Myocardial Adaptations to Competitive Swim Training.

Purpose: Swim training is performed in the prone or supine position and obligates water immersion, factors that may augment cardiac volume loading more than other endurance sports. At present, prospective data defining the cardiac responses to swim training are lacking. We therefore studied myocardial adaptations among competitive swimmers to establish a causal relationship between swim training and left ventricular (LV) remodeling.

Blood Pressure and LV Remodeling Among American-Style Football Players.

Objectives: This study sought to determine the relationships among American-style football (ASF) participation, acquired left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy, and LV systolic function as assessed using contemporary echocardiographic parameters.

Background: Participation in ASF has been associated with development of hypertension and LV hypertrophy. To what degree these processes impact LV function is unknown.

Exercise-Induced Left Ventricular Remodeling Among Competitive Athletes: A Phasic Phenomenon.

Background: Contemporary understanding of exercise-induced cardiac remodeling is based on cross-sectional data and relatively short duration longitudinal studies. Temporal progression of exercise-induced cardiac remodeling remains incompletely understood.

Methods And Results: A longitudinal repeated-measures study design using 2-dimensional and speckle-tracking echocardiography was used to examine acute augmentation phase (AAP; 90 days) and more extended chronic maintenance phase (39 months) left ventricular (LV) structural and functional adaptations to endurance exercise training among competitive male rowers (n=12; age 18.

Ruptured Tendons in Anabolic-Androgenic Steroid Users: A Cross-Sectional Cohort Study.

Background: Accumulating case reports have described tendon rupture in men who use anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS). However, no controlled study has assessed the history of tendon rupture in a large cohort of AAS users and comparison nonusers.

Hypothesis: Men reporting long-term AAS abuse would report an elevated lifetime incidence of tendon rupture compared with non-AAS-using bodybuilders.

Endurance Exercise-Induced Cardiac Remodeling: Not All Sports Are Created Equal.

Background: The term endurance sport (ES) is broadly used to characterize any exercise that requires maintenance of high cardiac output over extended time. However, the relative amount of isotonic (volume) versus isometric (pressure) cardiac stress varies across ES disciplines. To what degree ES-mediated cardiac remodeling varies, as a function of superimposed isometric stress, is uncertain.

Cardiovascular Risk and Disease Among Masters Endurance Athletes: Insights from the Boston MASTER (Masters Athletes Survey To Evaluate Risk) Initiative.

Background: Masters athletes (MAs), people over the age of 35 that participate in competitive sports, are a rapidly growing population that may be uniquely at risk for cardiovascular (CV) disease. The objective of this study was to develop a comprehensive clinical CV profile of MA.

Methods: An electronic Internet-based survey (survey response rate = 66 %) was used to characterize a community cohort of MAs residing in Eastern Massachusetts, USA.

Myocardial adaptations to recreational marathon training among middle-aged men.

Background: Myocardial adaptations to exercise have been well documented among competitive athletes. To what degree cardiac remodeling occurs among recreational exercisers is unknown. We sought to evaluate the effect of recreational marathon training on myocardial structure and function comprehensively.

Prolonged hypogonadism in males following withdrawal from anabolic-androgenic steroids: an under-recognized problem.

Aims: To assess the frequency and severity of hypogonadal symptoms in male long-term anabolic-androgenic steroid (AAS) misusers who have discontinued AAS use.

Design: Cross-sectional, naturalistic.

Setting: Out-patient facility.

ECG findings in competitive rowers: normative data and the prevalence of abnormalities using contemporary screening recommendations.

Background/aim: The international governing body for competitive rowing recently mandated the inclusion of 12-lead ECG during preparticipation screening. We therefore sought to describe normative ECG characteristics and to examine the prevalence of abnormal ECG findings as defined by contemporary athlete ECG interpretation criteria among competitive rowers.

Methods: Competitive rowers (n=330, 56% male) underwent standard 12-lead ECG at the time of collegiate preparticipation screening.

A meta-analysis of the efficacy of laser phototherapy on pain relief.

Objective: Laser phototherapy has been widely used to relieve pain for more than 30 years, but its efficacy remains controversial. To ascertain the overall effect of phototherapy on pain, we aggregated the literature and subjected the studies to statistical meta-analysis.

Methods: Relevant original studies were gathered from every available source and coded.

A meta-analysis of the efficacy of phototherapy in tissue repair.

Objective: The effect of phototherapy on tissue repair was determined by aggregating the literature and using statistical meta-analysis to analyze pertinent studies published between 2000 and 2007.

Background Data: Phototherapy has been used for more than 40 y; however, its efficacy on tissue repair remains contentious.

Method: Related original studies were gathered from every available source.