Three new studies have suggested that consuming meals after exercising may go against the overall health benefits that physical work outs create.

The three studies, published by kinesiology researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, suggest that, unless you are a competitive athlete, consuming sports drinks or high-carbohydrate foods such as energy bars right after exercising may negate the health benefits that physical exercise creates.

According to Barry S. Braun, associate professor of kinesiology and director of the Energy Metabolism laboratory at UMass Amherst, most people who exercise are not competitive athletes. They exercise to help their overall health, seeking to manage their weight and reduce risk for diabetes, heart disease or other health problems. For them, the potent benefits of exercise are quickly reversed by consuming high-carbohydrate foods such as sports drinks and energy bars after workouts.

But, for ordinary people who are using physical activity to improve their health, exercise is a medicine. Though each ”dose” of exercise gives benefits, the effects are lost in one to two days. Like other medications, exercise also has interactions with food.

Recommendations for athletes seeking to optimize their performance may be precisely the wrong advice for people using exercise to improve their health. “The latter might be wiser to avoid sports drinks and energy bars during, and for one to three hours following, exercise to maximize the positive effects of each exercise dose,” said Braun.

In three recently published studies, graduate students under Braun’’s direction looked at how the total calories, the carbohydrate content, and the timing of post-exercise meals influence metabolic health.

To understand whether the negative effects of the post-exercise meal were due to the total calories or to the carbohydrate content of the meal, Braun’’s student Kaila Holtz tested two different meals given immediately after 75 minutes of moderately intense bicycle exercise. The meals contained exactly the same amount of calories but one was high in carbohydrates and the other was very low in carbohydrates. Her results showed that the effectiveness of insulin to clear sugar from the blood was greater after either exercise/meal combination compared to participants who did not exercise. The effects were larger, however, when the meal was low in carbohydrates.

These results suggest that, when the post-exercise meal is low in carbohydrates, more of the metabolic benefits of exercise are retained. Although there were a few subtle differences, the results were similar among all three exercise/meal combinations, suggesting that timing of the meals was not an important consideration.

Looking to make a change and lose some weight? I have reviewed the top diet on the internet and you can go and read over 200 comments people have made about why this diet has worked well for them, as well as some of the problems.

Tags: associate professor, Barry S. Braun, carbohydrate content, competitive athlete, diabetes, director, energy bars, Energy Metabolism laboratory, food, health benefits, heart disease, Kaila Holtz, physical exercise, professor of kinesiology, sports drinks, University of Massachusetts Amherst

Put aside the white bread and pick up an apple. A diet of foods less likely to spike blood sugar levels helps dieters lose more weight, according to a new systematic review from Australia.

�Losing weight is very difficult and many people are unable to sustain a weight-loss diet. The low glycemic index diet is satisfying and has proven benefits,� said review co-author Elizabeth Elliott, Ph.D., professor at the University of Sydney, The Children�s Hospital at Westmead.

The glycemic index (GI) ranks carbohydrate-rich foods based on their effect on blood sugar levels. Compared to high GI foods such as white rice and French fries, low GI foods, such as lentils, sweet potatoes and apples produce more consistent blood glucose levels. Previous studies have indicated that keeping blood sugar levels steady throughout the day may stimulate more weight loss in obese people.

Researchers evaluated randomized controlled trials that compared weight loss in people eating foods low on the glycemic index to weight loss in people on higher GI diets or other types of weight loss plans.

Six trials, involving 202 adults from Australia, France, South Africa, Denmark and the United States were included in the review. The diets lasted from five weeks to six months.

The review appears in the latest issue of The Cochrane Library, a publication of The Cochrane Collaboration, an international organization that evaluates medical research. Systematic reviews draw evidence-based conclusions about medical practice after considering both the content and quality of existing medical trials on a topic.

The review found that dieters focused on eating low GI foods dropped significantly more weight � about 2.2 pounds more � than participants on other diets. Low GI dieters also experienced greater decreases in body fat measurements and body mass index.

None of the studies reported adverse effects associated with consuming a low glycemic index diet.

�Compared to other diets, the low GI diet is more satisfying � people are less inclined to feel hungry. One advantage of this type of diet is that it is more likely to be maintained than other strict diets on which people feel hungry,� Elliott said.

Low glycemic diets appear to be effective even in obese people who need to lose considerable amounts of weight, the authors said.

In the two studies that evaluated only obese participants, low GI dieters lost about 9.2 pounds, compared with about 2.2 pounds shed by other dieters.

Low glycemic index diets might also benefit heart health.

In the three studies that measured cardiovascular risk factors, people eating low GI foods experienced greater improvements in total blood cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) � sometimes called �bad� cholesterol. High levels of total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol increase the risks for heart disease.

After reviewing the findings, Lawrence Cheskin, M.D. said, �There�s surprisingly little in the way of studies to draw any hard and fast conclusions.� Cheskin is director of the Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center and associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. He was not involved with the review.

Low glycemic index diets can be effective for weight management, Cheskin said, but the success of low glycemic diets lies with an individual�s willingness to comply with its nutritional principles.

�There aren�t many people who need to lose weight who are willing to eat lots of vegetables and whole grains. If they did, they wouldn�t have a weight problem in the first place,� Cheskin said.

Nevertheless, he said, choosing foods low on the glycemic index does have value for overweight or obese people who want to lose weight.

�It uses a lot of the generally healthful principles, such as eating lots of vegetables and high fiber and avoiding very energy-dense foods that are high in simple sugars and simple carbohydrates,� Cheskin said.

Tags: associate professor, Australia, Baltimore, Children�s Hospital, Denmark, director, Elizabeth Elliott, energy-dense foods, France, heart disease, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Weight Management Center, Lawrence Cheskin, professor, said review co-author, South Africa, The Children�s Hospital, The Cochrane Collaboration, The Cochrane Library, United States, University of Sydney

The four-year study out of Creighton University in Nebraska found that women who regularly took vitamin D3 had a 60 per cent reduction in cancer infections compared to a group taking placebos.

The study followed 1,179 healthy, women 55 years and older from rural eastern Nebraska between 2000 and 2005. Participants were randomly assigned to receive 1400-1500 mg of calcium alone, or supplemental calcium plus 1,100 IU vitamin D3, or placebo.

The researchers studied only vitamin D3, which comes from animal sources and seems to be more active than vitamin D2, which is derived from plant sources.

Among the 288 women taking placebo, 20 developed breast, colon, lung or another form of cancer. Among the 445 women taking just calcium, 17 developed cancer. But among the largest group — the 446 women taking vitamin D daily — just 13 developed cancer.

“What we found is that a vitamin D supplement decreased the cancer incidence in postmenopausal women by about 60 per cent,” lead investigator Joan Lappe, an associate professor of both medicine and nursing at Creighton University

This is not the first time that researchers have noted the health benefits of vitamin D. In February, two studies found that the vitamin was linked to lower rates of breast cancer and colorectal cancer. The “sunshine vitamin,” as it’s sometimes called, has also been shown to kill some cancer cells in laboratory experiments.

“There’s a lot of evidence out there that populations in first world countries are deficient in vitamin D and if you give them more, we can prevent cancers and other diseases that have been reported to be prevented with vitamin D,” said Lappe.

Humans can absorb vitamin D when ultraviolet rays from the sun trigger vitamin D synthesis in our skin. But because of our short summers in Canada and our latitude, most Canadians don’t get anywhere near enough of it all year long.

Because of the growing body of evidence about vitamin D, for the first time, the Canadian Cancer Society is recommending a specific amount of supplementation for Canadians to consider taking. The Society is now recommending that:

-Adults living in Canada should consider taking vitamin D supplementation of 1,000 international units (IU) a day during the fall and winter.

-Adults at higher risk of having lower vitamin D levels should consider taking vitamin D supplementation of 1,000 IU/day all year round. This includes people who are older; with dark skin; who don’t go outside often, and who wear clothing that covers most of their skin.
At this time, the Canadian Cancer Society does not have a recommendation for vitamin D supplementation for children.

“The evidence is still growing in this area, but we want to give guidance to Canadians about this emerging area of cancer prevention based on what we know now,” said Heather Logan, director of Cancer Control Policy with the Canadian Cancer Society.

“We’re recommending 1,000 IUs daily because the current evidence suggests this amount will help reduce cancer risk with the least potential for harm,” said Logan.

“As we find out more we will update our recommendation.”

Logan cautions Canadians about relying too much on getting vitamin D through exposure to sunlight.

“It’s not a good idea to rely solely on the sun to obtain vitamin D,” said Logan. “For some people, it’s possible that just a few minutes of unprotected sun exposure every day could increase skin cancer risk.”

Tags: associate professor, associate professor of both medicine and nursing, breast cancer, Canada, Canadian Cancer Society, cancer, cancer prevention, cancers, colorectal cancer, Creighton University in Nebraska, D, director of Cancer Control Policy, first world countries, Heather Logan, Joan Lappe, lead investigator, Nebraska, placebos, professor of both medicine, skin cancer, Vitamin D

A new study was released over the last week showing what many older people already know, that weight training is a very important part of keeping you young.

The study says resistance exercise for people 65 and older can actually reverse important aging effects on skeletal muscles, to the point where they work genetically like those found in people four decades younger.

“We see big improvements … after weight training,” said Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, an associate professor at the McMaster University Medical Centre.

“Many people were reporting they could pick up their grandkids, they could carry more groceries, it was easier to go up the stairs,” said Tarnopolsky, an expert on muscle diseases and one of the paper’s two lead authors.

There are several reasons for this change and most of it is in the physical changes that take place in the mini powerplants of cells and this, says the good doctor promises to make things better for many people for years to come.

The study looked at DNA expression in the muscle cells of 25 healthy seniors, who had undergone twice-weekly resistance training for six months.

It concentrated in particular on the cellular mitochondria, the “powerhouses” that fuel activity in cells. They are typically depleted in older people, with many of the genes that affect them turned on or off by age. This depletion resulted in a loss of muscle mass and many of the mobility restrictions often found in seniors.

But Tarnopolsky said the genetic “fingerprints” of the exercising seniors actually shifted from their age-altered state to one more closely resembling those found in young men and women in their mid 20s to 30s.

“We improved or reversed to a large extent the … gene signature of aging,” he said.

The reversal was accompanied by a 50 per cent improvement in strength among the seniors.

Starting out about 60 per cent weaker than their younger study counterparts � determined via knee extension capacity � the training seniors ended up 38 per cent weaker after a half year of training.

Tarnopolsky said weight lifting might remove some of the mitochondria damaged by age-related stresses, replacing them with genetically intact ones. As well, it may turn on genes, switched off by age, that offer muscle cells protection from damage.

This is a very interesting although small study but the ramifications are huge. Anyone that is in there 60s or 70s though should talk to a doctor before beginning a weightlifting regimen but the effects on your life can be fantastic.

Tags: associate professor, Mark Tarnopolsky, McMaster University Medical Centre, weightlifting

We all know that many people fail on their diets and often wonder why. Well there is a number of factors that affect whether a diet will work or will not. I thought I would pull some info from a KLTV article from today and will paraphrase the details.

About one in three American adults is trying to lose weight at any given time, and while their track record for trying is good, their track record for succeeding is not.

Within five years, most dieters will regain the weight they lost. And, after five years, they may even weigh more than when they started the original weight-loss effort, some studies have found.

But weight-loss researchers have begun to uncover insights into what makes some dieters succeed while others fail. While there are no hard-and-fast rules that work for everyone, there are ways to maximize your success the next time you decide to drop those excess pounds — maybe for good.

A strategy for success begins with getting realistic, experts say.

Unrealistic Goals
“Cause number-one [for failure] is setting too unrealistic of goals, losing too much too fast,” said Barbel Knauper, an associate professor of psychology at McGill University in Montreal. Instead of trying to lose, say, 15 pounds in a month — very unrealistic — most experts suggest a slow, steady loss, about one or two pounds a week.

Bad eating planning
Another pitfall, Knauper said, is a lack of advance planning before social situations. “If people were making ‘when, where, how’ plans, they would be more likely to adhere to their goal,” he said. For instance, you might say to yourself, ‘When I go out for dinner tonight with friends, I won’t order a large entree, but a smaller one. And I’ll stick with my choice even if they pressure me to eat more.’”

Socializing is one of the top three reasons people eventually fail with a diet, said Dr. Michael Dansinger, an assistant professor of medicine at Tufts-New England Medical Center, in Boston.

Feeling deprived of certain foods
The other two? “Feelings of deprivation or boredom with the current eating plan,” Dansinger said, “and the healthy foods often seem to be less available, require more preparation or cost more than the unhealthy foods.”

Portion size and the effect of exercise
Still another pitfall, Knauper said, is that people often underestimate the number of calories in foods and overestimate the number of calories burned through exercise.

In one study, Knauper asked 132 women trying to lose weight on their own to tell him their strategies — their dieting “rules,” so to speak. In all, the 132 dieters offered 895 rules, with each woman listing an average of nearly seven.

Then his research team followed the women to see which rules worked. Overall, adherence to the self-set rules was low. But the ones deemed most effective were the simplest — reducing calories and increasing exercise. Other rules that worked included: decreasing sugar intake; increasing consumption of fruits and vegetables, vitamins and water; watching less TV; and eating at home more often.

If you’ve tried unsuccessfully to diet many times, Dansinger suggests getting a “coach.” A coach can be your doctor, another health professional, or a friend who’ll hold you accountable to your goals, he said. He also suggests recording your intake of calories every day, limiting calories, and exercising seven hours a week, including cardiovascular and weight workouts.

In a 2005 study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Dansinger also found that adherence to a weight-loss plan — any plan — is more important than the diet regimen itself. He compared people on Weight Watchers, Atkins, Zone and Ornish diets and found no substantial weight-loss differences at one year, regardless of the diet. The amount of weight lost ranged from 4.6 to 7.3 pounds.

So what can we learn from this study? Well I believe that it is most important to look sometimes at your weight loss plan as a bit of a high wire act where you always need to be loose and able to move one way or another but at the same time focused on whee you are and where you are going. Although most diets fail there is no way to fail if you change your lifestyle and attitude about food and exercise.

Tags: American Medical Association, associate professor, associate professor of psychology, Barbel Knauper, Boston, coach, Dansinger, food, KLTV, McGill University in Montreal, Michael Dansinger, Montreal, professor of medicine, professor of psychology, the Journal of the American Medical Association, Tufts-New England Medical Center

Healthday News had this article on urban exercise based on a report by the The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention..

Your intentions may be good, but exercising outdoors in a city may be riskier than you think, one expert says.

Outdoor activity can cause serious damage to a person’s health because of elevated air pollution levels. Those especially at risk are those who exercise by running, bicycling or skating.

According to Dr. Joseph T. Cooke, associate professor of clinical medicine and patient safety officer at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, the danger lies in the components of air pollution. The three main culprits are fine particulate matter, (the mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets in the air), ozone (a gas composed of three oxygen atoms) and carbon monoxide.

These components of air pollution irritate the lungs, making it harder to breathe and worsening problems initially caused by asthma, bronchitis, cardiopulmonary maladies, and emphysema.

“The pollutants affect the lungs by causing inflammation or irritation of the airway lining,” Cooke explained in a prepared statement. “More mucus and phlegm is produced, and small muscles surrounding the airway respond by squeezing down. The work of breathing increases, and it becomes more difficult to get oxygen into the body,” he said.

The three pollutants are located in cities around the world. Fine particulates are emitted from the diesel engines of buses and trucks. Carbon monoxide arises from cigarette smoke and automobile exhaust, and it has the ability to force oxygen out of a person’s circulatory system.

For those exercising, overexposure to carbon monoxide can lead to dizziness, confusion, headaches and dangerously high body temperatures. Ozone, which is the largest component of smog in cities, adversely affects breathing patterns and decreases the size of airways, making the lungs more resistant to oxygen.

For those determined to work out outdoors, Cooke offered the following tips:

Do not run on or near roads where there is heavy truck or bus traffic.
Work out in the early morning or later in the evening.
Exercise indoors if possible.
If you experience any difficulty breathing, stop exercising immediately and see a doctor.

Tags: associate professor, associate professor of clinical medicine and patient safety officer, Asthma, bronchitis, dizziness, headaches, inflammation, irritation, Joseph T. Cooke, medicine and patient safety officer, New York, New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, professor of clinical medicine, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

A couple years ago my wife was considering weight loss surgery as her years off dieting and exercise and the yoyo weight loss/gain nightmare had mad her tired of the whole weight loss industry. Using Weight Watchers and getting the exercise to a more moderate lvel have helped Michelle lose three pounds or so per week and she is quickly dropping the weight that was so stubborn just a couple of years back. Yesterday Michelle got a call for the gastric bypass surgery consultation which here in Alberta Canada takes 19 months, I am happy to say that she turned it down because a healthy lifestyle has maed the difference for her. As you probably know there are a lot of instances where this surgery is really helpful for people but only in cases where there is a risk of imminent death by now doing something as drastic as this surgery is.

I have found an article from Bloomberg that I think really shows the importance of this surgery and the possible implications. Below are some exerpts from that article.
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Tags: American Medical Association, arthritis, associate professor, back surgery, bariatric surgeries, bariatric surgery, Bloomberg, Bruce M. Wolfe, California, David R. Flum, David S. Zingmond, diabetes, food, Gastric bypass, gastric bypass surgery, GBP, health care services, heart surgery, high blood pressure, hip replacement, insurance, John M. Morton, Journal of the American Medical Association, knee surgery, lead researcher, Los Angeles, Medicare, Michelle Fay Cortez, Minneapolis, obesity, obesity surgery, Oregon Health Science University in Portland, plastic surgery, Portland, professor of medicine, professor of surgery, reporter, Seattle, Stanford University in California, surgeries, surgery, UCLA's School of Medicine, United States, University of California at Los Angeles, University of Washington in Seattle, weight loss surgery

Another Really good Reason to be aware of your surroundings and to keep yourself in shape. This article from the associated press show how people are creatures of habit but I have seen so many times that if you really want to change than you have it in your grasp to do so.

Just when we thought we couldn’t get any fatter, a new study that followed Americans for three decades suggests that over the long haul, 9 out of 10 men and 7 out of 10 women will become overweight.

Even if you are one of the lucky few who made it to middle age without getting fat, don’t congratulate yourself _ keep watching that waistline.

Half of the men and women in the study who had made it well into adulthood without a weight problem ultimately became overweight. A third of those women and a quarter of the men became obese.

“You cannot become complacent, because you are at risk of becoming overweight,” said Ramachandran Vasan, an associate professor of medicine at Boston University and the study’s lead author.

He and other researchers studied data gathered from 4,000 white adults over 30 years. Participants were between the ages of 30 and 59 at the start, and were examined every four years. By the end of the study, more than 1 in 3 had become obese.
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Tags: and Blood Institute, arthritis, associate professor, associate professor of medicine, Boston University, cancers, diabetes, director, Elizabeth G. Nabel, food, heart disease, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, lead author, Lung, Mark Vander Weg, Massachusetts, Mayo Clinic, National Heart, obesity, obesity researcher, professor of medicine, professor of medicine and an obesity researcher, psychologist, Ramachandran Vasan, Susan Bartlett, the Annals of Internal Medicine, U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States