Search Results (5)

Background: Exercise is an essential pillar for human health, as it contributes to physical, mental, and emotional well-being. Well-recognized international organizations, such as the World Health Organization, advocate for integrating exercise into healthy lifestyles, recognizing its importance in disease prevention and improving quality of life. However, despite the consensus on its value, there is no universal agreement on specific prescriptions for vulnerable groups, highlighting the need for personalized approaches that consider the unique characteristics and needs of everyone. Emerging studies have demonstrated that exercise training performed at the intensity that elicits maximal fat oxidation improves insulin sensitivity, cardiorespiratory fitness, and body composition in patients with obesity, making it a highly effective strategy for long-term weight management and metabolic health in this specific population. Methods: The present study protocol settles the basis for a 16-week randomized clinical trial based on exercise prescription at the maximal fat oxidation rate combined with resistance training in young individuals with overweight and obesity. Expected Results: This study will elucidate how FatMax, with or without resistance exercises, can enhance metabolic flexibility, increase fat oxidation, and improve body composition, evaluating changes in biochemical parameters (cholesterol, glucose, triglycerides, and inflammatory markers), metabolic biomarkers (determination of fat and carbohydrate utilization rates during rest and exercise), and epigenetic indicators (focusing on microRNAs associated with adipogenesis, inflammation, and fat metabolism). ClinicalTrials.gov identification number: NCT06553482 (FatMax Training on Metabolic and Epigenetic Parameters). Full article

Glycine, the simple amino acid, is a key component of muscle metabolism with proven cytoprotective effects and hypothetical benefits as a therapeutic nutrient. Cell, in vitro, and animal studies suggest that glycine enhances protection against muscle wasting by activating anabolic pathways and inhibiting proteolytic gene expression. Some evidence indicates that glycine supplementation may enhance peak power output, reduce lactic acid accumulation during high-intensity exercise, and improve sleep quality and recovery. This literature review critically explores glycine’s potential as an ergogenic aid and its relevance to muscle regeneration, muscle strength, endurance exercise performance, and sleep quality. It also underscores key areas for future research. It is concluded that more randomized controlled clinical trials in humans are needed to confirm glycine’s potential as a dietary supplement to support muscle function, recovery, and overall athletic performance as an ergogenic aid and to establish nutritional recommendations for athletic performance. Also, it is essential to consider that high doses (>500 mg/kg of body mass) could induce cytotoxic effects and contribute to acute glutamate toxicity. Full article

In the context of the Catholic Reformation serious concerns were expressed about the affective potency of naturalistic depictions of beautiful, sensuous figures in religious art. In theological discourse similar anxieties had long been articulated about potential contiguities between elevating, licit desire for an extraordinarily beautiful divinity and base, illicit feeling. In the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, in the decades preceding the Council of Trent, a handful of writers, thinkers and artists asserted a positive connection between spirituality and sexuality. Leonardo da Vinci, and a group of painters working under his aegis in Lombardy, were keenly aware of painting’s capacity to evoke feeling in a viewer. Pictures they produced for domestic devotion featured knowingly sensuous and unusually epicene beauties. This article suggests that this iconography daringly advocated the value of pleasurable sensation to religiosity. Its popularity allows us to envisage beholders who were neither mired in sin, nor seeking to divorce themselves from the physical realm, but engaging afresh with age-old dialectics of body and soul, sexuality and spirituality. Full article

Composite scaffolds are commonly used strategies and materials employed to achieve similar analogs of bone tissue. This study aims to fabricate 10% wt polylactic acid (PLA) composite fiber scaffolds by the air-jet spinning technique (AJS) doped with 0.5 or 0.1 g of zirconium oxide nanoparticles (ZrO₂) for guide bone tissue engineering. ZrO₂ nanoparticles were obtained by the hydrothermal method and characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). SEM and fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analyzed the synthesized PLA/ZrO₂ fiber scaffolds. The in vitro biocompatibility and bioactivity of the PLA/ZrO₂ were studied using human fetal osteoblast cells. Our results showed that the hydrothermal technique allowed ZrO₂ nanoparticles to be obtained. SEM analysis showed that PLA/ZrO₂ composite has a fiber diameter of 395 nm, and the FITR spectra confirmed that the scaffolds’ chemical characteristics are not affected by the synthesized technique. In vitro studies demonstrated that PLA/ZrO₂ scaffolds increased cell adhesion, cellular proliferation, and biomineralization of osteoblasts. In conclusion, the PLA/ZrO₂ scaffolds are bioactive, improve osteoblasts behavior, and can be used in tissue bone engineering applications. Full article

There are few reports that demonstrate the antigenotoxic potential of cranberries. Although the types of berry fruits consumed worldwide are many, this paper focuses on cranberries that are commonly consumed in Mexico (Vaccinium macrocarpon species). The purpose of the present study is to determine whether cranberry ethanolic extract (CEE) can prevent the DNA damage produced by benzo[a]pyrene (B[a]P) using an in vivo mouse peripheral blood micronucleus assay. The experimental groups were organized as follows: a negative control group (without treatment), a positive group treated with B[a]P (200 mg/kg), a group administered with 800 mg/kg of CEE, and three groups treated with B[a]P and CEE (200, 400, and 800 mg/kg) respectively. The CEE and benzo[a]pyrene were administered orally for a week, on a daily basis. During this period the body weight, the feed intake, and the determination of antigenotoxic potential were quantified. At the end of this period, we continued with the same determinations for one week more (recovery period) but anymore administration of the substances. The animals treated with B[a]P showed a weight increase after the first week of administration. The same phenomenon was observed in the lots combined with B[a]P and CEE (low and medium doses). The dose of 800 mg/kg of CEE showed similar values to the control group at the end of the treatment period. In the second part of the assay, when the substances were not administered, these experimental groups regained their normal weight. The dose of CEE (800 mg/kg) was not genotoxic nor cytotoxic. On the contrary, the B[a]P increases the frequency of micronucleated normochromatic erythrocytes (MNNE) and reduces the rate of polychromatic erythrocytes (PE) at the end of the treatment period. With respect to the combined lots, a significant decrease in the MN rate was observed from the sixth to the eighth day of treatment with the two high doses applied; the highest protection (60%) was obtained with 800 mg/kg of CEE. The same dose showed an anticytotoxic effect which corresponded to an improvement of 62.5% in relation to the animals administered with the B[a]P. In the second period, all groups reached values that have been seen in the control group animals. Our results suggest that the inhibition of clastogenicity of the cranberry ethanolic extract against B[a]P is related to the antioxidant capacity of the combination of phytochemicals present in its chemical composition. Full article