Publications by authors named "Mary Norris"

Article Synopsis
  • A study called the THRIVE trial is looking at how exercise can help Hispanic/Latinx and Black cancer patients who are getting chemotherapy and might not be very active.
  • The trial includes 45 patients who are split into three groups: one gets supervised exercise at home, another exercises on their own, and the last group does stretching exercises.
  • Researchers will check how much exercise the patients do and other health factors before, during, and after the 16-week program to see what works best.
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Background: Skeletal muscle loss is prevalent throughout the cancer continuum and correlated with morbidity and mortality. Resistance exercise has been trialed to mitigate skeletal muscle loss. This systematic review summarizes and qualitatively synthesizes the effects of resistance exercise on muscle-related outcomes in adult cancer populations, including skeletal muscle mass, performance and muscle-related biomarkers.

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Background: More than 75% of patients with breast cancer treated with chemotherapy experience cognitive impairments (eg, memory and attention problems), commonly known as chemo-brain. Exercise, especially aerobic high-intensity interval training (HIIT), is associated with better cognitive function in healthy populations. However, clinical trials testing the impact of exercise interventions on chemotherapy-induced cognitive decline in patients with cancer are lacking, and the mechanisms through which exercise could improve cognitive function are unclear.

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The decidua undergoes proinflammatory activation in late pregnancy, promoting labor. Bromodomain and Extra-Terminal (BET) family proteins interact with acetylated histones and may control gene expression in inflammation. Here, we assessed whether BETs are involved in inflammatory gene regulation in human decidual cells.

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Introduction: Anthracycline chemotherapy is a frequent treatment for breast cancer, whereas it can increase risk of physiologic side-effects, such as metabolic syndrome (MetS). Exercise has been used as a non-pharmacological strategy to decrease MetS. Specifically, high-intensity interval training (HIIT) has been shown to improve MetS in patients with diabetes or cardiac rehabilitation patients; however, the effects of HIIT on MetS and associated biomarkers in patients with breast cancer receiving anthracycline chemotherapy have not been previously explored.

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Background: Symptom burden and adverse treatment effects can negatively impact physical function, health-related outcomes, and quality of life in cancer survivors. Resistive exercise that improves skeletal muscle function can ameliorate these complications, but the central role of the skeletal muscle in mediating improvements in patient-related outcomes has not been explored. This protocol describes the rationale and methods for a systematic review that aims to determine the effects of resistive exercise on the skeletal muscle hypertrophy, muscle performance, and muscle-related biomarkers in cancer survivors.

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Background: Obesity is a significant contributor to breast cancer recurrence and mortality. A central mechanism by which obesity stimulates cancer progression is through chronic, low-grade inflammation in adipose tissue. Exercise interventions to target chronic inflammation has a potential to improve obesity- and breast cancer-related outcomes; however, no studies have investigated the roles of exercise in modulating adipose tissue inflammation in breast cancer survivors.

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Background: Latina and Hispanic breast cancer survivors (LHBCS) are at increased risk for long-term complications and poorer metabolic health, including metabolic dysregulation (MetD) before and following breast cancer diagnosis. MetD can increase risk of cancer recurrence, death, and comorbid conditions by increasing inflammation and cancer cell proliferation. While exercise improves physical fitness and metabolic outcomes in breast cancer survivors, there is a lack of studies including underrepresented and disadvantaged minority groups such as LHBCS.

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MOTS-c is a mitochondrial derived peptide with exercise mimetic activity that elicits beneficial effects on metabolism and exercise capacity. Furthermore, MOTS-c effects in humans are affected by race, potentially via ethnic-specific mtDNA variations. Women treated for breast cancer are at an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity, due to side effects of cancer-treatments.

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Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of an 8-week HIIT intervention on patient-reported outcomes and physical function in breast cancer patients undergoing anthracycline-based chemotherapy.

Methods: Thirty breast cancer patients were recruited prior to initiating treatment and randomized into the HIIT group (n = 15) or control (CON) group (n = 15). The HIIT group attended HIIT sessions three days per week for eight weeks.

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Study Objectives: Poor sleep quality affects nearly one-third of breast cancer survivors and is associated with insulin resistance. The purpose of this secondary analysis was to examine the effects of a 16-week exercise intervention on patient-reported sleep quality among breast cancer survivors and assess whether changes in patient-reported sleep quality were associated with cardiometabolic biomarkers. We explored Hispanic ethnicity as a moderator of the effects of exercise on patient-reported sleep quality.

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Background: Breast cancer survivors have double the risk of mortality from cardiovascular disease than age-matched women without a cancer history. Reynolds risk score (RRS) is a validated algorithm for the assessment of cardiovascular disease risk. This secondary analysis sought to examine the effects of a 16-week aerobic and resistance exercise intervention on RRS in overweight or obese breast cancer survivors.

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Atrial fibrillation, the most common cardiac arrhythmia, is an important contributor to mortality and morbidity, and particularly to the risk of stroke in humans. Atrial-tissue fibrosis is a central pathophysiological feature of atrial fibrillation that also hampers its treatment; the underlying molecular mechanisms are poorly understood and warrant investigation given the inadequacy of present therapies. Here we show that calcitonin, a hormone product of the thyroid gland involved in bone metabolism, is also produced by atrial cardiomyocytes in substantial quantities and acts as a paracrine signal that affects neighbouring collagen-producing fibroblasts to control their proliferation and secretion of extracellular matrix proteins.

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Purpose Of Review: This review summarizes the effects of prehabilitative exercise interventions on the physical, psychosocial, and biological outcomes among patients with cancer. Current gaps and future directions in prehabilitative exercise research will be addressed.

Recent Findings: Prehabilitative exercise mitigates the detrimental impact of cancer surgery on physical fitness, noted by increases in maximal oxygen consumption and 6-min walk distance.

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Purpose: Few randomized controlled trials in exercise oncology have examined survival outcomes. Here, we report an exploratory follow-up of progression-free survival (PFS) from the Healthy Exercise for Lymphoma Patients (HELP) Trial.

Methods: The HELP Trial randomized 122 lymphoma patients between 2005 and 2008 to either control (n = 62) or 12 weeks of supervised aerobic exercise (n = 60).

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Corticotropin Releasing Hormone (CRH), a 41-amino acid peptide, is a major regulator of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis function. CRH also has important roles in several processes pertaining to pregnancy and parturition, including being a possible regulator of gestational length and predictor of pre-term birth. Regulation of the CRH promoter exhibits some tissue-specificities, the most well characterized example being glucocorticoids, which can stimulate placental CRH production but suppress hypothalamic CRH.

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