Sightseeing Cyclists Should Pedal Slower

Anything you can do to strengthen your legs will make you more efficient when you ride. Research from Norway shows that the stronger you are, the slower and more efficiently you pedal when you are going at a relaxed pace. Fourteen healthy subjects performed supervised heavy lifting (two sets of the heaviest weight that they could lift 12 times in a row) for 12 weeks, including two days per week of squats and leg curls. They improved by 20 percent in the squats and 12 percent in their leg curls. At the end of the study, their increased strength caused them to use a pedal rate that was about 10 revolutions per minute slower during cycling at half their maximal power output. They used three percent less energy to do this. Journal referenceWhen...

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Caffeine: Why it helps during exercise

In endurance events, the first cause of fatigue is loss of muscle sugar, so athletes do whatever they can to preserve sugar levels. Caffeine causes the body to produce large amounts of adrenalin, which causes fat to be released from fat cells and float in the bloodstream. This extra fat is taken up by the muscles and used for energy, thus preserving the body's limited stored supply of muscle sugar. When muscles run our of sugar, the athlete requires more oxygen to do the same job, slows down, fatigues earlier, and has difficulty maintaining his performance.A questionnaire from competitors at the 2005 Ironman Triathlon World Championships showed that seventy-three percent of the athletes believe that caffeine improves performance and 84 percent...

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Vitamin D Deficiency Linked to Heart Attacks

More than 75 years ago, we learned that lack of vitamin D causes rickets, bone deformities and failure to grow in children. Twenty years ago, reports started to appear showing that lack of vitamin D also impairs your immunity to limit your ability to kill germs. This was followed by studies showing that it also increase risk for certain cancers. Now the Framingham Offspring Study from Harvard tells us that low blood levels of vitamin D increase risk for heart attacks (Circulation, January 2008).The authors followed 1700 participants (mean age 59) without prior cardiovascular disease for five years. Those with low blood levels of active vitamin D at the onset had one and a half times the chances of suffering a heart attack. Those with low vitamin...

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Plant Omega-3's Better than Fish Oils

Omega-3 fatty acids protect against heart attacks, inflammatory diseases such as rheumatiod arthritis, depression, and attention deficit disorder. You probably know that you can get omega-3s in seafood or fish oils. However, the omega-3 fatty acids in seeds such as whole grains may be even more important in maintaining your health than the omega-3s from fish. Omega-3 fatty acids are the least stable fats in our diet. Whole grains contain vitamin E to keep the omega-3s fresh and prevent them from turning rancid, but omega-3 fatty acids in fish are not protected by vitamin E and therefore turn rancid much more quickly than the omega-3 fatty acids in seeds. Three large studies, The Lyon Heart Study, the GISSI Prevenzione Trial, and in The Dietary...

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Eight Glasses of Water a Day: No Health Benefit

Eight glasses of water a day will just give you a lot of extra trips to the bathroom. Drinking extra water does not "flush out toxins" or offer any other useful function.Why do so many people believe this rule? The number originally came from the National Academy of Sciences of the United States Food and Nutrition Board, which publishes recommended daily allowances of nutrients. The 1945 edition of the Food and Nutrition Board said "A suitable allowance of water for adults is 2.5 liters (about 8 cups) daily in most instances." This amount is based on the calculation of one milliliter of water for each calorie of food. HOWEVER, the Board also noted that most of the water you need is in the food you eat. All foods contain water. Even the driest...

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Fewer Hard Workouts May Make You a Better Athlete

How much time should you spend working at your maximum level in your sport, compared to miles or days spent going at a relaxed pace? Researchers at the University of Madrid in Spain divided competitive distance runners into two groups. One group did frequent intense workouts and fewer slow recovery miles, while the second group did fewer intense workouts and more slow miles. At the end of five months, the runners who did fewer intense workouts and more recovery miles improved far more than those who ran fewer miles and spent a lot of their time trying to run very fast. Journal referenceAll competitive athletes from marathon runners to weight lifters know that they must exercise intensely to compete successfully in sports. However, every time...

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Cold Toes Can Mean Diabetes

Painfully cold toes can ruin outdoor sports on cold days. We solve the problem with adhesive toe-warmer packets on our socks. However, if your toes feel cold even when it is not cold outside, or if you have loss of feeling or tingling as well, you need a complete work-up for causes of nerve damage. Numb, cold or tingling feet can be one of the first symptoms of diabetes. Nerves can be damaged by something pinching or stretching them, such as excessive pressure from moving a limb repeatedly (as in carpal tunnel syndrome in your hand), scar tissue, or a disc problem in your back. Nerves can also be damaged by diabetes; lack of a vitamin (such as B12 in pernicious anemia); infections such as Lyme disease, shingles and herpes; poisonings by...

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How to Lower Your Chances of Dying Early

Researchers at National Cancer Institute in Bethesda showed that engaging in physical activity for at least three hours per week appears to decrease chances of dying early by more than 25 percent.The investigators evaluated the exercise habits of 252,925 adults aged 50 to 71 years who were enrolled in the National Institutes of Health–American Association of Retired Persons (NIH-AARP) Diet and Health Study. 7900 deaths occurred during 1,265,347 person-years of follow-up. Those with the relatively modest exercise program of 30 minutes on most days of the week, or vigorous exercise of at least 20 minutes three times per week, were 27 percent less likely to die during the followup period. The authors state that: "Our findings suggest that engaging...

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Cofactors May Explain Why Some Get Colon Cancer, Others Don't

Although scientists are not sure what causes colon or rectal cancers, they know that they are associated with lack of exercise, eating too much meat, and the human wart virus (HPV). A study from Sendai, Japan shows that men who spend a lot of time walking are at reduced susceptibility to developing colon cancer.An extensive review of the world's literature shows that colorectal cancer occurs far more frequently in prosperous industrialized countries, and that dietary factors may cause up to 75 percent of these cancers. You are increased risk for colon cancer if you are overweight, and exercise reduces your risk. Rectal cancer is not affected by obesity or exercise, and may be associated more with infection, such as with the HPV virus that causes...

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Walking for Fitness

Walking is a very safe sport because it rarely causes injuries. Running causes injuries frequently because you take both feet off the ground at the same time and land with a tremendous force that can tear muscles and shatter bones. On the other hand, when you walk, you always keep at least one foot on the ground and land with minimal foot strike force.If you want to walk to become fit, you need to move quickly. You should exercise vigorously enough to increase your heart rate at least 20 beats a minute higher than when you rest. That means you will be breathing harder and probably perspiring. There are two ways to increase your walking speed. You can take longer steps or you can move your feet at a faster rate. To lengthen your stride, swivel...

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Growth Hormone Consequences

Many top athletes in virtually every sport that requires strength take Human Growth Hormone, or HGH. Since HGH is taken "under the table", virtually no studies have been done to track the consequences of its use in athletes. However, a study from Johns Hopkins shows that children who are growth hormone deficient and are given growth hormone for one year develop a progressive thickening of their heart muscle and of the blood vessels leading to their brains. They are 52 times more likely to have an atherosclerotic carotid plaque after one year. (The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 92, 2007)A very famous athlete died suddenly for no apparent reason. The autopsy showed that she had a huge heart that had outgrown its...

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The Latest Diet Books: Recipe for Success?

Before you spend your money on the latest diet book or weight loss gimmick, remind yourself that the ONLY ways to lose weight are:1) Take in fewer calories,2) Burn more calories, or3) BOTH.ALL of the popular diet books and programs, regardless of the "scientific" explanations they give, recommend menus that give you 1500-1800 calories or less per day. For most people this means you will be taking in fewer calories. You can lose weight on ANY OF THEM, but ask yourself: Is this a way of eating I can follow for the rest of my life? (If not, you will regain the weight as soon as you go back to your old eating habits.) And do the foods they tell me to eat supply all the nutrients my body needs? Most people can eliminate foods and food groups for...

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Bleeding Gums? Treat for Infection

One in 10 people suffers from periodontal diseases, characterized by bleeding in the gums when you brush your teeth, loosening of the teeth and damage to the structures that help the teeth stay in place. These problems are caused most commonly by infections by three Gram-negative bacteria: Porphyromonas gingivalis, Bacteroides forsythus and Actinobacillus actinomycetemcomitans. The body responds to these infections by producing various cytokines (IL-1, IL-6, IL-8, TNF-alpha), inflammatory mediators (PGE2), and matrix metalloproteinases (MMP-2, MMP-3, MMP-8, MMP-9). Viruses, such as cytomegalovirus and Epstein-Barr virus) can also cause periodontitis. Conventional treatments for periodontitis aim to eliminate bacterial plaque by scrubbing, cleaning...

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Weight Loss Hindered by Cold Weather

Many people gain weight during the cold months even if they exercise and watch what they eat. One reason may be that you burn fewer calories when you exercise in cold weather than you do when it's hot. The hotter it is, the more extra work your heart must do to prevent you from overheating. More than 70 percent of the energy produced by your muscles during exercise is lost as heat. So the harder you exercise, the hotter your muscles become. In hot weather, not only must your heart pump extra blood to bring oxygen to your muscles, it must also pump hot blood from your heated muscles to your skin where heat can be dissipated.On the other hand, in cold weather, your heart only has to pump blood to your muscles and very little extra blood to your...

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Cold Hands: Don't Just Suffer

If your fingers turn white and start to hurt when you're out in the cold, you may have a condition called Raynaud's phenomenon. On exposing your fingers to cold, the blood vessels close, skin turns white and their temperature drops. When the temperature drops to 59 degrees, your body tries to save your skin by opening the blood vessels and the skin turns red and starts to itch and burn. If you warm your hands at this point, your skin will not be damaged, but if you do not get out of the cold, the blood vessels in your hands can close and the temperature in your hands can drop to freezing, resulting in frostbite.People who have Raynaud's phenomenon have blood vessels in their hands that do not open when the skin temperature reaches 59 degrees....

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Oveweight Children Risk Heart Attacks as Adults

Two new studies in the same issue of the New England Journal of Medicine show the probable impact of childhood obesity on heart attack rates. The first study, based on annual height-and-weight measurements in some 275,000 Danish schoolchildren, followed their health after age 25. Researchers found that being overweight in adolescence predicts higher risks for heart attacks in later life. The present high rate of obesity in adolescence is projected to increase the prevalence of obese 35-year-olds in 2020 to a range of 30 to 37 percent in men and 34 to 44 percent in women. The second study predicts that heart attack rate will increase between 5 percent and 16 percent by 2035, with more than 100,000 excess cases of coronary heart disease attributable...

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Why Exercise Protects Your Memory: New Research

Recent research shows that a regular exercise program can help to prevent some of the loss of memory that comes with aging. A part of your brain called the hippocampus is the control station for memories that you store in other parts of the brain. Another brain structure called the prefrontal cortex is the central station that assembles data from other parts of your brain when you want to recall something from your past. Aging causes the brain to shrink and you lose synapses that transmit messages from one nerve to another.Exercise causes the brain to produce a substance called Brain Derived Neurotropic Factor (BNDF) that strengthen old synapses and causes new one to grow. Researchers used MRIs of their human subjects to show that an exercise...

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