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Cold showers or ice baths have become a trendy way to recuperate after a heavy-duty workout, but do they actually help? A new evidence review suggests there’s some science to back up the hype. People report lower stress, improved sleep and better quality of life following cold-water immersion, researchers reported Jan. 29 in the journal PLOS One. However, these benefits often aren’t long-lasting, and in some cases, the body’s response might be bad for chronic health problems like heart disease, the review found. “In this study, we noted a range of time-dependent results,” lead investigator Tara Cain, a research assistant studying health and human performance with the University of South Australia, said in a news release. For example, “we found that cold-water immersion could reduce stress levels, but for only about 12 hours post-exposure,” Cain said. Researchers also noted that participants who took 20-, 60- or 90-second cold showers reported slightly higher quality of life scores. “But again,” Cain added, “After three months these effects had faded.” For the review, researchers pooled data from 11 studies on cold-water immersion involving nearly 3,200 people. Cold-water immersion involves dunking the body partially or fully in chilly water, with temperatures typically ranging from 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, researchers said in background notes. In this review, data was only included if exposure was at or above chest level… read on > read on >

Patients can improve their odds for a successful surgery by actively preparing for the procedure through diet and exercise, a tactic called “prehabilitation,” a new evidence review shows. Surgical patients who prehabbed had fewer complications and shorter hospital stays, also recovered better and had a higher quality of life, researchers reported Jan. 22 in The BMJ. “If you are going to be having surgery, it is always a good idea to ask about prehabilitation,” said lead researcher Dr. Daniel McIsaac, an anesthesiologist and senior scientist at The Ottawa Hospital and clinical research chair in perioperative innovation at the University of Ottawa in Canada. “If you are willing and able to regularly increase your activity levels and protein intake for a few weeks before surgery, you are likely to experience a noticeably shorter recovery time after surgery,” he added in a news release. The term “prehabilitation” dates to World War II and the British Army’s efforts to improve the general health and fitness of military recruits, researchers said in background notes. The medical community later adopted the term, making prehabilitation a major area of research for the past three decades, researchers said. “We know that people who are more physically fit tend to recover faster from surgery and suffer fewer complications,” McIsaac said. “While many patients, with encouragement from their doctors, want to improve their fitness… read on > read on >

Pumping iron and hitting the treadmill can improve your odds against cancer, a new evidence review says. People with more muscle strength and better cardio fitness are less likely to die from cancer, researchers reported recently in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. This survival benefit extends even to people with advanced-stage cancers, results show. “Muscle strength and cardiorespiratory fitness were significant predictors of all-cause mortality, especially in patients with advanced cancer,” concluded the research team led by Robert Newton, a professor of exercise medicine at Edith Cowan University in Australia. The results indicate that hitting the gym might deserve to be part of a person’s cancer treatment, researchers added. “Implementing tailored exercise prescriptions to enhance these physical fitness components throughout the cancer continuum may contribute to reducing cancer-related mortality,” the researchers wrote. Previous studies have linked better physical fitness to an overall lower risk of early death, as well as a lower risk of death by heart or lung disease, researchers said in background notes. But this is the first time a review has attempted to see whether fitness can ward off death from cancer, researchers said. Previous research has mainly focused on whether fitness can prevent cancer from occurring. For their review, researchers pooled data from 42 previous studies involving nearly 47,000 patients with various stages and types of cancer. Results showed that… read on > read on >

Want your kid to do well in school? Get them involved in an organized sport, a new study urges. Boys and girls are both more likely to earn a high school diploma if they take part in team sports like soccer or artistic sports like dance or gymnastics, researchers reported in a study published recently in the journal Children. “Structured sports were shown to have long-term benefits on success, reiterating the importance of encouraging play and an active lifestyle throughout childhood,” the study led by senior author Linda Pagani, a professor with the University of Montreal School of Psychoeducation, concluded. Boys in organized sports were nearly 15% more likely to have a high school diploma by age 20, researchers found. Likewise, girls who participated in sports were about 7% more likely to get their high school diploma, and also tended to get higher grades. For the study, researchers analyzed data from a long-term study following the development and well-being of Canadian children from birth to early adulthood. Nearly 2,800 children were included in the study. The research team looked at the sort of sports and physical activity that kids were involved in at age 12, and compared that to their later academic achievement. Girls who participated in organized sports had 8% higher grades overall, and those involved in artistic sports had nearly 23% higher grades,… read on > read on >

A fecal transplant could help people whose type 1 diabetes has fouled up their digestive system. Swallowing a handful of capsules filled with donor feces helped ease gut pain, nausea, bloating and diarrhea stemming from diabetes, researchers reported in a study published recently in the journal EClinicalMedicine. “The patients experienced a significant improvement in their quality of life and symptoms, far beyond what we observed with placebo,” lead researcher Dr. Katrine Lundby Høyer, a gastroenterologist with Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark, said in a news release from the college. This is the first time fecal transplant has been tested in type 1 diabetics against a placebo, and “the results are very promising,” Høyer added. As many as a quarter of type 1 diabetics suffer from diabetic gastroenteropathy, a condition in which the nerves that regulate the GI tract become damaged. Few treatment options are available, so researchers decided to see if a fecal transplant might be able to restore gut health in these patients, Høyer said. In fecal transplant, bacteria from a healthy person’s gut is transferred into a person with GI problems. The procedure is frequently used to treat C. difficile, a harmful bacteria that can cause severe diarrhea if it colonizes a person’s gut. For this study, researchers recruited 20 type 1 diabetes patients and randomly assigned them to receive either a fecal… read on > read on >

When it comes to living a longer life, staying active may matter far more than what the scale says. Per the largest study yet on fitness, body weight, and longevity published recently in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, researchers found that people who are aerobically fit (i.e., how well your heart, lungs, and muscles work together to supply oxygen during exercise) significantly reduce their risk of premature death, even if they are obese. In fact, being fit cut the risk of premature death by half for people with obesity, compared to those of normal weight who were unfit. “This tells us that it’s much more important, all things considered, to focus on the fitness aspect” of health and longevity, “rather than the fatness aspect,” Siddhartha Angadi, senior author of the study and an exercise physiologist at the University of Virginia, told The Washington Post. The review pooled data from 20 prior studies involving nearly 400,000 midlife and older adults from multiple countries, about 30% of whom were women. Participants were grouped based on their aerobic fitness, which was objectively measured through cardiovascular stress tests, and their body mass index (BMI). They also pulled data about who’d died during follow-up periods of up to about two decades. The findings were clear: People who were fit and overweight or obese had similar risks of death as… read on > read on >

Movement is medicine, or so they tell people with knee osteoarthritis — but are they right? A recent evidence review calls into question just how helpful exercise can be for easing the pain of knee arthritis. “Exercise probably results in an improvement in pain, physical function, and quality of life in the short‐term,” concluded the research team led by Belinda Lawford, a research fellow in physiotherapy with the University of Melbourne in Australia. “However, based on the thresholds for minimal important differences that we used, these benefits were of uncertain clinical importance,” the team added in its report published previously in the Cochrane Library. The review casts a slight shadow on what has been considered an integral part of therapy for knee pain. “Movement is an essential part of an osteoarthritis treatment plan,” the Arthritis Foundation says on its website, recommending that people take part in strength training, stretching, aerobics, and balance exercises. For the new review, the team evaluated data from 139 prior clinical trials involving nearly 12,500 participants that occurred up through early Jan. 2024. On a 100-point scale, exercise for knee arthritis improved: Pain by 8.7 to 13.1 points Physical function by 9.7 to 12.5 points Quality of life by 4.2 to 6.1 points But while those were significant improvements, they did not always meet established scores for making a minimal important… read on > read on >

Exercising now can increase your chances of successfully fighting cancer in the future. Even low levels of exercise provided protection against cancer, a new study published Jan. 7 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine shows. People were 47% less likely to die from cancer if they’d been engaging in moderate to vigorous physical activity prior to their diagnosis, compared to people not exercising at all, researchers found. Likewise, those engaging in light exercise had a 33% lower risk of dying from cancer, compared with none at all, the study says. “Physical activity may be considered to confer substantial benefits in terms of progression and overall mortality to those diagnosed with cancer,” concluded the team led by senior researcher Dr. Jon Patricios, an associate professor with the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. “In a world where cancer continues to be a significant public health burden, the promotion of physical activity can yield important benefits regarding the progression of cancer as well as its prevention and management,” the researchers added. For the study, researchers tracked the health of more than 28,000 people diagnosed with early-stage cancers in South Africa between 2007 and 2022. Breast and prostate cancers were the most common, representing 44% of cases. Researchers compared the patients’ levels of physical activity in the 12 months prior to their cancer diagnosis with… read on > read on >

Some standard health tips are timeless, aren’t they? The basics of living a healthy life don’t really change. Get lots of sleep and rest, exercise, and nutrient rich food. Manage stressors and symptoms. But as basic as those rules can be, it is still hard to practice them consistently. What’s more, wellness is more about enhancing your life than following rules. As a new year dawns, UCLA Health experts share some of their most practical and not-always-obvious feel-good advice. Here, seven smart tips from seven different health and wellness experts. 1. Keep Doing the Good-for-You Things You Already Do “Most of what people can do to have a healthy 2025 is not much different than what they could do to have a healthy 2024: exercise; don’t smoke; drink alcohol in moderation, if at all; stay engaged; and keep your mind stimulated. Be decent in every interaction and seek optimism every day. You may not find something to rejoice about but you may find something meaningful that may help others and yourself.” — Dr. David B. Reuben, geriatrician. 2. Honor and Nurture Your Feet “Our feet take a pounding every day, but most of us don’t take care of our feet. Give yourself a foot massage. It’s a simple, easy thing that anyone can do – very low cost, low investment and high yield. There is a whole body of knowledge about… read on > read on >

It’s not fun for folks to admit to their doctor that they’re a couch potato. But such a frank talk could help protect against chronic disease, a new study says. People with the highest levels of physical activity have a lower risk of 19 different chronic health problems, researchers reported recently in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease. Those who got at least 150 minutes a week of moderate to vigorous exercise were less likely to develop heart disease, cancer, lung problems, diabetes, and a range of other debilitating ailments, researchers found. On the other hand, folks who got little to no exercise had more risk of chronic disease, results show. Based on these findings, researchers recommend that doctors ask patients about their physical activity, and provide encouragement to those who need to get more exercise. “In our health care environment, there’s no easy pathway for a doctor to be reimbursed for helping patients become more physically active,” senior researcher Lucas Carr, an associate professor of health and human physiology with the University of Iowa, said in a news release. “And so, for these patients, many of whom report insufficient activity, we need options to easily connect them with supportive services like exercise prescriptions and/or community health specialists,” Carr continued. Most U.S. hospitals and health systems don’t bother asking patients about physical activity, researchers said in… read on > read on >