Health/Fitness « Weekly Gravy

If you want to burn fat this winter, take your exercise outdoors, researchers say. A Canadian study suggests that vigorous exercise in cold weather may burn more fat than working out indoors. Regular physical activity speeds metabolism and helps regulate fat in the blood (“lipids”), and high-intensity training is better for burning fat than moderate-intensity exercise, the researchers said. Temperature also plays a role in metabolism during exercise. In the study, a group of moderately fit, overweight adults participated in two high-intensity exercise sessions. In both, they completed 10 one-minute cycling sprints at 90% effort. A 90-second recovery period of cycling at 30% effort followed each sprint. In one session, the temperature was about 70 degrees Fahrenheit (“thermoneutral”). In the other session, it was 32 degrees Fahrenheit. During both sessions, the researchers measured participants’ skin temperature, core body temperature, heart rate and the amount of oxygen delivered to the large thigh muscle. “The present study found that high-intensity exercise in the cold increased lipid oxidation by 358% during the exercise bout in comparison to high-intensity exercise in a thermoneutral environment,” according to the report published online recently in the Journal of Applied Physiology. Longer-term metabolic responses after eating a high-fat meal did not change substantially after the cold condition, the researchers noted in a news release from the American Physiological Society. The lead researcher was… read on > read on >

Cases of anaphylactic shock caused by COVID-19 vaccines are very rare, based on numbers from the first week and a half of vaccinations in the United States, federal public health officials said Wednesday. There have been 21 cases of anaphylaxis out of nearly 1.9 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine administered in the very first days of the national COVID-19 vaccination program, said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “We’re in the setting of 2,000 COVID deaths per day. If you make that comparison, I think it’s still a good value proposition for someone to get vaccinated,” Messonnier said. “Their risk from COVID and poor outcomes from COVID is still more than their risk of a severe outcome from the vaccine.” The average rate is 11.1 anaphylaxis cases per one million doses administered, which is higher than the rate of anaphylaxis for flu vaccine of 1.3 per one million doses administered, Messonnier noted. “I guess you could mathematically say that’s 10 times the amount, but I think that misses the point,” Messonnier said. “This is exceedingly rare, and I think that is still the message that the public should be getting from this.” Anaphylaxis occurs rapidly following COVID-19 vaccination, with symptom onset within 13 minutes of receiving the shot… read on > read on >

A return to normal life in America might happen sooner than many expect, one of the nation’s leading vaccine experts told HD Live! this week. As the new coronavirus rages across the country, President-elect Joe Biden has set a goal of one million doses of vaccine delivered every day once he takes office. If that ambitious target is realized, everyday conditions in the United States might return to normal as soon as the summer, said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “I think if we can do that, if we can get a million people vaccinated a day, I think then that by summer or late summer we should be able to have enough people vaccinated that we are able to have a normal life again,” Offit said during an HD Live! interview. So far, the rollouts of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have been rather rocky. Only about 4.2 million people have had the first of two doses, according to a U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracker — far fewer than the 20 million doses that Trump administration officials promised to put in people’s arms by the end of 2020. But Americans are further ahead than many might think in one crucial aspect, Offit said — a good chunk of the U.S. population… read on > read on >

A culture of toughness and resilience is encouraged among elite college rowers, but it can keep them from reporting injuries, a new study finds. There’s an overall myth among athletes that admitting pain is a sign of weakness and failure, the researchers said. Irish and Australian rowers in this study felt compromised by lower back pain, which is common in the sport, the study authors said. But many felt that the sporting culture didn’t allow them to be open and honest about their pain for fear of exclusion. Also, many felt they had to keep competing and training even when in pain. This might have increased the risk of poor outcomes from their pain, and poor emotional and mental experiences they had, according to the report. Rowers who have lower back pain can feel isolated and it can affect their lives beyond sport, the researchers noted. “This study presents a powerful message that athletes fear being judged as weak when they have pain and injury. They feel isolated and excluded when injured. They feel that there is a culture within sport that values them only when they are physically healthy. This leads athletes to hide their pain and injury, which is likely to lead to poorer outcomes,” said researcher Dr. Fiona Wilson. She’s an associate professor of physiotherapy at the School of Medicine at Trinity… read on >

High levels of a protein that lubricates the knee joint may actually be a harbinger of impending joint disease, a surprising animal study suggests. The researchers looked at the role of the protein, known as lubricin, in anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injuries in dogs because it may also be involved in similar injuries in humans. “Lubricin is crucial for normal joint function and the lubrication of cartilage,” said researcher Heidi Reesink, an assistant professor in equine health at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University. “We know that if a person or animal doesn’t make that protein, they will develop devastating joint disease affecting all the major weight-bearing joints.” But Reesink found that in dogs that suffered a ligament tear in the knee, lubricin levels increased within the joint, which is the opposite of the conventional assumptions. “The dogma in this field has been that lubricin decreases in joint disease,” Reesink said in a university news release. The researchers found that in three dogs, lubricin increased in the time between the initial injury but before any signs of arthritis. “This indicates that the presence of increased lubricin might actually be a biomarker for predicting future osteoarthritis,” Reesink said. “We also saw increased lubricin in dogs months to years after they injured their ACLs, suggesting that lubricin might be an indicator of ongoing joint instability.… read on >

Halloween is risky enough this year with the coronavirus pandemic, so don’t risk your vision as well by wearing costume contact lenses, the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) says. Costume contact lens packaging that claims “one-size-fits-all” or “no need to see an eye doctor” is false, the academy said. Poorly fitted contact lenses can scrape the cornea (the outer layer of the eye), making the eye more vulnerable to bacteria and viruses that can cause infections. People who buy contacts without a prescription have a 16-fold increased risk of developing an eye infection, research shows. “As we follow new precautions to keep our families safe in this abnormal year, it’s important not to forget about the normal hazards that can occur during Halloween,” Dr. Dianna Seldomridge, a clinical spokesperson for the AAO, said in an academy news release. “Whatever you plan, please follow these tips to protect your eyes this Halloween.” Get an Rx. Buy only U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved contact lenses. Color contacts or other decorative lenses are sometimes sold at corner shops or online, but such sales are illegal. Contact lenses must be bought with a doctor’s prescription. Practice good hygiene. Wash your hands before putting your contacts in or touching the skin around your eye. Cleaning and disinfecting your contact lenses as instructed minimizes the risk of an eye infection. See… read on >

When the new coronavirus pandemic first began, respiratory distress immediately became the hallmark of severe COVID-19 illness. News reports focused on the inability to breathe, low oxygen saturation levels and the alarming need for ventilators. But six months later, experts are becoming increasingly concerned about a very different COVID-19 phenomenon, one that spares the lungs only to take direct aim at the patient’s heart, digestive tract and nervous system. Called “Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Adults” — or MIS-A — the condition was first spotted last spring in children and teens. “The symptoms are very similar among adults and children,” explained Dr. Alisa Femia, director of both in-patient dermatology and autoimmune connective tissue disease at NYU Langone Dermatologic Surgery & Cosmetic Associates, in New York City. “Fever is characteristic,” Femia noted, sometimes accompanied by a rash, skin discoloration and chapping, chest pain and gastrointestinal issues. “Some patients develop muscle pain, and a general feeling of unwellness. And some experience a shock-like state, which means that blood pressure is dropping, the heart rate is up, and the patient appears very, very ill and in immediate need of hospitalization,” she added. Femia was part of a team that first reported on the pediatric version of the condition — known as MIS-C — back in July. To date, there have been more than 1,000 cases of MIS-C in the… read on >

Researchers in the United Kingdom have reassuring news for people with psoriasis based on the first analysis of a global registry of COVID-19 patients who also have the skin disease. Moderate-to-severe cases of psoriasis are treated with drugs that suppress the immune system. This analysis of the international PsoProtect registry found that more than 90% of psoriasis patients survive infection with the new coronavirus. “We can reassure our patients that the survival for people with psoriasis is high, and the risk factors for psoriasis patients are similar to those of the general population,” said Dr. Satveer Mahil, a consultant dermatologist at St. John’s Institute of Dermatology in London, who co-leads the registry. The registry was established to understand how psoriasis and the medications used to treat it affect severity of COVID-19, according to a news release from the U.K.’s National Institute for Health Research. Psoriasis is a skin disease believed to be related to an immune system problem. It causes red patches and flaky plaques of skin that are covered with silvery scales. The findings were recently published online in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. For the study, the researchers analyzed 374 cases from 25 countries in which psoriasis patients had COVID-19 between March and July 2020. About 71% were taking biologic medications and 18% were taking traditional immunosuppressants. About 93% fully recovered… read on >