|
| |
Pilates: A Challenging and Motivating Exercise Regimen
Pilates is named after its creator Joseph Pilates. It is an exercise regimen that uses machines and special stretches. This exercise puts emphasis on flexibility and overall strength over body bulk. One of the principles of Pilates is concentration. Your ...
Stress Relief and Relaxation Secrets you can use Today
You may not even realise that stress is taking a toll on you every day and if you don't get a handle on it, you are in big trouble. There are a huge number of factors that lead to elevated stress levels, including seventy hour work weeks, crazy commutes, ...
The Three Simple Steps To Fat Loss
Its unbelievable but being overweight has now moved from a social nuisance and domestic embarrassment to an official disease. The American Heart Association has announced obesity a dangerous epidemic and a major risk for heart disease. More than 70% of US ...
|
|
|
| |
Of course, there's always that old standby, a sleeker body. It's the reward that lures legions to the jogging trail, the health club or the aerobics class.
But did you know that exercise might alleviate depression, help keep cancer out of your colon, increase the number of cells in your brain (or at least in a mouse's brain) and boost your immune system?
People have always believed that exercise is good for them, says Dr. John O'Kane, University of Washington sports-medicine expert and lead physician to the UW's athletic teams. What the latest research is doing is showing just how good for us it is.
Health experts also say you don't have to run marathons or hit the gym for endless hours to gain significant benefits. Probably the best-known benefit is heart health, and for that, a program of regular, moderate exercise will do just fine, O'Kane said.
"If you can just get yourself to start walking 30 minutes a day, that's a good start," he said.
"You do get benefits from more vigorous exercise," O'Kane added. You burn more calories and gain endurance, for instance. And one study suggested that women who exercised vigorously had lower rates of prostate cancer.
Exercise does its best work when teamed with healthy eating. But studies now show exercise has its own beneficial impact, even when you're not also following an ideal diet, he said.
The same is true with weight loss. A study at the Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas showed that even when individuals remained obese, exercise was linked to fewer heart attacks.
Exercise gets points today not only for health maintenance but for recovery. Jack Berryman, a UW medical historian, says that "for thousands of years we realized that exercise was healthy." Yet until the 1950s, complete bed rest was prescribed for many conditions, including heart-attack recovery.
That changed, he said, when President Dwight Eisenhower had a heart a attack while in office. Well-known cardiologist Dr. Paul Dudley White soon had him up walking and playing golf.
"That was the beginning of the important movement of cardiac rehabilitation" employing controlled exercise, Berryman said. Today, exercise is part of the recovery program for many conditions.
Here's some of the latest research on health and exercise:
Cancer
Breast cancer: Regular physical activity may lower risk. Of about two dozen studies on breast cancer and exercise, about two-thirds have found reduced risk of up to 30-40 percent with exercise, says Dr. Anne McTiernan, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Possible reason: Exercise may reduce production of estrogen (a possible cancer promoter) by the ovaries and by fat cells.
Exercise may also boost the immune system, possibly helping fight cancer. McTiernan and others are researching exercise's impact on both the immune system and on estrogen levels in women.
Colon cancer: Exercise appears to reduce risk by up to 50 percent, based on about three dozen observational studies around the world, says McTiernan. She and others will try to learn more about the protective mechanism in a new study. They'll take biopsies from the colon and rectum of exercising and non-exercising participants at the start and finish of the study to observe how cells are growing, dividing and dying. They'll also check the balance of "good" and "bad" prostaglandins, body chemicals thought to be involved in colon cancer.
The brain
Mental sharpness: Exercise may help preserve it as you age. A recent study found that among women 65 and older, the least amount of cognitive decline over eight years occurred in those who exercised the most (walking 18 miles per week), while decline was greatest in those who exercised the least (walking half a mile per week). Decline decreased with each added mile. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, and others studied 5,925 women 65 and older without cognitive impairment or physical limitations.
Brain cells: Physical activity may increase their numbers. In one study, researchers found that adult mice doubled their number of new cells in the hippocampus - a brain area involved in memory and learning - when they had access to running wheels. It's not yet known whether the same thing happens with humans.
Depression: Studies suggest exercise reduces symptoms, possibly by releasing mood-altering brain chemicals, such as endorphins.
The rest of the body
Diabetes: Many studies show regular physical activity helps prevent or control diabetes. Exercise works on diabetes in two ways: By burning energy in the form of blood sugar and by reducing body fat (fat contributes to Type 2 diabetes by impairing the body's ability to process insulin).
Bones: Many studies indicate that weight-bearing exercise such as walking and weight-training helps prevent the porous, fracture-prone bones of osteoporosis.
Regular exercise, including strength training, may also help older people avoid falling and breaking their bones. In one study, older women assigned to a home-based strength-and-balance exercise program had fewer falls than women who didn't exercise.
In another study, researchers at Oregon State University and the University of Utah asked women ages 50 to 75 to wear weighted vests while performing lower-body strength and power exercises. Results after nine months: Improved lower-body muscle strength and balance - especially balance to the side. "This has been very exciting for us to find, because falling to the side raises the risk of breaking a hip 20 times over falling forward," said Christine Snow, the study's co-author.
Arthritis: Both aerobic exercise and strength training, in moderation, can reduce joint swelling and pain and extend mobility.
The heart: Perhaps the best-known effect of regular exercise is its benefit to the heart. Many studies indicate lower heart-disease risk with regular exercise, which boosts oxygen supply. Exercise also helps bring down high blood pressure, reducing risk of stroke.
And that's not all: Studies also point to the power of exercise to help prevent or control sleep disorders, gallstones, diverticular disease (an intestinal disorder) and more.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Richmond offers aerobics program for seniors - Northwest Herald
RICHMOND – A pilot senior exercise program for Richmond Township residents launches next week. For $5 a month, seniors will be able to participate in a twice-weekly aerobics class throughout 2009. The program is part of an initiative to reach out ...
Mon Valley News Briefs - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Community College of Allegheny County will offer two morning fitness classes to people age 55 and older beginning Jan. 21. The 55-plus aerobic and personal conditioning classes will both meet Monday and Wednesday mornings at CCAC South Campus in West ...
YMCA offers fitness preview - Commercial News
DANVILLE — Just in time to help people turn their New Year’s resolutions into action, the Danville Family YMCA will offer a free preview Saturday of its fitness classes. Called “The Fitness Blast,” this three-hour event will demonstrate the ...
Aerobics classes offered in East Fishkill - Poughkeepsie Journal
HOPEWELL JUNCTION - The East Fishkill Recreation Department will offer two co-ed aerobics classes at the community center. On Mondays at 6 p.m., from Jan. 5 to March 9, cardio and kick-box aerobics classes will be held. The noncontact workout uses ...
The 32nd Tiberias Marathon / The doggedness of the long-distance ... - Haaretz.com
If there's one race South Africa-born Israeli marathon runner Laurice Mendelowitz would like to forget, it's the 2006 Rotterdam marathon. Mendelowitz, then 46, hoped to complete the run in less than three hours by making the most of the fair Dutch ...
|
