Sports « Weekly Gravy

Even small increases in a man’s cardio fitness can significantly reduce his risk of developing prostate cancer, researchers report. An annual increase in aerobic fitness of 3% or more is linked to a 35% lower risk of prostate cancer, according to a report published Jan. 30 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. “Improvements in [cardiorespiratory fitness] in adult men should be encouraged and may reduce the risk of prostate cancer,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Kate Bolam, an exercise oncology researcher with the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences GIH in Stockholm. There already is good evidence regarding the benefits of physical activity when it comes to overall cancer risk, but the association between fitness and prostate cancer risk has not been well-studied, researchers said in a journal news release. To examine this, they analyzed the records of nearly 58,000 men kept in a national occupational health profile database. The men included in the study had taken at least two cardio fitness tests, measured by pedaling on a stationary bike. The database also included information on physical activity, lifestyle and body-mass index. Researchers divided the men into groups according to their fitness trends – those whose heart fitness improved by 3% or more annually, fell by more than 3% or remained stable during the study period. During an average follow-up period… read on > read on >

It’s long been thought that it takes more time for a woman to recover from a concussion than a man. But a new national study of U.S. college athletes refutes that notion, finding that women and men recover from sports-related head injuries at about the same pace. Recovery patterns for both genders were similar on tests of brain function, concussion symptoms, mental health, and balance and reaction time, according to a report published recently in the journal Sports Medicine. There also was no significant difference in the time it took men and women to return to unrestricted participation in sports, researchers found. “I think a lot of people will be surprised in such a large sample that women and men recover along the same trajectory,” said senior researcher Jaclyn Caccese, an assistant professor with the Ohio State University School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. “For many years, we’ve thought women took longer to recover, but evidence suggests that if women get the same access to care, they do recover similarly.” For the study, researchers analyzed medical data from more than 900 athletes competing in sports at NCAA colleges. About three in five athletes in the study were female. The analysis focused on 15 sex-comparable sports that included basketball, diving, ice hockey, soccer and volleyball. The research team specifically excluded all-male sports like football and wrestling,… read on > read on >

Your office chair could be a killer. New research shows that folks who spent most of their workday sitting were 16% more prone to an early death, compared to folks in non-sitting jobs. The Taiwanese study did offer workers a glimmer of hope, however: Getting up & moving a bit during the workday or adding a bit of leisure-time exercise greatly reduced the risk. The researchers hope that, someday, days spent sitting for work might be looked upon as just another unwanted, unhealthy habit. “Prolonged occupational sitting is [now] considered normal,” the investigators said. But more information on just how fatal a life spent sitting can be may “denormalize this common behavior, similar to the processes of denormalizing smoking.” The study was led by Dr. Chi-Pang Wen of the National Health Research Institute in Zhunan, Taiwan. It was published Jan. 19 in the journal JAMA Network Open. Numerous studies have already found that as hours per day spent sitting rise, health declines. And sitting’s dangers may not be simply that sitting equals time not spent in activity. There could be something specific to the posture of sitting that is especially harmful, the research team said. Sitting may bring about a weakening of the legs and trunk and “increased blood flow to lower extremities,” as well as low-grade inflammation, Wen’s group explained. In turn, that could… read on > read on >

Folks who drop pounds to help control their diabetes receive other substantial heath benefits for all their efforts, a new study says. Substantial weight loss that led to even a short-lived remission in type 2 diabetes also prompted a 40% lower rate in heart disease and a 33% lower rate of kidney disease, researchers report in the Jan. 18 issue of the journal Diabetologia. “As the first intervention study to associate remission with reduction of diabetes-related complications, this is encouraging news for those who can achieve remission from type 2 diabetes,” said lead researcher Edward Gregg, head of population health at RSCI University of Medicine and Health Sciences in Dublin. For the study, researchers tracked 5,145 overweight or obese adults with type 2 diabetes for 12 years. About 18% of patients randomly assigned to an intensive diet and lifestyle plan wound up controlling their diabetes to the point they needed no medication and had normal blood sugar levels, which researchers considered remission. Those patients had lower rates of heart and kidney disease than those who didn’t achieve remission, researchers found. Further, the risk of heart or kidney disease declined most in people with longer-term remission. Those who experienced at least four years of remission had a 49% reduced risk of heart disease and a 55% reduced risk of kidney disease. Patients were more likely to… read on > read on >

Getting bored with your treadmill or exercise bike? Picking up a couple dumbbells instead of lacing up your running shoes once in a while won’t do your heart any harm, a new study reports. Splitting the recommended amount of physical activity between aerobic and resistance exercises reduces the risk of heart disease just as well as an aerobic-only workout regimen, researchers found. “If you’re bored with aerobic exercise and want variety or you have joint pain that makes running long distances difficult, our study shows you can replace half of your aerobic workout with strength training to get the same cardiovascular benefits,” said lead researcher Duck-chul Lee, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University. “The combined workout also offers some other unique health benefits, like improving your muscles,” Lee added in a university news release. Heart disease is the United States’ top killer, accounting for approximately one in three deaths, researchers said in background notes. Many studies have shown that aerobic exercise benefits the heart, especially for those with excess weight, but few have compared those results to resistance exercise, the researchers said. For the study, the team tracked more than 400 people ages 35 to 70 for a year. All were overweight or obese, and all had high blood pressure. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups – resistance exercise only,… read on > read on >

Using two feet or two wheels to get back and forth to work each day could reduce the inflammation that leads to cancer, heart disease and diabetes, new research shows. So-called “active commuting” — walking or biking to work — for at least 45 minutes daily lowered levels of a blood marker for inflammation called C-reactive protein (CRP), Finnish researchers report. That was true even after the team factored in any other exercise the active commuters might have been doing. Avoiding cars and buses to get to work is also good for the planet, they noted. So, “in addition to climate change mitigation, active commuting could lead to public health benefits,” concluded a team led by Sara Allaouat, a researcher at the University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio. It’s normal for people to suffer brief periods of inflammation, which is part of the body’s healthy short-term immune response. However, chronic inflammation lasts for months or years, and prior research has shown that it can raise the risk for a host of common health problems. Exercise has long been known to reduce inflammation. In the new study, Allaouat and her colleagues examined the commuting habits and blood CRP levels of over 6,200 middle-aged Finnish workers. Compared to folks who drove or took transit to work, those who spent at least 45 minutes per days walking or cycling… read on > read on >

Putting a little pressure on your bones during exercise or daily activities might pay off in stronger bones as you age, new research suggests. The study focused on a crucial part of the hip joint anatomy called the femoral neck. Finnish researchers found that largely sedentary folks ages 70 to 85 maintained or gained bone strength in the femoral neck after a year-long exercise program. The key was the intensity and “impact” of physical activity. For example, people who engaged in running or brisk walking benefited far more than those who walked at a normal pace. Even in your 70s and 80s, adding in this kind of activity to your daily routine is easily done, said study co-author Tuuli Suominen. “It is possible to incorporate more high-intensity activity into your everyday life in small bouts, such as brisk walks and stair climbing,” said Suominen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. “Jumping-like impacts can also be achieved without the actual jumping by first raising up on your tiptoes and then dropping down onto your heels.” As physical activity tends to decline with advancing age, so does bone density and integrity. Can that deterioration be halted or slowed? To find out, the researchers had 299 largely sedentary men and women ages 70 and older engage in a yearlong program focused on muscle strength,… read on > read on >

TUESDAY, Jan. 16, 2024 (HeathDay News) — Folks often feel more alert and savvy after a great workout, and dopamine might be the reason why. A small, new study by British and Japanese researchers found higher levels of the “feel good” brain neurotransmitter were released by men during exercise. In turn, that seemed tied to better performance on thinking tests, the researchers said. “These latest findings support our previous theory that cognitive performance during exercise is affected by changes to brain-regulating hormones, including dopamine,” said study co-author Dr. Joe Costello. He’s at the University of Portsmouth’s School of Sport, Health & Exercise Science, in England. The findings were published recently in the The Journal of Physiology In the study, Costello and colleagues team had 52 men engage in three separate experiments. All were having their brain activity monitored with sophisticated PET imagery during the experiments. In one trial, men were asked to work on mentally challenging tasks while cycling lying down. The second experiment had the men complete the same tasks, but this time they got “electrical muscle stimulation,” rather than a workout. The third experiment had them completing mental tasks while working out and getting the electrical muscle stimulation. Based on data from the PET scans, Costello’s group found a surge in dopamine release in the brain while men were actively working out —… read on > read on >

Employees at many companies are urged to take advantage of free wellness programs focused on mindfulness, life coaching, better sleep and many other issues. Too bad most won’t actually boost their well-being, a new study of over 46,000 British workers finds. Only one of the 90 different workplace wellness offerings appeared to boost well-being: Getting employees involved in charity work or volunteering, the researchers found. The findings “pose a challenge to the popularity and legitimacy of individual-level mental well-being interventions like mindfulness, resilience and stress management, relaxation classes and well-being apps,” concludes the study’s sole author, William Fleming. He’s a fellow at Oxford University’s Wellbeing Research Center. Fleming’s research is based on data from the Britain’s Healthiest Workplace surveys for 2017 and 2018, representing workers at 233 different organizations. He compared the survey answers of “matched pairs” of people who were working at the same company: One who was using a wellness program, and another who was not. Because it is a survey, the data only focuses on worker well-being at a specific moment in time, not before and after the introduction of workplace wellness programs. The main finding: With the exception of charity/volunteer programs, workers’ mental well-being didn’t seem to change regardless of whether or not they were involved in any of the many programs on offer. Speaking with the New York Times, Fleming said… read on > read on >

Snowstorms are blanketing the United States, prompting countless Americans to pick up snow shovels and clear walkways and driveways. Shoveling snow is more than a chore, however — it can be a health hazard. The exertion of shoveling snow increases a person’s risk of heart attack or sudden cardiac arrest, warns the American Heart Association. Snow shoveling has a prominent place among physical activities that place extra stress on the heart, especially for folks who aren’t used to regular exercise, the AHA says. “Shoveling a little snow off your sidewalk may not seem like hard work. However, the strain of heavy snow shoveling may be as or even more demanding on the heart than taking a treadmill stress test, according to research we’ve conducted,” said Barry Franklin, director of preventive cardiology and cardiac rehabilitation at Corewell Health East William Beaumont University Hospital, in Royal Oak, Mich. Shoveling snow is mostly arm work, which is more taxing and demanding on the heart than leg work, Franklin explained. In addition, people straining to lift a heavy shovelful of snow often unconsciously hold their breath, which causes a big increase in heart rate and blood pressure, he said. Since people mostly stand still as they shovel, their legs don’t move much as they work. This results in blood pooling in their legs and feet, denying the heart part… read on > read on >