Meat, Fruit, and our BMI

At a public debate in May on the relative importance of exercise and diet in battling obesity, Yoni Freedhoff began his opening arguments with some basic physics.

Exercise and Vision

Vigorous exercise can help prevent both cataracts and age-related macular degeneration, according to a new research.

The pair of studies that tracked approximately 41,000 runners for more than seven years found that running reduced the risk of both cataracts and age-related macular degeneration.

Caffeine before you Workout?

INSTANT GAINS

CAFFEINE Very little in life offers instant results, but caffeine is one of the miracle substances that does.This shouldn't surprise you. Think about how you feel within minutes drinking some coffee or pounding a Red Bull. You can feel that near-instant jolt of energy and alertness that shows that caffeine is working on the AMP receptors inyour cells. But caffeine does more than just perk up your brain; it also perks up your muscles. In a study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research in 2006, subjects who took a caffeine supplement an hour before working out increased their one-rep maximum on the bench press by about five pounds--without any extra training.

Stress and your Telomeres

In 2004 a University of California, San Francisco research team reported that chronic stress may play a role in shortening telomeres, the tiny protein complexes at the ends of chromosomes that help protect genetic information as cells divide. As telomeres shorten, cells lose the ability to divide; they can also get confused about their mission and start to manifest serious ailments, from Parkinson’s to heart disease. (Other studies have linked shortened telomeres with the onset of dementia.) While cell loss is an integral part of the aging process, chronic stress accelerates it by munching away at these protective proteins so they diminish faster than they would naturally.

See also How Old are your Telomeres?

10,000 Miles in the Rear-View Mirror

Erick Larson runs close to a thousand miles a year.

"I do four miles a day, four days a week," said the 60-year-old businessman.

It's something he's been doing since March 2000. He figures if he ran in one direction he'd be close to halfway around the world.

"At about 10,000 miles, I will be coming back home," he said.

Running v. Walking

Brisk walking is as good as running for reducing blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes risk - three key players in the development of heart disease, a new study finds.

Exercise and Avoiding Colds

If you do happen to catch a bug, how do you decide whether it’s best to get some activity or get some rest? I usually determine this based on my symptoms. If it’s a common cold with symptoms like runny nose, sore throat and minor aches and pains with no fever, it is probably safe to engage in some moderate exercise and it may even make you feel better. If you have a fever, aches and pains, swollen lymph nodes, chest congestion, and stomach or intestinal issues, it’s probably best to get some bed rest and gradually ease back into your normal workout routine.

Does exercise really boost the immune system? To test this scientifically, the American College of Sports Medicine conducted two studies with young and elderly women to determine whether those who exercise get fewer colds than those who don't. In both studies, women in the exercise groups walked briskly 35 to 45 minutes, 5 days a week, for 12 to 15 weeks, while the control groups remained physically inactive. The walkers experienced about half the days with cold symptoms as the sedentary group.

Other research has shown that during moderate exercise, several positive changes occur in the immune system. Although the immune system returns to pre-exercise levels very quickly after the exercise session, each session represents a boost that appears to reduce the risk of infection over the long term.

My, Myself, and Us

Looking at human beings as ecosystems that contain many collaborating and competing species could change the practice of medicine

WHAT'S a man? Or, indeed, a woman? Biologically, the answer might seem obvious. A human being is an individual who has grown from a fertilised egg which contained genes from both father and mother. A growing band of biologists, however, think this definition incomplete. They see people not just as individuals, but also as ecosystems. In their view, the descendant of the fertilised egg is merely one component of the system. The others are trillions of bacteria, each equally an individual, which are found in a person's gut, his mouth, his scalp, his skin and all of the crevices and orifices that subtend from his body's surface.

A healthy adult human harbours some 100 trillion bacteria in his gut alone. That is ten times as many bacterial cells as he has cells descended from the sperm and egg of his parents. These bugs, moreover, are diverse. Egg and sperm provide about 23,000 different genes. The microbiome, as the body's commensal bacteria are collectively known, is reckoned to have around 3m. Admittedly, many of those millions are variations on common themes, but equally many are not, and even the number of those that are adds something to the body's genetic mix.

Exercise and Middle-Age Spread

Men's weight goes up and their waistlines grow as they reach middle age, even if they're dedicated runners, according to a study of male joggers.

At any given age between 18 and 49, men who ran more miles per week did tend to be leaner than those who ran fewer. But even among the most active group -- men who ran more than 40 miles a week -- weight and waist circumference tended to increase steadily throughout the 20s, 30s and 40s.

Achilles injury is one athletes all tend to fear

It is often said that injuries are part and parcel of sport – but are all types of injury accepted by our elite sportsmen and women, or are there some types of affliction they fear above all else on the field of play?

While head and neck injuries can be life-threatening and complicated fractures career-threatening, it is actually injuries to the soft tissues of the musculo-skeletal system which often cause athletes the greatest concern.

The Chairman

Exercise and the Immune System

Should you avoid working up a sweat when you have the sniffles? Or is sweating it out in the gym the secret to curing the common cold?

Despite advice that a cold should be coddled, moderate exercise isn't a bad idea when you've got a runny nose. And unlike lots of other suggestions on how to treat a cold, this one has some science behind it.

Exercise and the Brain

Moderate exercise increased the size of the hippocampus, an area of the brain that makes memories, in 120 volunteers,BBC health reported.

The year-long trial, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed performance on memory tests also improved.

What Can We Learn from Mice?

Researchers from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., used mice genetically engineered to age quickly to compare the effects of a lifetime of activity versus a sedentary life. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

What made the difference was endurance exercise. The active mice jogged briskly on treadmills three days a week for 45 minutes. After five months, premature aging was halted in practically every organ of the mice that exercised. The mice that slacked off were graying, balding, less fertile and socially isolated.

Their muscle tissue exhibited signs indicating damage, while the muscles of the mice that exercised were perfectly normal.

Q & A with Founder of National Runner's Health Study

Paul Williams is a scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who runs the world's largest study of runners' health, known as the National Runners' Health Study. He has more than 100,000 participants, some of whom he's been following more than 20 years.

Does Walking Beat Running?

You don’t have to walk far to gain the benefits of putting one foot in front of the other.

Among walking’s virtues: It’s low-impact, and you likely won’t get injured or wear out your joints. Plus, as you’re passed by joggers who seem to be thinking, “What’s walking? That’s not exercise!” you can take satisfaction in knowing that your activity actually delivers more health benefits than running does.

A new study evaluated the health boosts you get from equivalent energy expenditures with moderate intensity walking and vigorous intensity running. (Run for 15 minutes? Walk for about 30 minutes to get an equivalent energy output.)

For Boston

Benefits Achieved from Running in Excess of 40 Miles Per Week

Health experts have long urged Americans to get up and get moving. But what kind of exercise should they do? And how lengthy and vigorous must it be for them to receive the greatest benefit?

Despite the apparent consensus of a number of health groups that have, in recent years, recommended that Americans engage in exercise of moderate intensity, scientists remain sharply divided over those questions.

Running and Spirituality

“Running is just such a monestary-- a retreat, a place to commune with God and yourself, a place for psychological and spiritual renewal.”

― George Sheehan, George Sheehan on Running to Win: How to Achieve the Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Victories

Study Sees Multiple Benefits in Certain Fats

Mono-unsaturated fats like olive oil may benefit the heart not only by lowering cholesterol but also by reducing blood pressure and blood sugar, a study in Italy has suggested.

National Runner's Health Study: What Kind of Exercise is Best?

Two exercisers - one a runner, the other a walker - pass each other on their morning loops.  "Good morning," says the walker, thinking to herself, "Injury magnet. " "Morning," replies the runner, thinking to herself, "Wimp. "

Meanwhile, both spend the next block wondering who has the better exercise regimen.

Nutrition and Immunity

RESEARCHERS studying the often-surprising effects of nutrition on immunity report that dietary manipulation can become a promising new tool to foster recovery or prevent disease in millions of people.