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Regular exercise appears to enhance and even grow crucial areas of the human brain, new research using MRI scans shows. It’s long been known that physical activity is a brain-booster, but this international study illustrates ways this could be happening. “With comprehensive imaging scans, our study underscores the interconnected synergy between the body and the brain,” said study senior author Dr. Rajpul Attariwala, a radiologist at Prenuvo, a medical imaging center in Vancouver, Canada. Reporting recently in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease, Attariwala and colleagues analyzed more than 10,000 brain scans conducted at various Prenuvo centers. A pattern emerged: People who regularly engaged in running, walking or sports tended to have larger volumes of gray matter in their brains. Gray matter helps with the processing of incoming information, the researchers noted. These avid exercisers also tended to have larger volumes of white matter. White matter helps connect different brain regions and is crucial to memory. You didn’t have to run marathons to get a brain benefit, the team found. “We found that even moderate levels of physical activity, such as taking fewer than 4,000 steps a day, can have a positive effect on brain health,” study co-author Dr. David Merill said in a journal news release. He directs the Pacific Brain Health Center at Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, Calif. “This is much less… read on > read on >

Games like football, soccer and rugby come to mind when thinking about sports-related concussions. But a smashing tennis shot could cause a traumatic brain injury if the ball whacks a player’s head, a new study argues. Concussions can happen if a tennis ball traveling faster than 89 miles per hour hits someone on the head, researchers report. The average serve speed in professional tennis often exceeds 100 mph for both men and women, according to the website TennisUniverse. Amateur players can’t hit the ball nearly as hard as that, but tennis ball injuries are possible, if rare, even among amateurs, the researchers said. “Understanding and protecting against head injuries induced by tennis ball impacts is very important, given that tennis is a worldwide sport with tens of millions of participants every year,” said researcher Xin-Lin Gao, a mechanical engineering professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. Head injuries from a tennis ball is also more likely if the ball strikes the side of the head or if it strikes at a direct 90-degree angle, Gao and colleagues reported recently in the Journal of Applied Mechanics. The researchers came to their conclusions using a computer model similar to that which predicts head injuries that might occur in a car accident. The computer model assessed what might happen to a man’s head if hit by a tennis… read on > read on >

Exercise can boost the quality of life of women who are battling advanced breast cancer, a new study has found. Women who took part in a nine-month structured exercise program reported less fatigue and a better overall quality of life, according to results presented Thursday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium. “Optimizing quality of life is, of course, important for everybody, but especially for patients living with metastatic disease who undergo continuous treatment,” said researcher Anne May, a professor at the Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care at the University Medical Center, Utrecht, in the Netherlands. “By improving quality of life through enhanced symptom management, we can help patients better enjoy their personal, social, and, if applicable, working life,” May added in a meeting news release. Previous studies have found that exercise can help people with less advanced cancers, but whether those benefits also apply to patients whose cancers have spread has not been rigorously tested, May noted. For the study, May and her colleagues enrolled 357 people with advanced breast cancer, in a collaboration between institutions in Germany, Poland, Spain, Sweden, the Netherlands and Australia. All participants received a physical activity tracker and generic exercise advice. But 178 patients were also randomly selected to receive more help – twice-weekly supervised exercise sessions for nine months that involved balance, resistance and aerobic… read on > read on >

Holiday festivities bring joy to many, but they also give rise to quite a few unhealthy habits, a new survey has found. Two-thirds of people say they overindulge in food during the holidays, and nearly half (45%) said they take a break from exercise, according to a new survey from Ohio State University’s Wexner Medical Center. Meanwhile, a third admit they drink more alcohol during the holidays, and more than half report feeling tired and having less time for themselves. “Holiday travel, activities with friends and family, and trying to get a bunch of things done can cause people to lose track of their healthy habits,” said Dr. Barbara Bawer, a family medicine physician at Wexner. The survey involved 1,007 people polled between Oct. 20 and 23, with a 3.6 percentage point margin of error. Folks need to stick to their normal routine as much as possible to avoid starting unhealthy habits, Bawer said.. “Once you’re out of a routine, which typically happens around the holidays, it’s really hard to get back on track, partly because the motivation is no longer there,” Bawer said in a university news release. People should keep in mind that it’s okay to say no, whether it be for one more holiday party or one more rich dish at the buffet, Bawer said. Bawer also recommends that people: Maintain their… read on > read on >

Women who enter menopause early could be at increased risk of muscle loss in their senior years, a new study suggests. Conversely, the more extended a woman’s reproductive period, the lower the risk of declining muscle mass as measured by handgrip strength. “This study showed that a longer reproductive period and later age at menopause were linked to a lower risk of low handgrip strength in postmenopausal Korean women,” said Dr. Stephanie Faubion, medical director for The Menopause Society. “This finding may relate to the beneficial effects of estrogen on skeletal muscle,” she added in a society news release. It’s projected that by 2045 more than 70% of people over 65 will be affected by sarcopenia, a decline in muscle mass and function that occurs as part of the aging process, researchers said in background notes. A woman’s reproductive lifespan — the time between the beginning and end of her periods — is known to affect the way she ages. However, no research has focused on the relationship between sarcopenia and the reproductive period, the researchers noted. The new study evaluated more than 2,300 postmenopausal Korean women between the ages of 45 and 75, testing their handgrip strength – one of the most common ways to check for muscle loss. Researchers found that the age at menopause was associated with reduced handgrip strength, but not… read on > read on >

Doing some squats during commercial breaks or between YouTube videos can help couch potatoes keep their minds sharp, a new study suggests. Young volunteers who did short sets of squat exercises every now and then while relaxing performed better in brain games than when they simply sat around for hours, researchers report. Short bursts of exercise might help the brains of people who spend long periods on the couch or behind a desk, the study concluded. “Our half-squat intervention may be able to be used by individuals seeking to break up their sedentary behavior in an effort to preserve cognition during times, such as in the workplace,” the researchers wrote. For the study, a group of young adult volunteers participated in two scenarios: sitting without interruption for three hours; or sitting for three hours but performing a minute of half-squats every 20 minutes. In both settings, the researchers measured volunteers’ blood pressure, blood flow through the carotid artery — which accounts for 75% of total blood flow to the brain — and heart rate after 10 minutes, one hour, two hours and three hours. At the end of each trial, the volunteers completed three thinking tests. In one test, participants were asked to quickly identify if a word they were shown – “red,” “blue,” “yellow,” “green” or “black” – was printed in the same color… read on > read on >

Bodybuilders are largely unaware that the protein supplements they use to bulk up might harm their fertility, a new study shows. Four out of five male gym enthusiasts (79%) said they use protein supplements as part of their fitness plan, the poll found. But only 14% had considered how those supplements — which contain high levels of the female hormone estrogen — might impact their fertility, researchers found. “Too much female hormone can cause problems with the amount and quality of sperm that a man can produce,” explained lead researcher Meurig Gallagher, an assistant professor studying infertility at the University of Birmingham in the U.K. Men taking these protein supplements also might be unintentionally dosing themselves with steroids, Gallagher added. “Many protein supplements that can be bought have been found to be contaminated by anabolic steroids, which can cause reduced sperm count, shrunken testicles and erectile dysfunction, amongst other things,” Gallagher said. For this study, Gallagher and his colleagues surveyed 152 avid gym-goers. They found that more than half (52%) of male participants had thought about their fertility prior to being asked. “We found that men are genuinely curious about their fertility when prompted, but that they don’t think about it on their own – likely because societally people still think of fertility as a ‘female issue’ and [incorrectly] believe that men’s fertility doesn’t change… read on > read on >

The repeat head injuries suffered by football players, boxers and other athletes appear to affect brain health long after players have given up their sport. New research from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore could explain why: The persistence in the brain of inflammation tied to the original injury or injuries. “The findings show that participating in repeated collision sports like football may have a direct link to long-term inflammation in the brain,” study senior author Dr. Jennifer Coughlin said in a university news release. She’s an associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Hopkins. Key to the new findings is a brain “repair protein,” with the unwieldy name of 18 kDa translocator protein — shortened to TSPO. Whenever a brain sustains injury, TSPO levels quickly rise as the brain tries to heal. TSPO is closely associated with immune cells in the brain called microglia, Coughlin’s group noted. It was thought that spikes in TSPO were only temporary. However, prior studies revealed that levels of the pro-inflammatory protein can remain elevated for up to 17 years. In the new study, the Hopkins team examined PET and MRI brain scans of 27 former NFL players, taken between 2018 and early 2023. They used the scans to compare levels of TSPO in the football players’ brains to those seen in brain scans of 27 former pro college… read on > read on >

FRIDAY, DEC. 1, 2023 (Healthday News) — Millions of American kids and teens love to play the game of baseball, but the sport can leave many with elbow pain and injuries, new research finds. “When we look at the forces that baseball players, even Little League baseball players, deal with during routine practice and games, it becomes apparent why elbow injuries are so common amongst this group,” said study co-author Vandan Patel, a radiology-orthopedics research scholar at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) in Philadelphia. Recent estimates show that 20% to 40% of youth baseball players between the ages of 9 and 12 complain of elbow pain at least once during the season, the researchers noted. “This does not mean that elbow injuries are inevitable in baseball,” Patel noted. “With proper technique and proper rest, these injuries could potentially be avoided.” What sets these youngsters up for injury in the first place? Throwing a baseball repeatedly stresses the growing bones, joints and muscles of the elbows of players. “We conducted this study in order to better understand the patterns of injuries that can occur among youth baseball players with elbow pain,” said senior study author Dr. Jie Nguyen, director for the section of musculoskeletal imaging in CHOP’s Department of Radiology. “A younger player injures differently than an older player. It is our hope that this data… read on > read on >

Dreary, chilly winter days might cause some year-round runners to think twice about their jog, but recent research suggests the benefits of cold weather running outweigh those of running in warmer conditions. Specifically, cold weather can help runners burn more bad fat, lose more weight and feel healthier overall. “Cold weather doesn’t have to force runners indoors and I encourage my patients to continue safely running outdoors,” said Dr. Joshua Blomgren, an assistant professor at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “Exercise is medicine, even in the winter.” Running in cold weather produces less heat stress on the body, which can make a winter jog easier than one in the summer, Blomgren said. Higher body temperatures are associated with increased exertion and strain on the heart, lungs and metabolism. On the other hand, winter running can boost your metabolism at a time when cold temperatures are causing your average metabolism to slow down in an attempt to preserve fat, Blomgren explained. Cold weather jogging tricks the body into stopping that slowdown, helping you maintain a healthy weight. Scientific evidence also suggests that exercising in cold temperatures can help convert “bad” white fat to “good” brown fat, Blomgren said. White fat can cause inflammation and insulin resistance, while brown fat is metabolic tissue that helps burn calories. Blomgren does issue some cautions to folks who choose… read on > read on >