Tag: 24/11/22

Categories : Injury & TraumaTags :

Elite Athletes Have an Osteoarthritis Risk from Sports-related Injuries

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Photo by Quino Al on Unsplash

Elite retired sportspeople who had experienced a sports-related injury had a higher chance of knee and hip osteoarthritis when compared with the general population, according to a two-part study reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

One in four retired Olympians reported a diagnosis of osteoarthritis, researchers have found. The athletes – who had competed at an Olympic level in 57 sports including athletics, rowing and skiing – also had an increased risk of lower back pain overall, and shoulder osteoarthritis after a shoulder injury.

Researchers hope the findings will help develop new approaches in injury prevention for the benefit of athletes now and in retirement.

The study is the largest international survey of its kind, and the first to observe the consequences of osteoarthritis and pain in different joints from retired elite athletes across different summer and winter Olympic sports.

Researchers surveyed 3357 retired Olympians aged around 45 on injuries and the health of their bones, joints, muscles and spine. They were also asked if they were currently experiencing joint pain, and if they had an osteoarthritis diagnosis. A comparison group of 1735 people aged around 41 from the general population completed the same survey.

Researchers used statistical models to compare the prevalence of spine, upper limb and lower limb osteoarthritis and pain in retired Olympians with the general population.

The team considered factors that could influence the risk of pain and osteoarthritis such as injury, recurrent injury, age, sex and obesity.

They found that the knee, lumbar spine and shoulder were the most injury prone areas for Olympians. These were also among the most common locations for osteoarthritis and pain.

After a joint injury the Olympians were more likely to develop osteoarthritis than someone sustaining a similar injury in the general population, the research found

The sportspeople also had an increased risk of shoulder, knee, hip and ankle and upper and lower spine pain after injury, although this did not differ with the general population.

Dr Debbie Palmer, of the University of Edinburgh’s Moray House School of Education and Sport, said: “High performance sport is associated with an increased risk of sport-related injury and there is emerging evidence suggesting retired elite athletes have high rates of post-traumatic osteoarthritis.

“This study provides new evidence for specific factors associated with pain and osteoarthritis in retired elite athletes across the knee, hip, ankle, lumbar and cervical spine, and shoulder, and identifies differences in their occurrence that are specific to Olympians.”

Researchers say the study may help people make decisions about recovery and rehabilitation from injuries in order to prevent recurrences, and to inform prevention strategies to reduce the risk and progression of pain and OA in retirement.

Source: University of Edinburgh

Categories : Pain ManagementTags :

Vitamin D is no Help for Statin Muscle Pains, Study Finds

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Vitamin D pills
Photo by Michele Blackwell on Unsplash

Some clinicians have recommended vitamin D supplements to ease the muscle aches of patients taking a statin, but a new study published in the journal JAMA Cardiology shows the vitamin appears to have no substantial impact.

While non-randomised studies have reported vitamin D to be an effective treatment for statin-associated muscle symptoms, the new study, which is the first randomised clinical trial to look at the effect of vitamin D on statin-associated muscle symptoms, was large enough to rule out any important benefits.

In the randomised, double-blind trial, 2083 participants took either 2000 units of vitamin D supplements daily or a placebo. The study found participants in both categories were equally likely to develop muscle symptoms and discontinue statin therapy.

Over 4.8 years of follow-up, statin-related muscle pain was reported by 31% of the participants assigned vitamin D and 31% assigned a placebo.

“We had high hopes that vitamin D would be effective because in our clinic and across the country, statin-associated muscle symptoms were a major reason why so many patients stopped taking their statin medication,” said senior author Dr Neil Stone, professor at Northwestern University. “So, it was very disappointing that vitamin D failed a rigorous test. Nevertheless, it’s important to avoid using ineffective treatments and instead focus on research that can provide an answer.”

Statins and vitamin D supplements are two of the most commonly used medications in American adults. About 30 to 35 million Americans are prescribed statins, and about half of the population aged 60 and older take a vitamin D supplement.

“We took advantage of a large placebo-controlled randomised trial to test whether vitamin D would reduce statin-associated muscle symptoms and help patients keep taking their statins,” said lead study author Dr Mark Hlatky, a professor of health policy and cardiovascular medicine at Stanford. “The placebo control in the study was important because if people think vitamin D is supposed to reduce their muscle pains, they just might feel better while taking it, even if vitamin D has no specific effect.”

Trial was a sub study within a larger clinical trial

The 2083 patients were among the larger cohort of participants in the VITamin D and Omega-3 Trial (VITAL), which randomised nearly 26 000 participants to double-blind vitamin D supplementation to determine whether it would prevent cardiovascular disease and cancer. This provided researchers a unique opportunity to test whether vitamin D reduces muscle symptoms among participants who initiated statins during the follow-up period of the larger VITAL trial. The mean age of the study participants was 67, and 51% were women.

“Randomised clinical trials are important because many very good ideas don’t work as well as we had hoped when they are put to the test,” Hlatky said. “Statistical associations do not prove a cause-and-effect relationship. Low levels of vitamin D are associated with many medical problems, but it turns out that giving people vitamin D does not generally fix those problems.”

For patients who report statin-associated muscle pains

Dr Stone noted that sometimes the secret for understanding patients who have difficulty with statins is analysing other medications they’re taking, determining whether or not they have associated metabolic or inflammatory conditions, counselling them on their ability to hydrate adequately and, importantly, discussing “pill anxiety.”

“For those who have difficulties with statins, a systematic appraisal by a physician with experience in dealing with these matters is still very important,” Stone said.

Source: Northwestern University

Categories : Mental Health NeurologyTags :

How Breathing Influences the Brain to Shape Mood and Behaviour

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Depiction of a human brain
Image by Fakurian Design on Unsplash

A study published in the journal Psychological Review describes a possible mechanism by which breathing influences the brain and how breathing exercises influence mood. The researchers synthesised results from more than a dozen studies with rodent, monkey, and human brain imaging, and used it to propose a new computational model that explains how our breathing influences the brain’s expectations.

“What we found is that, across many different types of tasks and animals, brain rhythms are closely tied to the rhythm of our breath. We are more sensitive to the outside world when we are breathing in, whereas the brain tunes out more when we breathe out. This also aligns with how some extreme sports use breathing, for example professional marksmen are trained to pull the trigger at the end of exhalation,” explains Professor Micah Allen from the Department of Clinical Medicine at Aarhus University.

The study suggest that breathing is more than just something we do to stay alive, explains Prof Allen.

“It suggests that the brain and breathing are closely intertwined in a way that goes far beyond survival, to actually impact our emotions, our attention, and how we process the outside world. Our model suggests there is a common mechanism in the brain which links the rhythm of breathing to these events.”

Breathing can affect our mental health

Understanding how breathing shapes our brain, and by extension, our mood, thoughts, and behaviours, is an important goal in order to better prevent and treat mental illness.

“Difficulty breathing is associated with a very large increase in the risk for mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. We know that respiration, respiratory illness, and psychiatric disorders are closely linked. Our study raises the possibility that the next treatments for these disorders might be found in the development of new ways to realign the rhythms of the brain and body, rather than treating either in isolation,” explains Micah Allen.

The new study sheds light on how the brain its possible to stabilise the mind through breathing exercises. It suggests that there are three pathways in the brain that control this interaction between breathing and brain activity. It also suggests that our pattern of breathing makes the brain more “excitable,” meaning neurons are more likely to fire during certain times of breathing.

Prof Allen says that research is underway into investigating how different kinds of emotional and visual perception are influenced by breathing in the brain, as well as the impact of long COVID.

Source: Aarhus University

Categories : Cancer ExerciseTags :

Exercise Improves Quality of Life in Breast Cancer Radiotherapy

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Tired woman after exercise
Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels

Radiotherapy is an important part of breast cancer treatment but can lead to cancer-related fatigue and negatively impact patients’ health-related quality of life. Fortunately, latest research by has revealed exercise may make radiotherapy more tolerable for patients, offering benefits for their emotional, physical and social wellbeing.

Researchers at Edith Cowan University (ECU) included 89 women in the study, with 43 completing a home-based 12-week program, consisting of a weekly exercise regime of one to two resistance training sessions and an accumulated 30–40 minutes of aerobic exercise. The 46 controls did not participate in the exercise regime.

The results, published in Breast Cancer, showed that patients who exercised recovered from cancer-related fatigue quicker during and after radiotherapy compared to the control group and saw a significant increase in health-related quality of life post radiotherapy with no reported adverse effects.

Study supervisor Professor Rob Newton said this showed home-based resistance and aerobic exercise during radiotherapy is safe, feasible and effective in accelerating recovery from cancer-related fatigue and improving health-related quality of life.

“A home-based protocol might be preferable for patients, as it is low-cost, does not require travel or in-person supervision and can be performed at a time and location of the patient’s choosing,” he said.

“These benefits may provide substantial comfort to patients.”

Important changes observed

Australia’s current national guidelines for cancer patients recommend moderately intense aerobic exercise for 30 minutes per day, five days a week, or vigorously intense aerobic exercise for 20 minutes a day for three days a week.

They also call for 8–10 strength-training exercises with 8–12 repetitions per exercise, for two-to-three days per week.

However, study lead Dr Georgios Mavropalias said benefits were still observed with less exercise.

“The amount of exercise was aimed to increase progressively, with the ultimate target of participants meeting the national guideline for recommended exercise levels,” he said.

“However, the exercise programmes were relative to the participants’ fitness capacity, and we found even much smaller dosages of exercise than those recommended in the national guidelines can have significant effects on cancer-related fatigue and health-related quality of living during and after radiotherapy.”

The study also found participants good adherence to exercise programmes once they started. The exercise group reported significant improvements in mild, moderate and vigorous physical activity up to 12 months after the supervised exercise programme finished.

“The exercise programme in this study seems to have induced changes in the participants’ behaviour around physical activity,” Dr Mavropalias said.

“Thus, apart from the direct beneficial effects on reduction in cancer-related fatigue and improving health-related quality of life during radiotherapy, home-based exercise protocols might result in changes in the physical activity of participants that persist well after the end of the program.”

Source: Edith Cowan University

Categories : Ethics and Law Medical IndustryTags :

Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes Sentenced to 11 Years for Fraud

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Theranos’s Elizabeth Holmes in 2016
Credit: Tali Mackay at English Wikipedia, CC 4.0 license.

After a trial stretching out from before the COVID pandemic, Elizabeth Holmes, the former CEO of diagnostic biotech startup Theranos, has been sentenced to 11 years after being found guilty of fraud.

In 2018, she was indicted along with Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani on four counts of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with the collapse of Theranos, and was found guilty in January this year. She had been seeking a retrial since she had been contacted by a key witness, former Theranos lab director Adam Rosendorff, who she claimed had recanted statements made under oath.

Before Theranos’s collapse, Rosendorff had previously supplied information for an investigative series into the struggling biotech firm’s Previously, the university dropout had been widely lauded as an innovator and an inspiration for women in technology.

In his remarks during the sentencing of Holmes, US District Judge Edward Davila said, “The tragedy of this case is that Ms. Holmes is brilliant. She had creative ideas. She is a big thinker. She was a woman moving into an industry that was dominated by, and let’s face it, male ego. That young women entrepreneurs are regrettably denied access to, but she made that.”

Judge Davila sentenced her to 135 months (11 years and three months) in prison. Holmes will report to serving her sentence on April 27, 2023, at a minimum-security women’s prison less than 160km from her native Houston, Texas.