Clinical Research Directory

Respiratory Muscle Training to Improve Cerebrovascular and Immune Function

Millions of adults in America have too much body fat, resulting in obesity. Obesity is detrimental to health and causes disease. Obesity reduces brain health, which causes the brain to function less effectively. Additionally, a lack of exercise contributes to poorer brain health. Most individuals feel they do not have time to exercise. There is a need for a quicker type of training that improves brain health. Newly developed breathing exercises could be a time-efficient, cost-effective, and home-based practice to increase brain health. This practice acts as weightlifting for breathing muscles. These new breathing exercises have already been shown to increase heart health. Heart health is linked to brain health; if an intervention helps the heart, it is likely to also help the brain. It is currently unknown if breathing training can improve brain health in younger adults with obesity. The investigators will utilize the same 8-week program shown to improve heart health. Testing will be conducted before and after the breathing training. The first part of the study will determine if breathing exercises help brain health. Obesity also causes inflammation. This is measured via blood but affects the entire body. It is thought to cause some of the negative outcomes of obesity. By lowering inflammation, it is likely to improve overall health. Breathing exercises may reduce inflammation, but more research is required. The second part of this study will determine whether breathing exercises help reduce inflammation. This study will determine if brain health can be improved in adults with obesity. This could help 40% of American adults with obesity to live longer and healthier lives.

Equol and Vascular Function in Women With Chronic Kidney Disease

The risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) is significantly elevated in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD). Notably, women with CKD commonly experience menstrual disturbances induced by CKD, which may contribute to impaired vascular function and elevated CVD risk. However, most of the literature in nephrology focuses on male patients, and studies on women's vascular health are limited. Establishing effective therapies for improving vascular function and reducing CVD risk in women with CKD is a high research priority of the NIH. Equol contributes to improvement in vascular function, mediated in part by its anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory properties. However, there is no information on the effect of equol on vascular function in women with CKD. The proposed project aims to determine the effect of 12 weeks of oral equol supplementation on vascular function in postmenopausal women with CKD.