Relationship Between Caffeine Consumption and Young Athletes' Comorbidities, Exercise-Related Symptoms, and Baseline Electrocardiogram.

Background: Caffeine consumption causes diverse physiologic effects that can affect athletes both positively and negatively. There is a lack of research investigating the long-term effects of caffeine intake on exercise and on overall cardiovascular health in young athletes.

Hypothesis: Certain characteristics such as age, body mass index (BMI), race, and medical diagnoses are associated with increased caffeine use, and there is a relationship between caffeine consumption and symptoms during exercise and cardiovascular abnormalities in young athletes.

PCI for acute myocardial infarction in patients with a pre-existing LVAD, does it improve survival?

Background: It is well established that percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a life-saving procedure for acute myocardial infarction (AMI) in the general population and is guideline-recommended for both STEMI and NSTEMI. There is little literature regarding its use in patients with a pre-implanted Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD).

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) Database to select all US adult patients (>18 years) with an LVAD diagnosed with an AMI divided into two groups; those who received PCI during the hospitalization and those who did not.

Data supporting characterization of CLIC1, CLIC4, CLIC5 and DmCLIC antibodies and localization of CLICs in endoplasmic reticulum of cardiomyocytes.

Chloride intracellular channel (CLICs) proteins show 60-70% sequence identity to each other, and exclusively localize to the intracellular organelle membranes and cytosol. In support of our recent publication, "Molecular identity of cardiac mitochondrial chloride intracellular channel proteins" (Ponnalagu et al., 2016) [1], it was important to characterize the specificity of different CLIC paralogs/ortholog (CLIC1, CLIC4, CLIC5 and DmCLIC) antibodies used to decipher their localization in cardiac cells.

Molecular identity of cardiac mitochondrial chloride intracellular channel proteins.

Emerging evidences demonstrate significance of chloride channels in cardiac function and cardioprotection from ischemia-reperfusion (IR) injury. Unlike mitochondrial potassium channels sensitive to calcium (BKCa) and ATP (KATP), molecular identity of majority of cardiac mitochondrial chloride channels located at the inner membrane is not known. In this study, we report the presence of unique dimorphic chloride intracellular channel (CLIC) proteins namely CLIC1, CLIC4 and CLIC5 as abundant CLICs in the rodent heart.