Internal and emergency medicine
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Cigarette smoking contributes to reduced cardiorespiratory performance, which may improve upon cessation. Consequently, former smokers' cardiorespiratory fitness should not be significantly different from that of never-smokers. This study aims to compare V̇O2max values among current, former, and never smokers and assess the repeatability of measurements using the Chester Step Test (CST). ⋯ No significant differences were observed between never-smokers and former smokers. V̇O2max estimates by CST were reproducible and showed that the aerobic capacity of individuals who smoke is substantially inferior compared to never and former smokers. Improvement in cardiorespiratory performance following smoking cessation may have important implications for smoking cessation, especially for those smokers who perceive enhanced physical performance as a tangible benefit.
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The prevalence of obesity and diabetes, risk factors for atherosclerotic vascular diseases, is increasing worldwide; therefore, it is desirable to early identify them to reduce cardiovascular events. Thus, we investigated whether the triglyceride-glucose index (TyG index), a new marker of insulin resistance, is associated with incident diabetes in patients with newly diagnosed arterial hypertension. We selected 585 patients with newly diagnosed arterial hypertension referred to our tertiary Clinic of Catanzaro University Hospital for the evaluation of their cardiometabolic risk profile. ⋯ The best estimated cut-off value of TyG index in predicting diabetes was 4.71. In addition, we documented a significant relationship between TyG index and HOMA (r = 0.575; p < 0.0001). Present data demonstrate that TyG index, a simple and cost-effective marker of insulin resistance, is useful in predicting incident diabetes in patients with arterial hypertension.