Introduction: Leptin and ghrelin are two hormones that play a role in weight homeostasis. Leptin, which is produced primarily by adipocytes and is dependent on body fat mass, suppresses appetite and increases energy expenditure. Conversely, ghrelin is the "hunger hormone", it stimulates appetite and promotes fat storage.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) is essential in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. High-intensity interval training (HIIT) has emerged as a promising exercise intervention for enhancing clinical outcomes in cardiac patients. This study aimed to investigate the effects of two short-term exercise-based programs employing HIIT and moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) in comparison to a control group concerning blood pressure, body composition, and blood biomarkers in patients diagnosed with coronary artery disease (CAD).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis international cross-sectional survey examined the potential role of organizational psychological support in mitigating the association between experiencing social discrimination against long-term care (LTC) facilities' healthcare professionals (HCPs) and their intention to stay in the current workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants included a convenience sample of 2,143 HCPs (nurses [21.5 %], nurse aids or residential care workers [40.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFStudies have shown that the higher the aerobic capacity, the lower the risk of cardiovascular mortality and morbidity. In the case of cardiac patients, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) seems to be more effective than moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) in improving aerobic capacity. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of two community-based exercise programs using two short-term protocols (HIIT and MICT) on physical fitness and physical activity (PA) levels in coronary artery disease (CAD) patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAims: To (i) assess the adherence of long-term care (LTC) facilities to the COVID-19 prevention and control recommendations, (ii) identify predictors of this adherence and (iii) examine the association between the adherence level and the impact of the pandemic on selected unfavourable conditions.
Design: Cross-sectional survey.
Methods: Managers (n = 212) and staff (n = 2143) of LTC facilities (n = 223) in 13 countries/regions (Brazil, Egypt, England, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Norway, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Spain, Thailand and Turkey) evaluated the adherence of LTC facilities to COVID-19 prevention and control recommendations and the impact of the pandemic on unfavourable conditions related to staff, residents and residents' families.
Severe obesity is a chronic disease and bariatric surgery is the treatment with more proven efficacy in reducing weight. After surgery, the weight loss is greatly associated with a significant reduction of skeletal muscle and bone mineral mass, with an increased risk of sarcopenia for these patients. Prophylactic programs that prevent sarcopenia in bariatric surgery patients seems to be one of the crucial points for the long-term surgical success of bariatric and metabolic surgery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBariatric surgery is the treatment for severe obesity, with proven efficacy in reducing weight. Weight loss associated with bariatric surgery is greatly associated with a significant reduction of skeletal muscle and bone mineral mass, which leads us to induce that after bariatric surgery, patients incur an increased risk of sarcopenia. Prophylactic programs that prevent sarcopenia in bariatric surgery patients seems to be one of the crucial points for the long-term surgical success of bariatric and metabolic surgery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCardiovascular diseases (CVD) are the leading cause of death globally. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) programs' benefits are overall consensual; however, during exercise, progressive physiological effects have not been studied yet in cardiac patients. Our study aims to analyze physiological parameters of thermography, heart rate variability (HRV), blood pressure, central nervous system (CNS) fatigue, and cortical arousal in heart attack patients (HAP) who belong to CR programs of High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and Moderate-intensity Continuous Training (MICT) compared to healthy participants.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Bariatric surgery is one of the treatments for severe obesity, with proven efficacy in reducing weight and diseases associated with obesity. Weight loss associated with bariatric surgery is greatly associated with a significant reduction of skeletal muscle and bone mineral mass, which leads us to induce that after bariatric surgery, patients incur an increased risk of sarcopenia. The need for prophylactic programs that prevent sarcopenia in bariatric surgery patients seems to be one of the crucial points for the long-term surgical success of bariatric and metabolic surgery.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: There is great interest in the search for new alternatives to antimicrobial drugs, and the use of synbiotics is a promising approach to this problem. This study evaluated the growth inhibition and antibiofilm activity of the short-chain fatty acids produced by and in combination with inulin-type fructans against .
Methods: The growth inhibition of was evaluated using microdilution analysis in 96-well microtiter plates; different concentrations of cell-free supernatants of and were exposed to .
Quantifying and analyzing excess mortality in crises such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is crucial for policymakers. Traditional measures fail to take into account differences in the level, long-term secular trends, and seasonal patterns in all-cause mortality across countries and regions. This paper develops and empirically investigates the forecasting performance of a novel, flexible and dynamic ensemble learning with a model selection strategy (DELMS) for the seasonal time series forecasting of monthly respiratory disease death data across a pool of 61 heterogeneous countries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study aimed to design a dynamic performance-exposure algorithm for falling risk assessment and prevention of falls in community-dwelling older adults. It involved a cross-sectional and follow-up survey assessing retrospective and prospective falls and respective performance-related, exposure and performance-exposure risk factors. In total, 500 Portuguese community-dwelling adults participated.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Falls are associated with cognitive and physical function deterioration. Attention decline, inaccurate affordance perception, and balance impairment are considered to be risk factors for falls. Furthermore, few studies have reported psychomotor intervention as a fall prevention program.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis 24-week randomized controlled trial study evaluated the effects of two interactive cognitive−motor programs on body composition, lower-body strength, and processing speed in community dwellings at risk of falling. Forty-eight participants (75.0 ± 5.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Mental disorders are highly prevalent in older people, being depression a predominant disorder. Evidence points to a possible relationship between depression and violence against older people. Nonetheless, the role of the depressive symptomology severity in the risk of violence against older people remains unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Multimodal forms of exercise can influence several physical and mental factors important for successful aging. In the present study, we introduce a new type of multimodal intervention, combining movement (creative dance) with traditional singing. This study aims to compare physical fitness, functional physical independence, depressive symptoms, general cognitive status, and daytime sleepiness among older adults participating in multimodal exercise, those participating in traditional physical exercise, and those not actively engaged in physical exercise.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Falls and violence against older people might represent a joint public health problem, as both may result in injury, fear, social isolation, sedentary behavior and dependence or even death. The ESACA project "Aging safely in Alentejo - Understanding for action" was designed to promote the healthy aging of older people in Alentejo by preventing the occurrence of falls and violence. This study aimed to report the ESACA protocol and the preliminary outcomes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Fall risk assessment and determination of older adults' individual risk profiles are crucial elements in fall prevention. As such, it is essential to establish cutoffs and reference values for high and low risk according to key risk factor outcomes. This study main objective was to determine the key physical fitness, body composition, physical activity, health condition and environmental hazard risk outcome cutoffs and interval reference values for stratified fall risk assessment in community-dwelling older adults.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Fall risk assessment in older people is of major importance for providing adequate preventive measures. Current predictive models are mainly focused on intrinsic risk factors and do not adjust for contextual exposure. The validity and utility of continuous risk scores have already been demonstrated in clinical practice in several diseases.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Falls in older adults are considered a major public health problem. Declines in cognitive and physical functions, as measured by parameters including reaction time, mobility, and dual-task performance, have been reported to be important risk factors for falls. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of two multimodal programs on reaction time, mobility, and dual-task performance in community-dwelling older adults at risk of falling.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
June 2021
Relative age is a phenomenon broadly studied in sport sciences. Youth sports participants born earlier in the selection year tend to present a maturational advantage over their peers. As it is also dependent on physical performance, older physical education students may also benefit from this effect in this school subject.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFParticipating longevity-linked life annuities (PLLA) in which benefits are updated periodically based on the observed survival experience of a given underlying population and the performance of the investment portfolio are an alternative insurance product offering consumers individual longevity risk protection and the chance to profit from the upside potential of financial market developments. This paper builds on previous research on the design and pricing of PLLAs by considering a Bayesian Model Ensemble of single population generalised age-period-cohort stochastic mortality models in which individual forecasts are weighted by their posterior model probabilities. For the valuation, we adopt a longevity option decomposition approach with risk-neutral simulation and investigate the sensitivity of results to changes in the asset allocation by considering a more aggressive lifecycle strategy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
March 2021
Exercise-induced improvements in the VOpeak of cardiac rehabilitation participants are well documented. However, optimal exercise intensity remains doubtful. This study aimed to identify the optimal exercise intensity and program length to improve VOpeak in patients with cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) following cardiac rehabilitation.
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