Sports « Weekly Gravy

New research suggests healthy lifestyles can help stave off dementia, perhaps by building a resilient ‘cognitive reserve’ in the aging brain. The study was based on the brain autopsies on 586 people who lived to an average age of almost 91. Researchers compared each person’s lifestyle and end-of-life mental skills to their neurological signs of dementia, such as brain protein plaques or changes in brain blood flow. None of these brain factors seemed to greatly affect the positive connection between healthy living and a person’s end-of-live mental skills, said a team led by Dr. Klodian Dhana, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. That means that good nutrition, regular exercise and other factors may instead “provide a cognitive reserve” that buffers against negative changes going on within the brain — allowing older folk to “maintain cognitive abilities” over time, the researchers said. “You can almost sort of cheat the biology a little bit and still not get the symptomatology as early” as someone who’s less healthy, said Dr. Liron Sinvani, who wasn’t involved in the study. She directs geriatric hospitalist services at Northwell Health in Uniondale, N.Y. The study was published Feb. 5 in the journal JAMA Neurology. As Dhana’s group notes, it’s long been known that certain lifestyle choices — eating well, exercising, avoiding smoking and heavy drinking — are linked to lower rates… read on > read on >

Exercise is crucial to recovering from a stroke, helping victims regain lost physical and mental function. And stroke survivors are more likely to remain physically active — or even exercise more than before — if they have access to a neighborhood rec center or gym, a new study finds. The odds of a patient being more active in recovery than before their stroke was 57% higher among participants who lived in areas with more recreational and fitness resources, according to findings to be presented next week at the American Stroke Association’s annual meeting in Phoenix. Similarly, the odds of maintaining the same level of physical activity one year after a stroke were 47% higher in people living near rec centers and gyms. “Our findings suggest that it’s important to have a conversation with stroke patients about physical activity resources available in their area so they are able to continue their recovery after hospital discharge,” said lead researcher Jeffrey Wing, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Ohio State University. This access to fitness resources is so important that doctors should consider it a factor in a patient’s release, Wing added. “If their neighborhood does not offer fitness resources, neurologists should consider discharging the patient to a rehabilitation facility where they can participate in physical activities,” Wing said in a meeting news release. For the study, researchers… read on > read on >

Losing the use of an arm after a stroke can be devastating, but new research could offer survivors fresh hope. The study found that a combination of targeted brain stimulation therapy, along with intense physical rehabilitation, can restore control of an affected arm or hand. “This is the first time that brain stimulation combined with rehabilitation therapy for stroke is available outside of a clinical trial,” noted study lead author Teresa Kimberley. “It could set the stage for even more advancements in recovery from other impairments beyond the arm. This is a watershed moment for rehabilitation science.” Kimberley is a professor of rehabilitation science and physical therapy at the MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston. Her team’s findings will be presented at next week’s International Stroke Conference in Phoenix. As a stroke attacks the brain, vital neural pathways connecting the brain to the limbs can be damaged, triggering a loss of function. Re-establishing those connections can be tough, Kimberley’s team reports. “The recovery of arm and hand function after a stroke often stalls or even declines, leaving many patients with chronic motor deficits that limit their independence and quality of life,” she said in an American Stroke Association news release. “New treatments that can boost the benefits of physical rehabilitation are desperately needed.” The new study involved an implanted device that produces stimulation to… read on > read on >

Even small increases in a man’s cardio fitness can significantly reduce his risk of developing prostate cancer, researchers report. An annual increase in aerobic fitness of 3% or more is linked to a 35% lower risk of prostate cancer, according to a report published Jan. 30 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. “Improvements in [cardiorespiratory fitness] in adult men should be encouraged and may reduce the risk of prostate cancer,” concluded the research team led by Dr. Kate Bolam, an exercise oncology researcher with the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences GIH in Stockholm. There already is good evidence regarding the benefits of physical activity when it comes to overall cancer risk, but the association between fitness and prostate cancer risk has not been well-studied, researchers said in a journal news release. To examine this, they analyzed the records of nearly 58,000 men kept in a national occupational health profile database. The men included in the study had taken at least two cardio fitness tests, measured by pedaling on a stationary bike. The database also included information on physical activity, lifestyle and body-mass index. Researchers divided the men into groups according to their fitness trends – those whose heart fitness improved by 3% or more annually, fell by more than 3% or remained stable during the study period. During an average follow-up period… read on > read on >

It’s long been thought that it takes more time for a woman to recover from a concussion than a man. But a new national study of U.S. college athletes refutes that notion, finding that women and men recover from sports-related head injuries at about the same pace. Recovery patterns for both genders were similar on tests of brain function, concussion symptoms, mental health, and balance and reaction time, according to a report published recently in the journal Sports Medicine. There also was no significant difference in the time it took men and women to return to unrestricted participation in sports, researchers found. “I think a lot of people will be surprised in such a large sample that women and men recover along the same trajectory,” said senior researcher Jaclyn Caccese, an assistant professor with the Ohio State University School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences. “For many years, we’ve thought women took longer to recover, but evidence suggests that if women get the same access to care, they do recover similarly.” For the study, researchers analyzed medical data from more than 900 athletes competing in sports at NCAA colleges. About three in five athletes in the study were female. The analysis focused on 15 sex-comparable sports that included basketball, diving, ice hockey, soccer and volleyball. The research team specifically excluded all-male sports like football and wrestling,… read on > read on >

Your office chair could be a killer. New research shows that folks who spent most of their workday sitting were 16% more prone to an early death, compared to folks in non-sitting jobs. The Taiwanese study did offer workers a glimmer of hope, however: Getting up & moving a bit during the workday or adding a bit of leisure-time exercise greatly reduced the risk. The researchers hope that, someday, days spent sitting for work might be looked upon as just another unwanted, unhealthy habit. “Prolonged occupational sitting is [now] considered normal,” the investigators said. But more information on just how fatal a life spent sitting can be may “denormalize this common behavior, similar to the processes of denormalizing smoking.” The study was led by Dr. Chi-Pang Wen of the National Health Research Institute in Zhunan, Taiwan. It was published Jan. 19 in the journal JAMA Network Open. Numerous studies have already found that as hours per day spent sitting rise, health declines. And sitting’s dangers may not be simply that sitting equals time not spent in activity. There could be something specific to the posture of sitting that is especially harmful, the research team said. Sitting may bring about a weakening of the legs and trunk and “increased blood flow to lower extremities,” as well as low-grade inflammation, Wen’s group explained. In turn, that could… read on > read on >

Folks who drop pounds to help control their diabetes receive other substantial heath benefits for all their efforts, a new study says. Substantial weight loss that led to even a short-lived remission in type 2 diabetes also prompted a 40% lower rate in heart disease and a 33% lower rate of kidney disease, researchers report in the Jan. 18 issue of the journal Diabetologia. “As the first intervention study to associate remission with reduction of diabetes-related complications, this is encouraging news for those who can achieve remission from type 2 diabetes,” said lead researcher Edward Gregg, head of population health at RSCI University of Medicine and Health Sciences in Dublin. For the study, researchers tracked 5,145 overweight or obese adults with type 2 diabetes for 12 years. About 18% of patients randomly assigned to an intensive diet and lifestyle plan wound up controlling their diabetes to the point they needed no medication and had normal blood sugar levels, which researchers considered remission. Those patients had lower rates of heart and kidney disease than those who didn’t achieve remission, researchers found. Further, the risk of heart or kidney disease declined most in people with longer-term remission. Those who experienced at least four years of remission had a 49% reduced risk of heart disease and a 55% reduced risk of kidney disease. Patients were more likely to… read on > read on >

Getting bored with your treadmill or exercise bike? Picking up a couple dumbbells instead of lacing up your running shoes once in a while won’t do your heart any harm, a new study reports. Splitting the recommended amount of physical activity between aerobic and resistance exercises reduces the risk of heart disease just as well as an aerobic-only workout regimen, researchers found. “If you’re bored with aerobic exercise and want variety or you have joint pain that makes running long distances difficult, our study shows you can replace half of your aerobic workout with strength training to get the same cardiovascular benefits,” said lead researcher Duck-chul Lee, a professor of kinesiology at Iowa State University. “The combined workout also offers some other unique health benefits, like improving your muscles,” Lee added in a university news release. Heart disease is the United States’ top killer, accounting for approximately one in three deaths, researchers said in background notes. Many studies have shown that aerobic exercise benefits the heart, especially for those with excess weight, but few have compared those results to resistance exercise, the researchers said. For the study, the team tracked more than 400 people ages 35 to 70 for a year. All were overweight or obese, and all had high blood pressure. Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups – resistance exercise only,… read on > read on >

Using two feet or two wheels to get back and forth to work each day could reduce the inflammation that leads to cancer, heart disease and diabetes, new research shows. So-called “active commuting” — walking or biking to work — for at least 45 minutes daily lowered levels of a blood marker for inflammation called C-reactive protein (CRP), Finnish researchers report. That was true even after the team factored in any other exercise the active commuters might have been doing. Avoiding cars and buses to get to work is also good for the planet, they noted. So, “in addition to climate change mitigation, active commuting could lead to public health benefits,” concluded a team led by Sara Allaouat, a researcher at the University of Eastern Finland in Kuopio. It’s normal for people to suffer brief periods of inflammation, which is part of the body’s healthy short-term immune response. However, chronic inflammation lasts for months or years, and prior research has shown that it can raise the risk for a host of common health problems. Exercise has long been known to reduce inflammation. In the new study, Allaouat and her colleagues examined the commuting habits and blood CRP levels of over 6,200 middle-aged Finnish workers. Compared to folks who drove or took transit to work, those who spent at least 45 minutes per days walking or cycling… read on > read on >

Putting a little pressure on your bones during exercise or daily activities might pay off in stronger bones as you age, new research suggests. The study focused on a crucial part of the hip joint anatomy called the femoral neck. Finnish researchers found that largely sedentary folks ages 70 to 85 maintained or gained bone strength in the femoral neck after a year-long exercise program. The key was the intensity and “impact” of physical activity. For example, people who engaged in running or brisk walking benefited far more than those who walked at a normal pace. Even in your 70s and 80s, adding in this kind of activity to your daily routine is easily done, said study co-author Tuuli Suominen. “It is possible to incorporate more high-intensity activity into your everyday life in small bouts, such as brisk walks and stair climbing,” said Suominen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. “Jumping-like impacts can also be achieved without the actual jumping by first raising up on your tiptoes and then dropping down onto your heels.” As physical activity tends to decline with advancing age, so does bone density and integrity. Can that deterioration be halted or slowed? To find out, the researchers had 299 largely sedentary men and women ages 70 and older engage in a yearlong program focused on muscle strength,… read on > read on >