Jacqueline I. Perticone, B.S.Loss of muscle mass with advancing age, disease or lifestyle has a profound influence on healthcare and society. Our laboratory uses hindlimb suspension in rodents to better understand loss of muscle mass occurring with disuse in an effort to design specific interventions that may be suitable to maintain muscle health and function in a number of populations. It is well-known that loss of muscle mass with reduced activity results from a slowdown in the muscle’s ...

Jeffrey Hord, B.S.Our bodies attempt to maintain a constant internal environment but achieving this consistency can be made much more difficult when we alter our external environment, such as going from walking upright to being bedridden for five days in the hospital. This change in the external environment alters the load on skeletal muscle fibers and will result in an altered internal environment. Increased levels of oxidative stress in the muscle eventually lead to muscle loss. In a rodent mo...

Kaleigh Camp, M.S.What is “reduced energy availability”? “Energy availability” refers to the post-exercise energy that can be used for metabolic processes (energy intake minus exercise energy expenditure). Reduced energy availability can actually approach deficit due to a low caloric intake, a vigorous exercise regimen, or both.  The condition is often but not necessarily associated with eating disorders, with inherently higher risk for female athletes. The relations...

Yang Lee, M.S.It has been reported that heart failure is the one of the leading cause of hospitalization for patients especially in the over-65 years aged population. Huge amounts of evidence indicate that impairment of myocardial structure and function through aging contribute to the development of heart failure. Age-related cardiac impairment is associated with left ventricular hypertrophy (increased cardiac cell size) and fibrosis (deposition of collagen) which induce diastolic dysfunction an...

Majid Koozehchian, M.S.In recent years, strength training with unconventional objects has become popular (1). One unconventional method that has gained recognition by elite athletes is adding chains to the end of conventional barbells. There are many claims that this type of training can improve strength and power above those achieved by traditional free weights (2). In addition, chain-loaded resistance training is also believed to reduce joint stress resistance training during exercises such as...

Seung Kim, M.S.Do you exercise regularly? If so, what benefits do you expect from exercise? Ever wonder whether you’re exercising in appropriate ways? Except for few people who are addicted to exercise, the main reason most people spend time and money for exercise is to maintain/improve their health. In general, the benefits of exercise include health-related risk factor reduction, anti-aging effects, prevention/improvement of disease, etc.However, there are things to carefully consider re...

Josh Avila, M.S.People like to place the blame on their genes for their lack of Herculean strength or Olympic endurance. But is this really fair? Do our genes actually have an effect on our ability to exercise?Improvements in cardio-respiratory fitness made by increasing levels of physical activity have been shown to reduce the level of all-cause mortality regardless of baseline fitness levels. Research has shown that both initial exercise capacity and the response to exercise training are highl...

Divya Talwar, BDS, MPHIn late summer, 2013, Hollywood actress Angelina Jolie, accompanied by her partner Brad Pitt, revealed at a press conference that she underwent a preventive double mastectomy due to a “faulty gene”. The “faulty gene” that led to Jolie’s difficult decision was the BRCA1 gene, and the preventive procedure reduced the risk of breast cancer from 87% to just 5%. Jolie could have kept the decision private; instead, she chose to share this news with t...

Vincent C.W. Chen, B.S.When eating less to reduce weight, it is hard not to lose some muscle mass. During dieting, the body struggles to keep sufficient energy stores, and therefore, it will break down muscle proteins to satisfy energy needs. While the basic equation for muscle mass is rate of protein synthesis subtracted rate of protein breakdown, decrease in muscle size will be observed if muscle protein breakdown is not prevented while on a calorie-deficit diet.It has been well established th...

John Seawright, B.S.“Do not go gentle into that good night.  Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.” Dylan Thomas penned these anguished words as his once strong and youthful father lay aged, blind, and dying; words which paint an agonizing depiction of humanity’s struggle against and defiance of death.In today’s world, the endless rebellion against suffering and death is continued with a bellicose campaign against cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of dea...