PURPOSE:The effectiveness of the stretching to increase the range of motion of the joint, reduce the risk of injury, enhance athletic performance or decrease post exercise muscle soreness. This study was to compare the effect of the stretching method applied on the shortened hamstring muscle for flexibility, strength, pressure pain threshold value and muscle tone. METHODS:This study is a two-group pretest-posttest design. Fifty-four healthy young adults were randomly assigned to a vibration-assisted stretching group (VASG, n=27) or a static stretching group (SSG, n=27). Participants performed each stretch in 4 sets of 30 seconds each. A

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PURPOSE: This study was conducted to compare the muscle activity of the proximal muscles of the lower limb according to the distance between the front and rear foot during lunge and to determine the most effective foot position for activation of the proximal muscle in the limb. METHODS: A total of 49 young adults were enrolled in this study. All subjects performed lunge by positioning the big toe of the back foot and the heel of the front foot at intervals of 40%, 60%, and 80% of the subject's own leg length. Muscle activity of the vastus medialis oblique, rectus femoris (RF), vastus lateralis oblique (VLO), gluteus medius, biceps †Corresponding Author : Yong-Jun Cha

Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) is a major etiologic agent causing chronic gastritis, along with other features, including lymphoid follicles, surface epithelial degeneration with mucous depletion and intestinal metaplasia. To clarify the mechanism by which H. pylori induces gastric mucosal injury and development of lymphoid follicles, in this study we examined the expression of the iNOS, cagA, CCL3 and CCL18 mRNA in biopsy materials obtained from severe and mild chronic gastritis. Reverse transcription-PCR analysis showed that the rate of iNOS expression in mucosa of severe or mild chronic gastritis was 95.7% or 92.9, respectively. The expression of cagA mRNA in mucosa of severe chronic gastritis was 63.8%, but cagA mRNA was not found in mucosa of mild chronic gastritis. The expression of CCL3 mRNA in mucosa of severe chronic gastritis was 95.7%, but CCL3 mRNA was not found in mucosa of mild chronic gastritis. The expression of CCL18 mRNA was 53.2% in lymphoid follicle of gastric mucosa, but CCL18 mRNA was found in gastric mucosa without lymphoid follicle (46.8%). The prevalence of expression of both cagA and CCL18 mRNA was 59.6% and cagA mRNA expression without CCL18 was 16.7% in lymphoid follicle of gastric mucosa. These results suggest that the expression of iNOS mRNA in both mild and severe chronic gastritis is very high, therefore, the NO pathway is suspected of being an important factor in the etiology of chronic gastritis. The expression of cagA mRNA in gastric mucosa is associated with severity of chronic gastritis. Almost all of the CCL18 mRNA positive gastric mucosa were also expressing cagA, therefore CCL18 mRNA expression is closely related to the cagA mRNA expression (p<0.0001).