Dose Response of Acute ATP Supplementation on Strength Training Performance.

Background: Chronic oral ATP supplementation benefits cardiovascular health, muscular performance, body composition, and recovery while attenuating muscle breakdown and fatigue. A single 400 mg dose of oral ATP supplementation improved lower body resistance training performance and energy expenditure in recreational resistance trained males, however, the minimal effective dose is currently unknown. Materials and Methods: Twenty recreationally trained men (age 28.6 ± 1.0 years, body mass 81.2 ± 2.0 kg, height 175.2 ± 1.4 cm, 1RM 141.5 ± 5.0 kg) consumed a single dose of either 400 mg, 200 mg, or 100 mg ATP (PEAK ATP®, TSI USA LLC, Missoula, MT, USA) or a placebo in a randomized, placebo-controlled crossover design, separated by a one week wash out between treatments. After warm-up, participants performed 4 sets of half-squats using free-weights until movement failure separated by 2 mins of rest between sets. Results: In comparison to placebo, 400 mg ATP significantly increased the number of set 1 repetitions (+13%, p = 0.04), and numerically increased total repetitions (+7%, p = 0.19) and total weight lifted (+6%, p = 0.22). 200 mg ATP numerically increased set 1 repetitions (+4% p = 0.47), while 100 mg ATP showed no improvements over placebo. 100 mg ATP (-4%, p < 0.05) and 400 mg ATP (-4%, p = 0.11) decreased the perceived rate of exertion compared to placebo. Conclusions: In this study, the effective minimal dose of acute oral ATP supplementation during resistance exercise to increase performance was determined to be 400 mg, while as little as 100 mg showed improvements in perceived exertion.

Public health utility of cause of death data: applying empirical algorithms to improve data quality.

BACKGROUND: Accurate, comprehensive, cause-specific mortality estimates are crucial for informing public health decision making worldwide. Incorrectly or vaguely assigned deaths, defined as garbage-coded deaths, mask the true cause distribution. The Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study has developed methods to create comparable, timely, cause-specific mortality estimates; an impactful data processing method is the reallocation of garbage-coded deaths to a plausible underlying cause of death. We identify the pattern of garbage-coded deaths in the world and present the methods used to determine their redistribution to generate more plausible cause of death assignments. METHODS: We describe the methods developed for the GBD 2019 study and subsequent iterations to redistribute garbage-coded deaths in vital registration data to plausible underlying causes. These methods include analysis of multiple cause data, negative correlation, impairment, and proportional redistribution. We classify garbage codes into classes according to the level of specificity of the reported cause of death (CoD) and capture trends in the global pattern of proportion of garbage-coded deaths, disaggregated by these classes, and the relationship between this proportion and the Socio-Demographic Index. We examine the relative importance of the top four garbage codes by age and sex and demonstrate the impact of redistribution on the annual GBD CoD rankings. RESULTS: The proportion of least-specific (class 1 and 2) garbage-coded deaths ranged from 3.7% of all vital registration deaths to 67.3% in 2015, and the age-standardized proportion had an overall negative association with the Socio-Demographic Index. When broken down by age and sex, the category for unspecified lower respiratory infections was responsible for nearly 30% of garbage-coded deaths in those under 1 year of age for both sexes, representing the largest proportion of garbage codes for that age group. We show how the cause distribution by number of deaths changes before and after redistribution for four countries: Brazil, the United States, Japan, and France, highlighting the necessity of accounting for garbage-coded deaths in the GBD. CONCLUSIONS: We provide a detailed description of redistribution methods developed for CoD data in the GBD; these methods represent an overall improvement in empiricism compared to past reliance on a priori knowledge.

A chloroplast retrograde signal regulates nuclear alternative splicing.

Light is a source of energy and also a regulator of plant physiological adaptations. We show here that light/dark conditions affect alternative splicing of a subset of Arabidopsis genes preferentially encoding proteins involved in RNA processing. The effect requires functional chloroplasts and is also observed in roots when the communication with the photosynthetic tissues is not interrupted, suggesting that a signaling molecule travels through the plant. Using photosynthetic electron transfer inhibitors with different mechanisms of action, we deduce that the reduced pool of plastoquinones initiates a chloroplast retrograde signaling that regulates nuclear alternative splicing and is necessary for proper plant responses to varying light conditions.

Explanations for the high risk of diabetes-related amputation in a Caribbean population of black african descent and potential for prevention.

OBJECTIVE: Diabetes-related lower-extremity amputation (LEA) rates are elevated in blacks compared with whites in the U.S., but are lower in African Caribbeans in the U.K., whereas anecdotal reports suggest high rates in the Caribbean. We aimed to establish the incidence and risk factors for diabetes-related LEA in a Caribbean population. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS: We conducted an incident and prospective case-control study of case patients (individuals with diabetes having a LEA) and community-based control subjects (individuals with diabetes without a LEA) in Barbados, West Indies. Participants completed an interview and examination of risk factors for amputation, including footwear use. RESULTS: The overall 1-year incidence of LEA (n = 223) was 173 per 10(5) population and 936 per 10(5) population with diabetes (557 per 10(5) for minor amputation and 379 per 10(5) for major amputation). Women had higher amputation rates than those reported in the Global Lower Extremity Amputation Study, apart from the U.S. Navajo population. Independent risk factors for all diabetes-related LEAs were poor footwear (odds ratio [OR] 2.71 [95% CI 1.23-5.97]), elevated GHb (1.40 per percent increase [1.26-1.57]), peripheral neuropathy (1.05 per volt increase [1.03-1.08]), and peripheral vascular disease. CONCLUSIONS: Diabetes LEA rates in Barbados are among the highest in the world. Inadequate footwear independently tripled amputation risk. Education of professionals and patients, particularly about footwear and foot care, coupled with improved diabetes clinical care, is key to reducing amputation risk in this population.

Differences in mortality and morbidity in African Caribbean and European people with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus : results of 20 year follow up of a London cohort of a multinational study

OBJECTIVE: To examine differences in morbidity and mortality due to non-insulin dependent diabetes in African Caribbeans and Europeans. DESIGN: Cohort study of patients with non-insulin dependent diabetes drawn from diabetes clinics in London. Baseline investigations were performed in 1975-7; follow up continued until 1995. PATIENTS: 150 Europeans and 77 Africans with non-insulin dependent diabetes. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: All cause and cardiovascular mortality; prevalence of microvascular and macrovascular complications. RESULTS: Duration of diabetes was shorter in African Caribbeans, particularly women. African Caribbeans were more likely than the Europeans to have been given a diagnosis after the onset of symptoms and less likely to be taking insulin. Mean cholesterol concentration was lower in African Caribbeans than in Europeans. 59 Europeans and 16 African Caribbeans had died by the time of follow up. The risk ratio for all cause mortality was 0.41 (95 percent confidence interval 0.23 to 0.73) (P = 0.02) for African Caribbeans v Europeans. This was accentuated to 0.59 (0.32 to 1.10) (P = 0.1) after adjustment for sex, smoking, proteinuria, and body mass index. Further adjustment for systolic blood pressure, cholesterol concentration, age, duration of diabetes, and treatment made little difference to the risk ratio. CONCLUSIONS: African Caribbeans with non-insulin dependent diabetes maintain a low risk of heart disease. Management priorities for diabetes developed in one ethnic group may not necessarily be applicable to other groups (AU).

Ethnic differences in mortality from cardiovascular disease in the UK: do they persist in people with diabetes?

STUDY OBJECTIVE: To determine whether ethnic differences in cardiovascular disease mortality persist in people with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. DESIGN: This was an ecological study in which routine mortality data from 1985-86, which coded all mentioned causes of death, provided the numerator. The UK population derived from 1981 census formed the denominator. SETTING: United Kingdom. PARTICIPANTS: Records of all deaths in people aged 45 years and above were extracted if diabetes was mentioned anywhere on the death certificate. The denominator was aged five years to approximate to the 1986 population. Mortality rates where a cardiovascular underlying cause was given were compared between South Asians, African-Caribbeans, and those born in England and Wales. The latter group formed the standard for directly standardised rate ratios. MAIN RESULTS: Mortality from heart disease was approximately three times higher in diabetic South Asian born men and women than in those with diabetes born in England and Wales. This ethnic difference was greatest in the younger age group. Conversely, stroke mortality rates in African-Caribbeans were 3.5-4 times higer than those in the England and Wales population. Depsite this high mortality from stroke, ischaemic heart disease death rates were not high in African-Caribbean men. CONCLUSIONS: Ethnic differences in cardiovascular mortality persisted and were greater in those with diabetes. Thus the high risk of heart disease should be targeted for intervention in South Asians, and the high rates of stroke targeted in African-Caribbeans.(AU)