There’s a simple way older women can protect their heart health, a new study argues. Just stand up. Women who started standing up from a seated position more often during their day experienced notable improvement in blood pressure after three months, researchers reported recently in the journal Circulation. Taking these short-standing breaks appeared to boost heart health even though the women didn’t increase their overall levels of intense exercise, researchers said. “Our findings suggest that while sitting less was helpful, interrupting sitting with brief standing breaks — even if you don’t sit less — can support healthy blood pressure and improve health,” lead researcher Sheri Hartman, a professor of public health and human longevity science at the University of California-San Diego, said in a news release. For the study, researchers recruited more than 400 postmenopausal women who were overweight or obese, and randomly assigned them to one of three groups. The women had an average age of nearly 68. One group was asked to reduce their sitting time, another to increase the number of times they rose from a sitting position, and a third to act as they normally do. All three groups were provided coaching sessions on healthy aging. The women complied with the directives. Those in the “sit less” group wound up cutting their sitting time by 58 minutes a day, and the…  read on >  read on >

There’s a simple way older women can protect their heart health, a new study argues. Just stand up. Women who started standing up from a seated position more often during their day experienced notable improvement in blood pressure after three months, researchers reported recently in the journal Circulation. Taking these short-standing breaks appeared to boost heart health even though the women didn’t increase their overall levels of intense exercise, researchers said. “Our findings suggest that while sitting less was helpful, interrupting sitting with brief standing breaks — even if you don’t sit less — can support healthy blood pressure and improve health,” lead researcher Sheri Hartman, a professor of public health and human longevity science at the University of California-San Diego, said in a news release. For the study, researchers recruited more than 400 postmenopausal women who were overweight or obese, and randomly assigned them to one of three groups. The women had an average age of nearly 68. One group was asked to reduce their sitting time, another to increase the number of times they rose from a sitting position, and a third to act as they normally do. All three groups were provided coaching sessions on healthy aging. The women complied with the directives. Those in the “sit less” group wound up cutting their sitting time by 58 minutes a day, and the…  read on >  read on >

Want to drop some pounds? Drop the ultra-processed foods, a new study says. People lost twice as much weight on a diet with minimally processed foods compared to one with ultra-processed products, even though both diets were nutritionally matched, researchers reported Aug. 4 in the journal Nature Medicine. “The global food system at the moment drives diet-related poor health and obesity, particularly because of the wide availability of cheap, unhealthy food,” researcher Chris van Tulleken, an associate professor with the University College London, said in a news release. “This study highlights the importance of ultra-processing in driving health outcomes in addition to the role of nutrients like fat, salt and sugar,” van Tulleken said. Ultra-processed foods are made mostly from substances extracted from whole foods, like saturated fats, starches and added sugars.  They also contain a wide variety of additives to make them more tasty, attractive and shelf-stable, including colors, emulsifiers, flavors and stabilizers. Examples include packaged baked goods, sugary cereals, frozen pizza, instant soups and deli cold cuts. For this study, researchers recruited 55 adults to take turns eating a diet of minimally processed or ultra-processed eats. For eight weeks, participants ate minimally processed meals like oatmeal or homemade spaghetti Bolognese. Then for another eight weeks, they munched on ultra-processed food like breakfast oat bars or ready-to-eat packaged lasagna. Meals were delivered to the…  read on >  read on >