Sports « Weekly Gravy

The harmful effects of obesity on the heart can’t be undone by exercise, and it’s not possible to be “fat but healthy,” Spanish researchers warn. “Exercise does not seem to compensate for the negative effects of excess weight,” said study author Alejandro Lucia, a professor of exercise physiology at European University in Madrid. The study findings “refute the notion that a physically active lifestyle can completely negate the deleterious effects of overweight and obesity,” he said. Lucia and his colleagues analyzed data from nearly 528,000 working adults in Spain. The participants’ average age was 42 and close to 7 out of 10 were men. About 42% of these adults were normal weight; 41% were overweight, and 18% were obese. Most were inactive (63.5%); 12.3% got some but not enough exercise, and 24.2% were regularly active. About 30% of participants had high cholesterol; 15% had high blood pressure, and 3% had diabetes. No matter how active they were, however, overweight and obese people had a higher risk of heart disease than those whose weight was normal, according to the study, published Jan. 22 in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. Compared to active people of normal weight, active obese people were about twice as likely to have high cholesterol, four times more likely to have diabetes, and five times more likely to have high blood pressure.… read on > read on >

An inhaled medication might make every day physical activity a bit easier for patients with serious scarring of the lungs, a new clinical trial finds. The study, published online Jan. 13 in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved patients with high blood pressure in the lungs caused by interstitial lung disease (ILD). ILD is a broad term for progressive scarring of the tissue surrounding the lungs’ air sacs and blood vessels. It can have a range of causes, from smoking, to occupational exposure to toxins like asbestos, as well as autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis. Sometimes, no cause can be found. A potential, and serious, complication of that scarring is pulmonary hypertension, in which the vessels that supply blood to the lungs become hard and narrow. Once pulmonary hypertension arises, patients can become so short of breath they have difficulty walking, and often need to use more supplemental oxygen. The complication may also shorten their lives. Right now, no medication is approved specifically for pulmonary hypertension caused by ILD, said Dr. Steven Nathan, senior researcher on the new trial. He’s director of the Advanced Lung Disease and Lung Transplant Program at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, Va. There are, however, drugs for another form of pulmonary hypertension, known as pulmonary arterial hypertension. Those medications are vasodilators, which means they help blood vessels in… read on > read on >

After SARS-CoV-2 exposure, a 14-day quarantine is standard among university athletes. But shorter quarantines for these athletes, along with mid-quarantine testing, may improve their compliance without increasing the risk that they’ll infect others, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed data from 620 U.S. college athletes who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 while in quarantine after exposure to the virus. Nearly half (49%) tested positive by the second day of quarantine, and 73% did by day 5. The rate of positive tests declined over the quarantine period. Among athletes who were still negative at day 5 of quarantine, the estimated probability of having a positive test result was 26.9% after day 5; 14.2% after day 7; and 4.7% after day 10. According to the authors, the probability of receiving positive test results after day 10 of quarantine is low. Of 29 athletes who tested positive between days 11 and 14, 89.7% had not been tested previously during their quarantine, according to the findings. More athletes reported exposure to COVID-19 at social gatherings (40.7%) and from roommates (31.7%) than from athletic activities (12.7%), the study found. It was published Jan. 8 in the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The findings support shortened quarantine options for college athletes, given the low proportion who tested positive after 10 days, according to study author… read on > read on >

What makes a marathoner great? New research pinpoints the physical attributes of top marathon runners, and could help others improve their marathon performance. Elite male distance runners were asked to run on treadmills at a range of speeds and also on an outdoor track at a speed of 13.1 miles per hour, comparable to completing a marathon in two hours. While the marathoners ran, researchers measured their heart rate, oxygen consumption and levels of lactic acid in the blood, to determine efficiency of oxygen use during exercise. The study also assessed the marathoners’ running force, stride length and body composition. Only seven of the 16 participants achieved a VO2 steady state (stable oxygen consumption) when running at the two-hour marathon pace. That highlights how extremely difficult it is to complete a marathon in under two hours, the researchers said. Overall, the athletes maintained a VO2 of 67 milliliters per kilogram of body weight per minute (ml/kg/min) at just over 13 mph, about twice as much as the average person can achieve when exercising at their maximum. Also, the marathoners’ lactic acid threshold — the speed at which it builds up in the body — occurred at a very high fraction of their VO2 max. Lactic acid is produced by the body as it turns food into energy during exercise; in the muscles it’s related to… read on > read on >