Dying is the Most Grown-Up Thing We Ever Do: But Do Health Care Professionals Prevent Us from Taking It Seriously?

This paper takes a somewhat slant perspective on flourishing and care in the context of suffering, death and dying, arguing that care in this context consists principally of ‘acts of work and courage that enable flourishing’. Starting with the perception that individuals, society and health care professionals have become dulled to death and the process of dying in Western advanced health systems, it suggests that for flourishing to occur, both of these aspects of life need to be faced more directly. The last days of life need to be ‘undulled’. Reflections upon the experiences of the author as carer and daughter in the face of her mother’s experience of death are used as basis for making suggestions about how care systems and professionals might better assist people in dealing with ‘the most grown up thing’ humans ever do, which is to die.     

Measured and predicted resting energy expenditure in wheelchair rugby athletes

Objective: Report measured resting energy expenditure (REE) in wheelchair rugby athletes and evaluate agreement between REE and the prediction models of Chun, Cunningham, Harris-Benedict, Mifflin, Nightingale and Gorgey, and Owen.

Design: Cohort-based validation study.

Setting. Paralympic team training camp.

Participants: Fourteen internationally competitive athletes who play wheelchair rugby, 13 of whom had cervical spinal cord injuries (SCI).

Outcome Measures: A portable metabolic analyzer was used to measure REE following an overnight fast and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) was used to assess lean body mass for the prediction equations.

Results: REE in the current sample was 1735?±?257?kcal?×?day^?1 ranging from 1324 to 2068?kcal?×?day^{?1 Bhambhani Y. Physiology of wheelchair racing in athletes with spinal cord injury. Sports Med 2002;32(1):23–51.[Crossref], [PubMed], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]}. Bland–Altman analyses revealed negative mean bias but similar limits of agreement between measured REE and scores predicted by Chun, Cunningham, Mifflin, Nightingale and Gorgey, and Owen models in elite athletes who play wheelchair rugby.

Conclusion: Prediction models regressed on persons with and without SCI under-predicted REE of competitive wheelchair rugby athletes. This outcome may be explained by the higher REE/fat-free mass (FFM) ratio of current athletes compared to less active samples. Findings from the current study will help practitioners to determine nutrient intake needs on training days of varied intensity.     

Melatonin reduces oxidative stress and improves vascular function in pulmonary hypertensive newborn sheep

Pulmonary hypertension of the newborn (PHN) constitutes a critical condition with severe cardiovascular and neurological consequences. One of its main causes is hypoxia during gestation, and thus, it is a public health concern in populations living above 2500 m. Although some mechanisms are recognized, the pathophysiological facts that lead to PHN are not fully understood, which explains the lack of an effective treatment. Oxidative stress is one of the proposed mechanisms inducing pulmonary vascular dysfunction and PHN. Therefore, we assessed whether melatonin, a potent antioxidant, improves pulmonary vascular function. Twelve newborn sheep were gestated, born, and raised at 3600 meters. At 3 days old, lambs were catheterized and daily cardiovascular measurements were recorded. Lambs were divided into two groups, one received daily vehicle as control and another received daily melatonin (1 mg/kg/d), for 8 days. At 11 days old, lung tissue and small pulmonary arteries (SPA) were collected. Melatonin decreased pulmonary pressure and resistance for the first 3 days of treatment. Further, melatonin significantly improved the vasodilator function of SPA, enhancing the endothelial‐ and muscular‐dependent pathways. This was associated with an enhanced nitric oxide‐dependent and nitric oxide independent vasodilator components and with increased nitric oxide bioavailability in lung tissue. Further, melatonin reduced the pulmonary oxidative stress markers and increased enzymatic and nonenzymatic antioxidant capacity. Finally, these effects were associated with an increase of lumen diameter and a mild decrease in the wall of the pulmonary arteries. These outcomes support the use of melatonin as an adjuvant in the treatment for PHN.