Assessing the Impact of a Shinrin-Yoku (Forest Bathing) Intervention on Physician/Healthcare Professional Burnout: A Randomized, Controlled Trial.

Professional healthcare worker burnout is a crisis in the United States healthcare system. This crisis can be viewed at any level, from the national to local communities, but ultimately, must be understood at the level of the individual who is caring for patients. Thus, interventions to reduce burnout symptoms must prioritize the mental health of these individuals by alleviating some of the symptoms of depression, grief, and anxiety that accompany burnout.

Muscle-Specific Deletion of Toll-like Receptor 4 Impairs Metabolic Adaptation to Wheel Running in Mice.

Purpose: Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) is an inflammatory receptor expressed ubiquitously in immune cells as well as skeletal muscle and other metabolic tissues. Skeletal muscle develops favorable inflammation-mediated metabolic adaptations from exercise training. Multiple inflammatory myokines, downstream from TLR4, are proposed links to the metabolic benefits of exercise.

Probiotic supplementation attenuates increases in body mass and fat mass during high-fat diet in healthy young adults.

Objective: The objective was to determine the effects of the probiotic, VSL#3, on body and fat mass, insulin sensitivity, and skeletal muscle substrate oxidation following 4 weeks of a high-fat diet.

Methods: Twenty non-obese males (18-30 years) participated in the study. Following a 2-week eucaloric control diet, participants underwent dual X-ray absorptiometry to determine body composition, an intravenous glucose tolerance test to determine insulin sensitivity, and a skeletal muscle biopsy for measurement of in vitro substrate oxidation.

Selective overexpression of Toll-like receptor-4 in skeletal muscle impairs metabolic adaptation to high-fat feeding.

Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR-4) is elevated in skeletal muscle of obese humans, and data from our laboratory have shown that activation of TLR-4 in skeletal muscle via LPS results in decreased fatty acid oxidation (FAO). The purpose of this study was to determine whether overexpression of TLR-4 in skeletal muscle alters mitochondrial function and whole body metabolism in the context of a chow and high-fat diet. C57BL/6J mice (males, 6-8 mo of age) with skeletal muscle-specific overexpression of the TLR-4 (mTLR-4) gene were created and used for this study.

Breast cancer prevention in community clinics: will low-income Latina patients participate in clinical trials?

Background: Latinas have low rates of participation in breast cancer prevention trials. We evaluated the feasibility and effectiveness of a randomized trial of brief counseling and print materials compared to print materials alone to increase intent to participate in a breast cancer prevention trial.

Methods: We enrolled 450 women Spanish-speaking women from three urban community primary care clinics.