Benefits Of Grunting In Tennis

Enhanced tennis performance with grunting is shown here. Abstract:

Grunting is widely used by professional tennis players, but no research has been done to verify enhanced performance with grunting. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine if grunting enhanced ball velocity in groundstrokes and secondly, to determine if grunting increased the physiological cost of hitting (VO2, HR, VE/VO2, and RPE). Participants were 10 members of the men's (n = 5) and women's (n = 5) tennis teams at a Division I university who had just completed their indoor competitive season. Two hitting sessions were used as players repetitively hit forehand and backhand shots while either grunting or not grunting. Each hitting session consisted of five 2-minute periods with a 1-minute break in between each period. Ball velocity was measured with a radar gun. During each hitting session, players wore a portable metabolic measuring unit. HR was monitored using a Polar monitor, and RPE was assessed using Borg's 6-20 scale. Grunting increased ball velocity (kph) 3.8% compared with non-grunting condition (p < 0.034) with the mean ± SD being 83.4 ± 0.6.1 and 80.3 ± 0.8.7, respectively. The physiological responses (VO2, HR, VE/VO2, and RPE) for the 2 hitting conditions were not significantly different for any variable. When averaged across both hitting conditions, HR over the 5-time periods was higher in periods 3-5 than period (p < 0.018) 1, whereas VE/VO2 and RPE were greater in periods 2-5 than period 1 (p = 0.001). RPE significantly increased over time with periods 2-5 being greater than period 1 (p = 0.001). It was concluded that grunting increased ball velocity without increasing VO2 or VE/VO2 or RPE in comparison with not grunting. It may be worthwhile for players and coaches in tennis and other sports to experiment with grunting to determine possible improvement in performance.

Age And Triathlon Performance

How does Ironman triathlon performance change with age?  Abstract:

In Ironman triathlon, the number of overall male and female finishers increased in the last 30 years, while an improvement in performance has been reported. Studies concluding these numbers only analysed the top ten athletes per age group instead of all finishers, therefore a selection bias might have occurred. The aim of the present study was to investigate participation, performance and the age-related performance decline of all pro and age group triathletes ranked in all Ironman triathlons held worldwide between 2002 and 2015. Split and overall race times of 329,066 (80%) male and 81,815 (20%) female athletes competing in 253 different Ironman triathlon races were analysed. The number of finishers increased in all age groups with exception of women in age group 75-79 years. In pro athletes, performance improved in all disciplines. In age group athletes, performance improved in younger age groups for running (18-24 to 40-44 years) and older age groups for swimming (50-54 to 65-69 years) and cycling (35-39 to 55-59 years), while it impaired in younger age groups for swimming (18-24 to 45-49 years) and cycling (18-24 to 30-34), and older age groups in running (45-49 to 70-74 years). The age-related performance decline started in women in age group 25-29 years in swimming and in age group 30-34 years in cycling, running and overall race time, whereas it started in men in age group 25-29 years in swimming and in age group 35-39 years in cycling, running and overall race time. For athletes and coaches, performance improved in younger age groups for running and older age groups for swimming and cycling and the age-related decline in performance started earlier in swimming than in cycling and running. In summary, women should start competing in Ironman triathlon before the age of 30 years and men before the age of 35 years to achieve their personal best Ironman race time.

It is interesting that performance in swimming declined earlier with age than in cycling and running, suggesting that swimming is the most intense exercise of the three.  The last sentence suggests that Ironman  is best for the young.

Sudden Cardiac Arrest In Sports

Sudden cardiac arrest when playing sports is rare.  However, keep in mind that particular individuals may be at higher risk, which is why you should consult with a physician before starting any sort of exercise program or sport; a possibility exists of a heart defect or other abnormality.  Abstract:

BACKGROUND:

The incidence of sudden cardiac arrest during participation in sports activities remains unknown. Preparticipation screening programs aimed at preventing sudden cardiac arrest during sports activities are thought to be able to identify at-risk athletes; however, the efficacy of these programs remains controversial. We sought to identify all sudden cardiac arrests that occurred during participation in sports activities within a specific region of Canada and to determine their causes.

METHODS:

In this retrospective study, we used the Rescu Epistry cardiac arrest database (which contains records of every cardiac arrest attended by paramedics in the network region) to identify all out-of-hospital cardiac arrests that occurred from 2009 through 2014 in persons 12 to 45 years of age during participation in a sport. Cases were adjudicated as sudden cardiac arrest (i.e., having a cardiac cause) or as an event resulting from a noncardiac cause, on the basis of records from multiple sources, including ambulance call reports, autopsy reports, in-hospital data, and records of direct interviews with patients or family members.

RESULTS:

Over the course of 18.5 million person-years of observation, 74 sudden cardiac arrests occurred during participation in a sport; of these, 16 occurred during competitive sports and 58 occurred during noncompetitive sports. The incidence of sudden cardiac arrest during competitive sports was 0.76 cases per 100,000 athlete-years, with 43.8% of the athletes surviving until they were discharged from the hospital. Among the competitive athletes, two deaths were attributed to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy and none to arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. Three cases of sudden cardiac arrest that occurred during participation in competitive sports were determined to have been potentially identifiable if the athletes had undergone preparticipation screening.

CONCLUSIONS:

In our study involving persons who had out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, the incidence of sudden cardiac arrest during participation in competitive sports was 0.76 cases per 100,000 athlete-years. The occurrence of sudden cardiac arrest due to structural heart disease was uncommon during participation in competitive sports. (Funded by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and others.).

"Big Papi" CRISPR Screening Approach

The "Big Papi" (paired aureus and pyogenes for interactions) approach to CRISPR screening will uncover new genetic-to-phenotype interactions that will be helpful for both basic science and for discovering new therapeutics for eventual clinical applications.  Abstract:

Combinatorial genetic screening using CRISPR-Cas9 is a useful approach to uncover redundant genes and to explore complex gene networks. However, current methods suffer from interference between the single-guide RNAs (sgRNAs) and from limited gene targeting activity. To increase the efficiency of combinatorial screening, we employ orthogonal Cas9 enzymes from Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pyogenes. We used machine learning to establish S. aureus Cas9 sgRNA design rules and paired S. aureus Cas9 with S. pyogenes Cas9 to achieve dual targeting in a high fraction of cells. We also developed a lentiviral vector and cloning strategy to generate high-complexity pooled dual-knockout libraries to identify synthetic lethal and buffering gene pairs across multiple cell types, including MAPK pathway genes and apoptotic genes. Our orthologous approach also enabled a screen combining gene knockouts with transcriptional activation, which revealed genetic interactions with TP53. The "Big Papi" (paired aureus and pyogenes for interactions) approach described here will be widely applicable for the study of combinatorial phenotypes.

Dangers Of American Football

By Paul Keleher - Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1555657

American football can cause brain damage to those who play it. Abstract:

IMPORTANCE:Players of American football may be at increased risk of long-term neurological conditions, particularly chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE).OBJECTIVE:To determine the neuropathological and clinical features of deceased football players with CTE.DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS:Case series of 202 football players whose brains were donated for research. Neuropathological evaluations and retrospective telephone clinical assessments (including head trauma history) with informants were performed blinded. Online questionnaires ascertained athletic and military history.EXPOSURES:Participation in American football at any level of play.MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES:Neuropathological diagnoses of neurodegenerative diseases, including CTE, based on defined diagnostic criteria; CTE neuropathological severity (stages I to IV or dichotomized into mild [stages I and II] and severe [stages III and IV]); informant-reported athletic history and, for players who died in 2014 or later, clinical presentation, including behavior, mood, and cognitive symptoms and dementia.RESULTS:Among 202 deceased former football players (median age at death, 66 years [interquartile range, 47-76 years]), CTE was neuropathologically diagnosed in 177 players (87%; median age at death, 67 years [interquartile range, 52-77 years]; mean years of football participation, 15.1 [SD, 5.2]), including 0 of 2 pre-high school, 3 of 14 high school (21%), 48 of 53 college (91%), 9 of 14 semiprofessional (64%), 7 of 8 Canadian Football League (88%), and 110 of 111 National Football League (99%) players. Neuropathological severity of CTE was distributed across the highest level of play, with all 3 former high school players having mild pathology and the majority of former college (27 [56%]), semiprofessional (5 [56%]), and professional (101 [86%]) players having severe pathology. Among 27 participants with mild CTE pathology, 26 (96%) had behavioral or mood symptoms or both, 23 (85%) had cognitive symptoms, and 9 (33%) had signs of dementia. Among 84 participants with severe CTE pathology, 75 (89%) had behavioral or mood symptoms or both, 80 (95%) had cognitive symptoms, and 71 (85%) had signs of dementia.CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE:In a convenience sample of deceased football players who donated their brains for research, a high proportion had neuropathological evidence of CTE, suggesting that CTE may be related to prior participation in football.

Tom Brady's Good Sense

Football player Tom Brady has made (in my opinion) reasonable comments about healthy eating:

New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady lashed out at Coca-Cola, calling the soda "poison for kids," while accusing other food companies of lying to Americans in a recent interview.

"You’ll probably go out and drink Coca-Cola and think, ‘Oh yeah, that’s no problem.’ Why? Because they pay lots of money for advertisements to think that you should drink Coca-Cola for a living? No, I totally disagree with that," Brady said in an interview with Boston sports radio station WEEI.

"The fact that they can sell [Coca-Cola] to kids? That’s poison for kids," he said.

Brady also ripped into Kellogg's Frost Flakes cereal, saying he couldn't believe that Americans actually think it qualifies as food.

"I think we’ve been lied to by a lot of food companies over the years, by a lot of beverage companies over the years. But we still do it. That’s just America," Brady said. "We believe that Frosted Flakes is a food."

"You keep eating those things and you keep wondering why we do have just incredible rates of disease in our country," he added.

Of course the companies in question were not pleased:

Coca-Cola and Frosted Flakes later hit back at Brady.

"All of our beverages are safe and can be enjoyed as part of a balanced lifestyle," Coca-Cola said in a statement reported by Fox Business. "We offer more than 200 low‐ and no‐calorie beverages in the U.S. and Canada and a wide variety of smaller portion sizes of our regular drinks,” the spokesperson added. “As a responsible beverage company and marketer, we prominently provide calorie and sugar information for our beverages so people can choose what makes sense for them and their families."

No one questions whether the beverages are “safe” (in the sense that consuming them constitutes an imminent health danger) but whether they are healthy, and whether the consumer would be better served drinking something else (like water) rather than this product.  Asking people to “choose what makes sense for them and their families” seems to me a bit disingenuous, given that, given the obesity epidemic, people clearly are not making the right choices, and also given that children can buy and consume these beverages without necessarily having a fully developed capability to make an informed choice.

This video is of relevance in understanding the agenda of food companies and their claims about their commitment to consumer health. 

After 125 years of advertising sugary, calorie-packed beverages and greatly contributing to the obesity epidemic, many found Coca-Cola’s “willingness” to step forward and play an important role in the epidemic laughable and ironic.

And then we read Kellogg’s take on this issue:

Kellogg released a statement saying its cereal "is a delicious and nutritious breakfast."

"Numerous studies show that a cereal breakfast is associated with lower BMIs (body mass index) in both children and adults. As a matter of fact, a serving of Frosted Flakes with skim milk has just 150 calories and delivers valuable nutrients including calcium, B vitamins and iron," the statement reads.

Breakfast cereal associated with lower BMIs?  Is this at least partially a function of people eating breakfast, and that eating breakfast – even one not optimal – is better than not eating breakfast at all and gorging on doughnuts later in the day?  Further, there are clear differences in types of breakfast cereals. There’s a difference between, say, Shredded Wheat and Frosted Flakes in their nutritional profile.  And do people really eat the “single servings” that food companies list on their packaging, or do they routinely eat several times more per sitting?  And, yes, while these cereals may be fortified with vitamins and minerals, there are healthier breakfast options that provide these nutrients without the added sugar.