DR.GREG WALL'S POSTS - HE IS A SCIENTIST AND AN EXTREME PHYSIOLOGIST

IMPOSSIBLE 2 POSSIBLE BOLIVIA EXPEDITION

In May 2011 impossible2Possible will be visiting the mountain nation of Bolivia, to run across the world's largest salt flats and celebrate the International Year of Chemistry. Bolivia is a landlocked country that sits ten degrees below the Equator in the center of South America. A nation of contrasts, Bolivia is one of the economically poorest countries in latin America, but boasts a rich diversity of cultures, languages, flora and fauna. While to the North-East, Bolivia features a lush tropical basin that feeds the headwaters of the Amazon River, South-Western Bolivia is very dry and situated on a high plateau that straddles the Andes mountains. Nestled high on this plateau among volcanoes and lakes is the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flats in the world. The Salar de Uyuni is home to ten billion tons of salt, and more than half of the world's lithium reserves. With one meter of elevation change across the 10,000 square kilometer flat, the Salar is used by NASA to calibrate satellites, including those that detect changes in polar ice sheets. Four Youth Ambassadors will be selected to join Ray Zahab, and fellow i2P adventurers in a 250 km running expedition across the salt flats. Youth Ambassadors will run an average of a marathon per day for one week in a quest to experience this incredible country as few have ever done before.

THE SCIENCE OF THE RUN

Humans are capable of performing amazing feats. Before muscles can produce movement by pulling on their attachments to bones, they must first obtain a source of energy. A complex series of metabolic pathways are present in human muscles that break down food to produce energy for different types of muscular activity. Our experiments will highlight how our bodies work in high altitude and during long distance endurance running.

Experiment Quick Links:

1. BLOOD OXYGEN SATURATION EXPERIMENTS
2. BLOOD ADAPTATION EXPERIMENTS
3. ACID BASE BALANCE & RESPIRATORY ADAPTATIONS TO ALTITUDE
4. AEROBIC OXIDATIVE METABOLISM
5. ANAEROBIC GLYCOLYTIC METABOLISM
6. ELECTROLYTES IN THE BODY

CANADA AM: SUDDEN CARDIAC DEATH IN ATHLETES

Our research group at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto has recently compiled a list of recommendations for athletes to get screened for cardiac problems. Although there is a very small risk, and the screening procedures are not perfect (they don't catch everything, and sometimes there are false positives), we do recommend that athletes get screened.

WATCH THE INTERVIEW ON CANADA AM HERE.

FOR MORE INFORMATION VISIT THE CANADIAN SADS FOUNDATION WEBSITE.

Here is the document, and our contact information is at the bottom if you have any questions:

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RESPIRATORY RESEARCH: CYSTIC FIBROSIS PATIENTS HAVE IMPAIRED MUSCLE FUNCTION.

I am pleased to say that our research on cystic fibrosis has finally been published.Here is the summary and abstract:

It has been suggested that exercise capacity and muscle function are impaired in patients with cystic fibrosis (CF), but debate remains whether exercise limitation in CF is be- cause of the cardiorespiratory system’s inability to meet met- abolic demands or intrinsic abnormalities in the muscle itself. Inefficient aerobic oxidative metabolism in CF patients has been described, but it remains unclear whether this is due to impaired oxygen delivery (1,2) or to intrinsic abnormalities in muscle function (3,4). It has been suggested that exercise capacity and muscle function may be impaired in patients with CF and researchers have identified CF transmembrane con- ductance regulator (CFTR) mRNA expression in rodent skel- etal muscle (5). A report has shown that an intrinsic alteration of function is linked to the absence of CFTR from skeletal muscle, leading to dysregulated calcium homeostasis, aug- mented inflammatory or atrophic gene expression signatures,and increased diaphragm muscle weakness (6). Our research team has recently demonstrated the expression of CFTR in human skeletal muscle (7). In addition, evidence suggests that impaired anaerobic performance (8), abnormal anaerobic me- tabolism (9), and decreased maximal muscle strength and power (10 –12) occurs in CF patients. Recently, [31P]phospho- rus magnetic resonance spectroscopy (31P-MRS) to assess muscle metabolism has been used in vivo (13,14) to assess the function of creatine kinase, oxidative phosphorylation, and anaerobic glycolysis pathways during exercise and recovery. 31P-MRS, in conjunction with specifically designed exercise protocols, may allow for the analysis of metabolism in patients with CF (15).

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THE ANIMATION OF LIFE - COOL PROJECT FROM HARVARD UNIVERSITY

It appears that science is now taking advantage of animation technology to show the magic of the human body to millions of people. Check out this segment from the New York Times:

And the full video from Harvard University: