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Exercise is Medicine

Exercise prescriptions for weight loss have long been dominated byaerobic exercise like jogging, biking, or swimming. This is despite the fact that recent and past research shows that aerobic exercise provides very little benefit over diet alone when it comes to body change. Anaerobic exercise, long ignored in discussions of weight loss, may provide unexpected benefit through previously overlooked mechanisms. Both resistance exercise using weights, and interval cardiovascular exercise that alternates periods of intense exertion with rest may provide superior benefits for weight loss with minimal investments intime.

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The Role of a Balanced Diet

WHETHER YOU are physically active or a serious athlete, the primary role of nutrition is to optimise health and physiological function during training. Although the importance of good nutrition and its relationship with athletic performance is widely accepted in the sporting community, many aspects are still misunderstood.

Effects of exercise intensity on food intake and appetite in women

Physical activity is often considered a futile form of weight control because of the possible concomitant compensation of food intake. However, it should be noted that some studies have shown that exercise induces a brief suppression of appetite (hunger), even if this doesnot necessarily translate into a decrease in subsequent food intake.Evidence shows that only 19% of the intervention studies report an increase in energy intake after exercise, and 65% show no change. Whenthe physical activity level decreases, food intake does not seem to be down-regulated in the same way. In fact, compensation is observed when the deficit is created by a meal omission, which is not seen when the deficit is induced by exercise. These observations highlight the weak coupling between energy intake and expenditure. The present study was performed to investigate acute and short-term effects of exercise intensity on energy intake, macronutrient preferences, and appetite in women. The researchers hypothesized that high-intensity exercise would exert a brief, acute suppression of appetite and energy intake and that exercise-induced EE would trigger a partial compensation over the day, which would be more apparent after low-intensity exercise.

What was the Deal with those Bulgarian Peasants?

It has been 101 years since a Russian biologist noted that many Bulgarian peasants lived a long time. He put it down to the bacteria in their yogurt, which prevented "putrefaction" of the intestines.

Elie Metchnikoff was no kook. He succeeded Louis Pasteur himself as head of the Pasteur Institute. Yet the modern world didn't want to learn its medicine via heartwarming tales of backward peasants. It wanted to go high-tech: X-rays, DDT, antibiotics, statins. For most of a century, Metchnikoff's "good" bacteria sat unnoticed.

Today that is changing.

Interview with Founder of the National Runners' 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.

Training for Badwater

Outside Mike Phillips' home in east Clovis, it's 105 degrees.

Inside Phillips' garage, it's 120 -- maybe hotter.

Just the way he likes it.

Plant Based Diets

EARLY findings from the most comprehensive large study ever undertaken of the relationship between diet and the risk of developing disease are challenging much of American dietary dogma. The study, being conducted in China, paints a bold portrait of a plant-based eating plan that is more likely to promote health than disease.

Charlie Engle -- Still Running

Distance versus Speed

People who move their bodies for health may wonder, is distance--not speed--the most important factor in attaining the benefits associated with exercise? California-based pathologist and very first AMAA Journal editor Tom Bassler, MD, was an early pioneer in popularizing running for everyday, formerly sedentary people, including cardiac patients, and also a huge proponent of distance over speed. He even feltthat walking was equally beneficial to running and encouraged slow endurance exercise to maximize cardiovascular health. The idea is thatsetting a distance goal will leave you out on the course longer if you choose to go slowly, and time spent moving moderately is the key to health, not how quickly you cross the finish line.

Walking versus Running

A few months ago I got into an argument with someone who's far smarter than I am. I should have known better, but you know how these things go. Needless to say, I lost the argument. Still, I learned something important in the process.

Is It Possible to Run Too Much?

In most every part of modern life - in how much we eat, sleep, work and play - moderation is the mantra.

And in recent years, that mantra has extended to exercise. Science is increasingly telling us that we need to work out only a few hours a week to fight heart disease and cancer and aging in general. For instance, researchers say, just 10 or 15 miles of easy running could add years to our lives.

Sugar and Children

Yale University medical researchers have found hormonal evidence to support the popular but controversial belief that sugar can provoke abnormal behavior in some children.

Green Tea and Chronic Disease

If preliminary findings stand up to closer scientific scrutiny, tea -- especially the green tea of the Far East -- could become a popular and potent weapon in the war against chronic diseases.

Antioxidants and Beta Carotene

IN the last few years, the word "antioxidant" has moved rapidly from the domain of chemists and biochemists into common use, at least among health-conscious Americans. Millions of people concerned about preventing heart disease and cancer and staving off the ravages of age have turned to antioxidant nutrients like vitamins C and E, beta carotene and selenium as if they provided a protective cloak against both self-inflicted and environmental insults.

Addicted to Running?

Controversy exists regarding the psychological effects of distance running. While running has been used as an adjunctive treatment for depression and anxiety, it has also been characterized as a negative addiction. In the present study, anxiety and depression traits were measured for a heterogenous group of runners. These runners also provided information regarding their motivations for running and their training patterns. Those runners classified as Highly Committed had lower anxiety traits and depression traits than those classified as Recreational Runners. Regardless of their level of commitment, health and fitness concerns were the strongest motivators for training. These data provide evidence that strong dedication to distance running is associated with positive traits rather than with negative aspects of addiction.

Vitamin E and Heart Disease

Two new studies of more than 120,000 men and women strongly suggest that supplements of vitamin E can significantly reduce the risk of disease and death from fat-clogged coronary arteries. But the researchers and other experts cautioned against rushing out to buy the vitamin supplements before further clinical trials confirm that they are beneficial and safe.

Exercise and Blood Pressure

Regular physical exercise can be as effective as medication in treating moderately high blood pressure, a new study has found.

The findings, being reported today in The Journal of the American Medical Association, show that previously sedentary people can safely bring moderately high blood pressure under control without drugs if they are willing to exercise vigorously for 50 minutes three or four times a week.

Animal Fat and Cancer

AMERICAN men whose diets are rich in animal fats, and particularly fats from red meat, face nearly an 80 percent greater risk of developing potentially fatal prostate cancer than do men with the lowest intake of such foods, a major new study has found.

Runners Still Rock

ACTIVE Americans do not wear out, but sedentary ones are likely to rust out, according to the findings of an eight-year study of nearly 800 people 50 and over. As they age, the study showed, those who regularly engage in vigorous aerobic exercise like running are much less likely to develop life-inhibiting disabilities.

Garlic's Health Benefits

WHILE the producers of garlic supplements battle over whether consumers are likely to benefit more from a powder or an extract of the "stinking bulb," scientists are zeroing in on exactly what components of garlic might be medically helpful and how the substances work.

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Exercise and Breast Cancer

A THOROUGH new study of more than 1,000 California women has found that moderate but regular physical activity can reduce a woman's risk of developing premenopausal breast cancer by as much as 60 percent. The benefits seen were greatest among women who had borne children and those who were physically active in their teen-age years and early 20's.

The Furor over Fish Oil

THE words are big -- eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid -- but the sales are even bigger, exceeding $45 million a year. These are the scientific names of two prominent fatty acids in fish oils, better known as omega-3's, supplements of which have become hot items among the health conscious.

Exercise and Health: A few findings

THE effects of exercise on resistance to illness, from the common cold to cancer, have long been surrounded by controversy and conflicting evidence. While few would dispute the value of fitness in warding off heart disease and osteoporosis, when it comes to the immune system the facts are not nearly so clear. Nonetheless, millions of people believe that regular exercise keeps them healthier.

Exercise Can Amplify Your Flu Vaccine Response

As this year’s influenza season continues to take its toll, those procrastinators now hurrying to get a flu shot might wish to know that exercise may amplify the flu vaccine’s effect. For maximal potency, the exercise should be undertaken at the right time and involve the right dosage of sweat, according to several recent reports.

10 Tips to Topple a Cold

Green tea, probiotics, herbs and vitamin-spiked drinks promise to help fight nasty viruses lurking on doorknobs and phones.

But most of these products are more about marketing than strengthening the immune system, said Dr. Damon Schranz of the University of North Texas Health Science Center.

Here's what works and what doesn't:

One Step Closer

Winter Running Increases Our Resolve

Mental toughness is indispensable no matter what distances you run.

Sub-zero winds pierce the skin, reverberating a chill deep to the bones. Percussion sounds of fresh snow crunch under foot. Driving rains blow headfirst, making forward progress a major chore. Darkness comes quickly, gobbling up precious daylight hours. Ah, the sensations of winter. While Old Man Winter beckons us to stay bundled in a warm bed or by a toasty fire, the harshest elements will bolster the mind, intuition and body.

Food and Mood

Can you change your mood with food?

Perhaps, but it could be all in your mind.