During eccentrically biased exercise (e.g., downhill locomotion), whole body oxygen consumption and blood lactate concentrations are lower than during level locomotion. These general systemic measurements indicate that muscle metabolism is lower during downhill exercise. This study was designed to test the hypothesis that hindlimb muscle blood flow is correspondingly lower during downhill vs. l...

We investigated the normal and parallel ground reaction forces during downhill and uphill running. Our rationale was that these force data would aid in the understanding of hill running injuries and energetics. Based on a simple spring-mass model, we hypothesized that the normal force peaks, both impact and active, would increase during downhill running and decrease during uphill running. We an...

BACKGROUND Proximal or 'downhill' esophageal varices are a rare cause of upper gastrointestinal hemorrhage. Unlike the much more common distal esophageal varices, which are most commonly a result of portal hypertension, downhill esophageal varices result from vascular obstruction of the superior vena cava (SVC). While SVC obstruction is most commonly secondary to malignant causes, our review of...

Brain cytokines, induced by various inflammatory challenges, have been linked to sickness behaviors, including fatigue. However, the relationship between brain cytokines and fatigue after exercise is not well understood. Delayed recovery of running performance after muscle-damaging downhill running is associated with increased brain IL-1beta concentration compared with uphill running. However, ...

Motivated by the observed time scales in protein systems said to fold "downhill," we have studied the finite, linear master equation, with uniform rates forward and backward as a model of the downhill process. By solving for the system eigenvalues, we prove the claim that in situations where there is no free energy barrier a transition between single- and multi-exponential kinetics occurs at su...

    Background: Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), in addition to its respiratory problems, is accompanied by several musculoskeletal consequences. The aim of this study is to investigate the effectiveness of eccentric exercise in the form of downhill walking (DW) on respiratory capacity, physical function and quality of life (QOL) in patients with COPD.    ...

Treadmill walking gait analyses are frequently conducted due to their ease of collecting multiple strides of data, minimal space required and ability to finely control speed. The question of whether treadmill (TM) walking gait replicates overground (OG) walking gait on a level surface, has been extensively studied. From a spatiotemporal perspective, TM walking on a level surface generally simul...

To facilitate downhill walking in transfemoral amputees, some prostheses contain knee joints that have a yielding mechanism. The aim of this case study was to investigate 1) at which gradient unilateral transfemoral (UTF) amputees first utilised the yielding mechanism, 2) whether this mechanism is linked to altered spatio-temporal parameters and 3) if the switch occurs at a different gradient w...