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Female cancer survivors who walk and exercise more have a lower risk of dying from heart disease, a new study suggests. One hour a day of moderate to vigorous physical activity reduced women’s risk of death from any cause by 40% and risk of death due to heart disease by 60%, results show. Likewise, each additional 2,500 steps per day was associated with a 34% reduction in their risk of death from heart disease, according to findings presented Sunday at an American Heart Association (AHA) meeting in New Orleans. “Encouraging cancer survivors to be more active, sit less and take more steps every day could be a feasible approach for prolonging survivorship and reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease mortality,” lead investigator Eric Hyde, a research analyst at the University of California-San Diego, said in a news release. Physical activity is a key component of Life’s Essential 8, the AHA’s list of health behaviors and factors that support the best heart health. The AHA recommends at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity like walking or gardening, or 75 minutes per week of vigorous-intensity exercise like running or swimming. A combination of these is also an option. And it’s known that cancer survivors are at an increased risk of heart disease, due to the rigors of both cancer and toxic treatments like chemotherapy… read on > read on >

Seniors battling insomnia are best off picking up some dumbbells or doing some push-ups, a new evidence review suggests. Resistance exercise, activities that make muscles work against an external force, appears to be the best means of improving sleep in older adults, researchers found. “Exercise that strengthens muscles, rather than aerobic or combination exercises, is the most effective way to enhance sleep quality,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Kittiphon Nagaviroj, an associate professor with Ramathibodi Hospital at Mahidol University in Bangkok. However, the review also found that aerobic exercise or a combination of strength, aerobic, balance and flexibility exercises can also be effective against insomnia, researchers reported March 4 in the journal Family Medicine and Community Health. Sleep quality tends to decline with age, and up to 1 in 5 seniors has insomnia, seniors said in background notes. Exercise has been shown to help alleviate insomnia, but it’s not been clear what type of exercise would be most effective, researchers added. For their review, the researchers pooled data from 25 previous clinical trials involving nearly 2,200 people. The studies compared aerobic exercises — cycling, dancing, swimming, brisk walking or gardening — against resistance exercises, researchers said. Resistance exercise could include weightlifting or body-weight training like push-ups or planks. People engaging in resistance exercises had 5.7-point average increase in their sleep quality scores, results… read on > read on >

Social media influencers tout the benefits of “cycle syncing” to boost strength training results among women. The idea is that women who lift weights during their period build more muscle, because their bodies are flooded with the female hormone estrogen. But there’s absolutely nothing to this trendy notion, a new small-scale study argues. Researchers found no difference in the body’s response to heavy resistance exercise when performed during different times within the menstrual cycle. “Our findings conflict with the popular notion that there is some kind of hormonal advantage to performing different exercises in each phase,” said lead researcher Lauren Colenso-Semple, who conducted the study as a doctoral candidate at McMaster University in Canada. “We saw no differences, regardless of cycle timing,” she said in a news release. Cycle syncing has been made popular by internet influencers who tout fitness apps that track cycles, researchers said in background notes. These influencers say that women can lead healthier lives by altering their lifestyle — their workouts, diets and other behaviors — to align with their menstrual cycle. For this new study, researchers recruited 12 healthy young women and monitored their menstrual cycles to confirm that their cycles were normal. Contrary to popular belief, very few women — about 12% — have a consistent 28-day cycle and ovulate regularly on day 14 along the lines of the… read on > read on >

Yelling. Taunts. Insults. Harsh words. Physical violence. About 1 in 5 college athletes receive such abuse from their coaches, researchers report. Overall, nearly 19% of more than 3,300 athletes on National College Athletic Association (NCAA) teams said they’d experienced abusive supervision from their coach. Athletes in team sports and athletes with a disability had significantly higher odds of drawing abuse from their coach, results show. “Overall, athletes rely heavily on their coaches for professional and personal growth,” the research team led by senior investigator Dr. Yetsa Tuakli-Worsornu, founding director of the Stanford University Center for Sports Equity, noted. “The presence of abusive leadership behaviors can hinder this development, as well as negatively affect an athlete’s performance, experience of sport and mental health,” the researchers added. For the study, they analyzed data from the 2021-22 myPlaybook survey administered by the University of North Carolina Greensboro Institute to Promote Athlete Health & Wellness, in collaboration with Stanford University’s Sports Equity Lab. The survey included questions regarding abusive supervision, to which 3,317 student athletes provided responses. Of those, 618 (nearly 19%) said their coaches had been abusive, results show. Athletes participating in a team sport were about 10% more likely to be abused, and those with a disability were 17% more likely, results show. Abuse was not significantly associated with an athlete’s race, gender identity or sexual orientation,… read on > read on >

FRIDAY. Feb. 28, 2025Moving your body helps your brain, a new study suggests. Folks who regularly exercise have better mental and brain health, researchers will report in early April at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in San Diego and online. Moderate to vigorous physical activity reduces risk of dementia, stroke, anxiety, depression and sleep disorders, researchers found. “This research highlights the role of physical activity and sedentary behavior as modifiable factors that may enhance brain health and reduce the incidence of these diseases,” lead researcher Dr. Jia-Yi Wu of Fudan University in Shanghai, said in a news release. “It is promising to think that encouraging people to make these lifestyle changes could potentially lessen the burden of these diseases in the future.” For the study, researchers analyzed data from more than 73,000 U.K. residents with an average age of 56 who wore motion-tracking devices for seven days. The devices monitored their physical activity, the energy they spent on those activities and the time they spent sitting each day. The team used that data to quantify each person’s physical activity as metabolic equivalents, or METs. Moderate physical activity like walking or cleaning amounts to around three METs, researchers said, while more intense exercise like cycling can burn around six METs depending on speed. People who engaged in moderate to vigorous activity were… read on > read on >

Frequent exercise can help colon cancer survivors live longer, perhaps even outlasting average folks, a new study suggests. Colon cancer patients who were very physically active had three-year survival rates that were slightly higher than the general population, researchers report in the journal Cancer. “This new information can help patients with colon cancer understand how factors that they can control — their physical activity levels — can have a meaningful impact on their long-term prognosis,” lead researcher Justin Brown, director of the Cancer Metabolism Program with the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University, said in a news release. For the study, his team pooled results from two National Cancer Institute-sponsored trials studying people treated for stage 3 colon cancer. In the trials, nearly 2,900 participants reported their levels of physical activity, which researchers translated into metabolic equivalents, or MET-hours per week. Results showed that participants who got 18 or more MET-hours of exercise per week had an overall three-year survival rate 3% higher than the general population. To put that in perspective, health guidelines recommend 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise each week, which is equal to about 8 MET-hours per week. “Cancer survivors who were tumor-free by year three and regularly exercised achieved even better subsequent survival rates than those seen in the matched general population,” researchers noted in a news release. Examples… read on > read on >

One of the NBA’s most exciting rising stars will spend the rest of the 2024-2025 season on the bench. Victor Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs’ 7-foot 3-inch phenom, was sidelined after doctors discovered a dangerous blood clot in his right shoulder, the league announced Thursday. The 21-year-old French standout, who earned Rookie of the Year honors last season, was diagnosed after his return from Sunday’s 2025 All-Star Game with deep vein thrombosis (DVT). DVT is a dangerous condition in which a blood clot forms in a vein deep inside the body, usually in the legs but sometimes in arms or shoulders, as in Wembanyama’s case. “The medical experts and the people that are smarter than everybody in the room … confirm that he’ll be done this year, and that there is no concern for Victor’s long-term health personally, or anything related to his basketball activities,” acting Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said, according to the Associated Press. DVT can develop after after injuries, surgery or long periods of inactivity such as a long car or plane trip, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). If left untreated, the clot can break loose and travel to the lungs, causing a life-threatening pulmonary embolism. Clots can also block blood flow to the brain or heart, increasing the risk of stroke or heart attack, experts… read on > read on >

Stroke patients leave the hospital with better prospects if they’re forced to hoof it more during recovery, a new study suggests. Adding a half-hour of progressive walking exercises to standard stroke rehab measurably improves patients’ quality of life and mobility by the time they go home, researchers say. “Although guidelines recommend structured, progressive exercise after stroke, the uptake of these approaches that have sufficient intensity for rehab programs is still lagging,” researcher Janice Eng, a stroke rehabilitation specialist and professor of physical therapy at the University of British Columbia in Canada, said in a news release. “Structured and progressively more challenging exercise, aided by wearable devices to provide feedback on intensity, can help people maintain safe intensity levels that are crucial for neuroplasticity — which is the brain’s ability to heal and adapt,” Eng added. For the study, her team recruited more than 300 stroke patients rehabbing at 12 hospitals across Canada. At the start, patients could walk an average of about 500 feet, nearly the distance of two average city blocks, during a standard six-minute walk test. Roughly half were randomly assigned to add a minimum of 30 minutes of weight-bearing and walking activities to their daily rehab, with these activities increasing in intensity over time. The goal was to get up to 2,000 steps of moderately intense exercise for a half-hour five days… read on > read on >

High school athletes often hit the field improperly fueled for the competition ahead, because they haven’t been taught important basics of nutrition, a new study says. In surveys, teen athletes revealed a dramatic lack of knowledge about nutrition facts that could help them compete harder and recover better, researchers reported recently in the journal Nutrition. “Their level of general nutrition knowledge and sport nutrition knowledge was very, very low,” researcher Jennifer Fields, an assistant professor of nutritional science with the University of Connecticut, said in a news release. “They didn’t know how to eat a balanced diet for their overall health,” she continued. “Moreso, they didn’t know how to make proper fueling decisions for their sport.” For the study, 44 teenage student athletes filled out the Abridged Sports Nutrition Knowledge Questionnaire, a survey designed to suss out how much a person knows about nutrition in general and eating for athletic competition in particular. Overall, the students got only about 45% of the questions right, results show. They scored 58% on general nutrition knowledge and 35% on sports nutrition. In particular, students were way off base when it came to the key nutrients they need to compete effectively, researchers said. The teens thought they needed fewer carbohydrates and calories than is recommended, as well as far more protein and fat than necessary, the study found. In… read on > read on >

Ahead of this weekend’s Super Bowl, some good news for the athletes: NFL players are largely avoiding opioid-based pain relievers when injuries strike. A new study of data from the 2021 and 2022 seasons finds the National Football League’s efforts to curb addictive opioid use is working, with the drugs comprising less than 3% of all pain meds prescribed. “Moreover, only 10 percent of NFL athletes received even a single prescription for an opioid during a one-year period,” noted study co-author Dr. Kurt Kroenke, a researcher-clinician at the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University School of Medicine, in Indianapolis. “I think there’s been much greater attention to what can be done in the training room for NFL athletes for their injuries and pain that doesn’t rely on medicines,” he added. Many Americans fall prey to opioid misuse and addiction when they are prescribed the drugs to ease pain from injury or another cause. Even the toughest athletes can be vulnerable. “Professional football is a very physical sport,” Kroenke said in a Regenstrief news release. “But anyone who watches professional hockey or NBA basketball or big league soccer and even college and high school sports, realizes how these players also are prone to injuries and pain.” When it comes to pro football players, he added, “there’s always been a concern from a safety and health perspective about… read on > read on >