NOVEMBER FITNESS NEWS
(INFORMATION SUPPLIED BY Member Gymbag at www.fitnessnetwork.com.au)
Lose fat, gain sleep
A
recent study from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine has
reinforced previously held suppositions that people who lose weight will
also benefit from improved sleep.
The sleep benefits were recorded in individuals who lost weight
both through diet, and through diet combined with exercise. Good
quality sleep is linked to better physical and mental wellbeing.
Senior study author, Kerry Stewart, a professor of medicine at
the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of clinical
and research exercise physiology, said ‘We found that improvement in
sleep quality was significantly associated with overall weight loss,
especially belly fat’.
Over a six-month period, 55 overweight or obese study
participants with type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes took part in either
dieting to achieve weight loss, or diet and exercise. They also
responded to a survey on sleep habits and behaviours, both prior to and
following the study.
Participants in both groups reduced their belly fat percentage
by around 15 per cent, and lost an average 6.8kg. Additionally, both
groups self-reported improved sleep quality of around 20 per cent by the
study’s conclusion.
Commenting on the findings, Stewart said ‘The key ingredient
for improved sleep quality from our study was a reduction in overall
body fat, and, in particular belly fat, which was true no matter the age
or gender of the participants or whether the weight loss came from diet
alone or diet plus exercise’.
Source: Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Activity boosts performance in kids
Research
has found that even a few minutes
per day of physical activity can lead
to improved academic performance in children, including those with
attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
For the small study, 40 children aged 8 to 10 years – 20 of
them with ADHD and 20 without – either walked briskly on a treadmill for
20 minutes or sat down to read a book. Following this, all of the
children completed reading and maths tests and played a computer game
that gauged their ability to focus on something without distraction.
The exercising groups – of both ADHD and non-ADHD children – performed better than the non-exercising groups.
Study leader and assistant professor of kinesiology at Michigan
State University, Matthew Pontifex, said ‘This provides some very early
evidence that exercise might be a tool in our non-pharmaceutical
treatment of ADHD. Maybe our first course of action that we would
recommend to developmental psychologists would be to increase children's
physical activity.’
Source:
Journal of Pediatrics
Hypnosis may reduce hot flushes
Recent US research has found that hypnosis may help to significantly alleviate hot flushes in menopausal women.
Researchers led by Gary Elkins, director of the Mind-Body Medicine
Research Laboratory at Baylor University in Texas, found that hypnosis
could reduce the frequency of hot flushes by up to 74 per cent.
For the study 187 women who reported having a minimum of seven hot
flushes a day were allocated to either five weekly sessions of clinical
hypnosis with at-home practice, or a five-week course of ‘structured
attention’ treatment, which involved positive thinking and provision of
information.
Twelve weeks after the treatment, the frequency of hot flushes was
gauged via self-reporting and via measurement with a skin conductance
monitor. The hypnosis group reported 74 per cent fewer hot flashes, and
the comparison group 17 per cent fewer than prior to the treatment.
‘Our results indicated both a reduction in perceived hot flashes and
physiologically verified reduction in hot flashes over three months’
said Elkins.
Source:
Menopause
Go Home On Time Day encourages work/life balance
Wednesday
21 November this year's national Go Home On Time Day – the day
Australians are encouraged to say 'no' to last-minute meetings, avoid
out-of-hours emails and calls, and claim back some work/life balance.
Now in its fourth year, Go Home On Time Day was conceived by The
Australia Institute, a public policy think tank, as a light-hearted way
to start a serious conversation about the impact of poor work/life
balance on our health, relationships and workplaces.
The Australia Institute's executive director Dr Richard Denniss said
for many Australians leaving work on time is actually harder than it
seems; ‘Whether it's not knowing what time you're supposed to finish
work, or feeling guilty if you're the first to leave the office, getting
out the door can be a daily battle for many Australians. National Go
Home On Time Day provides at least one day of the year on which people
can achieve a better work and life balance’ said Denniss.
This year the Australia Institute is working with
beyondblue: the national depression and anxiety initiative to highlight the social and economic costs of job-related stress, which can lead to depression and anxiety.
beyondblue is developing a range of new workplace resources to help managers discuss these issues with employees.
The Australia Institute reports that:
- Each year, Australians work more than two billion hours of unpaid overtime
- One in two Australians reports spending less time with family than
they would like to because of work, as well as doing less physical
activity
- Work prevents one in three of us from eating healthy meals
For information and resources go to www.gohomeontimeday.org.au or www.facebook.com/gohomeontimeday
Source: The Australia Institute
Fruit and vegies help kidney patients
Preliminary
research from the US has found that increasing the amount of fruit and
vegetables in the diet may improve the health of some kidney disease
patients.
Taking their cue from alkaline therapy, which is used to treat kidney
disease patients with too much acid in their bodies (severe metabolic
acidosis), researchers examined if there was any benefit to be gained by
adding fruit and vegetables (highly alkaline) to the diets of kidney
disease patients with less severe metabolic acidosis.
For the study 108 kidney disease patients were divided into one of
three groups: the first received extra fruit and vegetables in their
diets; the second an oral alkaline medication; and the third, control
group, received nothing. After three years, the study participants who
consumed the increased quantities of fruits and vegetables or took the
oral medication displayed a reduced marker of metabolic acidosis and
preserved kidney function.
Study author Dr Nimrit Goraya, of Texas A&M College of Medicine,
said ‘Our findings suggest that an apple a day keeps the nephrologist
away’.
Source: American Society of Nephrology
Multivitamins no effect on heart
A
new study has found that multivitamins – taken daily by millions of
people worldwide – have no discernible effect on stroke, heart disease
or heart attack.
The study by researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard
Medical School, in Boston monitored the cardiovascular health of around
15,000 older male doctors over a period of more than 10 years (the
Physicians Health Study II). Over this time no benefit was perceived to
be gained from taking multivitamins when compared to those who took a
placebo. The study did find a link between cancer prevention and taking
multivitamins, however – a reduction of about 8 per cent.
Lead study author Howard Sesso, said ‘I think that people take for
granted the idea that, 'You take a supplement, it must be good for you
somehow'. In fact, unless you do trials like this, that's really the
only definitive way to provide evidence-based medicine to make the right
decisions for patients.’
Commenting on the findings, Dr Dariush Mozaffarian, an associate
professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, said ‘The danger of
taking multivitamins is that it will lead you to think that you don't
need to do the other lifestyle things that are important. I think that
for many patients, they take a multivitamin or other supplements – and
it's a multibillion dollar industry – as a means to improve their health
as a quick fix. That can actually be dangerous and have negative
effects, because they are not going to be doing the things related to
their diet and physical activity or smoking.’
Sesso concurred, saying ‘For many people, they take vitamin
supplements as a crutch, and you want to avoid that scenario.
Multivitamins and vitamin supplements represent a quick fix if you will,
and we know that there are some benefits that can be seen from
multivitamins, like cancer, but for cardiovascular disease we did not
see the benefit.’
Source:
Journal of the American Medical Association
