The effects of whole-body vibration (WBV) intervention on body functions,activity limitations,and participation restrictions in people with neurological conditions

Background:

Vibration intervention has recently become a popular modality in professional sport and fitness and has also been suggested to offer potential in augmenting exercises in the rehabilitation field for various neurological conditions.

Objectives:

The main objective of this review was to assess the effects of whole-body vibration (WBV) intervention on body functions, activity limitations, and participation restrictions in people with neurological conditions. The second objective was to assist healthcare professionals in their clinical practice by evaluating the main parameters of WBV intervention that may be of benefit.

Methods:

Electronic databases (EMBASE, Academic Search Complete, AMED, MEDLINE, CINAHL Plus, SPORTDiscus, PEDro, and Cochrane library) were searched. Intervention studies with a comparison group, investigating the effect of WBV intervention on people with neurological conditions, were included. The methodological quality of papers was independently assessed by two raters using the Physiotherapy Evidence Database scale.

Results:

Sixteen randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were included. Only one paper was considered ‘excellent’ methodological quality study (9 out of 10 points). Four studies evaluated changes when WBV was compared to no intervention and two found significant improvements for strength, gait, and balance. Twelve compared WBV to other interventions and only two found significant differences in favour of the WBV group, for strength and gait.

Conclusion:

The cumulative findings for strength, balance, and gait suggest that while groups improve following WBV, this improvement is not consistently greater than either no intervention or a comparison intervention. This suggests insufficient evidence to support the effects of WBV training.     

Impact of the Graphite Fillers on the Thermal Processing of Graphite/Poly(lactic acid) Composites

To assess the impact of graphite fillers on the thermal processing of graphite/poly(lactic acid) (PLA) composites, a series of the composite samples with different graphite of industrial grade as fillers was prepared by melt mixing. The average size of the graphite grains ranged between 100 µm and 6 µm. For comparative purposes, one of the carbon fillers was expandable graphite. Composites were examined by SEM, FTIR, and Raman spectroscopy. As revealed by thermogravimetric (TG) analyses, graphite filler slightly lowered the temperature of thermal decomposition of the PLA matrix. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) tests showed that the room temperature crystallinity of the polymer matrix is strongly affected by the graphite filler. The crystallinity of the composites determined from the second heating cycle reached values close to 50%, while these values are close to zero for the neat polymer. The addition of graphite to PLA caused a slight reduction in the oxidation induction time (OIT). The melt flow rate (MFR) of the graphite/PLA composites was lower than the original PLA due to an increase in flow resistance associated with the high crystallinity of the polymer matrix. Expandable graphite did not cause changes in the structure of the polymer matrix during thermal treatment. The crystallinity of the composite with this filler did not increase after first heating and was close to the neat PLA MFR value, which was extremely high due to the low crystallinity of the PLA matrix and delamination of the filler at elevated temperature.     

Rhabdomyosarcoma cells show an energy producing anabolic metabolic phenotype compared with primary myocytes

Background

The functional status of a cell is expressed in its metabolic activity. We have applied stable isotope tracing methods to determine the differences in metabolic pathways in proliferating Rhabdomysarcoma cells (Rh30) and human primary myocytes in culture. Uniformly ¹³C-labeled glucose was used as a source molecule to follow the incorporation of ¹³C into more than 40 marker metabolites using NMR and GC-MS. These include metabolites that report on the activity of glycolysis, Krebs' cycle, pentose phosphate pathway and pyrimidine biosynthesis.

Results

The Rh30 cells proliferated faster than the myocytes. Major differences in flux through glycolysis were evident from incorporation of label into secreted lactate, which accounts for a substantial fraction of the glucose carbon utilized by the cells. Krebs' cycle activity as determined by ¹³C isotopomer distributions in glutamate, aspartate, malate and pyrimidine rings was considerably higher in the cancer cells than in the primary myocytes. Large differences were also evident in de novo biosynthesis of riboses in the free nucleotide pools, as well as entry of glucose carbon into the pyrimidine rings in the free nucleotide pool. Specific labeling patterns in these metabolites show the increased importance of anaplerotic reactions in the cancer cells to maintain the high demand for anabolic and energy metabolism compared with the slower growing primary myocytes. Serum-stimulated Rh30 cells showed higher degrees of labeling than serum starved cells, but they retained their characteristic anabolic metabolism profile. The myocytes showed evidence of de novo synthesis of glycogen, which was absent in the Rh30 cells.

Conclusion

The specific ¹³C isotopomer patterns showed that the major difference between the transformed and the primary cells is the shift from energy and maintenance metabolism in the myocytes toward increased energy and anabolic metabolism for proliferation in the Rh30 cells. The data further show that the mitochondria remain functional in Krebs' cycle activity and respiratory electron transfer that enables continued accelerated glycolysis. This may be a common adaptive strategy in cancer cells.