Recently revised public health guidelines acknowledge the health benefits of regular intermittent bouts of vigorous intensity incidental physical activity done as part of daily living, such as carrying shopping bags, walking uphill, and stair climbing. Despite this recognition and the advantages such lifestyle physical activity has over continuous vigorous intensity structured exercise, a scopi...

Imbalances in redox homeostasis can result in oxidative stress, which is implicated in various pathological conditions including the fatal neuromuscular disease Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD). DMD is a complicated disease, with many druggable targets at the cellular and molecular level including calcium-mediated muscle degeneration; mitochondrial dysfunction; oxidative stress; inflammation; ...

Predicting the effect of missense variations on protein stability and dynamics is important for understanding their role in diseases, and the link between protein structure and function. Approaches to estimate these changes have been proposed, but most only consider single-point missense variants and a static state of the protein, with those that incorporate dynamics are computationally expensi...

Despite advances in medical and interventional management of acute myocardial infarction, treatment of the associated chest pain has remained relatively unchanged since opioids were first utilized in the 1930's. This dominance can be partially attributed to initial studies suggesting hemodynamic benefits with opioid treatment. However, delayed gastrointestinal absorption of P2Y inhibitors due t...

Fatigue is among the most prevalent symptoms for people with multiple sclerosis (pwMS) and is significantly detrimental to mental health-related (mental) quality of life (QoL). We examined the role of depression and physical activity as mediators in the fatigue-QoL relationship in pwMS.Using baseline cross-sectional data from an international cohort of 2,104 pwMS, characteristics of fatigue and...

Sleep loss has emerged as a risk factor for the development of impaired glucose tolerance. The mechanisms underpinning this observation are unknown; however, both mitochondrial dysfunction and circadian misalignment have been proposed. Because exercise improves glucose tolerance and mitochondrial function, and alters circadian rhythms, we investigated whether exercise may counteract the effects...

Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) contain >200 nucleotides and act as regulatory molecules in transcription and translation processes in both normal and pathological conditions. LncRNAs have been reported to localize in nuclei, cytoplasm, and, more recently, extracellular vesicles such as exosomes. Exosomal lncRNAs have gained much attention as exosomes secreted from one cell type can transfer thei...

Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are membrane-enclosed vesicles released by cells. They carry proteins, nucleic acids, and metabolites which can be transferred to a recipient cell, locally or at a distance, to elicit a functional response. Since their discovery over 30 years ago, the functional repertoire of EVs in both physiological (e.g., organ morphogenesis, embryo implantation) and pathological...

Cancer cells secrete membranous extracellular vesicles (EVs) which contain specific oncogenic molecular cargo (including oncoproteins, oncopeptides, and RNA) into their microenvironment and the circulation. As such, EVs including exosomes (small EVs) and microvesicles (large EVs) represent important circulating biomarkers for various diseases, including cancer and its progression. These circula...

This study sought to identify the factors associated with incident atrial fibrillation (AF) in a well-characterized heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) population, with special focus on left atrial (LA) strain.AF is associated with HFpEF, with adverse consequences. Effective risk evaluation might allow the initiation of protective strategies.Clinical evaluation and echocardio...

This study demonstrates a novel data-driven method of summarising accelerometer data to profile physical activity in three diverse groups, compared with cut-point determined moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). GGIR was used to generate average daily acceleration, intensity gradient, time in MVPA and MX metrics (acceleration above which the most active X-minutes accumulate) from wrist...

To pilot a multicomponent intervention to sit less and move more, with (SLAMM+) and without (SLAMM) height-adjustable workstations, in contact center call agents.Agents were individually randomized to SLAMM or SLAMM+ in this 10-month, parallel, open-label, pilot trial. Mixed-methods assessed response, recruitment, retention, attrition and completion rates, adverse effects, trial feasibility and...

Night-time blood pressure (BP) is an important predictor of cardiovascular outcomes. Its assessment, however, remains challenging due to limited accessibility to ambulatory BP devices in many settings, costs, and other factors. We hypothesized that BP measured in a supine position during daytime may perform similarly to night-time BP when modeling their association with vascular hypertension-me...

Maternal glycaemia promotes fetal adiposity. Inositol, an insulin sensitizer, has been trialled for gestational diabetes prevention. The placenta has been implicated in how maternal hyperglycaemia generates fetal pathophysiology, but no studies have examined whether placental inositol biology is altered with maternal hyperglycaemia, nor whether such alterations impact fetal physiology. We aimed...

Spontaneous coronary artery dissection (SCAD) is an uncommon, non-iatrogenic, non-atherosclerotic cause of acute coronary syndrome. A lack of large prospective cohort studies and randomised controlled trials means that important questions about clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients with SCAD are yet to be fully answered.A literature search of PUBMED, EMBASE and SCOPUS was undertaken...

Women at increased surgical risk have been shown to have better outcomes with transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) as compared to surgical valve replacement (SAVR). With the scope of TAVI moving into low-surgical risk patients, we aimed to update the current literature to include the new low-risk randomised controlled trial (RCT) data in investigating outcomes by sex.We systematically...

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the leading cause of mortality in Australian women. We identified gender differences in healthy lifestyle adherence in patients treated with percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for CAD.Consecutive patients were prospectively recruited from three Australian institutions (2016-2017). The primary endpoint at 1 year follow-up was healthy lifestyle adherence def...

Women who experience vascular complications of pregnancy, including pre-eclampsia, hypertension and diabetes, are at increased risk of coronary artery disease (CAD). Yet patients and their medical providers have low awareness of the significance of these 'non-traditional' cardiovascular risk factors. We aimed to determine the prevalence and medical provider awareness of pregnancy-related cardio...