Limb blood flow after class 4 laser therapy

Context:

Laser therapy is purported to improve blood flow in soft tissues. Modulating circulation would promote healing by controlling postinjury ischemia, hypoxia, edema, and secondary tissue damage. However, no studies have quantified these responses to laser therapy.

Objective:

To determine a therapeutic dose range for laser therapy for increasing blood flow to the forearm.

Design:

Crossover study.

Setting:

Controlled laboratory setting.

Patients or Other Participants:

Ten healthy, college-aged men (age = 20.80 ± 2.16 years, height = 177.93 ± 3.38 cm, weight = 73.64 ± 9.10 kg) with no current history of injury to the upper extremity or cardiovascular conditions.

Intervention(s):

A class 4 laser device was used to treat the biceps brachii muscle. Each grid point was treated for 3 to 4 seconds, for a total of 4 minutes. Each participant received 4 doses of laser therapy: sham, 1 W, 3 W, and 6 W.

Main Outcome Measure(s):

The dependent variables were changes in blood flow, measured using venous occlusion plethysmography. We used a repeated-measures analysis of variance to analyze changes in blood flow for each dose at 2, 3, and 4 minutes and at 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 minutes after treatment. The Huynh-Feldt test was conducted to examine differences over time.

Results:

Compared with baseline, blood flow increased over time with the 3-W treatment (F_3,9 = 3.468, P < .011) at minute 4 of treatment (2.417 ± 0.342 versus 2.794 ± 0.351 mL/min per 100 mL tissue, P = .032), and at 1 minute (2.767 ± 0.358 mL/min per 100 mL tissue, P < .01) and 2 minutes (2.657 ± 0.369 mL/min per 100 mL tissue, P = .022) after treatment. The sham, 1-W, and 6-W treatment doses did not change blood flow from baseline at any time point.

Conclusions:

Laser therapy at the 3-W (360-J) dose level was an effective treatment modality to increase blood flow in the soft tissues.     

Voluntary consumption of ethyl oleate reduces food intake and body weight in rats

Previous studies have shown that administration of the fatty acids, linoleic and oleic acid, either by intragastric or intraintestinal infusion, suppresses food intake and body weight in rats. While still not fully understood, gut-mediated satiety mechanisms likely are potential effectors of this robust response to gastrointestinal fatty acid infusions. The objective of this study was to assess the effects of voluntary access to an oleic acid derivative, ethyl oleate (EO), on subsequent food intake and body weight in rats. Animals were randomized either to a 12.5% EO diet or a soybean oil diet as a "breakfast," followed either by two one-hour or one five-hour access periods to standard rodent diet, and food intake and body weights were collected. Across 14 days access, rats consuming EO on both feeding schedules gained less weight and consumed less total kilocalories than rats consuming the SO diet. Further, plasma levels of glucose and insulin were comparable in both EO and SO diet groups. In summary, EO was found to increase weight loss in rats maintained on a 75% food-restriction regimen, and attenuate weight-gain upon resumption of an ad-libitum feeding regimen. These data indicate that voluntary access to EO promoted short-term satiety, compared to SO diet, and that these effects contributed to an important and novel attenuated weight gain in EO-fed animals.     

Evaluation of knee cartilage thickness: A comparison between ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging methods

Background

Establishing clinically accessible measures of cartilage health is critical for assessing effectiveness of protocols to reduce risk of osteoarthritis (OA) development and progression. Cartilage thickness is one important measure in describing both OA development and progression. The objective was to determine the relationship between ultrasound and MRI measures of cartilage thickness in the medial femoral condyle.

Incorporating spiritual beliefs into a cognitive model of worry

Cognitive theory and research have traditionally highlighted the relevance of the core beliefs about oneself, the world, and the future to human emotions. For some individuals, however, core beliefs may also explicitly involve spiritual themes. In this article, we propose a cognitive model of worry, in which positive/negative beliefs about the Divine affect symptoms through the mechanism of intolerance of uncertainty. Using mediation analyses, we found support for our model across two studies, in particular, with regards to negative spiritual beliefs. These findings highlight the importance of assessing for spiritual alongside secular convictions when creating cognitive-behavioral case formulations in the treatment of religious individuals.     

Dynamic Valgus Alignment and Functional Strength in Males and Females During Maturation

Context:

Sex differences in dynamic measures have been established in physically mature populations. Gaining information on maturation''s effect on dynamic performance measures implicated in injury risk may enable us to better design injury prevention programs.

Objective:

To examine sex differences in dynamic valgus alignment and triple-hop distance measures across maturational stages in males and females. A secondary purpose was to determine if a field test of strength and power predicts dynamic valgus alignment.

Design:

Cross-sectional study.

Setting:

Laboratory.

Patients or Other Participants:

157 young athletes (78 females, 79 males) aged 9 to 18 years.

Intervention(s):

Subjects performed drop-jump landings and single-leg triple-hop tests as part of a broader injury screening.

Main Outcome Measure(s):

Maturational status was ascertained from self-report questionnaires and grouped according to Tanner stages 1 and 2 (MatGrp1), 3 and 4 (MatGrp2), and 5 (MatGrp3). Frontal-plane knee valgus displacement, which served as a measure of dynamic valgus alignment, and single-leg triple-hop distance were assessed.

Results:

Males demonstrated less dynamic valgus alignment during drop jumps in the latter maturational stages (MatGrp1  =  13.1° ± 8.7°, MatGrp2  =  9.0° ± 6.2°, MatGrp3  =  9.2° ± 9.4°), whereas females increased dynamic valgus alignment throughout maturation (MatGrp1  =  11.5° ± 6.9°, MatGrp2  =  12.8° ± 8.8°, MatGrp3  =  15.5° ± 8.7°). Thus, in the more mature groups, males had less dynamic valgus alignment than females. Both males (MatGrp1  =  393.5 ± 63.7 cm, MatGrp2  =  491.8 ± 95.1 cm, MatGrp3  =  559.3 ± 76.3 cm) and females (MatGrp1  =  360.3 ± 37.1 cm, MatGrp2  =  380.1 ± 44.3 cm, MatGrp3  =  440.0 ± 66.2 cm) increased triple-hop distance, but males increased more. Within each subgroup of MatGrp and sex, triple-hop distance had no predictive ability for dynamic malalignment.

Conclusions:

When dynamic valgus alignment and strength were assessed, sex and maturational status displayed an interaction. However, functional strength did not predict degree of dynamic valgus alignment.     

Uncovering novel inter- and intrachromosomal chromosome 1 aberrations in follicular lymphomas by using an innovative multicolor banding technique

Follicular lymphoma (FL) is characterized by t(14;18)(q32;q21), which is the initial genetic perturbation in this disease. Additional genetic mutations are required to generate a fully malignant phenotype. Secondary chromosomal alterations seen in FL include prominent involvement of chromosome 1 in the form of balanced or unbalanced translocations, insertions, deletions, and duplications involving both the p and q arms. We investigated a diagnostically well defined set of 55 t(14;18)-positive FL cases with complex karyotypes by means of multicolor karyotyping. Sixteen cases showed involvement of chromosome 1 and were analyzed in further detail by a novel multicolor banding technique for this chromosome. We defined three groups showing varying complexity of chromosome 1 alterations. The first group revealed simple translocations, such as t(1;2), t(1;6), t(1;8), and t(1;17), involving breakpoints on either the p or the q arm of chromosome 1. The second group showed more complex rearrangements with translocations, insertions, regional duplications, and involvement of more than one partner chromosome with either the p or the q arm of chromosome 1. The third group was defined by highly complex rearrangements involving translocations, regional duplications, amplifications, and intrachromosomal band relocations affecting the entire chromosome 1. All three groups shared interchromosomal rearrangements of chromosome 1 with chromosome 8, often involving the MYC protooncogene site, amplification involving region 1q21-q31, and deletion involving region 1p36. Thus, the use of sophisticated multicolor molecular cytogenetic assays in the investigation of malignant lymphoma allows precise characterization of chromosomal alterations and will provide a better understanding of their biology.     

Improved haemocompatibility of cysteine-modified polymers via endogenous nitric oxide.

A novel method for improving the haemocompatibility of biomedical materials through endogenous nitric oxide (NO) is presented. L-cysteine was covalently immobilized onto two biomedical polymers: polyurethane (PU) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The L-cysteine content on the polymers was approximately 5-8 nmol/cm2 as quantified via a chemiluminescence-based assay. The haemocompatibility of the modified polymers was evaluated in terms of the number of adhered platelets when exposed to a platelet suspension labeled with Cr51. Platelet adherence on the L-cysteine-modified polymers was reduced more than 50% as compared to the control (glycine-modified polymers) when the platelet suspension contained plasma constituents. No difference in platelet adhesion was observed in the absence of plasma constituents. Further experiments demonstrated that NO was easily transferred to the L-cysteine-modified polymers from S-nitroso-albumin in PBS buffer. The NO was then released from the polymer. NO transfer or release was not observed for the control. The results suggest that L-cysteine-modified polymers are effective in reducing platelet adhesion via the transfer of NO from endogenous S-nitrosoproteins in plasma to the polymer followed by the subsequent release of NO. Thus, exploiting endogenous NO is a viable option for improving the haemocompatibility of biomaterials.