Two very different studies show that dancing is more than just fun. It can keep your mind sharp and your heart healthy. The first was done in the United Kingdom and published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Researchers pooled results from 11 surveys that included a total of 49,000 people. The investigators compared the health effects of walking and dancing, and found that moderate-intensity dancing was associated with a lower risk of dying from heart disease. Note that it took moderate-intensity activity to bring about these results, so if you’re a fan of slow dancing, you’ll need to pick up the pace. The heart-health benefits of dance are likely due to its interval-training-like bouts of high-intensity movement and it being a stress-relieving hobby you can do for life. While many kinds of dance can make for great calorie-burning cardio, a separate study published in Frontiers in Aging Neuroscience and conducted by researchers at a number of U.S. universities found that learning dance choreography can confer cognitive as well as physical benefits. Researchers specifically looked at the effects of learning the steps of a country dance and found this can stimulate a key area of the brain and slow down natural brain aging. Both studies also restated the positive effects that stem from dance as a social activity, a known brain booster. While it’s…  read on >

Even if you are at high risk for Alzheimer’s disease, a little more exercise may buy you time, new research suggests. Folks with elevated levels of a brain protein called beta amyloid tend to be more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and experience rapid brain decline later in life, previous research has found. But apparently they can delay the onset of Alzheimer’s through regular exercise, scientists report. “People who had elevated levels of amyloid, which is one of the earliest changes you see with Alzheimer’s disease, had slower rates of cognitive decline and brain volume loss over time if they had greater levels of physical activity,” said lead researcher Jennifer Rabin. She is a scientist with the Hurvitz Brain Sciences Program at the Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto. It didn’t take much exercise to enjoy this protection, either. The data suggests that people who walked 8,300 to 8,900 steps per day significantly delayed the onset of Alzheimer’s, Rabin said. Previous studies have shown that older people who exercise generally tend to stay sharp longer into old age, but this new research shows physical activity is specifically protective for folks who have these early brain changes related to Alzheimer’s, said Dr. Howard Fillit. He’s executive director and chief science officer at the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation. “This population is different than what’s been studied before because…  read on >

Swimming lessons can lower the risk of drowning, but black kids often miss out on learning this lifesaving skill, a leading pediatricians group says. “Everyone should have the opportunity to learn to swim,” said Dr. Kyle Yasuda, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). “This is an essential life skill for children, teens and adults. It’s an important part of the ‘layers of protection’ that families and communities can put in place to protect children and teens around water,” Yasuda said in an AAP news release. Not everyone has the same access to swimming lessons. Historically, black Americans have faced barriers to learning to swim, and black teen boys have the highest drowning risk of any age group, according to the academy. Rates of drowning among children aged 11 to 12 are 10 times higher for black kids than for whites, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. According to Dr. Nia Heard-Garris, “This is a problem we can solve.” She is chair of the AAP Section on Minority Health, Equity and Inclusion. “Some communities have created innovative solutions to provide free or low-cost swim lessons, and others have developed culturally sensitive lessons, and lessons for children with developmental disabilities or special health care needs. All children should have access to these potentially lifesaving skills,” Heard-Garris said. In 2017, nearly 1,000…  read on >

Ultramarathons are grueling races that typically range anywhere from 30 to 100 miles, but new research suggests that even these distances don’t tax the heart unduly. “The good news is that while experienced runners pushed their heart limits during the ultramarathon, they did not show evidence of cardiac risk assessed through elevated biomarkers [such as cortisol levels],” said co-lead investigator Rodrigo Hohl. He’s a professor from the department of physiology at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora in Brazil. In the study, researchers conducted blood tests on 25 participants in a 24-hour ultramarathon before and after the event. Eleven of them were experienced ultramarathoners who’d trained a distance of more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) a week over five years, while 14 were first-time ultramarathoners who’d previously run at least one regular marathon. After the event, the experienced runners were more likely than the first-timers to have elevated levels of blood biomarkers that measure heart health, but those levels did not pose a risk of heart damage. The experienced runners did have higher levels of cortisol. The higher levels in the experienced runners reflected the greater load on the heart, according to the authors of the study published recently in the journal Heliyon. “Experienced runners performed with greater intensity and speed, which placed strains on their hearts. Novice runners ran with less intensity, which…  read on >

Do you pump your arms while walking? Keeping your arms straight while walking is much more energy-efficient than walking with bent arms, but arm position doesn’t make much difference when running, a new, small study finds. The study included eight university students — ranging from casual runners to marathoners — who were filmed while they walked and ran with bent and straight arms while on a treadmill. “The hardest thing was running with straight arms,” and all of the participants found the movement strange, said Andrew Yegian, a graduate student at Harvard University. The participants repeated the running and walking tests again two weeks later, but this time breathed through a mask to measure their oxygen consumption. This enabled the researchers to calculate the participants’ energy consumption with their arms in different positions. The results were published online July 9 in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Holding the arms bent while walking increased energy consumption by 11%, proving that walking with straight arms is by far the most energy-efficient option, the study authors said. But there was little difference in energy consumption when having arms straight or bent while running. “We didn’t find any evidence that the energy cost was different between arm postures when running,” Yegian said in a journal news release. He said he had suspected that running with bent arms would be…  read on >