The key to weight loss could come down to a combination of 14 “skinny genes,” a recent study says. People with these genes dropped twice as much weight through regular exercise compared to those without the genes, researchers found. Those with the most of these genetic markers lost up to 11 pounds following eight weeks of running, compared to a little more than 4 pounds for those who didn’t get the same genetic boost. “This study highlighted some important genes associated with taking inches off the jeans, but it’s important to remember that the genes will do nothing without exercise and lifestyle changes as they are all interlinked,” lead researcher Henry Chung, a lecturer with the University of Essex School of Sport, Rehabilitation and Exercise Sciences in the U.K., said in a news release.  “Without intervention, they won’t show their true potential and then it doesn’t matter what genes you have,” he continued. For the study, researchers recruited 38 people ages 20 to 40. About half were asked to run 20 to 30 minutes three times a week, while maintaining all their usual diet and lifestyle habits. The rest served as a control group. Results show that one specific gene, called PPARCG1A, was most key to weight loss. The gene is involved in energy metabolism and was present in participants who lost the most weight,…  read on >  read on >

Heavy-duty endurance exercise can cause body fat levels to drop without any accompanying weight loss, a new small-scale study indicates. A group of eleven middle-aged men who cycled 710 miles in seven days lost only about 1% of their total weight, because they ate and drank enough to offset the calorie burn. But they lost over 9% of their overall body fat, including a nearly 15% reduction in levels of dangerous visceral fat crowding their vital organs. The cyclists also experienced a more than 20% reduction in total cholesterol and a nearly 40% reduction in triglyceride levels, as well as a substantial reductions in blood pressure. The results “support the importance of promoting a physically active lifestyle rather than caloric restriction in obesity prevention,” concluded the research team led by co-senior author Jean-Pierre Despres, a professor of kinesiology with University Laval in France. In other words, the study “provides evidence that humans were designed to be physically active rather than eat as little as possible,” researchers wrote. For the study, researchers recruited 11 recreational male cyclists ages 50 to 66 who could maintain an average pace of nearly 19 miles per hour over long distances. The men all hailed from the Quebec City metropolitan area in Canada. During seven consecutive days, the cyclists were sent once or twice on a 64-mile road loop on the…  read on >  read on >

Exercise, whether moderate- or high-intensity, can help ease Parkinson’s symptoms, including fatigue, new research shows. As study lead author Dr. Philip Millar explained, Parkinson’s patients are too often overwhelmed by shame or depression, so they stop going to the gym or exercising. That’s too bad, Millar said, because “if you stop physical activity, your body adapts and you lose physical function.” Just how beneficial can exercise be for patients? To find out, Millar’s team at the University of Guelph, in Ontario, Canada, had three groups of 10 people in various stages of Parkinson’s disease. Each group exercised three times per week at the gym, for a period of 10 weeks. The male and female participants ranged in age from 45 to 79, and they engaged in one of two modes of exercise training, moderate intensity or high intensity. Millar’s team tracked various physiological metrics — the person’s “maximal oxygen consumption,” their level of fatigue or vulnerability to fatigue, gait, balance and motor symptoms. “Prior work found that high-intensity interval training may improve how far someone with Parkinson’s can walk, but this could be due to becoming more stable or confident in their gait,” said Millar, who is an associate professor of human health and nutritional science at Guelph. “It might have had nothing to do with cardiorespiratory fitness and the impact on motor symptoms was…  read on >  read on >

Newfangled designs intended to make football helmets more protective have overlooked one key component, a new study suggests. Nearly a third of concussions in pro football involve impacts to the facemask, a part of the helmet that has remained mostly unchanged during the past decade, researchers say. Facemask enhancements could help protect players and minimize injury risk, the study concluded. These findings “suggest that facemask redesign should be the focus of future innovation that can continue to improve the safety of football players at all skill levels,” said lead researcher Kristy Arbogast, scientific director of the Center for Injury Research and Prevention and co-director of the Minds Matter Concussion Program at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. For the study, researchers used mouthpieces fitted with motion sensors to track head impacts that NFL players sustained during games. Nearly 100 players wore the mouthpieces during NFL seasons running from 2019 through 2022, and data was captured on more than 5,100 blows to the head that occurred during play. Facemask impacts represented nearly 60% of the most severe head blows during play. Impacts to the facemask were most common among linemen (66%), followed by hybrid players (56%) and speed players (46%). “The sophisticated and specific data collection from sensor technologies like instrumented mouthguards are providing a deeper understanding about the nature of impacts players experience on the field,”…  read on >  read on >