As people age, they spend more time in and around their domestic environments, within which opportunities for health-enhancing physical activity (PA) may be limited. We examined the associations of frequency of excursions from home with accelerometer-determined PA and the total and prolonged sedentary behavior (SB, sitting for ≥30 min) among community-dwelling older adults.Overall, 434 older ad...

Horizontal gene transfer contributes to bacterial evolution through mobilising genes across various taxonomical boundaries. It is frequently mediated by mobile genetic elements (MGEs), which may capture, maintain, and rearrange mobile genes and co-mobilise them between bacteria, causing horizontal gene co-transfer (HGcoT). This physical linkage between mobile genes poses a great threat to publi...

Elevated neutrophil count is associated with higher risk of major adverse cardiac events including myocardial infarction and early development of heart failure. Neutrophils contribute to cardiac damage through a number of mechanisms, including attraction of other immune cells and release of inflammatory mediators. Recently, a number of independent studies have reported a causal role for neutrop...

Brown adipose tissue (BAT) activation is a possible therapeutic strategy to increase energy expenditure and improve metabolic homeostasis in obesity. Recent studies have revealed novel interactions between BAT and circulating lipid species-in particular, the non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA) and oxylipin lipid classes. This study aimed to identify individual lipid species that may be associated ...

Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) cause about 1/3 of global deaths. Therefore, new strategies for the prevention and treatment of cardiovascular events are highly sought-after. Vitamin E is known for significant antioxidative and anti-inflammatory properties, and has been studied in the prevention of CVD, supported by findings that vitamin E deficiency is associated with increased risk of cardiovas...

Generation of tunable harmonic flows at low cost in microfluidic systems is a persistent and significant obstacle to this field, substantially limiting its potential to address major scientific questions and applications. This work introduces a simple and elegant way to overcome this obstacle. Harmonic flow patterns can be generated in microfluidic structures by simply oscillating the inlet tub...

There is increasing evidence of the influence of the gut microbiota on hypertension and its complications, such as chronic kidney disease, stroke, heart failure, and myocardial infarction. This is not surprising considering that the most common risk factors for hypertension, such as age, sex, medication, and diet, can also impact the gut microbiota. For example, sodium and fermentable fiber hav...

Hypertension confers a poor prognosis in moderate or severe aortic stenosis (AS), however, antihypertensive therapy (AHT) is often not prescribed due to the perceived deleterious effects of vasodilation and negative inotropes.To assess the efficacy and safety outcomes of AHT in adults with moderate or severe AS.Systematic review and meta-analysis.The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Tria...

To evaluate whether educating junior doctors and hospital pharmacists about analgesic prescribing improved discharge prescribing of opioids for opioid-naïve patients after surgical admissions.Cluster randomised controlled trial, undertaken during the first half of 2019.The Alfred Hospital, a major Melbourne teaching hospital with 13 surgical units.Opioid-naïve patients discharged from surgical ...

: Multiple pharmacologic strategies are currently available to lower blood pressure (BP). Renin-angiotensin system (RAS)-inhibitors, calcium channel blockers and diuretics are widely recommended as first line therapies. Sympathetic activation is an important contributor to BP elevation but remains unopposed or is even increased by some of these drug classes. Selective imidazoline receptor agoni...

What are the perceived long-term impacts of major trauma on physical activity participation over time? What factors influence physical activity participation in people recovering from major trauma?Longitudinal qualitative study.Sixty-six people aged ≥ 16 years with non-neurological major trauma.Participants were interviewed 3 years (n = 66), 4 years (n = 63) and 5 years (n = 57) after their inj...

Seizure-induced cardiorespiratory and autonomic dysfunction has long been recognized, and growing evidence points to its implication in sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). However, a comprehensive understanding of cardiorespiratory function in the preictal, ictal, and postictal periods are lacking.We examined continuous cardiorespiratory and autonomic function in 157 seizures (18 convu...

Inequities for women exist across many leverage points of an academic career in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) disciplines, ranging from poorer success rates at promotion, reduced grant success, and a lower likelihood of invited conference presentations, to a propensity to undertake the lion's share of academic service roles. Moreover, an almost intractable ...

The potential relationship between perceived cognitive impairment (PCI) and sexual dysfunction in multiple sclerosis (MS) has not been studied.To explore the relationship between cognitive impairment and sexual dysfunction over 2.5 years in people with MS.Data were derived from the Health Outcomes and Lifestyle In a Sample of people with Multiple sclerosis (HOLISM) international cohort over 2.5...

To determine whether combined exercise training with an energy-restricted diet leads to improved physical fitness and body composition when compared to energy restriction alone in free-living premenopausal women with clinically severe obesity.Sixty premenopausal women (BMI of 40.4 ± 6.7) were randomised to energy restriction only (ER) or to exercise plus energy restriction (EXER) for 12 months....

Development of new potent, safe drugs to treat Mycobacteria has proven to be challenging, with limited hit rates of initial screens restricting subsequent development efforts. Despite significant efforts and the evolution of quantitative structure-activity relationship as well as machine learning-based models for computationally predicting molecule bioactivity, there is an unmet need for effici...

To assess the predictive value of the Australian absolute cardiovascular disease risk (ACVDR) calculator and other assessment tools for identifying Australians with family histories of early onset coronary artery disease (CAD) who have coronary artery calcification.People without known CAD were recruited at seven Australian hospitals, October 2016 - January 2019. Participants were aged 40-70 ye...

The coronavirus 2019 disease (COVID-19) pandemic is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Pre-existing cardiovascular disease (CVD) increases the morbidity and mortality of COVID-19, and COVID-19 itself causes serious cardiac sequelae. Strategies to minimise the risk of viral transmission to health care workers and uninfected cardiac patients while prioritising...

May Measurement Month (MMM), originally initiated as a temporary solution to address the lack of blood pressure (BP) screening programs worldwide, emerged as an effective annual campaign to increase the awareness of hypertension. MMM18, a cross-sectional survey of volunteers aged ≥18 years was carried out during May 2018 predominantly in capital cities across Australia following the standard MM...

Endocardial-epicardial dissociation and focal breakthroughs in humans with atrial fibrillation (AF) have been recently demonstrated using activation mapping of short 10-second AF segments. In the current study, we used simultaneous endo-epi phase mapping to characterize endo-epi activation patterns on long segments of human persistent AF.Simultaneous intraoperative mapping of endo- and epicardi...