Cardiology

Exercising when you have high blood pressure

(HealthDay)—High blood pressure is a serious risk factor for heart disease, stroke and other life-threatening medical conditions. While many people need medication and dietary changes to control their blood pressure, exercise ...

Gerontology & Geriatrics

GlyNAC supplementation reverses aging hallmarks in aging humans

A randomized, double blind human clinical trial conducted by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine reveals that supplementation with GlyNAC—a combination of glycine and N-acetylcysteine—improves many age-associated ...

Health

The surprising benefits of weight training

(HealthDay)—The most common misconception about weight training is that it adds bulky muscle mass, a fear of some women. While elite male lifters can—and want to—get very developed, for most people the result is simply ...

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Muscle

Muscle (from Latin musculus, diminutive of mus "mouse") is the contractile tissue of the body and is derived from the mesodermal layer of embryonic germ cells. Muscle cells contain contractile filaments that move past each other and change the size of the cell. They are classified as skeletal, cardiac, or smooth muscles. Their function is to produce force and cause motion. Muscles can cause either locomotion of the organism itself or movement of internal organs. Cardiac and smooth muscle contraction occurs without conscious thought and is necessary for survival. Examples are the contraction of the heart and peristalsis which pushes food through the digestive system. Voluntary contraction of the skeletal muscles is used to move the body and can be finely controlled. Examples are movements of the eye, or gross movements like the quadriceps muscle of the thigh. There are two broad types of voluntary muscle fibers: slow twitch and fast twitch. Slow twitch fibers contract for long periods of time but with little force while fast twitch fibers contract quickly and powerfully but fatigue very rapidly.

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