So oftern I find that I do not have time or am interested in long workouts and I always like those intense short workouts that kill you but also make you feel great a little while afterwards. Well apparently I am not the only one. The study below shows that this is a great way to raise your metabolism.

Sedentary people who find the idea of fitting regular exercise sessions into their lives so difficult that they don’t even try, may be interested to hear about a new study that found even regular short bursts of intense exercise, such as a short session of four to six 30-second high intensity sprints on an exercise bike every two days, showed a significant effect on the body’s ability to metabolize sugars and could be an effective way to cut the risk of diabetes.

This was the conclusion of a study by professor James Timmons and a team of researchers from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, that is to be published in the journal BMC Endocrine Disorders.

Most people know that regular physical activity is a good way to cut the risk of developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, but knowing it and doing it are not the same, and many people feel they just don’t have the time to do vigorous aerobic exercise for several hours week, as suggested by many of the current guidelines. Read the rest of this entry »

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: BMC Endocrine Disorders, diabetes, Edinburgh, heart disease, Heriot-Watt University, high intensity exercise protocol, James Timmons, professor, Scotland

I have gotten a flu shot every year for the last 6 years or so to protect myself from getting the flu. Now a study has been released saying that the chance of dying from the flu is not reduced by getting the shot. I for one do not get the shot to save myself from death but instead to just not have that few weeks of possible downtime from getting a bad flu.

Still this is interesting, if people get vaccinated against the flu then why does in not lower fly deaths? Is this becasue the worst of the strains are not protected against?

The flu shot does help protect against specific strains of influenza but its ability to help prevent deaths among the elderly may have been exaggerated, a new study suggests.

Over the last 20 years in the U.S., vaccination rates among the elderly have increased from 15 to 65 per cent, but hospital admissions and death rates from all causes have not declined proportionately, said Dean Eurich, a clinical epidemiologist and professor at the school of public health at the University of Alberta. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alberta, Dean Eurich, flu season, flu shots, immunizations, influenza, mortality rates, pneumonia, principal investigator and a medical professor, professor, Sumit Majumdar, the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, United States, University of Alberta, vaccination, vaccination rates

If you wish to go for the weight loss surgery, and are wondering abut how it helps one lose weight, this is the perfect article for you.

First, let me tell you what happens to the food you eat. When you eat food, it reaches your digestive tract, whereby it is broken down into pieces for the purpose of digestion. Once digested, your body absorbs the nutrients from the digested food and uses the calories to produce energy. Of course, any unused energy is deposited in your body as fat, which is how you gained weight.

Weight loss surgery helps you get rid of fat in an artificial manner, by bypassing the entire process of normal digestion I described above. There are different types of surgeries available today. Some, like the gastric bypass, reduce the size of your stomach by stapling it; when your stomach size is reduced, you would automatically reduce your food intake and never again gain weight. Other surgeries work by bypassing your digestive tract.

As a matter of fact, not everyone can undergo a weight loss surgery. Only those who are morbidly obese, that is, whose body weight is at least a hundred pounds more than normal (your normal or “ideal” weight is the appropriate body weight of a normal person of your age and height) can opt for it.

With that said, let me offer you short introductions to two of the most popular weight loss surgeries available today.

1. The Gastric Bypass Surgery: The gastric bypass surgery, invented by Dr. Edward Mason in the 1960s, has evolved a lot and been renamed as the Roux-en-y Gastric Bypass. Unlike the old bypass surgery which involved the partition of your stomach, the new gastric bypass works by reducing your stomach size with the help of staples. Your intestine is then cut to fit the newly created “smaller” stomach.

With a smaller stomach, you cannot but eat only small meals. Eating small meals is a great way to keep the extra weight away.

2. The Biliopancreatic Diversion: Developed by Professor Nicola Scopinaro, this can be said as the combination of the “old” and “new” gastric bypass surgeries. More and more patients are opting for this new-age surgery because it allows them to eat huge amounts of foods and yet maintain a slim and fit body. Patients are able to lose weight with the help of malabsorption.

However, it is not without its side effects. Some of the after-effects of this surgery include protein deficiency in your body, stools of foul odor, flatus and even stomach ulcers.

Tags: Bypass surgery, digested food, Edward Mason, energy, food, food intake, Gastric bypass, gastric bypass surgeries, gastric bypass surgery, GBP, Nicola Scopinaro, professor, protein deficiency, Roux-en-y Gastric Bypass, Stomach ulcers, surgery, unused energy, weight loss surgeries, weight loss surgery

I have often thought that exercise can help get rid of the symptoms and even the effects of Diabetes and today I see that there is yet another study that says that exercise can at the very least stop you from getting type 2 diabetes. It is one thing to say that exercise and good health stops you from getting sick but if you are not sick some will argue that you are just genetically predisposed to not getting sick.

Group-based diet and exercise lifestyle interventions over six years can prevent or delay diabetes for up to 14 years after the intervention period. But whether lifestyle interventions also lead to reduced cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality remains unclear. These are the conclusions of authors of an Article in this week’s Diabetes Special Issue of The Lancet.

While several major clinical trials around the world have shown the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions to reduce diabetes incidence in people with impaired glucose tolerance*, questions remain over how long post-intervention these strategies remain effective. Professor Guangwei Li, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China, and Dr Ping Zhang, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and colleagues did the China Da Qing Diabetes Prevention Outcome Study (CDQDPOS), which followed-up patients 20 years after enrollment. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Atlanta, Beijing, cardiovascular disease, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, China, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, CVD, diabetes, diabetes prevention, disease control and prevention, Finland, Georgia, glucose tolerance, Guangwei Li, Helsinki, Jaana Lindström, Matti Uusitupa, National Public Health Institute, Ping Zhang, professor, United States, University of Helsinki, University of Kuopio

The Daily Mail in England has this very interesting story that seems to give hope to the millions of people worldwide that suffer from Alzheimers disease.

Doctors are calling for a clinical trial of an experimental drug treatment that it is claimed can reverse the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease “in minutes”.

U.S. researchers say the treatment allowed an 82-year- old sufferer to recognize his wife for the first time in years.

In the UK, specialists believe the claims should be properly tested as only a few patients have been treated so far.
The treatment involves injecting a drug called Enbrel – which is normally used to treat arthritis – into the spine at the neck. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: Alzheimer's, Alzheimer's disease, Alzheimer's Research Trust, Alzheimer's Society, ankylosing spondylitis, arthritis, California, chief executive, cough, diabetes, director, Edward Tobinick, Enbrel, experimental therapy, fever, head of research, immune disease, inflammation, Institute for Neurological Research, Institute of Neurological Research, juvenile idiopathic arthritis, Los Angeles, Marvin Miller, necrosis, nurse, professor, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, Rebecca Wood, rheumatoid arthritis, Serious infections, Susanne Sorensen, TB, tuberculosis, tumor, tumour, United Kingdom, United States, University of California Los Angeles

I was in the midst of writing an article about losing belly fat and how spot reducing does not work for losing belly fat when this email from the creator of turbulence training came to me. It seems that he has evidence that belly fat can be reduced through weights and circuit training but not strictly fromn cardio and situps

But did you know the best way to burn belly fat is a shock to most men and women?

Even most personal trainers usually guess, “Crunches”, “Situps”, or “aerobic cardio” as the best way to lose stomach fat.  But none of those work best, or even work at all!

In fact, I often get asked, What’s the best way to burn fat and lose my belly? Do aerobics work better than interval Iraining? Does resistance training help at all? What should I eat to lose stomach fat? All of those are common questions.

But here’s the truth. Cardio is not the best way to burn fat.

In fact, I’ve met very few people who have successfully used cardio to lose stomach fat. And most of those people were young men, and anything works for them when they want to burn fat.

If you want to lose stomach fat fast, you need to increase the intensity of your workout by using both resistance training and interval training to lose stomach fat.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: best way to burn fat, Cardio Workouts, fat burning, interval training, professor, Steve Boucher, turbulence training, Workout Plan

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

Before the news comes out on Alli I wanted to take this opportunity to say that even if you do decide to take Alli or any other diet pill then please remember that your best chance of success is still to combine that pill with a good eating plan and exercise.

After months of negotiating. planning and a huge media blitz, Alli goes on sale today. I wrote a little while back about Alli and how it will be coming out and there has definitely been a lot of interest.

Alli is a cut down version of Xenical which is a diet pill that has been effective for losing weight. Cenical has been on the market for a number of years but it needed a prescription to be bought. So with that success Glaxo Smith Kline the Creators of Xenical started on the road to an over the counter product that they have named Alli.

Americans alone spend more than a $1 billion a year on weight loss products. Imagine if the tens of millions of people worldwide had easy access to a diet pill. Well starting today they do.

�The market is so enormous and there are so many overweight people desperate for solutions,� says Professor Kelly Brownell is director of Yale University�s Center for Eating and Weight Disorders.

Alli is a non-prescription version of Xenical, a more potent, prescription-only weight loss drug. Both drugs are brand names for orlistat. They work by blocking fat in the digestive track. The manufacturer admits Alli is not a magic pill, and users need to make a commitment to lifestyle change.

Now that you have the scoop I can tell you that I am not in favor of using a former prescription drug for weight loss. Why bother with pharmaceuticals when there is a natural product that you can buy online and not have to worry about dangerous and dirty side effects? An alternative diet pill product that I have found is called Avatrim. I know I have not reviewed Avatrim on this blog yet but that is because I have not had a good chance to have someone try it (it is on the way to our house now). The review will be coming soon although not as soon as Alli hitting the shelves. Anyway with all of the problems that one can have with drugs it is nice to have a proven effective and natural product on the market as an alternative.

Tags: Alli, Center for Eating and Weight Disorders, counter product, diet pill product, director, Eating and Weight Disorders, huge media, Kelly Brownell, natural product, pharmaceuticals, professor, USD, weight loss products, Xenical, Yale University

What is Glivec? It seems that w3e always hear cancer storeis and that there are not very many good news stories, not that I usually see anyway. Leukemia is a type of blood cancer that is often fatal and I had not ever heard of any drug therapies that were remarkable until I saw a news result today out of England that said that many people taking the drug Glivec are having amazing results. Here is some info on this Drug from Medical News Today.

Most patients who develop chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML) can now expect to live more than 20 years from diagnosis if they are treated with the tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) Glivec (imatinib) according to haematologists involved in the IRIS (International Randomized Interferon versus STI571) study. Before availability of current treatments, median survival from diagnosis was 3.5 years.

Around 95 per cent of patients diagnosed with CML have the Philadelphia chromosome positive (Ph+) form that responds well to Glivec, said Professor John Goldman, professor of haematology at Imperial College, London. The chromosome is the result of translocation between the long arms of chromosomes 9 and 22. Part of the breakpoint cluster region (Bcr) gene from chromosome 22 fuses with part of the abelson leukaemia virus (Abl) gene on chromosome 9 producing the abnormal tyrosine kinase protein Bcr-Abl. It is this protein that causes the proliferation of white blood cells resulting in CML.

Four-year data from IRIS were presented at this year’s American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting. More than 90 per cent of patients with Ph+ CML in the chronic phase, randomised initially to Glivec 400mg daily in the year 2000, were still alive and free of progression to advanced disease at 54 months, Professor Goldman said.

The study confirmed that patients who achieved a major molecular response within one year, ie, a more than 1000-fold reduction in residual leukaemia, fared best. Patients achieving a three-log reduction in Bcr-Abl transcript levels within oneyear were all free of progression to advanced disease at year four.
Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: advanced disease, American Society of Hematology, cancer, Chairman, diabetes, drug therapies, France, Francois Guilhot, Glivec What, Glivec-resistant, Hagop Kantarjian, Imperial College, John Goldman, leukaemia, Leukemia, London, Novartis, Philadelphia, professor, professor of haematology, professor of oncology, Texas, United Kingdom, University of Poitiers