Weekly Gravy « Weekly Gravy

All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

Sweating it out on a treadmill is great, especially when the weather is bad. You might even be motivated by watching exciting vistas on an interactive panel. But to keep a walking or running routine from becoming stale, kick it up a notch by taking your workout outside. Running or walking in the great outdoors can burn more calories, because you have to work against the wind and you don’t have a moving tread to keep you going. If you’re used to monitoring the length of your treadmill workouts on a built-in screen, stay motivated by finding other ways to track your output. If you already have a smartwatch, there’s a good chance it has a step counter app already installed. If not, you can download any number of fitness apps that count time and distance, calorie expenditure and more. If you don’t have a smartwatch and are on a tight gadget budget, you can buy an inexpensive pedometer to count your steps. Remember that it takes about 2,000 to 2,500 steps to make a mile, depending on the length of your stride. Now you’re ready to rev up your walking/running. Here are four ideas you can mix and match. To add intensity to your outdoor workout and increase your cardio effort, choose a route with some hills. Pick up the pace with interval training.… read on >

It seems as though every day brings a new study on the merits — or the risks — of coffee. So what’s the real scoop? If you like drinking coffee simply for the pleasure of it, Harvard University research has found that sipping up to six cups a day is probably safe. Remember: Those are 8-ounce cups with about 100 milligrams of caffeine and little added milk and sweetener. A cafe drink can pack the equivalent of three cups, plus the fat and calories from any add-ins, so tally it accordingly. And it appears that coffee is not only “safe” to drink, it may also have actual health benefits, like protecting against diabetes, Parkinson’s and certain liver diseases. Coffee drinkers may also have a slightly lower risk of dying from heart disease compared to those who skip the java. How can a cup o’ joe have such wide-ranging effects? Coffee is much more than caffeine, with hundreds of different compounds, any of which can lead to a positive health outcome. While some studies have found an association between these benefits and drinking moderate amounts of coffee, even heavy coffee drinkers may benefit. A 2018 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine looked at 500,000 people who drank one to eight cups a day. Researchers found that heavy coffee drinking was associated with a lower risk of… read on >

Exercise has countless benefits, even in small doses. And new research suggests the payoffs might extend to colon cancer patients. Short sessions of intense exercise may slow the growth of colon cancer, Australian researchers report. “We have shown that exercise may play a role in inhibiting the growth of colon cancer cells,” said lead author James Devin, from the University of Queensland. The report was published Feb. 27 in the Journal of Physiology. “After an acute bout of high intensity exercise, there were specific increases in inflammation immediately after exercise, which are hypothesized to be involved in reducing the number of cancer cells,” Devin said in a journal news release. Devin and his colleagues at the University of Queensland worked with researchers at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. The team took blood samples from 10 colon cancer survivors who had one session of intense exercise, and 10 survivors who had 12 exercise sessions over four weeks. Analyzing the samples for the growth of cancer cells, the researchers found that even one session of high intensity exercise appeared to reduce the growth of colon cancer cells. These short exercise bouts are as important as longer regular exercise, they said. The findings also suggest that continued exercise may aid in the “fight against cancer.” Moreover, they highlight the importance of regular exercise and leading a… read on >

Fatigue can plague many people with multiple sclerosis (MS). But a small new study suggests a soothing cup of hot cocoa may bring some relief. Like dark chocolate, cocoa is rich in flavonoids, which are abundant in fruit and vegetables and have been linked with anti-inflammatory properties, explained researcher Shelly Coe, of the Center for Nutrition and Health at Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom, and her colleagues. That anti-inflammatory power may help fight MS fatigue, the researchers believe. “Our study establishes that the use of dietary interventions is feasible and may offer possible long-term benefits to support fatigue management,” Coe said in a news release from the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry. Her team published their findings online in the journal March 5. Prior research has suggested that dark chocolate, which is between 70 percent and 85 percent cocoa solids, appears to lessen fatigue in people with chronic fatigue syndrome, the British researchers noted. Would cocoa do the same for MS patients? To find out, Coe’s group tracked the symptoms of 40 adults recently diagnosed with the common “relapsing remitting” form of MS. Participants were asked to drink a cup of either high-flavonoid cocoa powder mixed with heated rice milk (19 people) or a low-flavonoid version (21 people), every day for six weeks. Small improvements in fatigue were seen in 11 of… read on >

(HealthDay News) — From heart disease to arthritis, many major diseases have been linked to chronic inflammation. Favoring anti-inflammatory foods in your diet could reduce your risk of illness. Harvard Medical School recommends that anti-inflammatory diets include: Tomatoes. Olive oil. Nuts. Fatty fish, such as salmon and tuna. Green leafy vegetables, such as spinach and kale.

Your metabolism rate determines how fast you burn calories, and that can influence how fast you lose weight — and how easily you can gain it. After age 25, metabolism naturally slows by 5 percent every decade. So if you eat as much in your 40s as you did in your 20s, you’re going to add extra pounds — especially if you exercise less and lose muscle. In addition to weight training to maintain muscle, these tips from the American Council on Exercise can help. Stick to well-spaced meals at the same times each day. This lets your body know to expect fuel at regular intervals and prevents it from conserving calories and adding to fat stores. Calorie cutting is important if you need to lose weight, but reducing your intake to starvation levels also puts your body in conservation mode, slowing down metabolism. So rather than speeding up weight loss, starvation ultimately slows it. And that’s why it’s so easy to regain lost weight when you start eating normally: Your metabolism tends to stay slow. Dehydration can lead to a 2 percent drop in the number of calories burned, so drink at least 8 glasses of water throughout each day, and even more when you sweat a lot. Watch the alcohol. Besides adding empty calories to your diet, processing alcohol diverts the liver from… read on >

Playing singles tennis is a great way to have fun and exercise, and if you have access to an indoor court, it can be a year-round workout option that builds camaraderie along with muscle tone. But before you hit the court, it’s important to get your game on safely. By practicing a pregame plan for these strenuous workouts, you’ll be less likely to experience injuries that could leave you sidelined. Tennis prep steps are simple — warm up and then stretch. First, take five minutes to jog, walk briskly or do jumping jacks to raise your body temperature and prepare your heart and lungs. Next, do a series of dynamic stretches. Dynamic stretches incorporate movement, and research shows they are beneficial to do before play. Start with 10 arm and wrist circles and then move to arm rotations, all for the upper body. For the lower body, try movements like cross over hip stretches and alternate side toe touches, 15 to each side. For the core, do 10 each of standing rotations and diagonal chops to the knees. What you do after play is just as important. As you leave the court, bring down your heart rate with five minutes of walking, jogging or side shuffling. Follow with static stretches — these are no-movement stretches that are held for 15 to 20 seconds each. Start… read on >

Getting older can be a lonely business, and a new survey shows that health problems only make matters worse. The online poll of more than 2,000 adults, aged 50 to 80, revealed that one in four said they feel isolated from other people at least some of the time, and one in three say they don’t have regular companionship. Health played a role in just how lonely someone was. Those with fair or poor physical health/mental health or hearing loss were more likely to say they felt isolated or lacked companions. “More than a quarter of poll respondents said they only had social contact once a week, or less, with family members they don’t live with, or with friends and neighbors,” said poll co-director Erica Solway, a social science researcher at the University of Michigan. “These results indicate the importance of proactively reaching out to those in your community who may be at risk of feeling isolated and disconnected, especially those with — or at risk of — health issues,” she added in a university news release. The poll also found that respondents who were unemployed, lived in lower-income households, lived alone and/or had one or more children living with them were more likely to say they lacked companionship. Sixty percent of those who lived alone reported feeling a lack of companionship, and 41 percent… read on >

Millions of Americans are left drowsy each day by sleep apnea, and new research suggests it might also raise their odds for Alzheimer’s disease. It isn’t clear, however, if sleep apnea causes the buildup of “tau” protein tangles in the brain that are a marker for Alzheimer’s, or if the increased tau helps cause the apnea, the researchers said. “Since tau accumulation is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease, an increase in tau raises concern that sleep apnea could make [people] with sleep apnea more vulnerable to Alzheimer’s,” said lead researcher Dr. Diego Carvalho, a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. The new study — to be presented at an upcoming meeting of the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) — is consistent with previous work suggesting that sleep apnea increases the risk for dementia, he said. “However, it is also possible that Alzheimer’s disease could predispose people to sleep apnea or that there is a bidirectional relationship between sleep apnea and Alzheimer’s disease,” Carvalho said. Obstructive sleep apnea is a chronic condition that can cause breathing to stop frequently during sleep. Tau, a protein that forms tangles in the brain, is found in people with Alzheimer’s. For the study, Carvalho’s team looked at 288 people, aged 65 and older, without thinking and memory problems. Each study participant had brain scans to look for tau… read on >

When a social media “influencer” hawks junk food, young kids may be easily won over, a new study suggests. British researchers found that when children saw images of two famous YouTube “vloggers” simply holding junk food, they immediately showed a craving for cookies and candy. Unfortunately, they were not similarly swayed by images of those online stars with healthy foods. Experts said the findings point to the power of an insidious form of junk food marketing, in which companies pay social media influencers to feature their products. “Most parents are surprised this exists,” said Jennifer Harris, of the University of Connecticut’s Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity. “They often have no idea how targeted their kids are when they’re online.” Harris, who was not involved in the study, conducts research on food marketing to kids. She said that in comparison to traditional advertising, it’s difficult to study the influence of social media on kids’ food preferences. “There isn’t a lot known about it, because it’s hard to track what kids are seeing on social media,” Harris explained. So she said she was “excited” to see the new findings, published online March 4 in the journal Pediatrics. They show, through an experimental design, how social media images can immediately influence kids’ food choices, Harris said. For the study, researchers from the University of Liverpool created… read on >

Weekly Gravy

Look Good – Feel Good – Feed Good

A little about: Weekly Gravy

All Sauce from Weekly Gravy:

An Outdoor Plan for Walking and Running

How Much Coffee Is OK?

Exercise Might Slow Colon Cancer’s Advance

Hot Cocoa May Ease the Fatigue of MS

Health Tip: Foods that Reduce Inflammation

Easy Ways to Rev Up Your Metabolism and Burn Calories

Get in Shape for Tennis and Other Racquet Sports

Poor Health Compounds Loneliness in Seniors

Sleep Apnea May Be Linked With Alzheimer’s Marker

Social Media ‘Influencers’ Can Get Kids Eating Junk Food