Another broiling summer looms, along with another season of kids’ summer sports. It’s a potentially harmful, even lethal combination. But experts at Nationwide Children’s Hospital (NCH) have advice for kids, parents and coaches on how to keep young athletes safe when thermometers rise. Each year, an estimated 240 people die from heat-linked illnesses, and heat stroke is the third-ranked cause of death for young U.S. high school athletes, according to NCH. Heat poses special threats to young athletes, said Dr. Thomas Pommering, medical director for Nationwide Children’s Sports Medicine. “Youth and adolescent athletes sweat less, create more heat per body mass, and acclimate much slower than adults to warmer environments, putting them at greater risk for heat-related injuries in hot and humid temperatures,” he said in an online post from the hospital. Spotting heat-linked illness There are telltale signs on the playing field (or anywhere) that someone may be overcome by the heat. Various types of heat illness include: Heat cramps. As too much sweating causes salt and water to leave the body, this can cause severe cramping in the limbs and abdomen. Heat syncope. Syncope is the medical term for fainting, which can be preceded by weakness and fatigue. Heat exhaustion. This could manifest in cool, pale skin and the onset of headache, nausea, chills, weakness, unsteadiness, dizziness, rapid pulse, excessive thirst and muscle…  read on >  read on >

Active women using the pill appear to receive an added bonus from their birth control, a new study says. These women are less likely to suffer sprains and strains than women not on birth control, researchers reported recently in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. Women taking oral contraceptives had significantly fewer tendon and muscle injuries than women not on the pill or men, results show. These sorts of injuries are among the most common in sports, researchers said. “This understanding holds promise for informing the development of targeted preventive strategies and interventions aimed at reducing injury risk in women, benefiting both athletic and nonathletic populations,” said lead researcher Luis Rodriguez. He’s a doctoral candidate with the Joint Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program at University of Texas-Dallas and University of Texas-Southwestern. For the study, researchers analyzed health data for more than 126,000 men and women between the ages of 18 and 39 who were either normal weight or overweight and had sustained an orthopedic injury. About 0.5% of women on the pill had a sprain or strain, versus 2.5% of women not taking birth control and 3.5% of men, researchers found. Overall, women taking the pill were 85% less likely than men to suffer a sprained muscle or strained tendon, results show. Meanwhile, women not taking the pill were only about 26% less likely…  read on >  read on >

Walking is one of the best exercises available to average folks, and it can be as easy as stepping out your front door, experts say. “It is something you can easily fit into your lifestyle,” said Dr. James McDeavitt, professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation and executive vice president and dean of clinical affairs at Baylor College of Medicine. Walking has been shown to improve heart health and contribute to better mental health. It can even ward off osteoporosis by toughening up bones, McDeavitt added. Walking also serves as a wonderful entry point for someone looking to improve physical activity, since it involves less wear and tear on the joints than running. Even for people with health problems that impair mobility, walking is a good exercise option, McDeavitt said. Indoor running tracks provide a safe environment, particularly if someone has the company of a caregiver or loved one. However, treadmills and other automated cardio machines should be avoided by those with severe mobility issues, as there’s a greater risk of injury with those devices. Folks who’ve been inactive should start by consistently walking five to 10 minutes a day, and then gradually increasing that time, McDeavitt said. McDeavitt recommends walking at a low intensity for a longer duration to get the most out of walking, rather than trying to power-walk. However, walking at a faster…  read on >  read on >

You know exercise is great for your cardiovascular health, but new research suggests that your brain has a lot to do with it. It’s all about physical activity’s ability to lower stress levels within the brain, explained a team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) in Boston. Bolstering that finding, their study found that exercise brought the greatest heart benefits to people with histories of depression. “Physical activity was roughly twice as effective in lowering cardiovascular disease risk among those with depression,” noted study lead author Dr. Ahmed Tawakol. He’s an investigator and cardiologist in the Cardiovascular Imaging Research Center at MGH. The study was published April 15 in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. In the research, Tawakol’s team looked at a median 10 years of data on more than 50,000 people enrolled in the Mass General Brigham Biobank database. All of the participants kept records of their physical activity. A subset of 774 also underwent brain scans and other tests measuring their stress-linked brain activity. Over the decade of follow-up, almost 13% of the participants went on to develop heart disease, the researchers reported. However, folks who met standard recommendations for physical activity were 23% less likely to receive such a diagnosis. Those individuals also had markedly less brain activity associated with stress than people who exercised less, Tawakol’s team found. Specifically, fitter…  read on >  read on >

Early-onset arthritis may hit as many as one in every four young people who undergo anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction surgeries, new research warns. The arthritic pain emerges within 6 to 12 months post-surgery, according to Michigan State University (MSU) researchers. Many of these cases occur in people under 40 and go unrecognized and untreated. “We’re trying to change the narrative,” said study lead author Matthew Harkey, an assistant professor of kinesiology at MSU. “We see fairly young, active individuals experiencing extensive symptoms, but these symptoms are not interpreted by clinicians as something that may be related to osteoarthritis. Ignoring these symptoms might be setting them up to experience long-term decline and function.” Tears to the ACL ligament within the knee are common, and often corrected with a surgery that replaces the ligament with a graft. Over 400,000 ACL reconstructions are performed in the United States annually, according to the National Institutes of Health. In the new study, Harkey’s team examined outcomes for 82 people, ages 13 to 35, who underwent ACL reconstructive surgeries. Almost a quarter of the patients reported “persistent early arthritis symptoms from 6 to 12 months after knee surgery,” according to a university news release. In another Harkey-led study, data from 3,200 individuals supplied by the New Zealand ACL Registry showed that almost a third of patients developed arthritic pain within…  read on >  read on >