Exercise is a well-known stress test for uncovering heart or lung disease, but it can also stress other organs and unmask a range of medical disorders. Practical case examples are given in seven areas: anemia, headache, hematuria, gastrointestinal problems, seizure, anhidrosis, and hypothyroidism. Recognizing the exercise-induced manifestations can lead to ...

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) and catecholamines are synthesized in response to stress. Adrenal NPY mRNA and tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) mRNA were measured by Northern analysis 2 h after a single 20 min bout of shaker stress in exercised and sedentary male Sprague-Dawley rats. Long-term exercise (18 weeks of voluntary wheel running) ...

This study investigated links between occupational stress, negative mood regulation expectancies, coping, anger, and distress. Participants were 56 police officers from two small, urban departments. They filled out the Negative Mood Regulation (NMR) Scale, as well as measures of police stress, coping, anger, and distress. Simultaneous multiple regression analyses revealed ...

This review focuses on the response of "stress" hormones to heat, exercise (single or repeated bouts), and combinations of these stimuli, with particular reference to their impact upon immune function. Very hot conditions induce a typical stress response, with secretion of catecholamines and cortisol. The catecholamines induce a demargination of ...

Interaction between the quality of the environment and the health of the exposed population determines the survival response of living organisms. The phenomenon of induced tolerance by exposure to threshold levels of stressors to stimulate natural defense mechanisms has potential therapeutic value. The paucity of information on predictability of individual ...

OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated physiological, neuroendocrine, and psychological status and functioning of patients with coronary artery disease in order to clarify their role in the expression of symptoms during myocardial ischemia (MI), and to establish repeatability of responses to mental stress. Design and methods of the study are presented. METHODS: ...

There has been at least forty empirical investigations concerning cardiovascular disease (CVD) among professional drivers (PDs). Standard cardiac risk factor status does not consistently distinguish PDs from other lower risk groups. PDs showed more than twice the overall exposure to stressful work factors compared to referents. They also showed lower ...

OBJECTIVE: To examine the effect of a prolonged active coping stressor on the transit of a substance from the mouth through small intestine in normal human volunteers. METHOD: Twelve healthy undergraduate males were administered 10 g of the nonabsorbable carbohydrate lactulose in two experimental sessions. In normal individuals, lactulose produces ...

OBJECTIVE: To observe pigs during road journeys in order to establish whether lavender straw was likely to decrease stress and incidence of travel sickness. SUBJECTS: Forty 70-kg Large White pigs were transported by road for 2 hours, 20 animals each day, over a 2-day period. DESIGN: On day 1, ample ...

While psychophysiologic studies of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) have investigated the effects of trauma-related stimuli on arousal, none have explored the development of intrusive imagery and affect states in the absence of such specific cues. The present study compares autonomic arousal during PTSD-related Rorschach responses in PTSD veterans vs. combat ...

This commentary is in response to a review published earlier in this journal. It is intended to provide additional information and supplement the original paper. A short review of the failure mechanisms of polyurethane pacing lead materials is provided. Two specific degradation mechanisms, environmental stress cracking and metal ion oxidation, ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the activity level of the autonomic nervous system in Sjögren's syndrome (SS) and to correlate this with stress. METHODS: Patients with SS (n = 12) and healthy controls (n = 10) were analysed for the content of vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) in their ...

Associations between fluctuation of treatment need for temporomandibular disorders (TMD) and age, gender, stress, and diagnostic subgrouping were analyzed in a 2-year follow-up of 391 subjects. All the studied factors were significantly associated with the treatment need for TMD at all examinations. The diagnostic subgroup (TMD arthro, TMD myo, TMD ...

The effects of stress on exercise behavior in community-residing women exercising on their own were assessed. Participants (N = 82) completed a background questionnaire and kept exercise diaries and Weekly Stress Inventories (P. J. Brantley, G. N. Jones, E. Boudreax, & S. L. Catz, 1997) for 8 consecutive weeks. During ...

Attempts to link personality traits and cortisol stress responses have often been inconclusive. The aim of this paper was to investigate this association by aggregating cortisol stress responses. Therefore, 20 healthy men were exposed to a task consisting of public speaking and mental arithmetics in front of an audience on ...

The characteristics of short-term potentiation (STP) and long-term potentiation (LTP) in the CA1 region of hippocampal slices were determined at various times following exposure to acute stress produced by restraint and tail-shock in mice. In slices prepared from control animals, theta-burst stimulation resulted in a large increase in evoked field ...

Previous testing has shown that visual acuity greatly influences task performance at light work rate levels. At moderate to heavy work rates, however, the Performance Rating Table (PRT) predicts almost no visual acuity effect. This experiment was performed to determine if the PRT value is realistic. Ten subjects walked on ...

In a quasi-experiment designed to examine the relief from job stress and burnout afforded by a vacation respite, 76 clerks completed measures of job stress and burnout twice before a vacation, once during vacation, and twice after vacation. There was a decline in burnout during the vacation and a return ...

OBJECTIVES: To study the correlation between wall shear stress and early atherosclerotic lesions in the abdominal aorta. DESIGN: Blinded histomorphometric studies. Comparison with in vitro data. MATERIALS: Abdominal aortic haemodynamics were simulated in a realistic pulsatile flow model. Abdominal aortas from 10 young adults with no signs of atherosclerotic disease ...

When examining headache sufferers' reactivity to stress, few studies attend to differing characteristics of the environment. In this study, we evaluated the influence of the clarity/ambiguity and positive/negative valence of an event on subjects' physiological and psychological reactivity. Migraine (n = 30), tension (n = 39), and control (n = ...

The growing size of world cities and ever more competitive working conditions are thought to cause subjective stress, anxiety and depression, with a resulting decrease in the quality of life, sleep disturbances, drug and alcohol abuse and poor productivity. Acute stress may suppress immune function, leading to an increased incidence ...

The aim of this study was to analyse the changes of baroreflex sensitivity (BRS) and their relation to changes of heart rate and blood pressure in medical students during moderate psychological stress brought about by oral examination. The changes of BRS during the stress were compared with the changes during ...

Although research on the relationship between exercise training and physiological stress reactivity is increasing, we know little about the involvement of brain neurochemistry. Moreover, the few studies that have been performed have concentrated on animals with normally functioning neurochemistry exposed to an acute stressor. Biomedical research is drawing an association ...

Knowledge of the effects of episodic or short-term exercise-stress on endogenous testosterone and luteinizing hormone levels still remains fragmentary and inconclusive. In this study, an approach based on the absolute concentrations of urinary total testosterone (T), luteinizing hormone (LH) and the T/LH concentration ratios, was used to profile short-term exercise-stress ...

We explored the relations among locus of control, sensation seeking, and stress (N = 68 students). Corroborating evidence was found that subjects with an external locus of control are more vulnerable to stress. Subjects scoring higher on the thrill and adventure seeking-dimension of sensation seeking reported less severe physical and ...

Experimental, epidemiologic and clinical studies have provided strong evidence that physical exercise has beneficial effects on multiple physiological variables affecting cardiovascular health (lipoprotein levels, rest blood pressure and heart rate, carbohydrate tolerance, neurohormonal activity). Regular exercise has been shown to slow the progression of cardiovascular disease and to reduce cardiovascular ...

The hippocampus/subiculum has been hypothesized to restrain hypothalamically mediated neuroendocrine responses to psychological stressors. While psychological stress has been observed to restrict plasma vasopressin (AVP) secretion, the role of these brain structures has not been examined. We subjected rats with bilateral aspiration of the hippocampus and controls with bilateral aspiration ...

Oxidative stress is a cellular or physiological condition of elevated concentrations of reactive oxygen species that cause molecular damage to vital structures and functions. Several factors influence the susceptibility to oxidative stress by affecting the antioxidant status or free oxygen radical generation. Here, we review the effect of alcohol, air ...

Despite the physiological importance of arterial baroreflexes as a powerful stabilizer of blood pressure, their functions themselves are not always stable and there are a variety of circumstances in which they are significantly modulated. During stressful conditions, including fight/flight, defense/attack, somatic nociception, visceral nociception, exercise, and mental stress, arterial baroreflexes ...

This study addresses the direct effect of fluid flow shear stress on production of the vascular mediators, PGE2 and PGI2 by vascular smooth muscle cells (SMC). Results indicate that shear stress increases PGE2 and PGI2 release in SMC. The production patterns, however, differ between PGE2 and PGI2. For PGE2, the ...

Positive stress has been described in the literature but not well characterized experimentally. This experiment was designed to test the hypothesis that environmental enrichment and housing density in C57BL/6 female mice modulate immune responses to acute exercise stress. A 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design was used where enrichment ...

The effect of prenatal stress was determined on exploration in situations that induce different levels of fear. Dams (12) were stressed by noise and light thrice weekly on an unpredictable basis throughout pregnancy, and 12 controls were left undisturbed. The time spent by different groups of their adult offspring of ...

Clinical exercise testing has wide application in medicine, including the assessment of functional capacity, ventilatory function, gas exchange, muscle function, and endocrine and metabolic function, and as a test for claudication in peripheral vascular disease. The major use of exercise testing, however, is as a stress test in patients with ...

This report describes the immediate effect of war stress on physiological measures of the auditory startle responses (ASRs). Ten healthy Israeli subjects were examined 4 months before the Gulf war, during a missile alert on the first day of the war, and 8 months after the war. The magnitude and ...

STUDY DESIGN: Cadaveric motion segment experiment. Measurements on each specimen were compared before and after creep loading. OBJECTIVES: To show how sustained "creep" loading affects stress distributions inside intervertebral discs. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA: The central region of an intervertebral disc acts like a hydrostatic "cushion" between adjacent vertebrae. However, ...

The professional activity of air traffic controllers (ATC) is often considered to be rather stressful. Certain characteristics of this job are likely to produce stress; for example an ATC can not predict when a situation becomes critical and he is not able to regulate the workload. In order to assess ...

The elderly constitute an increasing percentage of patients evaluated and treated for coronary artery disease. Clinical and noninvasive evaluation are important in both the diagnosis and prognosis of coronary disease in the elderly, and stress testing is an important part of that evaluation. For older individuals capable of vigorous treadmill ...

The relationship between cross-bridge cycling rate and isometric stress was investigated in rat myometrium. Stress production by myometrial strips was measured under resting, K+ depolarization, and oxytocin-stimulated conditions. Cross-bridge cycling rates were determined from measurements of maximal unloaded shortening velocity, using the quick-release method. Force redevelopment after the quick release ...

The hypothesis that the ability to comfortably spend and use time alone is a buffer against effects of stress, comparable to social support, was tested. A 20-item instrument was developed to evaluate the capacity to be alone (Winnicott, 1958) and was then administered by telephone survey to 500 U.S. adults. ...

The importance of the neutrophil function to host defense and tissue damage has been widely recognized. However, the usefulness of the correlation analysis between phagocytic activity and superoxide production of neutrophils is unknown. We investigated the relationship by histochemical NBT assay using rats and mice exposed to voluntary exercises and ...

The effects of a 10-week aerobic exercise and progressive relaxation training program on somatic, emotional, and behavioral responses to acute stress, as determined by quality of motor performance and affect, were examined. The participants consisted of 60 unfit male university undergraduate students with no previous training in stress management who ...

BACKGROUND: Previous clinical research has shown that severely ill (somatic) as well as many psychosomatic patients show raised noradrenaline (NA), adrenaline (AD), cortisol, free serotonin (f5HT) and platelet aggregability. Conversely, they show reduced NA/AD plasma ratio and platelet serotonin (p5HT). They also show adrenal hyperresponsiveness to an oral glucose load. ...

Ankle to arm index (AAI) defined as the ratio of ankle systolic blood pressure (ASBP), to brachial systolic blood pressure is largely used in the study of lower extremity arterial disease (LEAD). To study the hypothesis of the shunt of blood away from the skin as the explanation of AAI ...

The borderline hypertensive rat (BHR) appears to be an appropriate model for investigating the role of the environment in producing hypertension. Previous studies have demonstrated that the BHR shows chronic blood pressure elevations to both stress and high salt intake. Other studies suggest that interactions between the brain and kidney ...

The EEG from frontal cortex, EMG and EOG were recorded from rats exposed to only exercise (Treadmill), only stress, exercise + stress and neither (control). In comparison with the control group, the percent of Delta activity in the awake was significantly increased in the depressed group and significantly decreased in ...

OBJECTIVE: To test the hypothesis that stress reducing techniques such as meditation alter immune responses after strenous physical stress. METHODS: The hypothesis was tested by studying six meditating and six non-meditating male runners in a concurrent, controlled design. After a period of six months with meditation for the experimental group, ...

The present study examined the effects of instruction type and boredom proneness (BP) on vigilance performance, workload, and boredom. Subjects completed the Boredom Proneness Scale and were assigned to high and low groups based on their scores. They then monitored a VDT for critical signals. Half the subjects were instructed ...

Stress echocardiography has found acceptance as a routine technique for the diagnosis and evaluation of coronary artery disease. This review concentrates on recent advances in this technique. New approaches including contrast echocardiography, transesophageal stress echocardiography, and color-enhanced wall motion analysis may augment its feasibility and can be used to assist ...

Non-invasive diagnosis of coronary artery disease is based on the combined use of a technique capable of identifying accurately the presence of ischaemia and a stress capable of safely inducing myocardial ischaemia. In the last few years great progress has been made in this field thanks to the use (a) ...

MR phase velocity mapping was used to calculate wall shear stress (WSS) in the suprarenal and infrarenal abdominal aorta, two sites with very different proclivities for development of a atherosclerosis. For the eight subjects studied, the average value of the mean (time averaged over the cardiac cycle) WSS in the ...