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Strenuous exercise affects immune system and stimulates the synthesis of pro-inflammatory cytokines, including interleukin 6 (IL-6) and the anti-inflammatory cytokines, mainly interleukin 10 (IL-10). IL-6 and IL-10 fluctuations can influence sleep quality. Many genetic tracts influence the immune system response to exercise. The angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) insertion/deletion (I/D) polymorphism (rs1799752) is one of the most investigated genetic variants correlated to the physical performance and immune system. The aim of this study was to evaluate: (a) the response to an exhaustive strength exercise in terms of IL-6 and IL-10 expression in relation to ACE polymorphisms; and (b) the sleep behavior in response to an exhaustive strength exercise in relation to ACE polymorphisms. All participants were subjected to the following procedures: (a) genotyping of ACE polymorphism, (b) assay cytokine expression (IL-6 and IL-10) pre- and post-exhaustive exercise, and (c) evaluation of sleep parameters pre- and post-exhaustive exercise by actigraphy. We showed that after the exhaustive exercise: (a) the ACE I/I, I/D, and D/D genotypes underwent an increase in IL-6 expression (p

In breaststroke, at each arm action corresponds one leg kick; therefore, compared to the other strokes (front crawl, backstroke and butterfly), the contribution of the lower limbs is more important. However, it can be observed that the same distance can be covered at similar velocities with different stroke length (SL) and, as a consequence, stroke rate (SR). Hence, it seems that breaststroke swimmers can use different styles to achieve their goals. Therefore, the assessment of upper and lower limbs strength becomes very important along with the style being used during breaststroke performance. Twenty-four male and twenty female national-level breaststroke swimmers were divided in two groups for each gender, according to their SR (low-SR and high-SR). They performed 100 m breaststroke all-out performance in a 50 m swimming pool. SR, SL and velocity (v) were measured. To assess upper and lower limbs strength, swimmers underwent dry-land chin-up and jump & reach tests. Dry-land tests did not correlate to v (p > 0.05). SL inversely correlated to chin-up and directly correlated to jump & reach (p < 0.01). Regardless to the gender, low-SR had lower chin-up results than high-SR (males 0.19 ± 0.03 vs. 0.24 ± 0.04 nr kg-1, p < 0.01; females 0.13 ± 0.02 vs. 0.15 ± 0.03 nr kg-1, p < 0.05) and jumped higher than high-SR (males 31.74 ± 0.50 vs. 25.11 ± 0.55 % height, p < 0.001; females 22.93 ± 0.33 vs. 20.54 ± 0.63 % height, p < 0.01) swimmers. Despite many factors are involved in determining swimming performance, upper and lower limbs strength seems to be linked to a different breaststroke style in our group of swimmers. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Italia.

In front crawl, stroke length (SL) and stroke rate (SR) are two important technical determinants of performance. The relationship between these parameters has been investigated by several authors and two propulsion efficiency indices have been proposed to assess improvements of the front crawl stroke effectiveness in swimmers. The stroke index (SI), proposed by Costill in 1985, relates the velocity (v) and the SL as shown in the following equation: SI=SL v; while the propelling efficiency of the arm stroke, proposed by Zamparo et al. in 2005, relates v, SR and the shoulder-to-hand distance of the arm (l) following the equation: ηp=((0.9 v)/2π SF l) 2/π. The aim of this study was to assess whether the two indices were correlated in two groups (M, males; F, females) of young expert front crawl swimmers, in order to utilise both of them as interchangeable tools when evaluating improvements in propulsion efficacy. The participants performed a 400-m trial, and analyses were carried out for the overall performance as well as for each 100-m section of the 400 m (S1, S2, S3, S4), underlining also a possible gender difference. All the correlations found were significant (p

In swimming competitions, a good maximal oxygen uptake ( % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+- % feaagaart1ev2aaatCvAUfKttLearuqr1ngBPrgarmWu51MyVXgatC % vAUfeBSjuyZL2yd9gzLbvyNv2CaeHbd9wDYLwzYbItLDharyavP1wz % ZbItLDhis9wBH5garqqtubsr4rNCHbGeaGqiVu0Je9sqqrpepC0xbb % L8F4rqqrFfpeea0xe9Lq-Jc9vqaqpepm0xbba9pwe9Q8fs0-yqaqpe % pae9pg0FirpepeKkFr0xfr-xfr-xb9adbaqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaam % aaeaqbaaGcbaaceaGab8Nvayaacaaaaa!3BB7! $$ \dot V $$ O2max) is well correlated with performance in mid and long distance events. Along % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+- % feaagaart1ev2aaatCvAUfKttLearuqr1ngBPrgarmWu51MyVXgatC % vAUfeBSjuyZL2yd9gzLbvyNv2CaeHbd9wDYLwzYbItLDharyavP1wz % ZbItLDhis9wBH5garqqtubsr4rNCHbGeaGqiVu0Je9sqqrpepC0xbb % L8F4rqqrFfpeea0xe9Lq-Jc9vqaqpepm0xbba9pwe9Q8fs0-yqaqpe % pae9pg0FirpepeKkFr0xfr-xfr-xb9adbaqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaam % aaeaqbaaGcbaaceaGab8Nvayaacaaaaa!3BB7! $$ \dot V $$ O2max, oxygen uptake adaptation ( % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+- % feaagaart1ev2aaatCvAUfKttLearuqr1ngBPrgarmWu51MyVXgatC % vAUfeBSjuyZL2yd9gzLbvyNv2CaeHbd9wDYLwzYbItLDharyavP1wz % ZbItLDhis9wBH5garqqtubsr4rNCHbGeaGqiVu0Je9sqqrpepC0xbb % L8F4rqqrFfpeea0xe9Lq-Jc9vqaqpepm0xbba9pwe9Q8fs0-yqaqpe % pae9pg0FirpepeKkFr0xfr-xfr-xb9adbaqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaam % aaeaqbaaGcbaaceaGab8Nvayaacaaaaa!3BB7! $$ \dot V $$ O kinetic) and oxygen consumption at steady state ( % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+- % feaagaart1ev2aaatCvAUfKttLearuqr1ngBPrgarmWu51MyVXgatC % vAUfeBSjuyZL2yd9gzLbvyNv2CaeHbd9wDYLwzYbItLDharyavP1wz % ZbItLDhis9wBH5garqqtubsr4rNCHbGeaGqiVu0Je9sqqrpepC0xbb % L8F4rqqrFfpeea0xe9Lq-Jc9vqaqpepm0xbba9pwe9Q8fs0-yqaqpe % pae9pg0FirpepeKkFr0xfr-xfr-xb9adbaqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaam % aaeaqbaaGcbaaceaGab8Nvayaacaaaaa!3BB7! $$ \dot V $$ O2ss) are also important factors that influence the performance. Concerning oxygen kinetic parameters, the primary time constant (τ) seems to play the main role in % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+- % feaagaart1ev2aaatCvAUfKttLearuqr1ngBPrgarmWu51MyVXgatC % vAUfeBSjuyZL2yd9gzLbvyNv2CaeHbd9wDYLwzYbItLDharyavP1wz % ZbItLDhis9wBH5garqqtubsr4rNCHbGeaGqiVu0Je9sqqrpepC0xbb % L8F4rqqrFfpeea0xe9Lq-Jc9vqaqpepm0xbba9pwe9Q8fs0-yqaqpe % pae9pg0FirpepeKkFr0xfr-xfr-xb9adbaqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaam % aaeaqbaaGcbaaceaGab8Nvayaacaaaaa!3BB7! $$ \dot V $$ O kinetics. The purpose of this study was to look at a possible relationship between Ừ, as well as other physiologic parameters and performance in 400 m crawl in elite swimmers. Ten elite swimmers were tested in a swimming and in a laboratory in six sessions. % MathType!MTEF!2!1!+- % feaagaart1ev2aaatCvAUfKttLearuqr1ngBPrgarmWu51MyVXgatC % vAUfeBSjuyZL2yd9gzLbvyNv2CaeHbd9wDYLwzYbItLDharyavP1wz % ZbItLDhis9wBH5garqqtubsr4rNCHbGeaGqiVu0Je9sqqrpepC0xbb % L8F4rqqrFfpeea0xe9Lq-Jc9vqaqpepm0xbba9pwe9Q8fs0-yqaqpe % pae9pg0FirpepeKkFr0xfr-xfr-xb9adbaqaaeGaciGaaiaabeqaam % aaeaqbaaGcbaaceaGab8Nvayaacaaaaa!3BB7! $$ \dot V $$ O2peak and ventilatory threshold (VT) were determined during an incremental to exhaustion test (ET) on an arm crank ergometer. A constant load tests (CT) at 75% (>VT) and 35% (

Kata, the artistic part of karate, requires motor control, rhythm and movement differentiation capacities. When performing in a synchronised manner, kata team members have to make temporal and spatial adaptations to satisfy the requested task. It is not clear whether these coordinative adaptations modify physical output such as heart rate (HR) and blood lactate ([La−]) nor is it known how rapidly top-level athletes adapt. This study examined HR and [La−] outputs in different coordinative tasks and how accurately these tasks were done, in three world champion kata team competitors. In session 1, athletes performed their individual best trial (IM) on Gankaku, the kata that is normally executed during final team events. In sessions 2 and 3, the athletes repeated the kata with temporal and spatial variations (TV10 and TV20, SV1 and SV2). In session 4, one maximal team trial (TM) was performed. There was a decreasing trend in both HR and [La−] across the trials (HR: −2% in TV10, −4.2% in TV20, −2.9% in SV1, −3.2% in SV2; [La−]: −23.6% in TV10, −32.6% in TV20, −18% in SV1, −15.9% in SV2), and between IM and TM (HR −9.9%; [La−] − 21.5%). The coordinative tasks were achieved with a small error (

Introduction A number of medical conditions, some of them recently reported, are associated with an increased production of eosinophils. We report the first case of eosinophilic parotitis in the literature. Case presentation The patient was an eight-year-old Caucasian boy who presented with a two-year history of recurring acute parotitis with no fever. He had had a total of five episodes with no response to antibiotics, but remission had been achieved with oral corticosteroid therapy. We performed allergy tests for inhalant and food allergens and for haptens, but the results were all negative. The results of echography ruled out sialodochitis. Instead, a swab from the parotid duct led to the detection of a high number of eosinophils. Conclusions This report is first in the literature to describe a case of eosinophilic parotitis, and we suggest that a cytological assessment, which is quite simple yet rarely used by physicians, be performed when patients with parotitis of uncertain origin are under evaluation.

In the recent years, several cytokines have been associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD) development and progression and many studies have correlated this risk with polymorphisms in the genes encoding these molecules. Also the type 1 cytokine interferon (IFN)-γ belongs to a cytokine class that affects the immune function; in fact it plays a major role in defence against viruses and intracellular pathogens but also in the induction of the immune-mediated inflammatory response. The aim of this study was to evaluate the role of IFN-γ in AD by studying the association of +874T→A IFN-γ gene polymorphism with AD. We included in this study 115 AD patients (70 women, 45 men, mean age 80) and 90 sex and age-matched healthy controls (HC, 51 women, 39 men, mean age 82) from northern Italy. Genomic DNA was extracted with the salting-out method from whole blood of all subjects; the genotyping at IFN-γ loci was assessed with ARMS-PCR. The data obtained from the +874T→A IFN-γ gene polymorphism analysis of AD patients and HC lack of any statistically significant differences also when stratified according to gender. In conclusion these results confirm the previous shown lack of association between +874T→A IFN-γ gene polymorphism and the risk of AD. However, other polymorphisms have been demonstrated to influence IFN-γ transcription and since natural killer cells of AD patients show higher production of the cytokine, further analysis will be necessary to clarify the role of this gene in the pathogenesis of the disease.