Muscle Fatigue May Be Caused By Calcium Loss

New research from Columbia University in New York shows that muscle fatigue during and after exercise may be caused by loss of calcium from muscle cells and that drugs that block the release of calcium from muscle cells may prolong endurance (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, February 11, 2008).When you exercise, your cells use food to generate electricity that causes nerves to send messages and muscles to contract. The energy from food generates electricity by driving minerals inside and outside of the cells, creating an imbalance of the minerals between the outside and inside of cells that causes electrons (electricity) to flow. A major source of this flow of electrons is from muscle cells pushing calcium outside their cell...

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Artificial Sweeteners May Cause Weight Gain

A study of 9514 middle-aged Americans from the University of Minnesota showed that those that drank diet sodas regularly were at high risk for developing diabetes in later life (Circulation, February 2008). How can this be? Diet drinks do not contain sugar, and it is a high rise in blood sugar after meals that markedly increases a person's chances of developing diabetes. But who is most likely to drink diet sodas? A person who is overweight and trying to lose weight. So the study does not show that diet sodas cause diabetes. It shows that people who try the hardest to lose weight (and often fail) are the ones most likely to drink diet soda.However, researchers at Purdue University showed that mice fed artificial sweeteners ate more and put...

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Do You Inherit a Tendency to be Fat?

Nobody has really proven why some people eat a lot and are skinny, while other eat little and are fat. The simplistic explanation of eating less and exercising more to control weight doesn't work for all people. Researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands think that some people burn a greater percentage of the food that they eat than others. They showed that people who are fat burn a lower percentage of the calories that they take in than those who are skinny. They used deuterated palmitic acid, given with breakfast, to measure percentage of calories burned.Journal referenceFuture studies must explain whether some people are genetically destined to be fat because they burn fewer calories, or whether any person who becomes fat will...

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Maximum heart rate gets lower as you get more fit

A study from Liverpool, England shows that the maximum heart rate for athletes is lower than for aged-matched sedentary people. At first glance, this makes no sense because you would think that the faster you heart can beat, the more blood your heart could pump and the better an athlete you would be. However, a stronger heart pumps more blood with each beat, so stronger hearts don't have to beat as often. This means that as you become more fit, your maximum heart rate will get lower, not higher.Virtually everyone agrees that heart rate depends on the amount of blood pumped toward it by exercising muscles. When you contract your leg muscles during exercise, muscles squeeze veins near them to pump blood toward the heart. Then when leg muscles...

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How to Recover from an Injury or Surgery

Is it better to rest completely or exercise gently while recovering from an injury? According to a study from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, it is better to exercise at low intensity while recovering from an injury or surgery. The researchers found that motion during recovery limits muscle atrophy, accelerates tendon healing, and prevents joint stiffness. This explains why most doctors refer their injured or post-surgical patients for physical therapy and rehabilitation exercises.If you are in reasonable shape and stop exercising for any reason, your muscles become smaller and weaker and are at increased risk for injury when you return to exercising. Gentle stress on a muscle or tendon can help to prevent this loss of strength. Mild...

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Cold Air Won't Freeze Your Lungs During Exercise

It's almost impossible to damage your lungs by breathing cold air when you exercise. More than 70 percent of the energy produced by your muscles during exercise is lost as heat. This extra heat can be used in your nose and bronchial tubes to warm the air as it travels to your lungs. Air inhaled at 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit will be warmed to more than 100 degrees by the time it reaches your lungs, so your lungs will not suffer from frostbite. However, air that cold will burn your nasal membranes and cause pain in your nose that is so severe that you will lose interest in exercising very quickly and look for shelter. To protect your nose in very cold weather, you can cover it with a scarf, balaclava or face mask placed over your nose and...

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Longer Telomeres Mean Longer Life

If you need proof that exercise helps to keep you young, look at the exciting study from King's College in London, England reported in the Archives of Internal Medicine (January 28, 2008). The researchers showed that people who exercise regularly have telomeres in the DNA of their white blood cells that are longer than those of couch potatoes. White blood cell telomeres shorten over time and serve as a marker of a person's biological age.The active ends of genetic material in cells are covered with a layer of proteins called telomeres. If they weren't, the exposed ends of the genetic material would stick to anything nearby and the cells would die. However, each time a cell divides to make two cells, a little bit of the telomere is removed....

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Dry Skin Means Lack of Water, Not Lack of Oil

Dry skin means lack of water, not lack of oil. Skin creams function by creating a temporary barrier on your skin that seals in water.In the late 1940's, a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital took a hard callus off the foot of one of his patients and placed in oil. It remained as hard as ever. Then he placed the callus in water and it became very soft, but soon after being removed from the water, it became very hard again. Then he left the callus in water until it became soft, removed it and then soaked it in oil and it remained soft for a long time. He had shown that dry skin should be treated by using oils and creams to seal in moisture. Cosmetic manufacturers soon produced oil-in-water emulsions which were incorporated into creams designed...

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How exercise prevents diabetes: more than just weight control

A fascinating study from Maastricht University in the Netherlands shows that exercise helps to prevent and treat diabetes by increasing the number of enzymes that transport fat from fat cells to muscle cells where it can be used for energy by the muscles. Before insulin can do its job of removing sugar from the bloodstream and putting it into cells where it can be burned for energy, it must first attach on special hooks called insulin receptors on the surface of cells. Fat stored in cells internalizes receptors so insulin loses its attachment sites and is unable to its job. Exercise causes muscle cells to markedly increase their production of certain fat transported proteins that remove fat from fat and muscle cells. So less fat is available...

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Knee Cartilage Repair: Will it Work for You?

The ends of bones are soft, so they must be covered with a thick white gristle called cartilage. Once damaged, cartilage can never heal. When knee cartilage is damaged, the person spends the rest of his life losing more cartilage until it is completely gone and the knee hurts 24 hours a day.If only a small area of the cartilage is damaged, it may be repaired with cartilage extracted from your own body. (If cartilage is taken from someone else, your immunity will try to kill it, but it doesn’t try to kill your own cartilage.) Your extracted cartilage is grown in special culture dishes and then injected into a hole in your own cartilage and secured in place. This procedure works very well if you have only a small piece of cartilage missing. The...

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