Prostaglandin E (PGE) and prostaglandins A plus B (PGA+B) were determined by radioimmunoassay in blood plasma obtained from eight men immediately after a progressive arm and leg cycling task to exhaustion. PGE increased by 47 percent from 45 ± 6pg/ml (mean ± SEM) at rest to 66±8pg/ml after exercise, but PGA+B were unaffected by the work. The cause of the exercise-induced elevation of plasma PGE is unknown, but may be associated with PGE release from working skeletal muscle.

Forty-eight male Wistar strain rats have been used to study the effect of voluntary exercise training on the succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) activity, blood lipids, and adrenal catecholamines. The animals were trained for 10 weeks with a voluntary running in revolving wheels. SDH activities in heart and skeletal muscles, total cholesterol and triglyceride in serum and adrenal catecholamines were determined right after rats reached a peak distance of voluntary running and at the end of training. Training produced no significant increase in the SDH activities of cardiac and skeletal muscles at 13 and 17 weeks of age. Physical training reduced 12%of serum cholesterol concentration (p<0.05) . The serum triglyceride concentration of trained group remained lower than that of the sedentary throughout a period of training (p<0.05) . The voluntary exercised rats had higher adrenal catecholamine concentration as compared with the sedentary at 13 weeks old (p<0.05), but there was no significant difference at 17 weeks old. These data demonstrated that voluntary training did not increase endurance capacity, and adrenal catecholamines, but lowered serum lipid levels.

The effect of chronic exercise on heart weights, succinate dehydrogenase (SDH) activities, and norepinephrine (NE) concentrations was examined in the Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) and Spontaneously Hypertensive (SHR) rats. Nine week old animals were trained either by forced treadmill running (26.8 m/min-1 hr/day) or voluntary exercise in running wheels (@9, 000 m/day at peak) for 12 wks. Male rats subjected to forced treadmill running program gained weight significantly more slowly than sedentary freely eating controls (p<0.01) . Heart ventricles of exercised groups in WKY rats were heavier than those of the sedentary controls (p<0.05) . Ratio of heart ventricle weight to body weight of male SHR and WKY rats was significantly higher in the runners than in the sedentary controls (p<0.01) . SDH activities of the red gastrocnemius muscle were 30 and 100% greater (p<0.01) for the voluntary and forced exercise animals, respectively, than the sedentary controls. Changes in muscle enzyme activity and heart weight were used to verify that the forced exercise program had produced a trained state. Blood pressure (BP) of voluntarily exercised SHR was 10% less at 15 wks (p<0.05) and remained lower until the end of training than that of control SHR, whereas BP of forced-trained SHR was not lowered. There was no measurable change in BP of WKY rats as a results of training. The voluntary exercise program had no effect on the concentrations of NE in heart and adrenal glands of SHR and WKY rats. The NE concentrations of heart and adrenal gland in forced/trained SHR and WKY rats were @10-40% greater than those of sedentary controls. The results of these experiments indicate that chronic exercise can depress the blood pressure of SHR rats. However, difference between two types of exercise training suggests that the endurance capacity improved by chronic exercise may not be a primary factor to delay the onset of the hypertention.

A 70-year-old man was found to have aortic regurgitation and underwent aortic valve replacement. About 10 minutes after disconnection from the cardiopulmonary bypass, cardiac arrest occurred suddenly and the bypass was immediately resumed. At this point, a Stanford type A aortic dissection was detected by transesophageal echocardiography, and the orifice of the left coronary artery was considered to be occluded by invasion of a hematoma. Although ascending aortic replacement with a prosthesis was performed under hypothermic circulatory arrest with selective cerebral perfusion, the heart did not resume vigorous beating. Therefore, saphenous vain graftings to the left anterior descending artery and the right coronary artery were performed. Finally, the patient could be weaned from the cardiopulmonary bypass. On postoperative digital subtraction angiography, neither occlusion nor stenosis in both coronary arteries was observed. We conclude that it would be considered to perform coronary artery bypass graftings in this particular condition.

A cluster of insulin resistance, dyslipidemia and hypertension has been labeled as a metabolic syndrome. Asians have a lower rate of obesity than Caucasians, but have recently become increasingly prone to obesity and the metabolic syndrome, especially in rural communities in Japan. Although weight loss has been considered to be effective for improvement of the metabolic syndrome, most data are based on studies in Western countries with only limited information derived from Japanese populations. We conducted a study of 188 subjects who participated in our interventional program for obesity based on health education and self-determination in 2000-2003. The intervention induced significant decreases in caloric intakes and increases in physical activity in the participants, and then resulted in a significant 1.3kg reduction in weight on the average. Weght-loss was significantly associated with indexes of obesity, values of total cholesterol, triglyceide and HDL cholesterol levels, but was not related with blood pressure and LDL cholesterol, which were significantly decreased by our intervention. Furthermore a simple regression analysis was carried out to verify whether weight loss and metabolic syndrome parameters were related. Weight loss was determinantsexplaining less than a total of 10% of the variance in triglyceride and total cholesterol for the participants. Future studies of weight loss for metabolic syndrome should incorporate Asian ethnic factors, such as dietary habits and genetic influences.
Syndrome ; Weight Loss ; Obesity ; Health education ; Metabolic