RESUMEN
Tai Chi is a traditional Chinese conditioning exercise that has been used to integrate slow movements, controlled breathing, and mental concentration. The aim of the study was to determine whether Tai Chi training in addition to cardiac rehabilitation would result in a shift toward increased vagal activity of autonomic markers, such as baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) and heart rate variability (HRV). Twenty patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) (male/female: 13/7, mean age: 67.8 +/- 4.2 years, mean interval time after a coronary event: 19.8 months) completed this study. The Tai Chi group (n = 10) practiced supervised Tai Chi training once a week and home-based Tai Chi training three times a week together with conventional cardiac rehabilitation for one-year. The control group (n = 10) conducted the conventional cardiac rehabilitation only. BRS and HRV were evaluated at the baseline and after one-year of Tai Chi training. Compared with the controls, patients in the Tai Chi group showed statistically significant improvement in BRS (P = 0.036). These associations persisted after adjustment for age and other covariates. On the other hand, there were no significant trends seen in HRV. Additional Tai Chi training during cardiac rehabilitation may augment reflex vagal regulation, which adds importantly to knowledge of cardiac rehabilitation on autonomic regulation and clinical management of CHD.
Asunto(s)
Barorreflejo/fisiología , Enfermedad Coronaria/fisiopatología , Enfermedad Coronaria/rehabilitación , Frecuencia Cardíaca/fisiología , Taichi Chuan , Anciano , Sistema Nervioso Autónomo/fisiopatología , Presión Sanguínea/fisiología , Estudios de Cohortes , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Persona de Mediana Edad , Resultado del TratamientoRESUMEN
Tamm-Horsfall protein (THP) is the most abundant protein in the urine. THP is expressed in the renal tubule as a precursor protein having 640 amino acid residues and anchored by GPI anchor in the cell membrane. Thereafter, THP is secreted as a glycoprotein is a molecular weight of about 95-100 kD. Despite several investigations from the perspective of renal failure, the physiological role of this protein is not yet clear. It has been reported that THP is also related to certain conditions, such as kidney stone formation and urinary tract infection. To examine the excretion of THP into urine, we constructed an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay(ELISA) for the measurement of THP in the urine. THP was purified from healthy human urine using Diatomaceous Earth. Then we obtained an antibody to purified THP and constructed a sandwich ELISA assay system to test urine samples. The sensitivity of measurement was 0.78 ng/ml. In this assay, the concentration of THP in spot urine can be linearly measured from 0.78 ng/ml to 50 ng/ml. The CV of assay was 2.4 to 4.1%. The measurement was not disrupted by urinary albumin (approximately 15 mg/ml), hemoglobin (approximately 15 microg/ml), glucose (approximately 30 mg/ml) and ascorbic acid (approximately 10 mg/ml). Pretreatment by centrifugation or filtration of urine affected the concentration of THP because of the agglutinated form of THP. We showed that the urinary excretion rate remained almost constant in our test population, 1.00-1.65 mg/hr (average +/- 1SD 1.30 +/- 0.25) for healthy men and 0.61-1.51 mg/hr (0.90 +/- 0.30) for healthy women and 1.10 +/- 0.34 mg/hr overall.
Asunto(s)
Ensayo de Inmunoadsorción Enzimática/métodos , Mucoproteínas/orina , Adulto , Biomarcadores/orina , Femenino , Humanos , Masculino , Valores de Referencia , Reproducibilidad de los Resultados , UromodulinaRESUMEN
Infrared rays from sunlight permeate the earth's atmosphere, yet little is known about their interactions with living organisms. To learn whether they affect cell structure and function, we tested the ciliated protozoan, Tetrahymena thermophila. These unicellular eukaryotes aggregate in swarms near the surface of freshwater habitats, where direct and diffuse solar radiation impinge upon the water-air interface. We report that populations irradiated in laboratory cultures grew and mated normally, but major changes occurred in cell physiology during the stationary phase. Early on, there were significant reductions in chromatin body size and the antibody reactivity of methyl groups on lysine residues 4 and 9 in histone H3. Later, when cells began to starve, messenger RNAs for key proteins related to chromatin structure, intermediary metabolism and cellular motility increased from two- to nearly nine-fold. Metabolic activity, swimming speed and linearity of motion also increased, and spindle shaped cells with a caudal cilium appeared. Our findings suggest that infrared radiation enhances differentiation towards a dispersal cell-like phenotype in saturated populations of Tetrahymena thermophila.