Insights from neighbourhood walking interviews using the Living Environments and Active Aging Framework (LEAAF) in community-dwelling older adults.

We aimed to understand whether neighbourhood characteristics are associated with movement and social behaviors using walking interviews with 28 community-dwelling older adults (aged 65+). Results indicated support for each component and each relationship in our proposed "Living Environments and Active Aging Framework". Additional themes such as neighbourhoods with children, moving to neighbourhoods with opportunities for social activity and movement, and lingering effects of pandemic closures provided novel insights into the relationship between the living environment (neighbourhood) and active aging. Future work exploring sex and gender effects on these relationships, and work with equity-deserving groups is needed.

Novel biomarkers in the saliva of healthy young males and females in a randomized crossover study on sedentary time: An exploratory analysis.

Several known biomarkers have been used to understand the physiological responses of humans to various short and long-term interventions such as exercise or dietary interventions. However, little exploratory work has been conducted to identify novel biomarkers in human saliva that could enable non-invasive physiological research to understand acute responses to interventions such as reducing sedentary time. The purpose of this study was to identify novel biomarkers in the saliva (cytokines, growth factors and vascular factors) that respond to prolonged (4 hours) and interrupted sitting (4 hours of sitting interrupted by 3 minutes of walking at 60% of maximal heart rate every 27 minutes) in young, healthy males and females. We also sought to determine whether responsive biomarkers would differ by sex. Participants (n = 24, 21.2 ± 2.2 years, 50% female) completed a prolonged sitting (PS) session and an interrupted sitting (IS) session in random order. Individual saliva samples were pooled into a male sample and a female sample to identify responsive biomarkers using a human cytokine antibody membrane array (42 targets). Several novel biomarkers were responsive in both sexes (e.g., IL-8, Angiogenin, VEGF, and EGF), in females only (e.g., TNF-α and IL-13), and in males only (e.g., IL-3, RANTES, and IL-12p40/p70). Importantly, several biomarkers appear to be responsive to the 4-hour prolonged and interrupted sitting sessions (e.g., TNF-α, IL-8, IL-3, RANTES, EGF, Angiogenin, and VEGF). This work highlights new directions for researchers aiming to investigate the effect of short-term or acute interventions on different physiological pathways using non-invasive methods. Our work clearly indicates that human saliva samples can provide a wealth of insight into physiological responses, and that a number of biomarkers can be used to understand changes induced by acute interventions such as interrupting prolonged sitting.

Short bouts of walking attenuates the response of IL-8 to prolonged sitting in healthy adults.

PURPOSE: Experimental studies have shown that prolonged sitting for 2-8 h can cause changes to vascular and metabolic markers; the response of pro-inflammatory cytokines is relatively unexplored. The purpose of this study is to determine the response of interleukin-8 (IL-8) to prolonged and interrupted sitting. METHODS: Healthy participants (n = 24, 21.1 years ± 2.2, 50% female) completed a prolonged sitting session (4 h) and an interrupted sitting session (4 h of sitting with 3 min of walking at 60%HRmax, every 30 min) in random order. Saliva and capillary plasma were collected at the beginning (T1) and at the end of each session (T2). RESULTS: Salivary concentrations of IL-8 increased during the prolonged (T1 median: 22.09 pg/mL, T2 median: 86.18 pg/mL; p = < 0.01, ES - 0.55) and interrupted (T1 median: 22.09 pg/mL, T2 median: 51.99 pg/mL; p = 0.021, ES - 0.34) sessions; however, the increase during interrupted sitting was lower (PS median: 134.4%, range: - 43.96 to 1115.69 and IS median: 50.8%, range: - 75.5 to 356.35; p = 0.011, ES - 0.53). In the sub-sample of males, salivary IL-8 did not increase in the interrupted session (T1 median: 22.09, range: 3.496-699.12, and T2 median: 24.96, range: 5.11-533.5, p = > 0.05, ES - 0.16). No significant findings were observed for IL-8 in the plasma. CONCLUSION: Prolonged sitting appears to increase concentrations of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-8 while interrupting this sitting with short bouts of walking blunts this response. Sex appears to moderate this relationship; however, there appears to be a large amount of individual variability.