Latest news with #Mazzoli
Time of India
5 days ago
- Health
- Time of India
Study reveals how a small change in your walking style can relieve knee osteoarthritis
Image credits: Getty Images Knee osteoarthritis happens when the cartilage in the knee joint breaks down, causing the bones to rub together. This leads to friction and thus, pain and swelling. According to the Osteoarthritis Action Alliance, osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis affecting 32.5 million US adults. Now, a study published in The Lancet Rheumatology on August 12th, revealed that slightly changing your walking style could considerably ease the pain caused by knee osteoarthritis. People trained to angle their feet in a slightly inward or outward position from their natural alignment experienced slower degeneration of the cartilage cushion inside their knees, showed the results. People also reported greater reductions in knee pain and better knee function a year later, said researchers. 'Altogether, our findings suggest that helping patients find their best foot angle to reduce stress on their knees may offer an easy and fairly inexpensive way to address early-stage osteoarthritis,' said Valentina Mazzoli, co-lead researcher and assistant professor of radiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City. The enlightening study Image credits: Getty Images For the study, researchers recruited 68 people with knee osteoarthritis and recorded their gait while walking on a treadmill. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Your Finger Shape Says a Lot About Your Personality, Read Now Tips and Tricks Undo A computer program simulated their walking patterns and calculated the maximum stress they placed on their knees. The team also generated computer models of four new foot positions angled inward or outward by 5 or 10 degrees and estimated which would be best to reduce stress on each person's knees. Then, the participants were divided into 2 groups with half being trained in six sessions to walk with a foot angle ideal for them and the other half continuing walking normally. The results revealed that those who adjusted their gait reduced maximum loading in their knees by 4% while those who kept their walking style increased the load by 3%. Additionally, those taught a new foot position also experienced a 2.5 point reduction on a 10-point pain scale, equivalent to over-the-counter painkillers such as NSAIDs and acetaminophen, said the researchers. 'These results highlight the importance of personalizing treatment instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach to osteoarthritis,' Mazzoli said. 'While this strategy may sound challenging, recent advances in detecting the motion of different body parts using artificial intelligence may make it easier and faster than ever before.'
UPI
5 days ago
- Health
- UPI
Researchers say changes in stride can ease arthritis pain
A new study published in The Lancet Rheumatology suggests foot positioning while walking can reduce stress on a person's knee joint. Photo by Samuel Corum/UPI | License Photo Slightly altering your stride while walking could considerably ease pain caused by wear-and-tear knee arthritis, a new study says. Foot positioning while walking can reduce stress on a person's knee joint, researchers reported Tuesday in The Lancet Rheumatology. People trained to angle their feet slightly inward or outward from their natural alignment experienced slower degeneration of the cartilage cushion inside their aching knees, results show. They also reported greater reductions in knee pain and better knee function after a year, researchers said. "Altogether, our findings suggest that helping patients find their best foot angle to reduce stress on their knees may offer an easy and fairly inexpensive way to address early-stage osteoarthritis," said co-lead researcher Valentina Mazzoli, an assistant professor of radiology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City. This strategy could lower patients' reliance on painkillers and delay the need for knee replacement surgery, Mazzoli added in a news release. For the study, researchers recruited 68 people with knee osteoarthritis and recorded their gait while walking on a treadmill. A computer program simulated their walking patterns and calculated the maximum stress they were placing on their knees. The research team also generated computer models of four new foot positions angled inward or outward by 5 or 10 degrees and estimated which would best reduce stress on each person's knees. Participants then were randomly divided into two groups. Half were trained in six sessions to walk with the foot angle ideal to them, and the other half were told to continue walking normally. Overall, those who adjusted their gait reduced maximum loading in their knees by 4%, while those who kept their normal stride increased loading by more than 3%. Further, those taught the new foot position experienced a 2.5-point reduction on a 10-point pain scale, equivalent to the effect of over-the-counter painkillers like NSAIDs and acetaminophen, researchers said. "These results highlight the importance of personalizing treatment instead of taking a one-size-fits-all approach to osteoarthritis," Mazzoli said. "While this strategy may sound challenging, recent advances in detecting the motion of different body parts using artificial intelligence may make it easier and faster than ever before." AI software that estimates joint loading using smartphone videos is now available, allowing doctors to perform a gait analysis without specialized lab equipment, researchers noted. The team next plans to test whether those AI tools can indeed help identify the best walking method for knee arthritis patients, Mazzoli said. They also plan to expand their study to include people with obesity. More information The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons has more about knee arthritis. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Axios
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
At the Houston Grand Opera, two spring shows wrestle with love, faith and fate
Both of the spring shows at the Houston Grand Opera lean into the season's "truly, madly, deeply" theme — with heavy doses of religion — but they are distinctly different in story, tone and experience. State of the opera:" Breaking the Waves" is a contemporary opera that premiered in 2016, composed by Missy Mazzoli. It's sung in English and is unsettling and strange, but you will get hooked with the plot line. "Breaking the Waves" is about a devout young woman in a conservative religious community who believes sacrificing herself — emotionally and sexually — is the only way to save her paralyzed husband. The intrigue:"Breaking the Waves" was supposed to make its HGO debut in the 2020-2021 season, but it was delayed by the pandemic. The piece is sexually explicit in a way you don't expect on the opera stage — it has profanity, nudity and graphic scenes. Mazzoli wasn't sure she'd ever compose the piece. When her librettist suggested adapting Lars von Trier's 1996 film, she was hesitant — but she said "the idea wouldn't leave me alone." What they're saying: Mazzoli is part of a small group of composers bringing opera into the 21st century. She tells Axios, "I love being part of the operatic tradition … I'm not out here to destroy the tradition and burn it all down and build it again." "I see this film and this story as the story of a woman in an impossible situation where everyone is telling her what to do, and she's left only with her own agency and her own idea of what is moral and what is good," Mazzoli says. My experience:"Breaking the Waves" was a haunting, twisted story. I still don't know exactly how I feel about the plot, but I know the production and its ethical questions will stay with me. The opera is no doubt a talker for its hard-to-shake themes. I was also struck by the multipurpose set design and the dramatic, nautical-influenced score. Meanwhile, Richard Wagner's " Tannhäuser" is a traditional opera. It follows a knight torn between sacred love and earthly desire, wrestling with redemption and damnation. It's big. It's slow. It's full of Wagner's famous dramatic and soaring music. The production is grand, with beautiful, ornate set design. Wagner's music in "Tannhäuser" is as rich and sweeping as always but he continues to test my attention span with a four-hour opera. As beautiful as his productions are, I'm starting to realize the stories just might not be for me — at least now. That said, I'm probably in the minority, as plenty of people around me were excitedly analyzing the symbolism. If you go: "Breaking the Waves" runs through May 4, and "Tannhäuser" is on through May 11.
Chicago Tribune
18-03-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
David Hiller: Late Wyoming senator embraced a bipartisan spirit that we need now
Our country could use more political leaders like Alan K. Simpson, the former Wyoming U.S. senator who died March 14 at the age of 93. I got to know Simpson in 1981, during his first term as a senator. I had recently begun working as a special assistant to Attorney General William French Smith at the start of President Ronald Reagan's administration. Immigration was in crisis in the aftermath of the 1980 Mariel boatlift that brought more than 100,000 migrants from Cuba, as well as chronic undocumented migration at the southern border. In addition, more than 200,000 refugees were admitted to the U.S. in 1980, primarily from Vietnam and Cambodia, following the end of the Vietnam War. Facing these pressing issues, Reagan asked Smith to lead the administration's response, and the attorney general asked me to work on it. Simpson was chair of the immigration subcommittee of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He was a folksy, plain-spoken, sharp-humored lawyer and son of a former Wyoming senator and governor. I was also personally drawn to him as my brother Scott had attended the University of Wyoming where he met his wife, Ruth. Over the next two years, we worked with Simpson and his staff, as well as his counterpart on the House side, Rep. Romano Mazzoli, a Democrat from Kentucky, to find solutions for our immigration and refugee situation. Simpson and Mazzoli were something of an odd couple: Simpson, a Republican, was tall and slender, gregarious, and even a little corny, whereas Mazzoli, a Democrat, was short and compact, quieter and reserved. But both were known to share an interest in immigration. Mazzoli's father had emigrated from Italy. Simpson, as a Boy Scout in the 1940s, had met Scouts from Japanese American families who were interned at a camp in Wyoming during World War II. (One of the Scouts Simpson met was 12-year-old Norman Mineta, who would later become a Democratic congressman and secretary of transportation under President George W. Bush.) Simpson and Mazzoli's efforts eventually led to the Immigration Control and Reform Act, signed into law by Reagan in 1986. The legislative journey was long and uncertain, with the contested bill often viewed as dead. Its ultimate passage owes a lot to the tenacity of Simpson and Mazzoli. We also had a president in Reagan who hailed from a border state, knew both the challenges and the benefits of immigration, and had a track record of working across party lines. The legislation included the first-ever prohibition on hiring workers without documentation, more border enforcement, expanded visas for needed temporary workers and a path to legal status for longtime undocumented residents. This was the last time there was comprehensive immigration reform in our country. Clearly, the 1986 law did not solve our country's immigration issues for all time. Border enforcement remained too weak, even as the forces propelling migration from Central and South America were exploding. And the need for immigrants in our workforce has never been greater. Nonetheless, repeated efforts to again forge bipartisan solutions have failed in the years since. Simpson left the Senate after three terms in 1997. In 2010, President Barack Obama appointed him and Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, to lead a bipartisan commission on strategies to reduce the growing federal deficits and debt level. They came up with bipartisan recommendations for a combined $4 trillion in spending cuts and tax increases. Legislative efforts to implement some or all of the Simpson-Bowles recommendations have failed several times, facing critics on the left for entitlement spending cuts and critics on the right for tax increases. Federal debt was $13.5 trillion in 2010. It is now more than $36 trillion. Simpson embodied the practical, can-do, bipartisan approach to government that used to be a hallmark of our politics. His passing reminds us of what is possible.
