Modified Application of Cardiac Rehabilitation in Older Adults (MACRO) Trial: Protocol changes in a pragmatic multi-site randomized controlled trial in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: Older adults are at higher risk for cardiovascular disease and functional decline, often leading to deterioration and dependency. Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) provides opportunity to improve clinical and functional recovery, yet participation in CR decreases with age. Modified Application of CR in Older Adults (MACRO) is a National Institute on Aging (NIA)-funded pragmatic trial that responds to this gap by aiming to increase enrollment of older adults into CR and improving functional outcomes.

Cardiac Rehabilitation and Survival for Ischemic Heart Disease.

Purpose Of Review: Cardiac rehabilitation (CR) referral is a Class I post-myocardial infarction (MI) recommendation from the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology, yet referral rates remain strikingly low, with cardiologists some of the worst under-referring offenders. This paper seeks to review the evolution of CR and its well-established benefits, as well as reasons behind the poor referral and utilization.

Recent Findings: CR is a secondary prevention program for cardiovascular disease (CVD) that was first initiated in the 1970s as a hospital-based exercise program after an acute MI, but then evolved into a comprehensive multi-disciplinary program for patients with a wider range of cardiovascular diseases.

Energy output and in vitro biologic effects of an ionic toothbrush.

Unlabelled: The Soladey™ toothbrush has a moisture-permeable titanium dioxide (TiO2) resin core in the replacement brush end of a handle activated by light conversion power cells. Purported to have an antibacterial effect and remove more plaque than an ordinary toothbrush, this study was undertaken to establish output measurements of the dry and wet TiO₂ core of the toothbrush during typical illumination of the handle, then quantify lipid peroxidation in three distinct lipid-containing solutions, and bactericidal effects in a live bacterial suspension grown from suctioned oral secretions.

Methods: Within a range of illumination of the power cells in the handle, corresponding flow of electrons emitted from dry and wetted TiO2 cores was measured.

Tamoxifen promotes differentiation of oligodendrocyte progenitors in vitro.

The most promising therapeutic approach to finding the cure for devastating demyelinating conditions is the identification of clinically safe pharmacological agents that can promote differentiation of endogenous oligodendrocyte precursor cells (OPCs). Here we show that the breast cancer medication tamoxifen (TMX), with well-documented clinical safety and confirmed beneficial effects in various models of demyelinating conditions, stimulates differentiation of rat glial progenitors to mature oligodendrocytes in vitro. Clinically applicable doses of TMX significantly increased both the number of CNPase-positive oligodendrocytes and protein levels of myelin basic protein, measured with Western blots.

Light-driven translocation of the protein phosphatase 2A complex regulates light/dark dephosphorylation of phosducin and rhodopsin.

In steps of protein purification of bovine retinal protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A), phosducin dephosphorylation activity peaks coelute with a PP2A enzyme complex, shown by peptide sequence analysis to contain a B' subunit, B56 epsilon. Other PP2A complexes with a slightly larger (56.5 kDa) B' subunit (sequenced to be B56 alpha) or with the B alpha regulatory subunit have no phosducin dephosphorylation activity.