Sports « Weekly Gravy

A marathon can be a daunting challenge, particularly for folks worried their hearts can’t stand the strain of running 26.2 miles. But these events are safer than ever for those with heart concerns, according to a new study published March 30 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The risk of dying from cardiac arrest during a long-distance event decreased by half during the past decade, a new study says. It’s not that fewer runners are suffering heart problems. The rate of cardiac arrests that occur during full and half-marathons has remained unchanged, researchers found. “We continue to see media reports about unfortunate cases of cardiac arrest during long distance running events,” lead researcher Dr. Jonathan Kim, an associate professor of sports cardiology with the Emory School of Medicine, noted in a news release. However, a runner’s odds of surviving cardiac arrest are double what they were in the past, researchers said The sport has become more aware of the heart risks of running and is doing a better job preparing emergency response for stricken athletes, Kim said, based on interviews he’s had with survivors. “What we found was that every one of those people got hands-on cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but the vast majority also had immediate access to an automated external defibrillator,” Kim said. “That’s the difference.” The cardiac arrest survival rate at a… read on > read on >

Wearing a smartwatch might do more than track steps (or your texts) — it could be a powerful tool for helping people with type 2 diabetes stay active, a new study says. Participants were more likely to start and maintain an exercise regimen if they had a smartwatch providing them feedback and encouragement, researchers reported March 27 in the journal BMJ Open. Early results also indicate that they were achieving better control over their blood sugar levels and blood pressure, researchers report. “The results of this study can contribute to change the lives of many people around the world,” said researcher Ceu Mateus, a professor of health economics at Lancaster University in the U.K. “There are millions of people suffering from diabetes type 2 without access to non-pharmacological interventions with sustained results in the long term,” she added in a news release. “Our study shows that independently of the place where you live, your age, your ethnicity, your gender, or your income, there is an exercise program that suits you.” For the study, researchers recruited 135 people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and assigned half to wear a smartwatch paired with a health app on their smartphone. The app guided participants through a home-based physical activity program, using the watch to track their metrics. The program gradually increased their exercise to a target of… read on > read on >

Childbirth is an overwhelming accomplishment, but new mothers would do best not to rest on their laurels following delivery, a new guideline says. New moms should clock at least two hours a week of moderate to vigorous physical activity in the first months following birth, experts recommend. Two to four hours of exercise per week can keep a new mother healthy and reduce her risk of postpartum depression or anxiety, researchers wrote in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. Experts also recommend daily pelvic floor exercises to reduce the risk of urinary incontinence, as well as taking steps to improve sleep quality. “The weeks and months following birth are a period of abrupt changes in physiological and psychological health,” wrote a team led by Margie Davenport, a professor of kinesiology, sport and recreation at the University of Alberta in Canada. “Postpartum women and people are at increased risk of depression, weight retention, sleep disorders, diabetes and cardiovascular disease, especially if they experienced pregnancy complications,” the team wrote. “Such conditions have significant consequences on the short-term and long-term health and well-being of both the mother and the infant.” For the new guidelines, researchers analyzed data from 574 prior studies related to the health of mother and child following delivery. After consulting with a panel of new mothers, the research team selected 21 “critical” and “important” outcomes… read on > read on >

Lifestyle factors like diet, exercise, smoking and blood pressure have a greater impact on the heart health of women than men, a new study says. Women with poor health have nearly five times the risk of heart disease compared to women with ideal health, according to findings scheduled for presentation Saturday at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology in Chicago. By comparison, men in poor health only have 2.5 times the risk of heart disease compared to men in ideal health. “For the same level of health, our study shows that the increase in risk [related to each factor] is higher in women than in men — it’s not one-size-fits-all,” lead researcher Dr. Maneesh Sud, an interventional cardiologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Center in Toronto, said in a news release. The new study is the first to show that such lifestyle risks are more strongly linked to women’s heart health, researchers said. “This is novel and something that hasn’t been seen in other studies,” Sud said. The study focused on eight factors associated with heart disease: diet, sleep, exercise, smoking, body mass index, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure. (Body mass index is a estimate of body fat based on height and weight.) Researchers looked at these factors in more than 175,000 Canadian adults who enrolled in the Ontario Health Study between 2009… read on > read on >

Folks frequently use their smartwatches to monitor their daily step count, aiming to get enough physical activity to improve their health. But smartwatches are tracking another measure of health that could prove even more important, a new study suggests. Smartwatches also capture a person’s average daily heart rate, and dividing that by their daily number of steps provides a more reliable measure of a person’s heart fitness than either number on its own, according to research to be presented in Chicago Saturday at a meeting of the American College of Cardiology. “The metric we developed looks at how the heart responds to exercise, rather than exercise itself,” lead researcher Zhanlin Chen, a medical student at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, said in a news release. “It’s a more meaningful metric because it gets at the core issue of capturing the heart’s capacity to adjust under stress as physical activity fluctuates throughout the day,” he added. “Our metric is a first attempt at capturing that with a wearable device.” Generally, people are recommended to get 10,000 steps a day, although the number has varied from study to study. For this new study, researchers analyzed data from nearly 7,000 American adults who provided Fitbit data and their electronic health records to an National Institutes of Health research program. All told, the data reflected 51… read on > read on >

Dancing is known to lift the spirit, and a new study shows that Alzheimer’s disease patients respond to the rhythmic moves as well. Dance classes eased agitation in a small group of people with Alzheimer’s disease and other related dementias, researchers reported in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease. “This study highlights how movement-based interventions, like adapted dance, can be a meaningful way to improve both physical and emotional well-being for individuals with dementia,” researcher Rodney Guttmann, interim chair of biology with the University of West Florida, said in a news release. The three-month study took place in The Retreat, an adult day care fun by the Council on Aging of West Florida. “I was fortunate to witness the dancing intervention multiple times in person, and the activity was so well-run and fun that I could see morale, comprehension and physical ability among the participants improve in real time,” Council on Aging President and CEO Josh Newby said in a news release. For the study, researcher recruited four men and 12 women with Alzheimer’s disease or related dementia. Half of the participants were randomly assigned to take hour-long dance classes twice a week for three months, while the other half participated in activities without music like bingo, puzzles, crafts, cards and board games. Those in the dance group were taught six different routines like the box… read on > read on >

Concussion damage could linger in an athlete’s brain for at least a year, long after they’ve rejoined their sport, a new study says. Concussed college athletes had brain changes that remained visible in brain scans up to a year after they’d been cleared to return to play, researchers reported in a study published March 12 in the journal Neurology. “The presence of significant, long-lasting brain changes after injury reinforces concerns about the consequences of repeated concussions, and to what extent these effects accumulate over time,” lead researcher Nathan Churchill, a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience research with St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, said in a news release. For the study, researchers examined 187 college athletes, of whom 25 had suffered a concussion during regular season play in basketball, football, hockey, lacrosse, rugby, soccer and volleyball. The concussed athletes were also compared to 27 athletes, matched for factors like sex and sport, who hadn’t suffered a concussion. Athletes had MRI scans taken before their seasons began, as well as five days, one to three months, and a year after returning to play following a concussion. Concussed players still showed signs of brain injury in MRI scans taken an average five days after concussion, when they’d been cleared to resume play, results show. Those signs of brain injury lasted for up to one year later, researchers noted.… read on > read on >

Purposeful splishing and splashing can help you trim your waist size and drop excess pounds, a new evidence review has concluded. Water aerobics led to about 6 pounds of weight loss and more than an inch off the waists of overweight and obese people, researchers reported in the journal BMJ Open. “Specifically, water aerobics interventions lasting over 10 weeks significantly reduced body weight and waist circumference, with a more pronounced effect observed in females,” concluded the research team led by senior investigator Jong-Chul Park with Pukyong National University in Busan, South Korea. For the evidence review, researchers pooled data from 10 previous clinical trials involving 286 participants. Water aerobics is particularly good for people with excess weight, as the buoyancy of water helps reduce joint injuries that might occur during land-based exercise, researchers said in background notes. The water exercises in these trials included aerobics, Zumba dance, yoga and jogging, six to 12 weeks. People exercised mostly two to three times a week, with most sessions lasting an hour. While water aerobics did help people drop pounds and cut waist size, it wasn’t associated with a reduction in Body Mass Index (BMI) or percentage of body fat, researchers noted. (BMI is an estimate of body fat based on height and weight.) The studies included few men, making it hard to judge water aerobics’ effectiveness among… read on > read on >

Love pickleball, but facing a knee or hip replacement? Odds are you’ll return to the court in no time, a new study suggests. More than 7 of 10 regular pickleball players pick up their paddle promptly following joint replacement surgery. What’s more, three-quarters say they’re playing as well as before — or even better. “The majority of players returned to play at a similar skill level, duration and frequency, with the majority returning to play by 6 months postoperatively,” the research team led by Dr. Adam Taylor, an assistant professor of clinical orthopedic surgery at the University of California-Davis, concluded. Racquet sports are very popular in the U.S., with pickleball alone seeing a 159% increase in participation since 2019, researchers said in background notes. But some seniors facing a knee or hip replacement have concerns that their new artificial joint might affect their play or keep them off the court altogether. For the new study, researchers surveyed nearly 1,300 patients who’d received at least one joint replacement between 2014 and 2023. The average age of study participants was 67. About 13% had played a racquet sport recently, within two years of their surgery, and another 25% had last picked up a paddle or racquet more than two years before their joint replacement. Results showed that: About 72% of recent players got back on the court… read on > read on >

A simple rule change for youth soccer dramatically reduced concussion risk among athletes, a new study says. Banning or limiting headers — plays where the head is used to pass or shoot the ball — is linked to a nearly 26% reduction in soccer-related concussions treated in emergency rooms, researchers are scheduled to report at a meeting of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons in San Diego this week. “Although not all concussions result from headers, a measurable percentage still do, and it is encouraging to observe a trend indicating a decline in concussion rates,” senior researcher Dr. Anikar Chhabra, director of sports medicine at Mayo Clinic Arizona, said in a news release. About 3.9 million children play organized soccer in the U.S. each year, making it one of the most popular youth sports in America. Headers have long been associated with concussion risk, so in 2016, the U.S. Soccer Federation banned headers in athletes younger than 10 and limited the time players aged 11 to 13 could practice headers to a half-hour per week, researchers said in background notes. “We wanted to assess the impact of this policy on our patients,” researcher Dr. Eugenia Lin, an orthopedic surgery resident at Mayo Clinic Arizona, said in a news release. “While policies are important, we don’t always have the data to determine the effectiveness.” For the… read on > read on >