. This provides support that CPAP therapy, in conjunction with treating OSA, may help to improve outcome values for patients with hypertriglyceridemia and poor liver function. We will continue to collect data on a much larger sample of patients to adequately test our study hypothesis regarding the effects of CPAP therapy effects on hepatic outcomes, such as liver failure, which would provide further support of the beneficial effects of CPAP therapy on vulnerable populations

The effect of CPAP treatment on T2DM in moderate to severe OSA subjects

Introduction: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a significant risk factor for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). CPAP treatment can potentially improve glycemic control in such subjects. However, the exact effects of CPAP treatment on diabetes are uncertain. The objective of this study is to examine the effect of CPAP treatment on HbA1c levels in subjects with moderate to severe OSA and T2DM. Methods: This is a combined retrospective and prospective study collecting data through EPIC medical record reviews. We are collecting HbA1c levels (primary outcome variable) before and after CPAP treatment in subjects with moderate to severe OSA and T2DM. The analysis will be controlled for via CPAP compliance, which will be assessed as both a categorical (adherent/non-adherent) and continuous predictor variable (number of hours of nightly usage). Results: Reproducibility of collected data has been verified as \u3e95% between chart reviewers on this project. We have collected data on 10 subjects so far and analysis results are pending. We hypothesize that higher levels of CPAP compliance will correlate with significant reductions in HbA1c levels in patients with both moderate to severe OSA and T2DM. Discussion: Some studies report a decrease in HbA1c levels after CPAP treatment, while others report no significant change. All studies report that their limiting factor was variable CPAP adherence rates and small sample size. This project will add to the existing literature with a goal sample size of n=5000 and CPAP adherence rates above 70%, much higher than the national average (30%)

Space Division Multiplexing in Optical Fibres

Optical communications technology has made enormous and steady progress for several decades, providing the key resource in our increasingly information-driven society and economy. Much of this progress has been in finding innovative ways to increase the data carrying capacity of a single optical fibre. In this search, researchers have explored (and close to maximally exploited) every available degree of freedom, and even commercial systems now utilize multiplexing in time, wavelength, polarization, and phase to speed more information through the fibre infrastructure. Conspicuously, one potentially enormous source of improvement has however been left untapped in these systems: fibres can easily support hundreds of spatial modes, but today's commercial systems (single-mode or multi-mode) make no attempt to use these as parallel channels for independent signals.Comment: to appear in Nature Photonic

Distinct functions of HTLV-1 Tax1 from HTLV-2 Tax2 contribute key roles to viral pathogenesis

While the human T-cell leukemia virus type 1 (HTLV-1) is the etiologic agent of adult T-cell leukemia/lymphoma (ATL), to date, its close relative HTLV-2 is not associated with ATL or other types of malignancies. Accumulating evidence shows that HTLV-1 Tax1 and HTLV-2 Tax2 have many shared activities, but the two proteins have a limited number of significantly distinct activities, and these distinctions appear to play key roles in HTLV-1 specific pathogenesis. In this review, we summarize the functions of Tax1 associated with cell survival, cell proliferation, persistent infection as well as pathogenesis. We emphasize special attention to distinctions between Tax1 and Tax2

Guidelines for the use and interpretation of assays for monitoring autophagy (3rd edition)

In 2008 we published the first set of guidelines for standardizing research in autophagy. Since then, research on this topic has continued to accelerate, and many new scientists have entered the field. Our knowledge base and relevant new technologies have also been expanding. Accordingly, it is important to update these guidelines for monitoring autophagy in different organisms. Various reviews have described the range of assays that have been used for this purpose. Nevertheless, there continues to be confusion regarding acceptable methods to measure autophagy, especially in multicellular eukaryotes. For example, a key point that needs to be emphasized is that there is a difference between measurements that monitor the numbers or volume of autophagic elements (e.g., autophagosomes or autolysosomes) at any stage of the autophagic process versus those that measure fl ux through the autophagy pathway (i.e., the complete process including the amount and rate of cargo sequestered and degraded). In particular, a block in macroautophagy that results in autophagosome accumulation must be differentiated from stimuli that increase autophagic activity, defi ned as increased autophagy induction coupled with increased delivery to, and degradation within, lysosomes (inmost higher eukaryotes and some protists such as Dictyostelium ) or the vacuole (in plants and fungi). In other words, it is especially important that investigators new to the fi eld understand that the appearance of more autophagosomes does not necessarily equate with more autophagy. In fact, in many cases, autophagosomes accumulate because of a block in trafficking to lysosomes without a concomitant change in autophagosome biogenesis, whereas an increase in autolysosomes may reflect a reduction in degradative activity. It is worth emphasizing here that lysosomal digestion is a stage of autophagy and evaluating its competence is a crucial part of the evaluation of autophagic flux, or complete autophagy. Here, we present a set of guidelines for the selection and interpretation of methods for use by investigators who aim to examine macroautophagy and related processes, as well as for reviewers who need to provide realistic and reasonable critiques of papers that are focused on these processes. These guidelines are not meant to be a formulaic set of rules, because the appropriate assays depend in part on the question being asked and the system being used. In addition, we emphasize that no individual assay is guaranteed to be the most appropriate one in every situation, and we strongly recommend the use of multiple assays to monitor autophagy. Along these lines, because of the potential for pleiotropic effects due to blocking autophagy through genetic manipulation it is imperative to delete or knock down more than one autophagy-related gene. In addition, some individual Atg proteins, or groups of proteins, are involved in other cellular pathways so not all Atg proteins can be used as a specific marker for an autophagic process. In these guidelines, we consider these various methods of assessing autophagy and what information can, or cannot, be obtained from them. Finally, by discussing the merits and limits of particular autophagy assays, we hope to encourage technical innovation in the field