Muscle Up: Male Athletes' and Non-Athletes' Psychobiological Responses to, and Recovery From, Body Image Social-Evaluative Threats.

Negative body image often occurs as a result of social evaluation of the physique in men. Social self-preservation theory (SSPT) holds that social-evaluative threats (SETs) elicit consistent psychobiological responses (i.e.

Examining University Men's Psychobiological and Behavioral Response-Recovery Profile From a Social-Evaluative Body Image Threat.

Negative body image, which often results from social-evaluative body image threats, is common in young men and related to many harmful outcomes. Using social self-preservation theory (SSPT), the present study investigated the psychobiological (i.e.

Biomechanical impact testing of synthetic versus human cadaveric tibias for predicting injury risk during pedestrian-vehicle collisions.

The tibia is the most commonly fractured long bone in a pedestrian-vehicle collision. The standard injury assessment tool is the "legform," a device that mimics the human lower limb under impact loads. These devices are designed to identify the impact load that will cause the onset of injury, rather than replicate the type and severity of fracture.

Use of Auditing and Feedback in an Outpatient Hospice Setting: Quality and Pharmacoeconomic Oversight.

Background: Clinicians play an important role in containing pharmaceutical spending at the patient level, as well as ensuring efficacy and quality outcomes, yet little research has examined how to achieve this goal.

Measures: Using auditing and feedback (A&F) as part of a Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) Committee, we evaluated our community-based hospice program's prescribing habits for opioids, antipsychotics, and antidepressants and calculated oral pharmaceutical prescription costs per-patient-day. Quality of care was reflected by patient pain scores in electronic medical records.

A Systematic Assessment and Monitoring Intervention to Improve Pain Management and Quality Reporting Among Home Hospice Patients.

Background: Validated and reproducible means to systematically improve pain documentation and outcomes in home-based hospice populations are generally lacking. This article describes a novel electronic medical record (EMR)-embedded pain monitoring and management program for home-based hospice patients.

Measures: Pain relief was measured by patients' self-defined pain within 48 hours of initiating care, recorded on a 0-10 pain scale.

Men Respond Too: The Effects of a Social-Evaluative Body Image Threat on Shame and Cortisol in University Men.

Framed within social self-preservation theory, the present study investigated men's psychobiological responses to social-evaluative body image threats. University men ( n = 66) were randomly assigned to either a high or low social-evaluative body image threat condition. Participants provided saliva samples (to assess cortisol) and completed measures of state body shame prior to and following their condition, during which anthropometric and strength measures were assessed.

The effect of social group size on feather corticosterone in the co-operatively breeding Smooth-billed Ani (Crotophaga ani): An assay validation and analysis of extreme social living.

Living closely with others can provide a myriad of fitness benefits, from shared territory defense to co-operative resource acquisition. Costs of social aggregation are not absent, however, and likely influence optimal and observed groups' sizes in a social species. Here, we explored optimal group size in a joint-nesting cuckoo species (the Smooth-billed Ani, Crotophaga ani) using endocrine markers of stress physiology (corticosterone, or CORT).

Sources of variance within and among young men in concentrations of 17β-estradiol and testosterone in axillary perspiration.

The most potent estrogen, 17β-estradiol (E), and its precursor, testosterone (T), play critical roles in mammalian reproductive processes. Evidence indicates that these steroids are present in bioactive form in the excretions of many male mammals. It has been demonstrated that small lipophilic steroids such as E can be absorbed by proximate females from male excretions, arriving in the uterus, brain, and other organs where there are estrogen receptors.

Enjoyment for High-Intensity Interval Exercise Increases during the First Six Weeks of Training: Implications for Promoting Exercise Adherence in Sedentary Adults.

This is the first study to show that enjoyment for high-intensity interval exercise increases with chronic training. Prior acute studies typically report high-intensity interval training (HIT) as being more enjoyable than moderate continuous training (MCT) unless the high-intensity intervals are too strenuous or difficult to complete. It follows that exercise competency may be a critical factor contributing to the enjoyment of HIT, and therefore building competency through chronic training may be one way to increase its enjoyment.

Salivary cortisol and testosterone responses to resistance and plyometric exercise in 12- to 14-year-old boys.

This study examined changes in salivary testosterone and cortisol following resistance and plyometric exercise protocols in active boys. In a crossover experimental design, 26 peri-pubertal (12- to 14-year-old) soccer players performed 2 exercise trials in random order, on separate evenings, 1 week apart. Each trial included a 30 min control session followed by 30 min of either resistance or plyometric exercise.

A Hospice Rotation for Military Medical Residents: A Mixed Methods, Multi-Perspective Program Evaluation.

Background: An estimated 6,000 to 18,000 additional hospice and palliative medicine (HPM) physicians are needed in the United States. A source could be the military graduate medical education system where 15% of U.S.

Stress lowers the threshold dose at which bisphenol A disrupts blastocyst implantation, in conjunction with decreased uterine closure and e-cadherin.

Exposure to stress can disrupt blastocyst implantation in inseminated female mice, and evidence implicates elevation of the female's estrogen:progesterone ratio. Exposure to the xenoestrogen, bisphenol A (BPA) can also disrupt implantation. Undisturbed control female CF-1 mice were compared to other females that were exposed to predators (rats) across a wire-mesh grid during gestation days (GD) 1-4, a procedure that elevates corticosterone but does not on its own disrupt implantation in this genetic strain.

A Model for Effective and Efficient Hospice Care: Proactive Telephone-Based Enhancement of Life Through Excellent Caring, "TeleCaring" in Advanced Illness.

Background: A community-based non-profit hospice provider implemented "TeleCaring" as a quality improvement intervention to identify and take action on patient or caregiver needs or concerns, such as uncontrolled symptoms or prescription problems.

Measures: We assessed the rate of acceptance of the intervention, intensity of the intervention, escalations of calls from Specialists to Nurses, and the effect of the intervention on utilization of clinical services, clinical miles traveled, and family satisfaction with care.

Intervention: TeleCaring consisted of daily proactive phone calls to patients and caregivers by Specialists and Nurses.

Alternative routes to oral opioid administration in palliative care: a review and clinical summary.

Objective: A major goal of palliative care is to provide comfort, and pain is one of the most common causes of treatable suffering in patients with advanced disease. Opioids are indispensable for pain management in palliative care and can usually be provided by the oral route, which is safe, effective, and of lowest cost in most cases. As patients near the end of life, however, the need for alternate routes of medication increases with up to 70% of patients requiring a nonoral route for opioid administration.

Nebulized medications for the treatment of dyspnea: a literature review.

Background: Dyspnea significantly impacts quality of life and is one of the most common symptoms in advanced illness. Systemically-administered opioids and benzodiazepines have been the most studied and utilized pharmacologic treatments for refractory dyspnea. Less attention has been given to the use of these medications and others when nebulized.

Clinic-based outpatient palliative care before hospice is associated with longer hospice length of service.

Context: Outpatient nonhospice palliative care has been shown to provide many benefits to patients facing advanced illness, but such services remain uncommon in the U.S. Little is known about the association between clinic-based outpatient palliative care consultation and the timing of hospice enrollment.

The Cost of Hope: a candid roundtable discussion.

For Amanda Bennett and her husband Terence Foley, a 7-year battle with kidney cancer resulted in a price tag of more than $600,000, most of it spent in the final 2 years of his life. Ms. Bennett's memoir, The Cost of Hope, chronicles the couple's emotional struggle and the financial irrationality she uncovered when navigating the cancer continuum.

Acute on chronic exposure to endotoxin is associated with enhanced chemoreflex responses in preterm fetal sheep.

There is increasing evidence that exposure to infection can sensitize the fetus to subsequent hypoxic injury. However, it is unclear whether this involves compromise of the fetal cardiovascular adaptation to acute asphyxia. Chronically instrumented 103-day-old (0.

Palliative care and oncology partnerships in real practice.

This article addresses the practical application of palliative care (PC) in the outpatient oncology setting. While information on this topic is scarce, data published by a few outpatient practices provide the basis for potential models of integrated care. In general, the perceived impact of integrating PC into standard oncology practice is positive for patients, providers, oncology practices, and the healthcare system as a whole.

Peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and high salivary cortisol predict poorer memory in children.

The predictive relations of peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and salivary cortisol on memory in 168 children aged 12 at Time 1 (T1) were examined using a longitudinal design in which data were collected on four occasions over a 2-year period. Results indicated that: (1) peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and evening cortisol were stable over time, (2) peer victimization and elevated symptoms of depression were concurrently linked at each time, (3) T1 peer victimization predicted elevated symptoms of depression at T2 which in turn predicted lower cortisol levels at T3, and (4) controlling for earlier associations, T3 peer victimization, depressive symptoms, and higher morning and evening cortisol levels uniquely predicted memory deficits at T4. The links between elevated cortisol, symptoms of depression, and poor memory are consistent with published research on depressed adults and extend the findings to children exposed to peer victimization.

Correlates of mucosal immunity and upper respiratory tract infections in girls.

In this study we examined whether salivary hormones, physical activity and adiposity were correlated with secretory immunoglobulin A (sIgA) and frequency of upper respiratory tract infections (URTI) in 43 early-pubertal and 59 late-pubertal girls. Physical activity was measured using accelerometers and relative body fat was assessed using bioelectrical impendence. Resting saliva samples were obtained between 1500 and 1800 hr and assayed for sIgA, cortisol and testosterone.

Integrating palliative care into the outpatient, private practice oncology setting.

Context: Quality care for patients with cancer is a national priority-for those with noncurable cancer, the stakes are even higher. Strategies to promote integration of palliative care into oncology practice may enhance quality. We have developed a model in which palliative care services are integrated into the private, office-based oncology practice setting.