Sports « Weekly Gravy

Want to do something to protect your thinking skills as you age? Swing that golf club or go for a walk. A new study found that walking about 3.7 miles or playing 18 holes of golf improved cognitive function. Nordic walking, a type of full-body walking using poles, showed the same benefit. “These findings underscore the value of age-appropriate aerobic exercise, such as golf, Nordic walking and regular walking, in maintaining and enhancing cognitive function among older adults,” said first author Julia Kettinen, a doctoral researcher at the University of Eastern Finland. “Previous research has shown that exercise also holds promise as a potential strategy for those experiencing cognitive decline,” she said in a university news release. For the study, 25 healthy golfers age 65 and older participated in three bouts of intense aerobic exercise — golf, walking and Nordic walking — in a real-life environment, maintaining their typical brisk pace. The researchers then assessed cognitive function using a pair of tests that measure functions such as attention, processing speed and demanding skills such as task-switching ability. They also collected blood samples to measure two chemicals — neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and cathepsin B (CTSB) — believed to reflect the benefits of exercise in the brain. Participants wore fitness monitoring devices to monitor their distance, duration, pace, energy expenditure and steps. An ECG sensor with a… read on > read on >

Arthritis is becoming a disease of the masses, striking 21% of U.S. adults, or over 53 million people, a new report shows. “It’s important first to point out that arthritis is a general term that includes over a hundred different chronic diseases that affect the joints and the tissues around those joints,” said researcher Elizabeth Fallon, an epidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The finding was culled from an analysis of data from the National Health Interview Survey from 2019 to 2021. How did the numbers break out? About 88% of all arthritis cases were adults aged 45 and up, while about 50% were working-age people ranging in age from 18 to 64. Additional risk factors included being a woman, being a veteran or having another chronic disease or disability, Fallon said. Although this analysis didn’t look for trends over time, “it’s already a large public health problem,” Fallon noted. “If it’s growing, we need to know that so we can appropriately address it from a public health perspective.” Arthritis is a leading cause of activity limitations and disability, as well as chronic pain. A common thread in the findings was that more than half of folks who had arthritis also had other health conditions. About 58% of people who have COPD have arthritis, as do 56% of those with dementia,… read on > read on >

Pickleball has become wildly popular, but that may be fueling a rise in pickleball-related injuries. “It’s quickly becoming a sport of choice for adults over the age of 50,” said Dr. Brian Cole, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He also plays pickleball. “The high injury rate can be attributed to the fact that most players tend to be over 50,” Cole said in a hospital news release. “And many of them were largely sedentary before picking up their pickleball paddles.” Pickleball is like a hybrid of ping-pong and tennis, and attracts many beginners. In his practice, Cole often sees strains and sprains, mostly in the legs and ankles. Rotator cuff injuries are also common. Sometimes he sees more serious injuries, including fractures and concussions. Here, Cole offers some pointers on avoiding injury. A good first step to avoid injury is to first get an assessment of your health from your primary care physician and possibly also a physical therapist. You may not be as prepared to jump into play as you think if you haven’t been very active in a while. “Patients over 60 account for nearly 80% of pickleball injuries, and most of them are male,” Cole said. Importantly, many seniors have underlying conditions they don’t know about. “Millions of people walk around with rotator… read on > read on >

Treating shoulder pain with steroid shots or removal of cartilage buildup yields the same result as no treatment at all, a Norwegian research team reports. They said their findings call into question treatment guidelines for calcific tendinopathy, a painful condition in the shoulder’s rotator cuff tendons. Researchers said the common invasive procedure, known as ultrasound-guided lavage, appears to be useless. “The study findings should lead to a critical reconsideration of treatment guidelines for this condition, specifically for the use of ultrasound-guided lavage and cortisone injections,” said lead researcher Dr. Stefan Moosmayer, a consultant orthopedic surgeon at Martina Hansens Hospital in Gjettum, Norway. Calcific tendinopathy is a common shoulder condition marked by calcium buildup. But the study, published Oct. 11 in the journal BMJ, calls into question whether calcium buildup is the true cause of the joint pain. “We over-focus on the calcification itself,” Moosmayer said. “There may be other mechanisms which we have not fully understood.” Calcification has long been assumed to be the source of the pain, and treatments aim to remove it. A widely used method is ultrasound-guided lavage, in which saline is injected into the calcium deposits to help dissolve them. “Benefits from ultrasound-guided lavage or from a steroid injection, however, are no better than from placebo treatment,” Moosmayer said. For the study, 218 patients suffering from shoulder pain were randomly assigned… read on > read on >

Exercise has been dubbed “nature’s antidepressant” by doctors for years, and now a new study confirms the notion. The finding follows a four-month look at the impact that running had on anxiety and depression when compared to a common antidepressant. SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) work by boosting levels of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that’s a key player when it comes to regulating mood, depression and anxiety. But among 140 depression patients, those who engaged in regular group running — meaning two or three 45-minute runs each week — actually saw their depression levels drop a bit more than those who took the popular SSRI medication escitalopram (Lexapro). And those who treated their depression with exercise reaped an added reward, with improvements seen in their physical health as well. That group, said study author Brenda Penninx, also “lost weight, improved fitness and reduced heart rate and blood pressure.” The medication group did not see those benefits. Penninx, a professor of psychiatric epidemiology and vice chair of the department of psychiatry at Amsterdam University Medical Center in the Netherlands, presented her findings this weekend at the ECNP meeting, which focuses on the science and treatment of brain disorders. The research was published earlier this year in the Journal of Affective Disorders. All told, she said, the findings suggest that “we should pay much more attention to lifestyle… read on > read on >

Former pro football players with symptoms of depression or anxiety are far more likely to receive an unverifiable diagnosis of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) than players without those mental health conditions, a new study reports. Players with depression are 9.5 times more likely to be diagnosed with CTE, while players with both depression and anxiety are 12 times more likely, the study results showed. The problem: At this point CTE can only be diagnosed as part of a brain autopsy. “CTE can only be diagnosed after death,” said lead author Shawn Eagle, a research assistant professor of neurological surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “It shouldn’t be diagnosed in anyone while they’re living. Being told you have CTE when you’re alive is a problem because there’s no valid test to diagnose CTE in a living person.” Researchers argue that those players’ doctors are dropping the ball by handing out a CTE diagnosis, because there are effective treatments for the mood disorders that led to the diagnosis. “Depression, anxiety and sleep apnea produce cognitive symptoms, are treatable conditions, and should be distinguished from neurodegenerative disease,” Eagle said. “CTE is a neurodegenerative disease without available treatments or available diagnosis in a living person.” CTE is a degenerative brain disease that can be caused by repeated head impacts and concussions. It usually affects athletes who… read on > read on >

FRIDAY, Oct. 6, 2023 (HealthDay News) – Healthy steps: Living in a neighborhood that’s easy to walk in could be good for women’s health. New research finds that women who live in walkable neighborhoods have lower rates of obesity-related cancers. This was particularly true of postmenopausal breast cancer, but also of ovarian cancer, endometrial cancer and multiple myeloma, according to researchers at several universities in New York City. “These results contribute to the growing evidence of how urban design affects the health and well-being in aging populations,” said researcher Andrew Rundle, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Researchers noted that interventions to increase physical activity and reduce obesity one by one are costly. They also tend to have temporary effects. “However, urban design can create a context that promotes walking, increases overall physical activity, and reduce car-dependency, which could lead to subsequent improvements in preventing diseases attributed to unhealthy weight,” Rundle said said in a Columbia news release. Past research has linked obesity to increased risk for 13 types of cancer in women, independent of body size. Physical activity lowers the risk for some of these cancers. The study included data from more than 14,000 women ages 35 to 65 who were recruited at a New York City mammography screening center between 1985 and 1991. Researchers followed the women… read on > read on >

Good news for couch potatoes — bursts of activity as short as one to three minutes in duration can prompt a steep decrease in the risk of heart attack, stroke and early death, a new study reports. Researchers tracked the activity of more than 25,000 people in the United Kingdom, all of whom had wearable devices that monitored their movement down to 10-second intervals. The investigators found that short bouts of activity lasting fewer than 10 minutes caused a significant decrease in heart attacks and strokes, as well as death from any cause. These weren’t activities where someone needed to don sportswear and athletic shoes, either, said lead researcher Matthew Ahmadi, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Sydney in Australia. “The health-enhancing benefits they received all came from activities of daily living such as playing with children, gardening and household tasks that mixed in short bursts of vigorous intensity,” Ahmadi said. “Our study found that the health benefits traditionally attributed to exercise-based activities can also be achieved through everyday activities. This was a nice finding, particularly for adults who are unable to or cannot exercise regularly,” he said. Although even short bursts of activity produced benefit, the longer the bouts, the better off participants were, the researchers found. Compared to people who only moved in bouts of one minute or less: People who… read on > read on >

Extensive exercise regimens are keeping astronauts healthy and protecting their hearts during extended space missions, new research finds. A study from scientists at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas found no loss of heart mass or output, and no loss of function in the heart’s ventricles, during flights that can last up to six months. The findings could have implications for treating diseases in which gravity plays a role. They also could help in planning longer missions, such as to Mars. “Our study shows that, remarkably, what we are doing in space to preserve heart function and morphology is pretty effective,” said senior study author Dr. Benjamin Levine. He is a professor of internal medicine in the division of cardiology at UT Southwestern. It has been known that when astronauts return to Earth, they typically experience a dramatic loss in blood pressure. A key cause is remodeling that the heart experiences because of space’s microgravity conditions. While in space, astronauts’ bodies don’t have to counteract the effects of gravity. That means their bodies are working less hard. It’s similar to what someone would experience while on bed rest, the researchers explained. The heart muscle mass decreases by an average of 1% per week while in space and the volume of blood that the heart holds also drops. It was not known whether the two hours… read on > read on >

Adding 3,000 extra steps a day can help older adults with hypertension significantly lower their blood pressure. About 80% of older adults in the United States have high blood pressure. Keeping it down can help protect against heart failure, heart attacks and strokes. “We’ll all get high blood pressure if we live long enough, at least in this country,” Linda Pescatello, professor of kinesiology at the University of Connecticut, said in a university news release. “That’s how prevalent it is.” While her previous research had shown that exercise could have an immediate and long-lasting impact on blood pressure, this new study set out to learn whether moderately increasing walking — popular in this age group — could do the same. “It’s easy to do, they don’t need any equipment, they can do it anywhere at almost any time,” said co-author Duck-Chul Lee, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University. The researchers focused on a group of sedentary 68- to 78-year-olds who walked about 4,000 steps per day. By adding in 3,000 steps, they would log 7,000 daily steps, in line with a recommendation of the American College of Sports Medicine. Getting “3,000 steps is large enough but not too challenging to achieve for health benefits,” Lee said in the release. Participants received kits with pedometers, blood pressure monitors and step diaries to track their… read on > read on >