The post-myocardial infarction heart failure (HF) still carries a huge burden since current therapy is unsuccessful to abrogate poor prognosis. Thus, new approaches are needed, and photobiomodulation therapy (PBMt) may be a way. However, it is not known whether PBMt added to a standard HF therapy provides additional improvement in cardiac remodeling in infarcted rats. This study sought to determine the combined carvedilol-drug and PBMt with low-level laser therapy value in HF. Rats with large infarcts were treated for 30 days. The functional fitness was evaluated using a motorized treadmill. Echocardiography and hemodynamic measurements were used for functional evaluations of left ventricular (LV). ELISA, Western blot and biochemical assays were used to evaluate inflammation and oxidative stress in the myocardium. Carvedilol and PBMt had a similar action in normalizing pulmonary congestion and LV end-diastolic pressure, attenuating LV dilation, and improving LV systolic function. Moreover, the application of PBMt to carvedilol-treated rats inhibited myocardial hypertrophy and improved +dP/dt of LV. PBMt alone prevented inflammation with a superior effect than carvedilol. Carvedilol and PBMt normalized 4-hydroxynonenal (a lipoperoxidation marker) levels in the myocardium. However, importantly, the addition of PBMt to carvedilol attenuated oxidized protein content and triggered a high activity of the anti-oxidant catalase enzyme. In conclusion, these data show that the use of PBMt plus carvedilol therapy results in a significant additional improvement in HF in a rat model of myocardial infarction. These beneficial effects were observed to be due, at least in part, to decreased myocardial inflammation and oxidative stress.

Apesar do crescente aumento do número de vegetarianos no Brasil, também cresce a proporção de pessoas com sobrepeso e obesidade. Além do excesso de peso, fatores relacionados à dieta também podem representar fatores de risco para doenças crônicas não transmissíveis, importante problema de saúde pública mundial. Assim, o objetivo deste estudo foi avaliar a influência da dieta vegetariana sobre a composição corporal, identificando possíveis diferenças com indivíduos não vegetarianos. Trata-se de uma revisão narrativa cuja busca foi feita nas bases de dados SciELO, LILACS, Google Acadêmico e PubMed, em inglês, português e espanhol. Foram incluídos artigos de 2003 a 2022, comparando vegetarianos e não vegetarianos adultos. Foram encontrados 21 estudos que relacionaram dieta vegetariana à composição corporal, 15 avaliaram os efeitos da dieta sobre o IMC, 12 forneceram dados acerca da dieta e adiposidade corporal, 4 sobre adiposidade visceral e 6 sobre massa magra e/ou muscular. De forma geral, a dieta vegetariana resulta em menor peso, IMC e adiposidade, mas informações sobre massa magra e massa muscular ainda não são claramente consistentes. Três estudos não verificaram vantagens da dieta vegetariana sobre a massa magra e dois estudos observaram menores valores de massa muscular nos vegetarianos em relação aos não vegetarianos.

Background: Acute and chronic stresses have become a health problem in the contemporary society, and prolonged exposure to stressful events are related to the pathogenesis of cardiovascular diseases. Physical exercise is a well-recognized effective nonpharmacological therapy for cardiovascular diseases and stress-induced injuries. Thus, this study evaluated the effect of exercise on the cardiac remodelling of chronically stressed rats. Methods and results: Wistar adult rats were used (n = 10 each group) and chronic stress protocol consisted of restricting movement in individual rodent restrainers (60 min, 5 days/week, 12 weeks); and exercise consisted of swimming sessions in a pool (60 min, 5 days/week, 12 weeks). During protocol, blood pressure was measured in conscious rats, and at the end cardiac morphology/function was assessed. Animals exposed to stress exhibited continuous rise in blood pressure from the sixth week, but exercise attenuated it. Similarly, restrained rats increased serum corticosterone compared with nonstressed rats, but exercise also prevented it. No changes were found in cardiac mass, but chronic stress not only impaired the steady state contractions of the cardiac muscle, but also reduced inotropic responses to stretching, increasing calcium and beta-adrenergic receptor stimulation. Despite this, exercise was unable to prevent these functional impairments induced by stress, and instead, the association of stress and physical exercise worsened myocardial compliance. Conclusion: Despite the known benefits to the cardiovascular system, our results indicate that aerobic swimming exercise for 12 weeks reduced blood pressure but did not impede the chronic stress-induced myocardial damages in rats.

Aim: To evaluate the influence of swimming training on calcium responsiveness of the myocardium of rats with different infarction sizes (MI).Method: female Wistar rats, sedentary sham (SS = 14), sedentary moderate MI (SMI = 8) and sedentary large MI (SLI = 10) were compared to trained sham (TS = 16), trained moderate MI (TMI = 9) and trained large MI (TLI = 10). After 4 weeks of MI, the animals swam for 60 min/day, 5 days/week, for additional 8 weeks. Papillary muscles of the left ventricle were subjected to different concentrations of extracellular calcium. Inotropism was evaluated through the developed tension (DT), the maximum positive value of the first temporal derivation (+Td/td) and the time to peak tension (TPT). Lusitropism was evaluated by the maximum negative value of the first temporal derivation (−Td/td) and time to 50% relaxation (50%TR). Statistical significance was determined using multivariate analysis of variance and a Hotelling T2 test for the absolute power values of all four extracellular calcium concentrations (p < 0.05).Results: MI depressed inotropism (from 17% to 51%) and lusitropism (from 22% to 54%) of the sedentary rats, but exercise attenuated the losses, especially regarding + dT/dt, TPT, −dT/dt and 50%TR. Exercise attenuated the decrease in myocardial responsiveness, proportionally to the size of the MI.Conclusion: Myocardial calcium responsiveness is favorably affected in animals with moderate and large MI after swimming exercise.

Objetivo: Relacionar a qualidade de vida (QV) e o consumo alimentar (CA) de professores de rede privada. Métodos: Estudo transversal que avaliou a QV, o CA e a classe econômica. Resultados: Em relação à QV dos 107 professores, 64,5% foram classificados com boa e 19,6% com muito boa, 70,1% pertence à classe C e 64,5% mostraram CA satisfatório. Os escores de alimentação (EA) se correlacionaram significantemente com os domínios da QV, físico, psicológico, social e ambiental e, com a QV geral. Quanto maior o EA nos quartis melhores os domínios físico, psicológico e ambiental. Conclusão: Quanto maior o EA melhor a QV de professores. Assim, a alimentação saudável pode contribuir com a promoção da saúde refletindo em melhor QV.