Enzymatic Antioxidants

Certain enzymes and many small water-soluble and lipid-soluble molecules can intercept and destroy free radicals and other reactive oxygen species (ROS). Important components of cellular enzymatic protection include catalase, superoxide dismutase (Mn, Cu/Zn, extracellular), glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, glutathione S-transferase, glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase, and thioredoxin reductase. (more…)

There are endogenous and external sources of ‘natural’ oxygen free radicals and other ROS. Thus, under normal conditions endogenous Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) are generated in living cells as a by-product of normal metabolism and during cellular/physiological signalling and in connection with inflammatory responses. (more…)

Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy improves functional capacity and quality of life in patients with persistent class III and IV heart failure despite optimal medical therapy, and there is also evidence that Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy may reverse structural remodeling in selected patients. Although individual trials of Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy were underpowered to assess survival, a meta-analysis of outcomes from four randomized trials involving more than 800 patients found that Cardiac Resynchronization Therapy reduces mortality from heart failure. (more…)

Early studies of fibromyalgia patients failed to consistently show abnormalities in the fibromyalgia peripheral neuropathy and tissues. However, reexamination of this issue has uncovered differences between muscle samples from fibromyalgia subjects and healthy controls. One difference is higher levels of nitric oxide in muscles of fibromyalgia patients (more…)

In older patients without apparent cardiovascular disease, the number of cardiac myocytes declines, while residual myocytes enlarge. Concurrently, there is an increase in elastic and collagenous tissue in all parts of the interstitial matrix and conduction system with advancing age. (more…)

Hayflick suggested that the aging process was by a biological clock, which includes all living cells, controlled. The study found that in 1961 human fibroblast cells (lung, skin, muscles, heart) have a limited lifespan. Nutrition appears to affect the rate of cell division are: cell consists of 50 departments in a supercharged year, while the cells fed up to three times longer than normal cells to divide. (more…)

Supraventricular Tachyarrhythmia

The principles of drug and non-drug management of supraventricular tachyarrhythmia (SVT) are similar to those outlined for stroke Atrial Fibrillation. However, for most supraventricular tachyarrhythmia, the arrhythmogenic substrate is isolated and well defined. AV nodal reentrant tachycardia (localized to the region of AVN) and atrioventricular reentrant tachycardia (with use of an accessory pathway) are the two most common types of supraventricular tachyarrhythmia. Atrial tachycardia can be reentrant or non-reentrant in mechanism, can be right or left atrial in origin, and can occur more frequently in the elderly population than in younger patients. (more…)

The Late Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation Exposure to ionizing radiation results in an increase in oxidative damage to DNA, protein, and lipids in a dose-dependent manner. This increase is mainly the result of the increased rate of production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and their direct attack on biomolecules. Late biological effects of ionizing radiation include accelerated aging disease on different levels. For example, an increase in the rate of the age-dependent accumulation of DNA damage in brain cells and of cross-links in collagen molecules has been observed in rodent tissues many months after they were exposed to ionizing radiation. (more…)

Cancer occurrence rates in a period of time for a given population is expressed in various ways. The incidence rate is a direct measure of the probability of developing cancer and is usually expressed per year. Incidence rates may be crude (all ages) or age specific. Since cancer is very age dependent, age specific rates are usually more informative. Cancer in elderly is more prevalent compare to cancer in younger age. When comparing population groups with different age distributions (such as the United States vs. China), the incidence rate should be age adjusted by multiplying each age-specific rate by the percent of individuals in a population with the same ages and then summing these to produce a single value. For etiological studies, incidence rates tend to be more informative than mortality rates, as they identify all diagnosed cases. (more…)

There is a keen interest in developing more direct measures of Alzheimer’s Disease-specific pathology, which has led to the emergence of several new PET ligands to measure amyloid deposition. Amyloid plaques, which are composed of Ab, and neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) are the pathological hallmarks of Alzheimer’s Disease. NFTs are correlated with the stage of Alzheimer’s Disease, and both pathological deposits appear before symptoms show themselves, perhaps decades before. This observation using amyloid imaging suggests that these deposits may be a good early marker for the disease. Based on the presence of diffuse plaques in neurologically normal individuals, it may be that Ab accumulation precedes other pathological features of Alzheimer’s Disease. (more…)