Liam Ward

Sep 13, 2024 | bmcwomenshealth.biomedcentral.com | Liam Ward |Sofia Sederholm Lawesson |Anna-Clara Spetz Holm |Sigrid Nilsson |Wei Li |Moa Henriksson | +2 more

Most women experience vasomotor symptoms (VMS) during the menopausal transition. A 15-week resistance training intervention (RTI) significantly reduced moderate-to-severe VMS (MS-VMS) and improved health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and cardiovascular risk markers in postmenopausal women. Whether a short RTI could have long-term effects is unknown. We aimed to investigate whether there were intervention-dependent effects two years after a 15-week RTI on MS-VMS frequency, HRQoL, and cardiovascular risk markers in postmenopausal women. This observational prospective cohort study is a follow-up to a randomized controlled trial (RCT) on a 15-week RTI in postmenopausal women (n = 57). The control group had unchanged low physical activity during these first 15 weeks. At the follow-up contact two years post-intervention, 35 women agreed to participate in an additional physical visit at the clinic with clinical testing, blood sampling, and magnetic resonance imaging, identical to the protocol at the baseline visit at the start of the RCT. Although all women showed reduced MS-VMS and increased moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) over the 2-year follow-up compared to baseline, the groups from the original RCT (intervention group; IG, control group; CG) changed differently over time (p < 0.001 and p = 0.006, respectively) regarding MS-VMS. The IG maintained a significantly lower MS-VMS frequency than the CG at the 6-month follow-up. At the 2-year follow-up, there was no significant difference between the original RCT groups. No significant changes over time or differences between groups were found in HRQoL or cardiovascular risk markers. However, significant interactions between original RCT groups and time were found for visceral adipose tissue (p = 0.041), ferritin (p = 0.045), and testosterone (p = 0.010). A 15-week resistance training intervention reduced MS-VMS frequency up to six months post-intervention compared to a CG, but the effect was not maintained after two years. The RTI did neither contribute to preserved improvements of cardiovascular risk markers nor improved HRQoL after two years compared to a CG. Clinical trials.gov registered ID: NCT01987778, trial registration date 2013–11-19.

Aug 30, 2024 | messynessychic.com | Liam Ward

If it took you this long to identify one of the most epic genres of art history, welcome to the club. We must have skipped class that day. The aesthetic: a lost civilization – its crumbling and vaguely familiar architectural forms dramatically lit by a sunset backdrop, and in the foreground, a congregation of folks are musing amidst the ruins.

Jul 5, 2024 | messynessychic.com | Liam Ward

As the countdown for the Paris Summer Olympics has begun and the excitement for the international extravaganza of athletic prowess mounts, few will now remember a past games that had a rather more frugal approach to the sporting proceedings. Compared to the multi-millions spent on the current games the 1948 London Olympics was the make-do-and-mend alternative that has been labelled by some as the ‘Austerity Olympics’.

May 3, 2024 | messynessychic.com | Liam Ward

Horace Pippin was an artist who was gifted with the ability to express his work with an unrefined social realism and dreamlike playfulness of touch that in reality, would mask a darker narrative. The grandson of African American slaves and a decorated World War One veteran who was registered as disabled after being wounded in France in 1918, Pippin sought to express life through his painting, a life of hardship, of war and loss, segregation and belief.

Apr 25, 2024 | messynessychic.com | Liam Ward

If there is anything that can make a strident music fan salivate in anticipation, it’s the idea of an unreleased track or lost album from a favourite band. It’s like catnip for the musicologist and can become like a biblical quest for a lost chalice of sound for the collector of rare grooves and scrapped singles. There are many reasons why an album or song never sees the light of day.