The Association between Exposure to Residential Indoor Volatile Organic Compounds and Measures of Central Arterial Stiffness in Healthy Middle-Aged Men and Women.

It is well reported that individuals spend up to 90% of their daily time indoors, with between 60% to 90% of this time being spent in the home. Using a cross-sectional study design in a population of 111 healthy adults (mean age: 52.3 ± 9.

Agricultural Dust Exposures and Health and Safety Practices among Western Australian Wheatbelt Farmers during Harvest.

Background: Agricultural farmworkers are routinely exposed to high levels of airborne dust particles that have been linked to adverse health outcomes.

Methods: This study measured personal and environmental exposures to dust particulates by farmworkers during harvesting activities. Farmers completed a workplace survey with regards to their health and safety awareness and practices and researchers observed general farm safety practices on selected farms using a checklist.

Associations Between Sub-Clinical Markers of Cardiometabolic Risk and Exposure to Residential Indoor Air Pollutants in Healthy Adults in Perth, Western Australia: A Study Protocol.

Background: A growing body of epidemiological and clinical evidence has implicated air pollution as an emerging risk factor for cardiometabolic disease. Whilst individuals spend up to two-thirds of daily time in their domestic residential environment, very few studies have been designed to objectively measure the sub-clinical markers of cardiometabolic risk with exposure to domestic indoor air pollutants. This cross-sectional study aims to investigate associations between the components of domestic indoor air quality and selected sub-clinical cardiometabolic risk factors in a cohort of healthy adults living in Perth, Western Australia.

Suboptimal Nocturnal Glucose Control Is Associated With Large for Gestational Age in Treated Gestational Diabetes Mellitus.

Objective: Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) provides far greater detail about fetal exposure to maternal glucose across the 24-h day. Our aim was to examine the role of temporal glucose variation on the development of large for gestational age (LGA) infants in women with treated gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).

Research Design And Methods: We performed a prospective observational study of 162 pregnant women with GDM in specialist multidisciplinary antenatal diabetes clinics.

Occupational exposures to agricultural dust by Western Australian wheat-belt farmers during seeding operations.

Agricultural operations routinely expose farm workers to high levels of soil dust and other airborne particulate matter that have been linked to adverse health outcomes. The main objective of this study was to investigate exposure to agricultural dust during seeding operations of Western Australian farm workers. Twenty-one wheat-belt farms were recruited to participate in the study.

Impaired quality of life in patients with treated acromegaly despite long-term biochemically stable disease: Results from a 5-years prospective study.

Objective: Patients with acromegaly demonstrate impaired quality of life (QoL), but data on long-term QoL changes in treated acromegaly are limited. This study evaluates and identifies factors that influence QoL in patients with long-term biochemical remission.

Design: The study consists of a cross-sectional arm comparing QoL between patients with treated and controlled acromegaly and healthy controls; and a longitudinal arm assessing QoL changes in patients with biochemically stable disease during 5.

Diabetic hepatosclerosis: another diabetes microvascular complication?

Background: Liver disease in diabetes is common and is frequently the result of hepatic steatosis. Diabetic hepatosclerosis is a relatively recent description of sinusoidal fibrosis, without steatosis, observed in liver biopsies of people with diabetes presenting with cholestasis. Its association with other microvascular complications suggests it is a form of hepatic diabetic microangiopathy.

Sympathetic activation and vasoregulation in response to carbohydrate ingestion in patients with congestive heart failure.

Background: In normal individuals, carbohydrate ingestion increases sympathetic vasoconstrictor activity but causes net vasodilatation in the same vascular bed. This study quantified the effects of carbohydrate ingestion on muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) and vasoregulation in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF). We hypothesized that high resting levels of MSNA in patients with CHF would blunt further increases in MSNA following carbohydrate ingestion and that their sympathetic activation would restrain vasodilatation.

Alcohol badly affects eye movements linked to steering, providing for automatic in-car detection of drink driving.

Driving is a classic example of visually guided behavior in which the eyes move before some other action. When approaching a bend in the road, a driver looks across to the inside of the curve before turning the steering wheel. Eye and steering movements are tightly linked, with the eyes leading, which allows the parts of the brain that move the eyes to assist the parts of the brain that control the hands on the wheel.

Disparity of autonomic control in type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Aims/hypothesis: Acute insulinaemia activates the sympathetic drive in a nonuniform manner. The extent and nature of such activation in type 2 diabetic patients who do not have neuropathy have not yet been addressed despite evidence relating sympathetic activation to cardiovascular risk. We planned to determine the magnitude and extent of the sympathetic drive and its reflex responses in patients with type 2 diabetes and fasting hyperinsulinaemia.

Management of amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis.

Amiodarone is used increasingly in a number of cardiac conditions. Amiodarone is heavily iodinated and can cause thyroid dysfunction. The diagnosis of amiodarone-induced thyrotoxicosis remains difficult and more common causes of thyrotoxicosis need to be considered and excluded.

Impact of type 2 diabetes mellitus on sympathetic neural mechanisms in hypertension.

Background: Essential hypertension (EHT) is a major cardiovascular risk factor, and the additional presence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) increases this risk. However, although the sympathetic nerve hyperactivity of EHT is known to play a role in cardiovascular risk, the level of sympathetic nerve activity is known neither in DM2 nor in hypertensive type 2 diabetic patients (EHT+DM2). Therefore, we planned to quantify the vasoconstrictor sympathetic nerve activity in patients with EHT+DM2 and with DM2 relative to that in matched groups with EHT and normal blood pressure (NT).

Sympathetic nerve hyperactivity is associated with increased peripheral vascular resistance in hypopituitary patients with growth hormone deficiency.

Objective: Hypopituitary patients with untreated GH deficiency have increased cardiovascular mortality. Sustained vasoconstriction is an important factor in the development of hypertension and insulin resistance. This study was designed to see whether peripheral vascular resistance was increased in subjects with GH deficiency and to examine the mechanisms involved.

Carbohydrate ingestion, with transient endogenous insulinaemia, produces both sympathetic activation and vasodilatation in normal humans.

It has been shown that sustained insulin infusion causes an increase in sympathetic vasoconstrictor discharge but, despite this, also causes peripheral vasodilatation. The present study was designed to determine in healthy subjects the effect of ingestion of a carbohydrate meal, with its attendant physiological insulinaemia, on vascular resistance in and sympathetic vasoconstrictor discharge to the same vascular bed, and the relationship between these parameters. Fifteen healthy subjects were studied for 2 h following ingestion of a carbohydrate meal.

Water ingestion increases sympathetic vasoconstrictor discharge in normal human subjects.

A marked pressor response to water drinking has been observed in patients with autonomic failure and in the elderly, and has been attributed to sympathetic vasoconstrictor activation, despite the absence of such a pressor response in healthy subjects with intact sympathetic mechanisms. We investigated whether water drinking in normal subjects affected peripheral sympathetic neural discharge and its effect on vascular resistance. In nine normal human subjects, we examined the effect of water ingestion on muscle sympathetic neural activity from the peroneal nerve, as multi-unit bursts (muscle sympathetic nerve activity; MSNA) and as single-unit impulses (s-MSNA) with vasoconstrictor function, and on calf vascular resistance for 120 min.

Expression and purification of the hormone binding domain of the Drosophila ecdysone and ultraspiracle receptors.

Escherichia coli vectors were constructed for the production of a protein complex that mimics the native ecdysone receptor (EcR) isolated from Drosophila. The two steroid receptors, ultraspiracle (USP) and EcR, were expressed as truncations, retaining primarily the hormone binding domains. The recombinant receptor complex was able to mimic the pharmacology of the native receptor with respect to both synthetic and natural agonists.