Mental Fatigue from Low Blood Sugar Levels

Exercisers and athletes can expect to feel fatigued when their blood sugar levels drop. Researchers at Loughborough University, UK showed that athletes who did not take sugar during soccer competition lasting 90 minutes felt more tired, had less competitive desire, and had far lower blood sugar levels than athletes who took a sugared drink every 15 minutes during their game. Your brain gets more than 98 percent of its energy from sugar in the bloodstream. However there is only enough sugar in the bloodstream to last about three minutes. The liver must constantly release sugar into the bloodstream, but there is only enough sugar in the liver to last eight hours during rest and far less than that during exercise. So athletes who do not take...

Read more »

Angioplasty Patients Can and Should Exercise

If you have had angioplasty and your doctor does not already have you in as supervised exercise program, ask when you can start. In one study from Bern, Switzerland, researchers showed that a three-month exercise program can increase blood flow to the heart in people who already have their coronary arteries blocked by plaques (European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, April 2007). The study participants were selected from patients who had stents inserted to widen blockages in their coronary arteries. The longer and harder the subjects were able to exercise, the greater the increase in blood flow.The blood flow to the heart muscle comes primarily from arteries on the outside surface of the heart. Chest pain with exercise...

Read more »

Smarter Baseball Players Live Longer

Smarter baseball players live longer, according to researchers at the Department of Economics at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania. The authors collected data on players who were born between 1945 and 1964 and found that the death rate for players who attended only high school was almost twice as high as those who went to college. They also found what high body fat levels were associated with premature death. The study was published in the journal Death Studies. The good news for all athletes is that the baseball players had only 31 percent of the death rate of the general population. The lower death rate in the more highly educated players is probably due to their increased awareness of life style factors linked to premature death,...

Read more »

Small Lifestyle Changes Combat Obesity in Children and their Families

Pediatricians at the University of Colorado at Denver have shown that very small changes in lifestyle can help stem the epidemic of obesity in North American children. Families of overweight children, seven to fourteen years of age, were asked to make two lifestyle changes: 1) to walk an additional 2000 steps per day, as measured by pedometers, and 2) to eliminate 100 calories per day by replacing a source of dietary sugar with a non-caloric beverage or sweetener. At the end of the six-month trial, most of the children had lost weight and the parents had no significant weight gain. Journal referenceObesity comes from eating too much and exercising too little. It is associated with increased risk for heart attacks, strokes, kidney failure, certain...

Read more »

Orthotics may relieve foot pain from running or exercising

People with high arches are at increased risk for foot pain and stress fractures of their bones of their feet because their feet are usually very poor shock absorbers. A report in Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (October 2007) shows that custom orthotics can help. When you run rapidly, your foot hits the ground with a force equal to about three times body weight. This force can break bones and damage muscles, nerves, and tendons. So most people land on the outside bottom of their feet and roll inward. This is called pronation which helps absorb some of the shock of the foot striking the ground. However, pronation can cause pain from stretched ligaments (plantar fasciitis), pulled tendons (tendinitis), or pinched nerves (neuromas). Some...

Read more »

Muscle Cramps from Exercise: Causes and Prevention

Exercisers are often told that muscle cramps are caused by lack of salt (sodium) or low potassium. However, recent studies show that athletes in endurance events who suffer cramps usually have normal sodium and potassium levels. A review of the current literature from Buenos Aires, Argentina shows that doctors don't know very much about exercise-induced muscle cramps. The most common cause appears to be muscle damage. Athletes may be able to prevent cramps by slowing down when they feel the muscle pulling and tightening, and picking up the pace only when the muscle feels good again. Journal referenceCramps may occur as a side effect of drugs used for high cholesterol, high blood pressure or diabetes. Oral contraceptives, various other drugs...

Read more »

Measurable Fat Loss from Exercise

If you weigh yourself before and after an hour or two of exercise, the difference is likely to be fluid loss. However, in events lasting several hours or even several days, measurable fat loss can occur. At a competitive 12-hour indoor stationary bicycle marathon, one athlete took fluids and food throughout the entire competition, and still lost 2.64 pounds. Of this weight loss, 1.98 pounds was due to loss of fat. His calculated muscle weight increased by 1.46 pounds due to damage to the muscle cells, which results in fluid retention in the cells. Journal referenceDuring vigorous cycling, an athlete can burn between 600 and 1000 calories per hour, so this cyclist probably used more than 9000 calories in his 12-hour event. That is equal to...

Read more »

Saunas May Benefit Athletes and Exercisers

For many years I have believed that heating muscles in a hot tub or sauna after exercise interferes with muscle contractions and hampers muscular endurance. However, a study from the University of Otago in New Zealand shows that taking a sauna after workouts for three weeks helped athletes to exercise longer to exhaustion.Trained runners sat in a humid sauna for 30 minutes at 89.9 degrees centigrade immediately after exercising, 12 times in three weeks. They then ran as hard as they could on a treadmill for about 15 minutes, to exhaustion. Sauna use increased run time to exhaustion by 32 percent, which would equal an improvement of approximately two percent in a full-length endurance time trial. Their blood volumes increased by more than seven...

Read more »

Exercise More Important than Weight Loss for Diabetes Prevention

Exercise is even more important than weight loss for prevention or control of diabetes, according to a report from the Australian National University in Canberra. Dr. Richard Telford concludes that obesity is associated with, but does not cause, diabetes, heart disease and premature death. The health benefits of exercise include increasing cells' ability to respond to insulin, lowering blood sugar levels, and preventing all the side effects of diabetes. Weight loss is not necessary for a person to gain these benefits from an exercise program. Journal referencesMost cases of Type II diabetes are caused by the body's inability to respond to insulin. Strengthening muscles makes cells more responsive to insulin. Your ability to respond to insulin...

Read more »

Caffeine May Prevent Dementia

Caffeine may protect against loss of memory or thinking skills in older women, according to a study published in Neurology. The researchers studied cognitive decline, dementia and caffeine intake of 4,197 women and 2,820 men aged 65 and over in three French cities for four years. They tested the participants' cognitive skills at the start of the study and again at years two and four.The results showed that compared to women who drank only one cup a day or less, women who drank three or more cups of coffee or tea a day had a 33 per cent reduced risk of decline in verbal retrieval over the four years. The protective effect of caffeine appeared to increase with age, rising from a 27 per cent reduced risk for women aged 65 to 74, to 70 per cent...

Read more »