Medicine and science in sports and exercise
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Med Sci Sports Exerc · Jun 2015
ReviewAdvances in exercise, fitness, and performance genomics in 2014.
This is the annual review of the exercise genomics literature in which we report on the highest quality papers published in 2014. We identified a number of noteworthy papers across a number of fields. In 70-89 yr olds, only 19% of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) II homozygotes exhibited significant improvement in gait speed in response to a yearlong physical activity program compared to 30% of ACE D-allele carriers. ⋯ The interaction observed with the diabetes GRS seemed to be dependent on a genetic susceptibility to insulin resistance and not insulin secretion. A significant interaction between PPARα sequence variants and physical activity levels on cardiometabolic risk was observed, with higher activity levels associated with lower risk only in carriers of specific genotypes and haplotypes. The review concludes with a discussion of the importance of replication studies when very large population or intervention discovery studies are not feasible or are cost prohibitive.
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Med Sci Sports Exerc · Jun 2015
Case ReportsAnalysis of a severe head injury in World Cup alpine skiing.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of death in alpine skiing. It has been found that helmet use can reduce the incidence of head injuries between 15% and 60%. However, knowledge on optimal helmet performance criteria in World Cup alpine skiing is currently limited owing to the lack of biomechanical data from real crash situations. ⋯ A unique combination of high-definition video footage and accurate measurements of landmarks in the slope made possible a high-quality analysis of head impact velocity in a severe TBI case. The estimates can provide crucial information on how to prevent TBI through helmet performance criteria and design.
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Med Sci Sports Exerc · Jun 2015
Older firefighters are susceptible to age-related impairments in heat dissipation.
The aging-induced reduction in whole-body heat loss (HL) capacity generates concerns regarding the continued participation of older workers in occupations such as firefighting. We compared HL and change in body heat storage (S) during intermittent exercise in warm/dry and warm/humid conditions among older male firefighters (OLDER, n = 9, age = 54.7 ± 2.1 yr), older (age-matched) nonfirefighters (NON-FF, n = 9, age = 52.8 ± 1.2 yr), and young firefighters (YOUNG, n = 6, age = 26.7 ± 0.8 yr). ⋯ Older firefighters and age-matched nonfirefighters demonstrate similar HL and S during work in the heat. Moreover, HL is significantly reduced in older compared to younger firefighters during exercise in both warm/dry and warm/humid conditions. Consequently, older firefighters may be more susceptible to thermal injury while on duty than their younger counterparts.