Conclusive evidence demonstrates that the sympathetic nervous system activation is a hallmark of congestive heart failure. This has been shown via a variety of biochemical, neurophysiological, and neuroimaging approaches for studying human sympathetic neural function. The sympathetic activation appears to be an early phenomenon in the clinical course of the disease, closely related to its sever...

Most walkability indices do not capture the topological structure of urban forms. Space syntax models these topological relationships. We estimated associations between the space syntax measure of street integration and walkability (SSW) and neighborhood-specific leisure (LW) and transportation (TW) walking among 4422 Canadian adults. Street integration and SSW were found to be positively assoc...

Nearly a century ago it was reported that stimulation of the hypothalamus could evoke profound behavioral state changes coupled with altered autonomic function. Since these initial observations, further studies in animals have revealed that two hypothalamic regions-the dorsomedial and ventromedial hypothalamic nuclei-are critical for numerous behaviors, including those in response to psychologi...

Chronic disease multimorbidity has become a major challenge for health systems. While a lot of research has evaluated the direct economic burden of multimorbidity on health care utilization and cost, little attention has been given to the impacts on work productivity and functional limitations, as indirect indicators of disease burden.This study aims to examine the prevalence of multimorbidity ...

To examine associations of intensity-specific physical activity and bout-specific sedentary time with frailty status among Japanese community-dwelling older adults, taking into account the interrelationships of these behaviors.Participants were 511 community-dwelling older adults. Physical activity and sedentary time were assessed using a tri-axial accelerometer. Frailty status (frail, pre-frai...

Left atrial (LA) strain is a prognostic biomarker with utility across a spectrum of acute and chronic cardiovascular pathologies. There are limited data on intervendor differences and no data on intermodality differences for LA strain. We sought to compare the intervendor and intermodality differences between transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) derived LA s...

The incidence of atrial fibrillation (AF) is higher in patients with diabetes. The goal of this study was to assess if the addition of plasma lipids to traditional risk factors could improve the ability to detect and predict future AF in patients with type 2 diabetes. Logistic regression models were used to identify lipids associated with AF or future AF from plasma lipids ( = 316) measured fro...

Low or high sympatho-adrenal-medullary axis (SAM) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis (HPA) dysregulation reflect chronic stress. Retinal vessel dynamics may relate to SAM, HPA activity and stroke risk. Our objectives were therefore to assess the relationships between retinal vessel, SAM and HPA responses, and to determine stroke risk.A prospective bi-ethnic gender cohort ( = 275, 45 ± 9 ye...

Sedentary behaviour research is a relatively new field, much of which has emerged since the widespread acceptance of clinical trial registration. The aim of this study was to investigate the trial registration and related issues in studies investigating the effect of frequent activity interruptions to prolonged sitting-time.Secondary analysis of a scoping review including systematic searches of...

Combined catheter ablation (CA) and left atrial appendage closure (LAAC) have been proposed for management of symptomatic atrial fibrillation (AF) in patients with high stroke and bleeding risk. We assessed the cost-effectiveness of combined CA and LAAC compared with CA and standard oral anticoagulation (OAC) in symptomatic AF.A Markov model was developed to assess total costs, quality-adjusted...

Microvascular disease and rarefaction are key pathological hallmarks of hypertension. The retina uniquely allows direct, non-invasive investigation of the microvasculature. Recently developed optical coherence tomography angiography now allows investigation of the fine retinal capillaries, which may provide a superior marker of overall vascular damage. This was a prospective cross-sectional stu...

Polygenic risk scores (PRSs) can stratify populations into cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk groups. We aimed to quantify the potential advantage of adding information on PRSs to conventional risk factors in the primary prevention of CVD.Using data from UK Biobank on 306,654 individuals without a history of CVD and not on lipid-lowering treatments (mean age [SD]: 56.0 [8.0] years; females: 57%;...

The microbiome-derived metabolite trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) has attracted major interest and controversy both as a diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target in atherothrombosis.Plasma TMAO increased in mice on 'unhealthy' high-choline diets and notably also on 'healthy' high-fibre diets. Interestingly, TMAO was found to be generated by direct oxidation in the gut in addition to oxidation ...

Prior studies have described a variety of mechanisms for atrial fibrillation (AF) originating in the right atrium (RA). In this study, we report a series of patients in whom an extensive right atrial free wall low-voltage zone (LVZ) served as the AF substrate.Five patients with a clinical syndrome of paroxysmal AF and atrial tachycardia (AT) underwent electrophysiologic evaluation. Five patient...

Ubiquitination is a posttranslational protein modification that has been shown to have a range of effects, including regulation of protein function, interaction, localization, and degradation. We have previously shown that the muscle-specific ubiquitin E3 ligase, ASB2β, is downregulated in models of muscle growth and that overexpression ASB2β is sufficient to induce muscle atrophy. To gain insi...

Macrophages are pivotal in the initiation and development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. Recent studies have reinforced the importance of mitochondria in metabolic and signaling pathways to maintain macrophage effector functions. In this review, we discuss the past and emerging roles of macrophage mitochondria metabolic diversity in atherosclerosis and the potential avenue as bioma...

Long-term effects of physical activity and television (TV) viewing on mortality have been inferred from observational studies. The associations observed do not allow for inferences about the effects of population interventions and could be subject to bias due to time-varying confounding.Using data from the Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle Study, collected in 1999-2000 (T0), 2004-2005 ...