Fish Oil Supplements Can Raise LDL Cholesterol

Nobody really knows whether fish oil supplements prevent heart attacts as effectively as eating fish. However, both eating fish and taking fish oil pills can lower triglycerides and prevent clotting, which may help prevent heart attacks. Heart attacks occur when a plaque breaks off from the wall of arteries leading to the heart and travels down the ever-narrowing artery until it stops and forms a clot that blocks blood flow to the heart.

A recent report shows that nine grams of fish oil supplements per day may not be completely safe because they can cause a substantial rise in the bad LDL cholesterol (from 106 to 186) that increases heart attack risk (The Annals of Pharmacotherapy, July 2007). Fish oil supplements lower triglycerides by reducing liver cells' ability to manufacture triglycerides. At the same time, they can block the LDL receptors on liver cells from removing LDL from the bloodstream. Once again, I recommend getting the nutrients your body needs from food rather than from supplements. Diet to lower cholesterol; how to raise the good HDL cholesterol

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Injuries more likely if you have only one sport

Triathletes are injured only about one third as often as marathon runners even though they do far more work in their program of swimming, cycling and running. Training intelligently for three sports is less likely to injure you than training very hard for one. Training is limited by damage to skeletal muscles. Every time you exercise, your muscles develop small tears with bleeding. It takes at least 48 hours for muscles to heal from exercise. Each sport stresses a particular group of muscles most. Marathon runners who train every day stress the same muscles and do not allow adequate time to recover from the previous day's workout, so they are at increased risk for injury.

Top triathletes train in different sports on consecutive days. Running stresses the lower leg muscles most, cycling stresses the upper leg muscles most and swimming stresses the arms and shoulders most. Triathletes usually set up a workout schedule that includes two sports on one day and one on the next. Of the three sports, running causes the most muscle damage. Muscles are protected by the water in swimming and by the rotary pedal motion in cycling. However, the force of the footstrike in running tears up muscles. So a knowledgeable triathlete runs on one day and cycles and swims on the next. This way each stressed muscle group has a 48-hour recovery before the next workout. You can apply these same rules for alternating any two or three different activities. Principles of training

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Does High Fructose Corn Syrup Cause Obesity?

For the last 25 years, soft drinks have used high fructose corn syrup as their major form of sweetening. This coincides with a major increase in obesity in America. However, a study from the University of Washington shows that there is no evidence that commercial beverages sweetened with either sucrose or high fructose corn syrup have significantly different effects on hunger or how much you eat (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July 2007).

In another study from Purdue University, subjects were given three different food groups in both liquid and solid forms (International Journal of Obesity, June 2007). No matter what they ate, the subjects ate far more calories on the days that they took in foods in liquid form. This shows that liquid forms of food are interpreted in the brain as less filling, and therefore people take in more calories when their beverages contain calories. Interestingly, the increase in calories associated with liquid forms of foods was nearly the same in obese and skinny people.

A single 12-ounce can of soda contains 13 teaspoons of high fructose corn syrup and the average American consumes almost 60 pounds of it, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The leading theory now is that any sugar in liquid form does not make you feel full the way solid food does. Therefore if weight is a problem for you, you should not take in calories in liquid form. Drink water or other zero-calorie beverages instead. More

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Spot Reduction Exercises Don't Work

Many people believe that if they do enough sit-ups they will get rid of belly fat, but your body does not work that way. Exercising a specific muscle does not get rid of more fat over that muscle in comparison to the rest of your body. If it did, tennis players would have less fat in their tennis arms, and this does not happen. Strength training strengthens weak muscles, but it cannot remove fat specifically over the strengthened muscle.

A recent study from the University of Connecticut showed that men who exercised one arm against heavy resistance for 12 weeks appeared to lose more fat in their exercised arm than their inactive one when fat was measured by a caliper that calculated skin thickness (Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, July 2007). However, when the same authors used an MRI machine to measure fat underneath the skin, there was no difference between the exercised and non- exercised arms.

When you take in more calories than your body burns, you store the extra calories as fat. More than half of the fat in your body is stored underneath your skin and over your muscles. Your stomach will look better when your belly muscles are strong, but sit-ups or crunches will not remove extra fat from your belly. The only way to lose fat from a specific part of your body is to lose weight overall. More on belly fat

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Selenium May Increase Diabetes Risk

If you take selenium pills, you may be increasing your chances of developing diabetes, according to a report from the Nutritional Prevention of Cancer (NPC) trial (Annals of Internal Medicine, August 2007). This study is the largest and longest available experimental study of selenium supplements and was done by randomly selecting people for either placebos or selenium and then checking to see who develops diabetes.

In 1973, researchers showed that selenium protects against oxidative damage, chemical reactions that damage cells and shorten life. However, there is a narrow margin between getting enough selenium to keep you healthy and taking too much. High levels of selenium bind to and damage many essential body proteins. In the United States, dietary levels of selenium are high so there is little chances of developing selenium deficiency. Furthermore, selenium can be toxic to humans at low doses. Symptoms of poisoning include loss of hair and nails, tiredness, nerve or liver damage, and as shown in this study, diabetes. Selenium over-dosage cause oxidants to be formed in the body. They block the body's ability to respond to insulin and can even damage the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. We do not know definitely that selenium causes diabetes, but until more data is available, most authorities recommend that people not take selenium supplements unless they have been tested and shown to have a selenium deficiency. Assess your risk for diabetes; weekly newsletter

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Low Carb Diet Does Not Increase Endurance or Speed

Some athletes and exercisers believe that a low carbohydrate diet will increase their endurance and speed, but there is no evidence that it will. Runners get fuel for their muscles from fat and sugar in muscles, fat and sugar in the bloodstream and, to a lesser degree, from protein. The key to increasing endurance for racing is to store as much sugar in muscles before you race and keep it there as long as possible. Muscle sugar gives you the most energy for the least amount of oxygen.

Restricting carbohydrates does not stimulate muscles to store more sugar (Sports Medicine, April-May 2007). A low carbohydrate diet may impair performance if carried out for extended periods because a runner cannot train on a low- carbohydrate diet. If there are benefits from depleting muscles of their stored sugar supply, they probably come from the high- volume depletion workouts, not from the diet. To maximize stored muscle sugar, a runner should reduce his workouts for two to three days before a race. He or she should not restrict carbohydrates.

Another study from The University of Bern in Switzerland showed that a high carbohydrate, high-fat diet for three days before competition can help athletes store more fat in their muscles and use much more muscle fat for energy during exercise. Endurance-trained athletes exercised for three hours to empty sugar and fat reserves from their muscles. Then they ate a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet for 2.5 days or the same diet with lots of added fat for the last 1.5 days. Athletes who ate the high-carbohydrate, high-fat diet stored 55 percent more fat in their muscles and used more than three times as much of that fat during exercise. More

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Athletes, exercisers and spectators: heed lightning warnings

People who are killed by lightning are often spectators or participants in sporting events. In the United States each year, lightning kills more than 70 people and injures more than 300 people, often permanently. Lightning strikes without warning, so sponsors of outdoor athletic events should have loudspeakers, sirens or horns to alert people to approaching electrical storms.

Water, metal and high objects attract lightning. When an electrical storm starts, try to enter a building or your automobile as quickly as possible. Get in your car, not near it. Standing near a car increases your risk of being struck by lightening because you are standing near metal. To avoid being near metal, get off your bike and away from it when you seek shelter. If you are on the golf course, get away from your golf clubs and carts and anything that contains metal.

If you are in an open field, you are the tallest object and therefore most likely to attract lightening. Standing makes you the tallest object, so if you cannot get to a sheltering building, go to a low spot and crouch down. Avoid being near the tallest object; do not stand under a single tree or by a pole. Standing under a tree that is shorter than other trees in the area is better. It is safer to be in a forest with many trees than to be under a single tree.

Don't stay in or near water. Just being near a lake, ocean or swimming pool increases your chances of being struck by lightning. Water sports such as swimming, fishing and boating increase your risk. Take the lifeguard's warnings or radio bulletins seriously, get out of the water and go to the nearest shelter. Fitness news

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