Obesity Contributes to Vitamin D Deficiency

Lack of vitamin D can cause osteoporosis, diabetes, heart disease, degenerative arthritis, infertility, autoimmune diseases, and cancers of the breast, prostate, colon or skin. Sunlight is the best way to meet your needs for vitamin D, but dermatologists have been telling us for years that sunlight can cause skin cancer. Increased use of sunscreens use may have had the unwanted side effect of widespread vitamin D deficiency. The rise in obesity may also be contributing to increased rates of vitamin D deficiency. Once vitamin D gets into fat cells, the fat cells hold on to that vitamin so tightly that it is not easily released into the rest of the body to do its job. Furthermore, vitamin D lowers blood levels of leptin, a hormone released by...

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Rest Periods Probably Do Not Increase Weight Loss

Researchers at the University of Tokyo claim that they have shown that intermittent exercise will help you to lose more weight than continuous exercise at the same intensity. Seven men participated in three different trials: 1) one hour at an intensity equal to 60 percent of maximum oxygen uptake; 2) 30 minutes at the same intensity followed by a 20-minute rest, followed by 30 more minutes of exercise at the same intensity; and 3) one hour of rest. The trial with two bouts of 30 minutes separated by a 20-minute rest burned the most fat. This intermittent exercise trial resulted in higher blood free fatty acid, glycerol and epinephrine levels, and significantly lower values of insulin and glucose.If these researchers are correct, scientists...

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Prevent Weight Gain with Exercise: How Much is Enough?

Most people could eat all they want and not gain weight, but they would have to do a lot of exercising to accomplish this. A study from Zurich shows that it takes at least five hours per week of vigorous exercise to avoid gaining weight with aging (Revue Suisse de Médecine Praxis, May 2007). They showed that the average Swiss recreational cyclist, aged 55 to 77, has gained almost two pounds per decade from youth, compared to the non-exercising males in the same age group who gained four pounds per decade. The rate of overweight among these year-round cyclists increased from 7.4 percent in their youthful days to 25 percent by the time they reached their fifties.If you are in an exercise program and are still gaining weight, you need to exercise...

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High Fructose Corn Syrup May Be Harmful: New Evidence

The food industry continues to insist that there is no difference between high fructose corn syrup (HCFS) and table sugar, but researchers at Rutgers University have a different opinion. They have found new evidence that soft drinks sweetened with (HFCS) cause tissue damage and may contribute to the development of diabetes, particularly in children. Chi-Tang Ho, Ph.D., and his colleagues conducted tests of eleven carbonated beverages containing HFCS. He found "astonishingly high levels of reactive carbonyls" in those beverages. These highly-reactive compounds associated with "unbound" fructose and glucose molecules are believed to cause tissue damage. Reactive carbonyls are not present in table sugar, whose fructose and glucose components are...

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Arch Height Should Guide Choice of Shoes for Running or Exercise Walking

Check the height of your arches when you shop for new running or walking shoes. If you have high arches, you usually need shoes with good shock absorption. If you have low arches, you will probably benefit from shoes with good motion control (Gait & Posture, July 2007).When you run, you land on the outside bottom of your foot and roll inward. This is called pronation, which helps to protect you from injury. If you landed on your foot and did not roll, the force of the impact would be transmitted up your leg to increase your chance of breaking bones and tearing muscles. However, as you roll in from the outside bottom to the inside bottom of your foot, you will see that your lower leg twists inward. Excessive pronation twists your lower leg,...

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Air Pollution Should Not Keep You From Exercising

It's healthful to exercise and harmful to breathe polluted air, so how can you decide whether you are doing more harm than good? The worst time for pollution is when clouds cover the sky and automobiles fill the roads. Automobile exhaust fumes are the principal source of air pollution in most cities, and overlying clouds increase pollution. Usually the sun's rays heat the ground to warm air closest to the ground. Hot air rises, taking large amounts of pollutants skyward. On air inversion days, the clouds prevent the sun's rays from getting through to the ground, so the air near the ground is not heated, remains colder and doesn't rise, causing the air with its pollutants to remain close to the ground.Air pollutants such as carbon monoxide,...

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Portion Sizes Do Matter

Whether or not you are overweight, portion sizes of food are a major factor in determining how much you eat. In a recent study, researchers at Pennsylvania State University in University Park measured how much normal and overweight people ate (Obesity, June 2007). They then fed these people fifty percent larger portions of food at every meal. Both overweight and normal weight people increased their intake of food equally and they continued to eat far more food for the duration of the study.You might expect that when people overeat, they would eventually reach a point where they feel full and stop taking in too much food. However, this has not been shown to be the case. When people are offered large portion sizes, they continue to eat more food...

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Repetition Makes Muscles More Efficient

Training is specific, so the more you practice your sport, the better you are able to do it. That's why triathletes who compete and train in three sports are relatively mediocre in each sport when compared to those who only run, cycle or swim. (Sports Biomechanics, Volume 6, Issue 1, 2007). In this study, elite cyclists produced significantly more effective force on their pedals than triathletes. They had far less wasted side-to-side motion, and they required less oxygen to do the same amount of work.Repeating the same motion over and over causes your muscles to become more efficient so they can generate more power with less oxygen. For example, when you run, you use your arms to maintain your center of gravity. When your right leg moves forward,...

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Muscles Cannot Become Fat

Some people believe that if they build muscles and then stop exercising, the muscles will turn into fat. This is not a reason to avoid exercise, because muscles can't possibly turn to fat. When you exercise, your muscles become larger and stronger because exercise causes extra protein building blocks, called amino acids, to deposit in muscles. All day long, amino acids pass from your muscles into your bloodstream and then back into muscles. Exercise is the major stimulus to force amino acids back into muscles. When you stop exercising, fewer amino acids go into your muscles so the muscles get smaller. Your body has no way to store extra protein, so amino acids that are not used in your muscles are picked up by your liver, which uses them for...

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Reduce Oxidants Instead of Taking Antioxidants

Instead of taking antioxidants, researchers now think you should aim to prevent your mitochondria from making excessive amounts of oxidants. The cells of your body have tiny chambers in them called mitochondria that help convert food to energy. When they do this, they knock of electrons from nutrients, and these extra electrons eventually end up attached to oxygen. Electron-charged oxygen, called reactive oxygen species or free radicals, then attach to the DNA cells to damage them and shorten your life.At this time, scientists have found only one practical way to reduce the amount of oxidants produced by mitochondria: exercise. Vigorous exercise helps the mitochondria burn food more cleanly with the production of fewer oxidants. The same effect...

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Partial Knee Replacement: Less Pain, but Not for Everyone

The ends of bones are soft, so they must be covered with a thick white gristle called cartilage. Many people suffer from knee pain because the cartilage is damaged. They may have osteoarthritis in which the cartilage wears away, or they may have damaged cartilage in an accident or by playing sports. Once damaged, cartilage can never heal; the person spends the rest of his life losing cartilage until the cartilage is completely gone and the knee hurts 24 hours a day.Until recently, the only effective treatment has been to cut out the ends of the bones of the knee and replace the entire knee joint. Now for some people, a simpler procedure may be effective: partial knee replacement, called unicompartmental knee arthroplasty. The surgeon removes...

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Awkward Running Form Can Be Improved

Many people look terribly uncoordinated when they run. Telling them to change their form will just make them more uncoordinated. If a coach criticizes a team member for poor running form and doesn't correct the underlying causes, the person is likely to become self-conscious about how he or she looks, and run even more slowly. Coordination usually improves just with repeated practice in the chosen sport.Running form can improve markedly if you can correct muscle imbalances and structural abnormalities with appropriate exercises and perhaps mechanical devices. A coach can videotape the athletes while they run, then review the tape in slow motion to analyze the mechanical defects. For example, leaning forward during running is often caused by...

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