TV Watching: Cost in Fitness Adds Up
Web MD reports, unless you pace the floor (or a treadmill) while watching TV, your tube time could be making your fitness profile a little fluffy.
It's not exactly breaking news that TV usually goes with couch-potato behavior, not workouts. Now, researchers are backing up that commonsense belief with scientific muscle.
For every hour spent watching television, people walk 144 fewer steps, says a study published in September's American Journal of Public Health. And, they're 16% less likely to reach the widely-touted goal of walking at least 10,000 steps per day.
Regards,
Joe Moore
IHRSA
TV Watching: Cost in Fitness Adds Up
Each Viewing Hour May Put You 144 Steps Away From Recommended Day's Walking Goal
By Miranda Hitti
WebMD Medical News
Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD
July 27, 2006 -- Unless you pace the floor (or a treadmill) while watching TV, your tube time could be making your fitness profile a little fluffy.
It's not exactly breaking news that TV usually goes with couch-potato behavior, not workouts. Now, researchers are backing up that commonsense belief with scientific muscle.
For every hour spent watching television, people walk 144 fewer steps, says a study published in September's American Journal of Public Health. And, they're 16% less likely to reach the widely-touted goal of walking at least 10,000 steps per day.
The study comes from Harvard School of Public Health's Gary Bennett, PhD, and colleagues.
This news not enough to make you ditch the remote -- even briefly?
Consider this: "The amount of time Americans spend watching television weekly is rapidly approaching the length of the average workweek," Bennett's team writes.
If so, many people truly have miles to go before they sleep in order to reach daily walking goals.
While stride lengths vary, it takes about 2,000 steps to cover a mile. So the recommended 10,000 steps would have you walking five miles per day.
Counting Steps
Bennett's team studied 486 adults living in Boston in 2005.
Participants -- most of whom lived in low-income public housing -- did two things for the study:- Report their average weekday and weekend hours of watching TV
- Wear a pedometer on their hips for five days to count their steps
The researchers made the pedometers blind. That way, participants couldn't check their steps and walk more to improve their record.
Bennett's team didn't tell participants to walk. They wanted to see how participants behaved without a specific goal.
They found that on an average day, participants watched 3.6 hours of TV and walked 5,329 steps. Tube time was similar on weekdays and weekends.
American Idle
The more TV people watched, the less likely they were to walk 10,000 steps per day.
"Average daily television viewing was associated with a reduction of approximately 520 steps," the researchers write.
That's nearly 10% of the group's average steps per day.
It's not clear if the findings apply to other groups. But Bennett's team isn't letting anyone off the hook.
The results could be even worse for people with higher incomes, who may have more free time and be less likely to walk for transportation, the researchers note.
The study's limits also include the self-reported TV time; self-reported data isn't always perfect.
But the walking data was objective, thanks to the pedometers.
When experts advise people to watch less TV, they should also provide specific recommendations on replacing television viewing with physical activity, write Bennett and colleagues.
Of course, if you've been inactive lately, consult your doctor first.
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Exercise could do as much good as chemo: doctors
As reported by the West Australian, exercise after a cancer diagnosis could be as effective as chemotherapy in helping people survive, according to researchers.
Last month, Melbourne researchers said they believed exercise slowed cancer by boosting a protein in the body which killed off dangerous cancer cells that could multiply out of control.
The two latest studies, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that early and advanced bowel cancer patients who did regular exercise for six to 12 months after their treatment ended were more likely to survive.
Regards,
Joe Moore
IHRSA
Exercise could do as much good as chemo: doctors
27th July 2006, 14:00 WST
Exercise after a cancer diagnosis could be as effective as chemotherapy in helping people survive, according to researchers.
Doctors in the United States have found that regular exercise can more than double the chances of people beating diseases such as bowel cancer.
This added to earlier studies which found physical activity could help the recovery prospects of women with breast cancer.
Australian cancer experts said the US research added to the growing evidence that exercise could not only help prevent cancer from occurring in the first place but could also reduce the likelihood of the disease returning in people who had already been diagnosed and treated.
Last month, Melbourne researchers said they believed exercise slowed cancer by boosting a protein in the body which killed off dangerous cancer cells that could multiply out of control.
The two latest studies, reported in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, found that early and advanced bowel cancer patients who did regular exercise for six to 12 months after their treatment ended were more likely to survive.
The results were based on patients doing moderate physical activity, the equivalent of six hours of walking a week.
This week's edition of the doctors' magazine Medical Observer said the bowel cancer findings confirmed similar findings for breast cancer patients.
This suggested exercise was likely to have a benefit for patients with all types of cancer.
Cancer Council Australia welcomed the findings.
It said the growing evidence about the benefits of exercise in cancer prevention suggested the benefits could be as significant as those from drug therapy.
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The American Diabetes Association
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has updated its exercise recommendations for people with Type 2 diabetes. Based on a thorough review of exercise research to date, the ADA now recommends varying amounts of physical activity, depending on the person's health goals.
Regards,
Joe Moore
IHRSA
The American Diabetes Association
The American Diabetes Association (ADA) has updated its exercise recommendations for people with Type 2 diabetes. Based on a thorough review of exercise research to date, the ADA now recommends varying amounts of physical activity, depending on the person's health goals.
To improve control of blood glucose, maintain a healthy weight, and lower the risk of heart disease, most people with Type 2 diabetes should accumulate 150 minutes of moderate-intensity physical activity each week. Moderate-intensity physical activity is that which raises your heart rate but doesn't leave you out of breath; brisk walking, bicycling, dancing, and swimming are examples. Alternatively, you can aim for 90 minutes a week of more vigorous activity, such as jogging or high-impact aerobics. However intense the activity, you should engage in physical activity on at least three days of the week, and you shouldn't go more than two days in a row without getting any exercise.
People for whom preventing heart disease is a particular concern may benefit from getting at least four hours of moderate- to vigorous-intensity physical activity a week. For people trying to lose 30 pounds or more and keep it off, the ADA says that increasing the goal to seven hours a week may help.
In addition to aerobic physical activity, the ADA recommends that most people with Type 2 diabetes do resistance exercise, such as weight training, three times a week. People who are new to exercising with weights should get instruction so that they don't injure themselves by using them incorrectly.
The ADA cautions that not all types of exercise are for everyone. For example, people with heart problems may need to avoid vigorous aerobic exercise, and people with peripheral neuropathy may need to avoid weight-bearing activities. You should talk to your doctor before beginning an exercise program, particularly if you have a complication of diabetes, have been inactive for a while, or are planning to do anything more vigorous than brisk walking.
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Simple Precautions Protect Against Many Cancers
As reported in the Health Day News, the key to success doesn't rest with some undiscovered therapies or treatments. Much of cancer's toll can be reduced with simple precautions, such as lifestyle changes and routine screenings.
Need more proof that much of cancer's misery is self-inflicted?
Experts estimate that about one in three of the 564,830 deaths from all forms of cancer this year will be related to poor nutrition, inactivity, overweight and obesity.
Regards,
Joe Moore
IHRSA
Simple Precautions Protect Against Many Cancers
By Meryl Hyman Harris
HealthDay Reporter Mon Jul 17, 7:09 PM ET
MONDAY, July 17 (HealthDay News) -- Nearly half of all cancer deaths are preventable.
That remarkable news comes with an equally stunning corollary -- the key to success doesn't rest with some undiscovered therapies or treatments. Much of cancer's toll can be reduced with simple precautions, such as lifestyle changes and routine screenings.
But somehow that message isn't getting through to enough people.
"We can't beg people to change their behavior, to make the lifestyle changes that we know will reduce cancer risk," said Carolyn "Bo" Aldige, president of the Cancer Research and Prevention Foundation, in Alexandria, Va.
The biggest threat, of course, is smoking. "You'd have to live on another planet not to know smoking causes cancer," Aldige said.
Smoking is the single most preventable cause of death in U.S. society. Tobacco causes nearly one in five deaths in the United States, killing about 438,000 Americans each year, according to the American Cancer Society.
Yet, about 45 million adults still smoke -- about 23 percent of men and 19 percent of women.
Need more proof that much of cancer's misery is self-inflicted?
Experts estimate that about one in three of the 564,830 deaths from all forms of cancer this year will be related to poor nutrition, inactivity, overweight and obesity.
Research has shown that "excess calories cause the mutations that start genes going down the pathways that cause cells to divide out of control, and that's what cancer is," Aldige said. "If everybody today magically had the appropriate body mass index, we'd start seeing a lot less colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer," she said.
But there's a highly effective second line of defense against each of these cancers and many others -- screenings. Doctors can test for these cancers, as well as testicular, cervical and other kinds of malignancies, and often catch them before they've gone too far. And taking the tests usually requires little time and causes only minimal discomfort.
Eventually, there will even be screenings for lung cancer, probably in the form of "spiral CT" scanning, using special equipment to obtain multiple cross-sectional images of the organs and tissues of the chest, Aldige said.
Then there's melanoma, the deadly skin cancer that's on the rise. An estimated 62,190 new cases of the disease will be diagnosed in the United States this year, and 7,910 people will die of it, according to the American Cancer Society.
But melanoma is highly curable if it's caught in its early stages. The best way to do that: Check your own skin about once a month and become familiar with the pattern of moles, freckles, and other marks so you'll spot any changes. And a skin exam should be part of a routine cancer checkup by a doctor or qualified health professional.
Many people know that too much sun causes skin cancer, and they use sun block to protect themselves. But not many know that you need some sun every day -- about 15 to 20 minutes' worth, especially younger people, for vitamin D. The trick is to go out before 10 a.m. and after 4 p.m. during warm weather months, Aldige said.
Vitamins play an important role in cancer prevention as well, she said, and eating properly and taking recommended supplements can help.
Yet, the overall problem isn't just one of people refusing to do what's good for them, said Dr. Ahmedin Jemal, program director of cancer occurrence at the American Cancer Society.
"It is access to care," he said. "Recently, the federal government has made access to breast and cervical cancer screenings available to women. But a large percentage of the population is uninsured, and it is a question of access and care," he said.
"We cannot completely prevent cancer," Jemal added, "but we can substantially improve by doing the right thing."
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Young women need exercise to build strong bones
"Even in young women, physical activity is crucial to maintaining healthy bones, a Finnish study shows. Dr. Essi Rautava and colleagues at the Turku University General Hospital in Turku, Finland, examined the role of physical activity and the impact of a reduction in that activity on bones in adolescent girls.
The researchers then looked at how changes in physical activity affected bone health. They found that girls whose exercise habits remained the same during the final four years of the study had significantly higher bone mineral content at the hips and lower back compared with girls who decreased their activity level by at least half during this period."
Regards,
Joe Moore
IHRSA
Young women need exercise to build strong bones
Less active teens see smaller gains in bone mineral content in hip and spine
Even in young women, physical activity is crucial to maintaining healthy bones, a Finnish study shows.
Dr. Essi Rautava and colleagues at the Turku University General Hospital in Turku, Finland, examined the role of physical activity and the impact of a reduction in that activity on bones in adolescent girls.
They followed a group of 142 girls for seven years, recording height, weight and physical activity. The average age of the girls at the beginning of the study was 13 years.
The girls were divided into three groups based on their level of physical activity during the study. Throughout the seven years, the most active girls gained more bone mineral content at their hips and lower back than girls in the two lower-activity groups.
The researchers then looked at how changes in physical activity affected bone health. They found that girls whose exercise habits remained the same during the final four years of the study had significantly higher bone mineral content at the hips and lower back compared with girls who decreased their activity level by at least half during this period.
The results indicate a link between reduced physical activity and rapid decline in bone mineral content, even in very young women.
Building strong bones in childhood and young adulthood helps reduce the risk of suffering fractures due to osteoporosis, or brittle bones, later in life.
With files from The Medical Post.
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Healthy Lifestyle Cuts Women's Stroke Risk
As reported in HealthDay News, a healthy lifestyle that includes regular exercise, no smoking, moderate alcohol consumption, and a healthy diet can help cut a woman's stroke risk, a new U.S. study confirms.
Published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study began in 1993 with over 37,600 women, age 45 or older, who were asked about their lifestyle habits and given a "health index score" ranging from zero to 20. The higher the score, the more healthy the lifestyle.
Regards,
Joe Moore
IHRSA
Healthy Lifestyle Cuts Women's Stroke Risk
Large, 10-year study shows big benefit to exercise and healthy diet
TUESDAY, July 11 (HealthDay News) -- A healthy lifestyle that includes regular exercise, no smoking, moderate alcohol consumption, and a healthy diet can help cut a woman's stroke risk, a new U.S. study confirms.
Published Monday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, the study began in 1993 with over 37,600 women, age 45 or older, who were asked about their lifestyle habits and given a "health index score" ranging from zero to 20. The higher the score, the more healthy the lifestyle.
Healthy behavior was defined as never smoking, consuming four to 10.5 alcoholic drinks per week, exercising four or more time per week, having a body mass index (BMI) of less than 22, and eating a healthy diet that included high levels of cereal fiber, folate and omega-3 fatty acids, low levels of trans fat and glycemic (blood sugar) load, and a high ratio of polyunsaturated to saturated fat in the diet.
The women were followed for an average of 10 years. Over that time, 450 of the women suffered strokes (356 ischemic, 90 hemorrhagic, and 4 undefined). An ischemic stroke occurs when a blockage in an artery reduces blood flow to the brain, while a hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a ruptured blood vessel causes blood to leak into the brain.
The study found that the 4.7 percent of the women in the study with 17 to 20 health index points were at much lower risk of stroke overall and of ischemic stroke, compared women with zero-to-four health index points.
"Our findings show the importance of healthy behaviors in the prevention of total and ischemic stroke," the study authors concluded.
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Any Level of Physical Activity Helps Prolong Life
As reported by HealthDay News, any kind of exercise will help extend your life, say researchers who used a sophisticated test to arrive at that conclusion.
"There are plenty of reports out there saying that self-reported exercise like running or jogging is beneficial," said lead researcher Todd M. Manini, an exercise physiologist at the U.S. National Institute on Aging. "We wanted to see if just usual daily activity had a protective value."
His team's six-year study of 302 people between 70 and 82 years of age found that any sort of energy expenditure through physical activity was associated with a lower risk of death.
Regards,
Joe Moore
IHRSA
Any Level of Physical Activity Helps Prolong Life
Going to the gym or running errands, it's all heart-healthy, study finds
By Ed Edelson
HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, July 11 (HealthDay News) -- Any kind of exercise will help extend your life, say researchers who used a sophisticated test to arrive at that conclusion.
"There are plenty of reports out there saying that self-reported exercise like running or jogging is beneficial," said lead researcher Todd M. Manini, an exercise physiologist at the U.S. National Institute on Aging. "We wanted to see if just usual daily activity had a protective value."
His team's six-year study of 302 people between 70 and 82 years of age found that any sort of energy expenditure through physical activity was associated with a lower risk of death.
That finding, published in the July 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, is not entirely surprising. Organizations such as the American Heart Association have long said that some physical activity is better than none. What was unusual about this study was the exquisitely detailed measurements used to determine levels of physical activity, Manini said.
In the study, the researchers had volunteers drink water containing two harmless isotopes, oxygen-18 and hydrogen-2. Oxygen-18 is eliminated from the body in water, while hydrogen-2 is eliminated not only in water but also in carbon dioxide, which is produced during energy expenditure. So, by measuring levels of water and carbon dioxide leaving the body, the researchers were able to get accurate readings of daily energy expenditure.
"The technique has been around for use in humans for 20 years," Manini said. "It is kind of expensive for a large-scale study, and also requires special expertise."
Following the participants for six years, the researchers found that death rates went down as daily energy expenditure went up. In fact, seniors in the highest third of daily energy expenditure had a 69 percent lower risk of dying than those in the lowest third.
"The study doesn't tell you what the people did -- just the quantity of energy expended," Manini said. But it didn't seem to matter if energy was expended in daily chores or a workout at the gym. "Like other studies, we asked people what they did," Manini said. "There was no difference with or without structured exercise."
People in the highest third of expended energy were more likely to work for pay and walk two flights of stairs a day, he said. They burned an average of 600 calories more a day than those in the lowest third, he said.
That 600 calories represents "about two hours of activity," Manini said. "It doesn't have to be a certain activity. It can include washing dishes, vacuuming and sweeping, as well as structured exercise."
"We were quite surprised to find this effect with a relatively small number of participants," said co-researcher Dr. James Everhart, chief of the epidemiology and clinical trials branch of the U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. "When we started talking about it, maybe 10 years ago, we thought we would need twice as many participants to show an effect."
The study "has objectively shown that energy use is associated with a lower risk of dying," Everhart said.
It's the finding on the type of energy use deemed necessary that will interest many people who want to prolong their lives, but not undertake an intensive exercise program. The American Heart Association -- which officially recommends at least 30 minutes of brisk activity every day -- suggests a number of ways to achieve that goal without actually exercising. These include simple things such as pushing a lawnmower rather than riding one, walking the dog, parking on the far side of the shopping center and walking to the store, and even standing rather than sitting while talking on the telephone.
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Athletes know how game is played To improve yours, join a team, or exercise at least
Stop obsessing about how smart you are. Instead, get some exercise and you'll perform better at work -- athletes do better in the workplace than non-athletes. Even off the field. This advice is true in a wide range of scenarios -- across age groups, job descriptions, and types of exercise.
Athletes make more money because their self-confidence and competitive nature makes them choose jobs that pay more money, James Shulman, author of The Game of Life: College Sport and Educational Values, said in a speech to the Division III Forum...
Regards,
Joe Moore
IHRSA
Athletes know how game is played To improve yours, join a team, or exercise at least
Here's some career advice. Stop obsessing about how smart you are. Instead, get some exercise and you'll perform better at work -- athletes do better in the workplace than non-athletes. Even off the field. This advice is true in a wide range of scenarios -- across age groups, job descriptions, and types of exercise.
Athletes make more money because their self-confidence and competitive nature makes them choose jobs that pay more money, James Shulman , author of The Game of Life: College Sport and Educational Values, said in a speech to the Division III Forum, a collegiate athletic group. "This happens from every group of athletes from the liberal arts colleges to big-time sports. It is not affected or skewed by a few people winning million-dollar NFL contracts or anything like that."
Another reason athletes make more money is that they fit in better in today's workplace, which values emotional intelligence over academic intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the "soft skills" that enable smooth running interpersonal relationships at work -- such as the ability to read peoples' nonverbal cues and the ability to manage oneself within a team.
These skills are not taught in a classroom; however, someone with athletic experience is likely to have picked them up. "Sports teach workplace values like teamwork, shared commitment, decision-making under pressure, and leadership," says Jennifer Crispen , a professor at Sweet Briar College in Virginia who teaches a course in the history of culture of women's sport.
Also, playing sports helps people succeed because it teaches skills such as, "time management, mental toughness, and focus," says David Czesniuk , manager at the Center for the Study of Sport in Society at Northeastern University.
This is especially true for women. "Eighty-one percent of women executives played organized team sports growing up," says Crispen. These women attribute their success, in a part, to the fact that they learned the values that playing these sports teaches.
Mariah Titlow , a biologist at Genzyme, has been involved in sports all her life. "Sports have given me better focus and discipline," she says. "I've done gymnastics, swimming, dance, field hockey, track. Sports increased my confidence, made me a happier person, and taught me how to get through something tough."
Elite colleges are aware of this connection, which explains why it is easier to get into the Ivy League if you are an athlete. And employers know that athletes have an advantage in the workplace, so hiring managers like to see candidates with athletic experience.
For athletes, this is great news. Non-athletes should stop complaining about the unfair advantage, and instead, take steps to confer some of the advantages of being an athlete on themselves. Here are some ideas for getting started:
If you're in school, join a team and approach it with dedication, because that's an integral part of your education. "Your body and your brain are connected," says Titlow, "so the benefits of sports spill over into other parts of life." The career benefits of being an athlete are not necessarily related to talent, they have to do with focus and commitment. So get some.
If you are out of school, there are still opportunities to join teams that cater to adult beginners. But if you can't image doing that, at least go to the gym. It's no coincidence two thirds of female business executives and 75 percent of all chief executives, exercise regularly, Crispen said. While you do not gain team-oriented benefits from individual exercise, you do cultivate business essentials such as self-discipline, goal setting, and self-confidence.
In fact exercise in the morning notably improves your workplace performance that very day, according to research from Leeds Metropolitan University.
Still feeling like a couch potato? That couch time is costing you money: The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis found that good-looking people make 14 percent more than ugly people. Part of this discrepancy is because, `'The perfect leader is someone who is able to control other peoples' perceptions of him. Everyone has a secret -- a weakness or a raw nerve they don't want to be touched. For a person who is overweight, the secret is out." says executive recruiter Mark Jaffe of Wyatt & Jaffe.
Before you hem and haw about beauty being in the eye of the beholder, just go to the gym. You know good-looking when you see it, and you know ugly when you see it, and a body that's been exposed to regular exercise at the gym is probably not ugly. You might not get that whole 14 percent of extra pay, but your career is going to benefit one way or another if you exercise regularly.
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Things that are good for a man's heart may also be good for his sex life
As reported in Reuters, Many of the same things that are good for a man's heart may also be good for his sex life, new research confirms...
...Anything that impairs blood vessel function and blood flow could affect erectile function, and it's known that certain medical conditions that raise the risk of heart disease -- such as high blood pressure and diabetes - can also lead to ED.
Similarly, the lifestyle choices that affect cardiovascular health, for example smoking and exercise habits, influence ED risk.
Regards,
Joe Moore
IHRSA
Things that are good for a man's heart may also be good for his sex life
NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Many of the same things that are good for a man's heart may also be good for his sex life, new research confirms, according to a study that followed more than 22,000 U.S. men for 14 years.
The findings, published in the Journal of Urology, help solidify evidence tying lifestyle choices to ED risk. They may also give men added incentive to make some changes for the better, said study co-author Dr. Eric B. Rimm of the Harvard University School of Public Health in Boston.
Among the men Rimm and his colleagues followed, those who were obese at the study's start were 90 percent more likely to develop ED than normal-weight men were. Similarly, smokers had a 50 percent greater risk than non-smokers.
On the other hand, regular exercise appeared to protect against erectile problems. Men who reported the highest exercise levels at the study's start were 30 percent less likely than their inactive peers to develop ED over the next 14 years.
At one time, Rimm noted in an interview, erectile problems were thought to be largely psychological. But it has become clear that heart disease and ED share many of the same risk factors, he said.
Anything that impairs blood vessel function and blood flow could affect erectile function, and it's known that certain medical conditions that raise the risk of heart disease -- such as high blood pressure and diabetes - can also lead to ED.
Similarly, the lifestyle choices that affect cardiovascular health, for example smoking and exercise habits, influence ED risk.
This knowledge may nudge more men to make lifestyle changes, Rimm said, since heart disease can seem a distant risk, but erectile problems may be more immediate. In addition, he said, with obesity rates climbing among young people, the ED risk associated with obesity may increasingly become apparent at relatively young ages.
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