(Press-News.org) Indiana University researchers found that people in their 20s already began to demonstrate arterial stiffening -- when arteries become less compliant as blood pumps through the body -- but their highly active peers did not.
The researchers made a similar discovery with middle-age men and women, finding that highly active study participants did not show the arterial stiffening that typically comes with aging, regardless of their gender or age. A reduction in compliance of the body's arteries is considered a risk factor, predictive of future cardiovascular disease, such as high blood pressure and stroke. This new study is the first to examine arterial stiffening in a young, healthy population.
"It was surprising," said Joel Stager, professor in the Department of Kinesiology in the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington. "The college-age group, which reflected the general population, already showed a difference in the health of their small arteries. Compliance of the small arteries, in particular, is seen as an effective predictor of future cardiovascular disease."
The researchers looked at compliance of large and small arteries. For the middle-aged study participants, typical stiffening was seen in both types of arteries for those who were inactive and moderately active, but not for the highly active. In the younger groups, the stiffening was seen only in the smaller arteries for the less active group.
"This indicates that the effect of exercise reported for aging populations seems to exist in young populations as well," the researchers wrote in their report. "That small artery compliance is low in the less active young population should be of general concern, as low small arterial compliance is recognized as an index of cardiovascular risk."
###
Findings from "Arterial Compliance in a Young Population" were discussed during a poster presentation on Wednesday. Co-authors are Christopher Mattson, Maleah Holland and Eric Ress, researchers at the IU School of Public Health-Bloomington. Findings from "Small and Large Arterial Stiffness and Aging in Highly Active People" also were discussed during a poster presentation on Wednesday. Co-author is Holland.
Stager can be reached at 812-855-1637 or stagerj@indiana.edu. For additional assistance, contact Tracy James at 812-855-0084 or traljame@iu.edu, Tweeting @Vitality_IU; blogging at http://viewpoints.iu.edu/health-and-vitality/
Difference in arterial health seen in highly active college-age people compared to inactive peers
2013-05-31
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
TCE exposure linked to increased risk of some cancers
2013-05-31
Trichloroethylene (TCE) exposure has possible links to increased liver cancer risk, and the relationship between TCE exposure and risks of cancers of low incidence and those with confounding by lifestyle and other factors need further study, according to a study published May 30 in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
TCE is a chlorinated dry-cleaning solvent and degreaser that has been widely used for approximately the last 100 years and has shown carcinogenicity in rodents. Previous epidemiologic studies have shown a reported increase in cancer risk in humans ...
SwRI-led team calculates the radiation exposure associated with a trip Mars
2013-05-31
Boulder, Colo. — May 30, 2013 — On November 26, 2011, the Mars Science Laboratory began a 253-day, 560-million-kilometer journey to deliver the Curiosity rover to the Red Planet. En route, the Southwest Research Institute-led Radiation Assessment Detector (RAD) made detailed measurements of the energetic particle radiation environment inside the spacecraft, providing important insights for future human missions to Mars.
"In terms of accumulated dose, it's like getting a whole-body CT scan once every five or six days," said Dr. Cary Zeitlin, a principal scientist in SwRI's ...
Cruise to Mars illuminates radiation risk to future astronauts
2013-05-31
Once the stuff of science fiction, a human mission to Mars may be becoming more feasible, and a new report in the 31 May issue of Science provides insight into the relevant radiation hazards.
Exposure to radiation has long been known to be a problem for participants in deep space missions. Because these missions can take years, they expose anything or anyone on board to high energy particles called Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs), and also to lower-energy Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs). Characterizing the radiation that spacecraft destined for Mars or other deep space ...
Human activity echoes through Brazilian rainforest
2013-05-31
This news release is available in Portuguese, French, Arabic, Japanese and Chinese.
The disappearance of large, fruit-eating birds from tropical forests in Brazil has caused the region's forest palms to produce smaller, less successful seeds over the past century, researchers say. The findings provide evidence that human activity can trigger fast-paced evolutionary changes in natural populations.
Mauro Galetti from the Universidade Estadual Paulista in São Paulo, Brazil, along with an international team of colleagues, used patches of rainforest that had been ...
Quitting smoking: Licensed medications are effective
2013-05-31
Nicotine replacement therapy and other licensed drugs can help people quit smoking, according to a new systematic review published in The Cochrane Library. The study, which is an overview of previous Cochrane reviews, supports the use of the smoking cessation medications that are already widely licensed internationally, and shows that another drug licensed in Russia could hold potential as an effective and affordable treatment.
In Europe and the US the only medications currently licensed for smoking cessation are nicotine replacement therapies (NRTs) such as nicotine ...
Probiotics prevent diarrhoea related to antibiotic use
2013-05-31
Probiotic supplements have the potential to prevent diarrhoea caused by antibiotics, according to a new Cochrane systematic review. The authors studied Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) infections in patients taking antibiotics and found symptoms of diarrhoea were substantially reduced when patients were also treated with probiotics.
Antibiotics disturb the beneficial bacteria that live in the gut and allow other harmful bacteria like C. difficile to take hold. Although some people infected with C. difficile show no symptoms, others suffer diarrhoea or colitis. The ...
Multi-national study identifies links between genetic variants and educational attainment
2013-05-31
A multi-national team of researchers has identified genetic markers that predict educational attainment by pooling data from more than 125,000 individuals in the United States, Australia, and 13 western European countries.
The study, which appears in the journal Science, was conducted by the Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC), which includes researchers at NYU, Erasmus University, Cornell University, Harvard University, the University of Bristol, and the University of Queensland, among other institutions.
The SSGAC conducted what is called a genome-wide ...
Atom by atom, bond by bond, a chemical reaction caught in the act
2013-05-31
When Felix Fischer of the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) set out to develop nanostructures made of graphene using a new, controlled approach to chemical reactions, the first result was a surprise: spectacular images of individual carbon atoms and the bonds between them.
"We weren't thinking about making beautiful images; the reactions themselves were the goal," says Fischer, a staff scientist in Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division (MSD) and a professor of chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. "But ...
Good kidney health begins before birth
2013-05-31
Researchers have found that conditions in the womb can affect kidney development and have serious health implications for the child not only immediately after birth, but decades later.
In a paper published today in The Lancet an international team, including Monash University's Professor John Bertram and the University of Queensland's Professor Wendy Hoy, reviewed existing, peer-reviewed research on kidney health and developmental programming - the effects of the in utero environment on adult health.
The accumulated evidence linked low birth weight and prematurity ...
Is enough being done to make drinking water safe?
2013-05-31
There is a lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of technologies used to reduce arsenic contamination finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal Environmental Evidence. More studies assessing the technologies themselves and how they are used in the community are needed to ensure that people have access to safe, clean water.
Arsenic is now recognised to be one of the world's greatest environmental hazards, threatening the lives of several hundred million people. Naturally occurring arsenic leaches into water from surrounding rocks and once in the water ...