Rosacea: red in the face

Many people develop a red scaly rash on their faces as they age, particularly in the center on the nose and cheeks. They flush or blush and often also have small acne-like bumps on their faces, swollen noses and prominent red blood vessels. Sometimes, this same rash may extend to the shoulders, chest and back. It's called rosacea.

Nobody knows what causes rosacea, but most doctors feel that it is a genetic disorder associated with other skin conditions, seborrheic dermatitis and psoriasis. They may also have terrible dandruff, scaly ears, thick big toe nails, and sometimes thick skin on their elbows and knees. The recommended treatment is to take an antibiotic such as doxycycline 100 mg twice a day plus an antibiotic cream such as metronidazole cream until the rash clears. Then stop the doxycycline and resume it when the rash returns. You should also shampoo your scalp and face every day.

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Caffeine

Two recent studies show that too much caffeine may cause problems for some people. Researchers at Queens University in Kingston, Ontario report that caffeine, in coffee, tea, chocolate, and most colas, raises blood sugar levels in healthy people and diabetics, which cannot be reversed by exercise or weight loss (1).

When you eat, your blood sugar level rises. If it rises too high, sugar sticks to cells, and once stuck on cells, it is converted to sorbitol which destroys the cell to increase risk for heart attacks, strokes, blindness, deafness, kidney failure and other effects of diabetes. Anything that increases blood sugar levels increases risk for diabetes. So, most doctors recommend restricting refined carbohydrates, in sugar and flour. Exercise and weight loss do not prevent this rise in blood sugar. These studies were done with caffeine pills. Coffee may contain nutrients, such as antioxidants, potassium and magnesium, that may prevent the high rise in blood sugar.

A second study, from the Netherlands shows that drinking coffee can raise blood pressure (2). High blood pressure markedly increases a person’s chances of suffering a heart attack, stroke and sudden death. The new guidelines state that normal blood pressure should be below 120 when the heart contracts and 80 when it relaxes. That means the almost 91 percent of all North Americans will eventually become hypertensive and suffer increased risk for premature death. The authors reviewed 16 studies on coffee drinking and high blood pressure and found that for most people, drinking coffee does not raise blood pressure, but for some, even one cup of coffee can raise blood pressure. If you drink coffee or any other caffeinated beverage regularly, it may pay to check your blood pressure twenty minutes after a drink. Your blood pressure is too high if it is above 120 over 80.

1) Diabetes Care, March 2005
2)Journal of Hypertension, May 2005

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How to Warm Up

Warming up before you exercise helps to prevent injuries and lets you jump higher, run faster, lift heavier or throw further. Your warm-up should involve the same muscles and motions you plan to use in your sport. For example, before you start to run very fast, do a series of runs of gradually-increasing intensity to increase the circulation of blood to the muscles you will be using.

Muscles are made up of millions of individual fibers, just like a rope made from many threads. When you start to exercise at a very slow pace, you increase the blood flow to muscle fibers, increase their temperature, and bring in more oxygen, so the muscles are more pliable and resistant to injury. When you contract a muscle for the first time, you use less than one percent of your muscle fibers. The second time you bring in more fibers, and you keep on increasing the number of muscle fibers used in each contraction for several minutes of using that muscle. It’s called recruitment. When you are able to contract more muscle fibers, there is less force on each individual fiber to help protect them from injury. Usually you are warmed up when you start to sweat.

The same principle applies to your heart. Angina is a condition in which the blood vessels leading to the heart are partially blocked so the person has no pain at rest, but during exercise, the blocked arteries don't permit enough blood to get through to the heart muscles, causing pain. If people with angina exercise very slowly before they pick up the pace, they are able to exercise longer and more intensely before they felt heart pain. Always check with your doctor if you feel any heart pain during exercise.

Competitive athletes in sports requiring speed and endurance perform better after they warm up with increasing intensity. Warming up slowly does not increase the maximum amount of oxygen that you can bring to muscles that you need during competition. If you are a runner, skier, cyclist, or an athlete in any sport that requires endurance, warm up at a gradually increasing pace. Use a series of increasingly intense repetitions of 10 to 30 seconds duration, with short recoveries, until you are near your maximum pace. This type of warm-up increases endurance because intensity increases the maximum amount of oxygen that you can bring to your muscles, as you continue to compete, and lets your muscles contract with greater force as you begin to fatigue. You will then be able to bring in more oxygen to your muscles than you could have done without the intense warm-up.

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Bonking: low blood sugar

Yes, I know the word has another meaning. But in sports, bonking is running out of blood sugar. If you watch a major bicycle race on TV, you have to be impressed by how the riders can eat enough to sustain them through races that require more than five hours of near maximum effort. If a rider does not get enough food during his or her ride, he can fall off the bikes, lie on the ground unconscious and start to shake all over in a in a massive convulsion. This is called bonking, or passing out from low blood sugar.

Your brain gets almost all of its fuel from sugar in your bloodstream. When your blood sugar level drops, your brain cannot get enough fuel to function properly, you feel tired and confused and can pass out. There is only enough sugar in your bloodstream to last three minutes. To keep your blood sugar level from dropping, your liver must constantly release sugar from its cells into your bloodstream, but there is only enough sugar in your liver to last 12 hours at rest. During intense exercise, your muscles draw sugar from your bloodstream at a rapid rate. Your liver can run out of its stored sugar and your blood sugar level can drop, and you bonk.

Bonking is common in bicycle races if a rider does not eat frequently, but is rare in long distance running races. When you run, your leg muscles are damaged from the constant pounding on the roads and you must slow down. However, you pedal in a smooth rotary motion which does not damage your muscles, so you can continue to pedal at a rapid cadence for many hours.

To prevent your blood sugar from dropping too low during intense exercise lasting more than two hours, eat at least every 15 minutes. It doesn't matter what you eat: salted peanuts, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chicken, an apple, a banana or anything else. Almost all fit people can take small amounts of food frequently during exercise without developing stomach cramps.

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Belly fat: why it's dangerous

Storing fat primarily in your belly increases your chances of suffering heart attacks and diabetes.

When you take in more calories than your body needs, your liver turns them into fat. Fat cells in your belly are different from those in your hips. The blood that flows from belly fat goes directly to your liver, whereas the blood that flows from your hips goes into your general circulation. The livers of those who store fat in their bellies are blocked from removing insulin by the extra fat and therefore do not remove insulin from the bloodstream as effectively as the livers of those who store fat in their hips and have less fat in their livers.

People who store fat primarily in their bellies are called apples, while those who store fat primarily in their hips are called pears. The apples have higher blood insulin and sugar levels that raise levels of the bad LDL cholesterol that causes heart attacks, and lower levels of the good HDL cholesterol that prevents heart attacks. More

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Interval training

To become stronger and faster, athletes use a technique called interval training, in which they exercise very intensely, rest and then alternate intense bursts of exercise and rest until their muscles start to feel heavy. Intervals are a fixed number of repeats of a fixed distance at a fixed pace with a fixed recovery time. There are two types of intervals: long and short. A short interval takes less than 30 seconds and does not build up significant amounts of lactic acid in the bloodstream, so an athlete can do lots of repeat short intervals in a single workout.

Long intervals take two minutes or more and are very tiring. In interval training, a runner may run a quarter mile 12 times, averaging 1 minute, with a 110-yard slow jog between each. A weightlifter may lift a heavy weight ten times in a row and then repeat another set of ten. Runners run intervals as fast as they can and recover enough to run the same fast pace several times. Runners need very short recoveries between intervals, usually only about 30 seconds; but weight lifters need much longer recoveries, at least two and a half minutes. Runners become short of breath and feel a burning in their muscles when lactic acid starts to accumulate in muscles, but it takes only a few seconds for a trained athlete to recover between each hard run. On the other hand, weight lifters feel burning caused by tearing of the muscle fibers and it takes a much longer time for the pain to disappear so they can lift very heavy weights again.

You can apply the concept of interval training to your program at any level of fitness. When you start a new exercise program, exercise for 30 seconds, stop for 30-60 seconds, longer if you need it. Alternate exercising and resting until you feel tired or your muscles feel heavy. Then stop for the day. The stronger you get in your sport, the more intense your intervals can become. You work at your maximum capacity for 30-60 seconds, then take 60-90 seconds to recover, then go very hard for another 30-60 seconds. Do this vigorous interval workout once a week until you get tired. At first you may only be able to do two or three intervals, but your muscles get stronger and you build up the number of intervals you can complete. Go easy the next day or take a day off if you feel any discomfort.

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Warm up your heart

Most people know that you have to warm up skeletal muscles to help protect them from injury, but many do not know that warming up the heart muscle also helps to prevent heart attacks in people with blocked arteries leading to the heart.

Before you try to run very fast, you can protect your muscles from injury by performing a series of runs of gradually-increasing intensity to increase the circulation of blood to your muscles. The same principle applies to the heart. Angina is a condition in which the blood vessels leading to the heart are partially blocked so the person has no pain at rest, but during exercise, the blocked arteries don't permit enough blood to get through to the heart muscles, causing pain. A study from the Quebec Heart Institute shows that exercising very slowly before a person with angina picks up the pace allows him to exercise more intensely before he feels heart pain.

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