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a large portion of the experiments on

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the international space station are

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designed to find out how that alien

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environment impacts the human beings we

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send there commander steve swanson and

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flight engineer reid wiseman are

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scheduled to gather data for one of

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those experiments known as cardio ox and

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it's looking into whether or not

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elevated stress is related to an

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increased risk of atherosclerosis in

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astronauts during or after space flight

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the principal investigator is dr steven

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platts of the biomedical research and

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environmental sciences division here at

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nasa's johnson space center

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i spoke to him recently about this

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research into the cardiovascular health

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risk of long-duration space flight and

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asked if we know for a medical fact that

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space flight causes stress in astronauts

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we don't know for sure and that's always

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something with science you know it's

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hard to tell anything for sure but there

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have been several experiments

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over the past few years that have shown

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an increase in the biomarkers that are

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shown with oxidative stress and most

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recently at a meeting in canada

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several groups presented data showing

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that there were increases in oxidative

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stress and increases in

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the way that the blood vessels change

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during space flight so we're seeing more

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changes than we had previously

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anticipated so it fits very well with

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our experiment so we are collecting data

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that that is helping us determine

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whether or not that is a cause at all

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now um can you tell me a little about

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the difference if there's what are the

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difference between oxidative versus the

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inflammatory stress sure so the

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oxidative stress is what's caused

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basically by everyday function every

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cell in your body when it burns atp

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produces a free radical that's what we

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used to call it but a reactive oxygen

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species or a reactive nitrogen species

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so these are the things that they're in

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your body naturally it's part of the

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normal process and then you also produce

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antioxidants so things that clean these

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up and you need them in your body that's

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one of the primary ways that your white

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blood cells fight infection is um with

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these compounds so if you don't have

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them it's bad and you hear on tv all the

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time well you should eat blueberries and

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eat dark chocolate and drink red wine

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because they have antioxidants right

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yeah i know i do too but those are

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because they're antioxidants so you want

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to be careful you don't want to take

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antioxidants unless you need them but

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recent research has shown that many

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disease processes involve oxidative

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stress and that's what happens when that

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balance is skewed in your body so either

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you're producing too many

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oxidants or you're not

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getting rid of them enough so there's

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this equation of fine balance and that's

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disrupted so you're tilting towards a

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more oxidative environment and that's

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when you can get damage to

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dna or

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protein changes

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or

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changes in the vascular wall which is

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what we're looking at how those things

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occur and those are precursors to

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inflammatory

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stresses so it's oxidative stress occurs

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that creates an inflammatory environment

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and then that inflammation really can

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damage the tissue and lead to a

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pathological state like atherosclerosis

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great thanks for that well so i can only

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imagine but can you tell me briefly what

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causes the stress for the astronauts

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there are quite a few things so again

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here on earth we're extrapolating a lot

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of this up into space but we know that

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radiation causes oxidative stress we

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know that certain types of diet can

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cause it

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physical activity both too much and too

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little can increase your oxidative

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stress even something like psychological

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stress just the confinement of being up

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in space increases the oxidative stress

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and again a recent study that was uh

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presented up in canada showed that just

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confinement alone the psychological

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stress that occurs with that

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changes the vascular wall and how that

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blood vessel then functions

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okay let's talk about this thing from

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here today can you tell me about how we

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are going about collecting the data

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there are two main ways we collect data

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the first is the the biomarkers so we

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want to look at blood and urine and see

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which markers of oxidative stress or

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inflammation are elevated but the

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primary way we collect physiological

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data is with the ultrasound machine here

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and this is our portable ultrasound it's

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exactly the same as ultrasound that's on

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station up there it's called the

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ultrasound two it's the second unit

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they've had up there we have it

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configured exactly the same as they do

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on station again so that we can talk

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them through their data collections uh

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in the minimal amount of time possible

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here you'll you see a carotid artery and

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this is one of the primary arteries that

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we're looking at for this experiment

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over here is a black and white image and

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if you blow up this area you can see a

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larger view and this is doppler

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ultrasound so this is much like a

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weather map where they're showing

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the rain moving we're showing blood

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flowing and so we will use these data to

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help us calculate what the blood flow is

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in that artery we also use diameter

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measurements and one of the most

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important things we do is measure the

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thickness of this wall and for our study

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the thickness of the wall is a critical

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component that thickness has been shown

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to relate to a long-term risk of

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atherosclerosis so that's one of our

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primary outcomes is how thick does that

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wall get and then does that relate or

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correlate to a change in the biomarkers

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that we're getting in the other part of

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the experiment and the astronaut is

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using you have

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yes we have a

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ultrasound probe here so when they're

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doing a collection like this

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they will take the probe and hold it and

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like the carotid artery would be right

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about here and they would manipulate it

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and from the ground would be telling

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them okay move it to the left move it to

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the right rotate it this way and they

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can do these types of things we also do

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some cardiac measurements and you can do

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that like this and then the brachial

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artery in the arm is what we're using as

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our control vessel so that vessel is at

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the same level as the heart shouldn't

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change much if you're looking at

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pressures

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and we're using that to look at function

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as well as structure so we can do other

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types of experiments where we see how

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that blood vessel functions we can see

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it get bigger and get smaller

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when we do different perturbations to it

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and so i assume you take various data

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before during yes we do pre-flight post

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flight and then in flight

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tell me what what you hope to get from

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the results of this sure um one of the

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things we don't know is if space flight

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increases the long-term risk of an

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astronaut having a cardiovascular issue

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in the future

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we've done some work looking at what's

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happening in flight but we don't know

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long term so this study will help us to

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figure out if we have a long-term risk

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and a lot of that is

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we're recognizing that it's not a

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one-shot deal right you give a stress

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and you're not necessarily going to have

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a problem right then but 10 years down

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the road you may have increased their

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risk and so this study is one of the few

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studies

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that has a surveillance part to it so

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we're looking at these astronauts for

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five years after they return from space

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to see if there's any chronic changes or

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chronic inflammation that's going on and

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that's

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very important for clinical medicine

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here on earth they look at these types

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of markers and look at the risks that

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people have over time and there are some

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uh epidemiological studies that have

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been done the most famous being the

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framingham study and they create a

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number to give you your overall risk for

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having a heart disease in the future but

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a lot of these models are now adding in

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the vascular age

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and people probably seen that on tv now

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the vascular age oh i'm a 90 year old as

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far as my blood vessels are concerned

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but it's it's a real number and

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different people calculate it different

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ways but what leads up to that is how

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are your blood vessels functioning and

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we're hopefully going to be able to

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contribute to that to say okay if you

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have this much change in your blood

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vessel function or this much change in

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the structure how does that relate to

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your long-term risk of cardiovascular

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disease

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very very interesting and important work

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that you are doing you and your team i

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appreciate you coming out that's all the

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time we have and showing us all the work

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that you are doing and much continued

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success great and uh hope we get more

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answers to