Best exercise for obese youths analyzed

 

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What exercise program can best fight the "epidemic" of teen obesity? According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Pediatrics, by combining aerobic exercise with resistance training.

The Healthy Eating Aerobic and Resistance Training in Youth (HEARTY) study, led by researchers at the University of Calgary and University of Ottawa, involved 304 overweight teens in the Ottawa/Gatineau area between the ages of 14 to 18. All were given the same four weeks of diet counseling to promote healthy eating and weight loss before being randomly placed into four groups. The first group performed resistance training involving weight machines and some free weights; the second performed only aerobic exercise on treadmills, elliptical machines and stationary bikes; the third underwent combined aerobic and resistance training; and the last group did no exercise training.

"Obesity is an epidemic among youth," says Dr. Ron Sigal of the University of Calgary's Institute for Public Health and Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta. "Adolescents who are overweight are typically advised to exercise more, but there is limited evidence on what type of exercise is best in order to lose fat."

In the overall study population, each type of exercise reduced body fat significantly and similarly. All three exercise programs caused significantly more fat loss than in the diet-only control group. Among youths who completed at least 70 per cent of the study's exercise sessions, the percentage of body fat decreased "significantly more in those who did combined aerobic and resistance exercise than in those who only did aerobic exercise," says co-principal researcher Dr. Glen Kenny of the University of Ottawa. "Remarkably, among participants who completed at least 70 per cent of the prescribed exercise sessions, waist circumference decreased close to seven centimeters in those randomized to combined aerobic plus resistance exercise, versus about four centimeters in those randomized to do just one type of exercise, with no change in those randomized to diet alone."

Supervised by personal trainers, youths in the three exercise groups were asked to train four times per week for 22 weeks at community-based facilities. Changes in body fat were measured using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) machines. Because aerobic exercises such as cycling or jogging can be challenging for overweight people, resistance training is potentially attractive because excess body weight poses far less of a disadvantage, and gains in strength come much more quickly than gains in aerobic fitness.

Researchers hope that the study will contribute to a national debate about childhood and teenage obesity, potentially leading to a consistent, long-term strategy on how to best deal with the problem. Eighty per cent of overweight youth typically continue to be obese as adults, adversely affecting the quality of their lives and contributing to chronic disease problems. Adult obesity increases risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer and disability.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of Calgary, Faculty of Medicine. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Ronald J. Sigal, Angela S. Alberga, Gary S. Goldfield, Denis Prud’homme, Stasia Hadjiyannakis, Réjeanne Gougeon, Penny Phillips, Heather Tulloch, Janine Malcolm, Steve Doucette, George A. Wells, Jinhui Ma, Glen P. Kenny. Effects of Aerobic Training, Resistance Training, or Both on Percentage Body Fat and Cardiometabolic Risk Markers in Obese Adolescents. JAMA Pediatrics, 2014; DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.1392

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Statin use during hospitalization for hemorrhagic stroke associated with improved survival

 

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Patients who were treated with a statin in the hospital after suffering from a hemorrhagic stroke were significantly more likely to survive than those who were not, according to a study published today in JAMA Neurology. This study was conducted by the same researchers who recently discovered that the use of cholesterol-lowering statins can improve survival in victims of ischemic stroke.

Ischemic stroke is caused by a constriction or obstruction of a blood vessel that blocks blood from reaching areas of the brain, while hemorrhagic stroke, also known as intracerebral hemorrhage, is bleeding in the brain.

"Some previous research has suggested that treating patients with statins after they suffer hemorrhagic stroke may increase their long-term risk of continued bleeding," said lead author Alexander Flint, MD, PhD, of the Kaiser Permanente Department of Neuroscience in Redwood City, Calif. "Yet the findings of our study suggest that stopping statin treatments for these patients may carry substantial risks."

The study included 3,481 individuals who were admitted to any of 20 Kaiser Permanente hospitals in Northern California with a hemorrhagic stroke over a 10-year period. Researchers looked at patient survival and discharge 30 days after the stroke.

Patients treated with a statin while in the hospital were more likely to be alive 30 days after suffering a hemorrhagic stroke than those who were not treated with a statin — 81.6 percent versus 61.3 percent. Patients treated with a statin while in the hospital were also more likely to be discharged to home or an acute rehabilitation facility than those who were not — 51.1 percent compared to 35.0 percent.

Patients whose statin therapy was discontinued — that is, patients taking a statin as an outpatient prior to experiencing a hemorrhagic stroke who did not receive a statin as an inpatient — had a mortality rate of 57.8 percent compared with a mortality rate of 18.9 percent for patients using a statin before and during hospitalization.

The researchers concluded that statin use is strongly associated with improved outcomes after hemorrhagic stroke, and that discontinuing statin use is strongly associated with worsened outcomes after hemorrhagic stroke.

Kaiser Permanente can conduct transformational health research in part because it has the largest private, patient-centered electronic health system in the world. The organization's electronic health record system, Kaiser Permanente HealthConnect®, securely connects approximately 9.5 million patients to more than 17,000 physicians in more than 600 medical offices and 38 hospitals. It also connects Kaiser Permanente's research scientists to one of the most extensive collections of longitudinal medical data available, facilitating studies and important medical discoveries that shape the future of health and care delivery for patients and the medical community.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Kaiser Permanente. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Alexander C. Flint, Carol Conell, Vivek A. Rao, Jeff G. Klingman, Stephen Sidney, S. Claiborne Johnston, J. Claude Hemphill, Hooman Kamel, Stephen M. Davis, Geoffrey A. Donnan. Effect of Statin Use During Hospitalization for Intracerebral Hemorrhage on Mortality and Discharge Disposition. JAMA Neurology, 2014; DOI: 10.1001/jamaneurol.2014.2124

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We drink more alcohol on gym days

 

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A new Northwestern Medicine® study finds that on days when people exercise more -- typically Thursdays to Sundays -- they drink more alcohol, too.

This is the only study to use smartphone technology and a daily diary approach for self-reporting physical activity and alcohol use.

"Monday through Wednesday people batten down the hatches and they cut back on alcohol consumption," said David E. Conroy, lead author of the study. "But once that 'social weekend' kicks off on Thursdays, physical activity increases and so does alcohol consumption."

Conroy is a professor of preventive medicine and deputy director of the Center for Behavior and Health at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He also is a faculty affiliate of the Methodology Center at The Pennsylvania State University, where the research was conducted.

The study was published online in Health Psychology, an American Psychological Association journal.

"Insufficient physical activity and alcohol use are both linked to many health problems, and excessive alcohol use has many indirect costs as well," Conroy said. "We need to figure out how to use physical activity effectively and safely without having the adverse effects of drinking more alcohol."

One hundred and fifty study participants, ages 18 to 89, recorded their physical activity and alcohol use in smartphones at the end of the day. They did so for 21 days at a time, at three different times throughout one year.

Other studies on physical activity and alcohol relied on people self-reporting their behavior over the past 30 days.

"In this study, people only have to remember one day of activity or consumption at time, so they are less vulnerable to memory problems or other biases that come in to play when asked to report the past 30 days of behavior," Conroy said. "We think this is a really good method for getting around some of those self-report measurement problems."

The previous studies, which relied on 30-day self-reporting, concluded that physically active people tend to drink more alcohol -- something this study did not find.

"We zoomed in the microscope and got a very up-close and personal look at these behaviors on a day-to-day basis and see it's not people who exercise more drink more -- it's that on days when people are more active they tend to drink more than on days they are less active," Conroy said. "This finding was uniform across study participants of all levels of physical activity and ages."

Through future studies at the Center for Behavior and Health at Feinberg, Conroy hopes to discover what drives people to drink more on days they exercise more.

"Perhaps people reward themselves for working out by having more to drink or maybe being physically active leads them to encountering more social situations where alcohol is consumed -- we don't know," Conroy said. "Once we understand the connection between the two variables we can design novel interventions that promote physical activity while curbing alcohol use."

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Northwestern University. The original article was written by Erin White. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. David E. Conroy, Nilam Ram, Aaron L. Pincus, Donna L. Coffman, Amy E. Lorek, Amanda L. Rebar, Michael J. Roche. Daily Physical Activity and Alcohol Use Across the Adult Lifespan.. Health Psychology, 2014; DOI: 10.1037/hea0000157

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Reversing the effects of pulmonary fibrosis with a microRNA mimic

 

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Yale University researchers are studying a potential new treatment that reverses the effects of pulmonary fibrosis, a respiratory disease in which scars develop in the lungs and severely hamper breathing.

The treatment uses a microRNA mimic, miR-29, which is delivered to lung tissue intravenously. In mouse models, miR-29 not only blocked pulmonary fibrosis, it reversed fibrosis after several days.

The findings were published Sept. 19 in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine.

"The mimic, when injected into the blood, goes to the lung and it has a sustained effect. We are very impressed that it can reverse fibrosis, not only prevent it," said Naftali Kaminski, M.D., a professor at Yale School of Medicine and section chief of pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. He is a corresponding author of the study.

The research is a collaboration between Yale and miRagen Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company based in Boulder, Colo. The company had developed miR-29 previously as a possible therapy for cardiac disease. Kaminski, whose group pioneered research in microRNA in lung fibrosis, saw the potential for use of miR-29 in pulmonary fibrosis, as did Eva van Rooij, the scientist who discovered the role for miR-29 in cardiac fibrosis and is a senior co-author on the paper.

"I'm particularly excited about working with this microRNA," said van Rooij, who now is at the Hubrecht Institute in the Netherlands. "All evidence points to it being a master regulator of fibrosis."

The next step, Kaminski said, will be to begin evaluating miR-29 as a therapeutic for human Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). Once considered a rare disease, IPF now affects more than 200,000 people in the United States, where about 30,000 people die from IPF every year. The median survival from diagnosis is 3-5 years, and despite recent promising advances there is no intervention that reverses the disease.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Yale University. The original article was written by Jim Shelton. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. R. L. Montgomery, G. Yu, P. A. Latimer, C. Stack, K. Robinson, C. M. Dalby, N. Kaminski, E. van Rooij. MicroRNA mimicry blocks pulmonary fibrosis. EMBO Molecular Medicine, 2014; DOI: 10.15252/emmm.201303604

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Artificial liver tested as potential therapy for patients with alcohol-related organ failure

 

September 22, 2014

Cedars-Sinai Medical Center

A novel, human cell based, bioartificial liver support system is being tested for patients with acute liver failure, often a fatal diagnosis. The external organ support system is designed to perform critical functions of a normal liver, including protein synthesis and the processing and cleaning of a patient's blood. The filtered and treated blood is then returned to the patient through the central line.

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ELAD® investigational bio-artificial liver support system.

Cedars-Sinai physicians and scientists are testing a novel, human cell based, bioartificial liver support system for patients with acute liver failure, often a fatal diagnosis.

"The quest for a device that can fill in for the function of the liver, at least temporarily, has been underway for decades. A bioartificial liver, also known as a BAL, could potentially sustain patients with acute liver failure until their own livers self-repair," said Steven D. Colquhoun, MD, the surgical director of liver transplantation at Cedars-Sinai's Comprehensive Transplant Center.

Colquhoun is leading an investigation at Cedars-Sinai to assess the safety and effectiveness of the ELAD® bioartificial liver system, which is designed by Vital Therapies Inc., the sponsor of the clinical trials. The majority of the 49 sites currently involved in the investigation are in the United States, but studies are also underway in Europe and Australia. The research at Cedars-Sinai involves patients with liver disease caused by acute alcoholic hepatitis, a group with few therapeutic options.

In the bioartificial liver under investigation, blood is drawn from the patient via a central venous line, and then is filtered through a component system featuring four tubes, each about 1 foot long, which are embedded with liver cells. The external organ support system is designed to perform critical functions of a normal liver, including protein synthesis and the processing and cleaning of a patient's blood. The filtered and treated blood is then returned to the patient through the central line.

"If successful, a bioartificial liver could not only allow time for a patient's own damaged organ to regenerate, but also promote that regeneration. In the case of chronic liver failure, it also potentially could support some patients through the long wait for a liver transplant," said Colquhoun.

The functions of the liver are very complex. The 3-pound organ that sits to the right of the stomach performs many functions including detoxification, regulation of glucose levels and the making of vital proteins. Liver failure can be caused by trauma, such as an accident, by viral infections, overdosing on drugs -- including some over-the-counter pain medications -- and from alcohol abuse. Liver failure is often life-threatening in a matter of days.

Devices that do the work of human organs have been used successfully for years. Patients with kidney disease can use dialysis, and those with cardiac problems have ventricular assist devices or artificial hearts available to support or replace vital organ functions.

"Liver failure patients and their doctors have long been frustrated by the critical need to provide the kind of life-saving care kidney patients are afforded by dialysis. This important investigation we are undertaking at Cedars-Sinai is a critical step in addressing the medical emergency presented by liver failure," said Andrew S. Klein MD, MBA, director of the Comprehensive Transplant Center and the Esther and Mark Schulman Chair in Surgery and Transplantation Medicine.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Microsoft deve anunciar Windows 9 neste mês; SO pode ser lançado em outubro

 

Rumores sobre o anúncio do Windows 9 têm circulado pela internet já há alguns dias. Agendado para o final deste mês, o evento que deverá servir como palco à apresentação da nova versão do sistema operacional não tinha, até então, data definida. Nesta semana, porém, o dia 30 de setembro ganhou a atenção por parte da mídia especializada em tecnologia eletrônica: a empresa fundada por Bill Gates irá tornar pública a edição atualizada de seu SO durante o último dia deste mês.

Fato é que especulações acerca da iminente chegada do software têm revelado aos internautas o que parecem ser as novidades do tal sistema – na semana passada, por exemplo, a interface do Windows 9 vazou web afora.

Dentre as novas funções que poderão ser executadas por meio do Menu Iniciar, destacam-se a multi-desktop, acessível através da Central de Notificações, e a apresentação de aplicativos por meio de barras feita após o pressionar do botão “Home”; suporte a monitores 8K e ritmo de atualizações acelerado são outros dos serviços que o Windows 9 poderá prestar a seus usuários. Espera-se que o novo SO seja lançado em outubro deste ano. Será?

Urinary tract infections: Getting better without antibiotics

 

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Given the option, many women with symptoms of urinary tract infections are choosing to avoid antibiotics and give their bodies a chance to heal naturally, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Family Practice. The research shows that 70% of women with symptoms of uncomplicated urinary tract infections who did not use antibiotics for a week were cured or showed improvement.

Antimicrobial-resistant bacteria are already a big problem and the incidence of 'superbugs', which are resistant to several antibiotics, is on the rise. Over use of antibiotics increases the chances of disease causing bacteria developing resistance to antibiotics. Obviously for serious bacterial infections antibiotics can be a life saver, but they do not work on viruses, and for many minor bacterial infections the body's own immune system is more than capable of fighting off the invaders on its own.

In this study, based at the University of Amsterdam, women with symptoms of uncomplicated urinary tract infections were asked if they would be willing to postpone taking antibiotics. A third of the women asked were willing to delay treatment and a week later about half of these had still not used antibiotics and more than two thirds of these were better or had improvement in their clinical condition.

Dr Bart Knottnerus, from the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam, who led this study commented that "Women may be more receptive to the idea of delaying treatment than is commonly assumed by many clinicians. Given proper observations to simply doing nothing, or giving pain medication instead of an antibiotic, is an effective treatment and one which will reduce the risk of developing antibiotic-resistant bacteria."

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by BioMed Central Limited. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Bart J Knottnerus, Suzanne E Geerlings, Eric P van Charante, Gerben ter Riet. Women with symptoms of uncomplicated urinary tract infection are often willing to delay antibiotic treatment: a prospective cohort study. BMC Family Practice, 2013; 14 (1): 71 DOI: 10.1186/1471-2296-14-71

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Battling superbugs: Two new technologies could enable novel strategies for combating drug-resistant bacteria

 

MIT engineers have now turned a powerful new weapon on these superbugs. Using a gene-editing system that can disable any target gene, they have shown that they can selectively kill bacteria carrying harmful genes that confer antibiotic resistance or cause disease.

Led by Timothy Lu, an associate professor of biological engineering and electrical engineering and computer science, the researchers described their findings in the Sept. 21 issue of Nature Biotechnology. Last month, Lu's lab reported a different approach to combating resistant bacteria by identifying combinations of genes that work together to make bacteria more susceptible to antibiotics.

Lu hopes that both technologies will lead to new drugs to help fight the growing crisis posed by drug-resistant bacteria.

"This is a pretty crucial moment when there are fewer and fewer new antibiotics available, but more and more antibiotic resistance evolving," he says. "We've been interested in finding new ways to combat antibiotic resistance, and these papers offer two different strategies for doing that."

Cutting out resistance

Most antibiotics work by interfering with crucial functions such as cell division or protein synthesis. However, some bacteria, including the formidable MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and CRE (carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae) organisms, have evolved to become virtually untreatable with existing drugs.

In the new Nature Biotechnology study, graduate students Robert Citorik and Mark Mimee worked with Lu to target specific genes that allow bacteria to survive antibiotic treatment. The CRISPR genome-editing system presented the perfect strategy to go after those genes.

CRISPR, originally discovered by biologists studying the bacterial immune system, involves a set of proteins that bacteria use to defend themselves against bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria). One of these proteins, a DNA-cutting enzyme called Cas9, binds to short RNA guide strands that target specific sequences, telling Cas9 where to make its cuts.

Lu and colleagues decided to turn bacteria's own weapons against them. They designed their RNA guide strands to target genes for antibiotic resistance, including the enzyme NDM-1, which allows bacteria to resist a broad range of beta-lactam antibiotics, including carbapenems. The genes encoding NDM-1 and other antibiotic resistance factors are usually carried on plasmids -- circular strands of DNA separate from the bacterial genome -- making it easier for them to spread through populations.

When the researchers turned the CRISPR system against NDM-1, they were able to specifically kill more than 99 percent of NDM-1-carrying bacteria, while antibiotics to which the bacteria were resistant did not induce any significant killing. They also successfully targeted another antibiotic resistance gene encoding SHV-18, a mutation in the bacterial chromosome providing resistance to quinolone antibiotics, and a virulence factor in enterohemorrhagic E. coli.

In addition, the researchers showed that the CRISPR system could be used to selectively remove specific bacteria from diverse bacterial communities based on their genetic signatures, thus opening up the potential for "microbiome editing" beyond antimicrobial applications.

To get the CRISPR components into bacteria, the researchers created two delivery vehicles -- engineered bacteria that carry CRISPR genes on plasmids, and bacteriophage particles that bind to the bacteria and inject the genes. Both of these carriers successfully spread the CRISPR genes through the population of drug-resistant bacteria. Delivery of the CRISPR system into waxworm larvae infected with a harmful form of E. coli resulted in increased survival of the larvae.

The researchers are now testing this approach in mice, and they envision that eventually the technology could be adapted to deliver the CRISPR components to treat infections or remove other unwanted bacteria in human patients.

High-speed genetic screens

Another tool Lu has developed to fight antibiotic resistance is a technology called CombiGEM. This system, described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences the week of Aug. 11, allows scientists to rapidly and systematically search for genetic combinations that sensitize bacteria to different antibiotics.

To test the system, Lu and his graduate student, Allen Cheng, created a library of 34,000 pairs of bacterial genes. All of these genes code for transcription factors, which are proteins that control the expression of other genes. Each gene pair is contained on a single piece of DNA that also includes a six-base-pair barcode for each gene. These barcodes allow the researchers to rapidly identify the genes in each pair without having to sequence the entire strand of DNA.

"You can take advantage of really high-throughput sequencing technologies that allow you, in a single shot, to assess millions of genetic combinations simultaneously and pick out the ones that are successful," Lu says.

The researchers then delivered the gene pairs into drug-resistant bacteria and treated them with different antibiotics. For each antibiotic, they identified gene combinations that enhanced the killing of target bacteria by 10,000- to 1,000,000-fold. The researchers are now investigating how these genes exert their effects.

"This platform allows you to discover the combinations that are really interesting, but it doesn't necessarily tell you why they work well," Lu says. "This is a high-throughput technology for uncovering genetic combinations that look really interesting, and then you have to go downstream and figure out the mechanisms."

Once scientists understand how these genes influence antibiotic resistance, they could try to design new drugs that mimic the effects, Lu says. It is also possible that the genes themselves could be used as a treatment, if researchers can find a safe and effective way to deliver them.

CombiGEM also enables the generation of combinations of three or four genes in a more powerful way than previously existing methods. "We're excited about the application of CombiGEM to probe complex multifactorial phenotypes, such as stem cell differentiation, cancer biology, and synthetic circuits," Lu says.

Immune system of newborn babies stronger than previously thought

 

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The team discovered that whilst T cells in newborn babies are largely different to those in adults, it is not because they are immunosuppressed; rather, they manufacture a potent anti-bacterial molecule known as IL8 that has not previously been considered a major product of T cells, and that activates neutrophils to attack the body's foreign invaders.

Contrary to what was previously thought, newborn immune T cells may have the ability to trigger an inflammatory response to bacteria, according to a new study led by King's College London. Although their immune system works very differently to that of adults, babies may still be able to mount a strong immune defense, finds the study published in the journal Nature Medicine.

Our immune system is made up of several different types of immune cells, including neutrophils which play an important role in the frontline defense against infection, and lymphocytes: B cells which produce antibodies, and T cells that target cells infected with viruses and microbes.

Up to now, it was generally believed that babies have an immature immune system that doesn't trigger the same inflammatory response normally seen in adults. Although babies need to protect themselves from the harmful pathogens they are exposed to from birth, it was thought that their T cells were suppressed to some extent to prevent inflammatory damage to the developing child. Sceptical of this notion, the King's-led study set out to characterize the properties of T cells, examining very small samples of blood in twenty-eight highly premature babies, as they developed over the first few weeks of life.

The team discovered that whilst T cells in newborn babies are largely different to those in adults, it is not because they are immunosuppressed; rather, they manufacture a potent anti-bacterial molecule known as IL8 that has not previously been considered a major product of T cells, and that activates neutrophils to attack the body's foreign invaders.

Dr Deena GibbonsDeena Gibbons, lead author in the Department of Immunobiology at King's College London, says: "We found that babies have an in-built anti-bacterial defense mechanism that works differently to adults, but nevertheless may be effective in protecting them. This may also be a mechanism by which the baby protects itself in the womb from infections of the mother. The next stage of our work will be to better understand the pathways that result in the immune cells of newborns being so different to those in adults."

This T cell activity could become a target for future treatments aimed at boosting the immune system of neonates in intensive care, where infection is a major risk for morbidity and mortality. Premature babies are also at serious risk of developing inflammatory diseases such as necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), where severe inflammation destroys tissues in the gut. NEC is the most common gastrointestinal surgical emergency in preterm babies, with mortality rates of around 15 to 30 per cent in the UK.

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by King's College London. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. Deena Gibbons et al. Interleukin-8 (CXCL8) production is a signatory T cell effector function of human newborn infants. Nature Medicine, September 2014

Live Longer with This 30-Minute Habit

 

You could cut your mortality risk dramatically if you just did this for 30 minutes: walk.

Or ride your stationary bike. Or dance. Or chase the grandkids around outside. Or shovel some snow. Or all of the above. Just be active for 30 minutes, five times a week. This simple choice cut mortality risk by nearly 20 percent in a study.

Walk the Walk
You can't be your best and be there for others unless you take care of yourself first. So no matter how busy life gets, make time for the active things in life that you enjoy. Doesn't have to be a killer ab workout or a sweat-till-you-drop spin class. In a study, people who simply did nonvigorous physical activity for 2 1/2 hours a week saw their risk of dying from any cause drop by almost 20 percent compared with the couch potatoes. If there's no special activity that floats your boat, just walk. Hoofing it for 30 minutes, five times a week, is a small and easy investment to make in your long-term health. (What can walking do for you? Check out this Top 10 list.)

Moving Matters
Of course, a little sweat is healthy, too, so if you want to crank it up a notch, and you don't have any health conditions in the way, feel free. When the people in the study kicked activity levels into high gear -- logging 7 hours of moderate-intensity exercise each week -- their mortality risk dropped by 25 percent compared with nonactive folks. Chalk it up to the favorable impact exercise has on weight (active people gain less over time) and blood pressure (exercise helps keep those blood vessel walls nice and relaxed). Make walking a regular part of your life with these easy strategies:

Learn the four secrets to turning your walk into a serious weight loss tool.

Age Benefits

A physical activity program that builds stamina, strength, and flexibility can make your RealAge as much as 2.8 years younger.

 

Healthy and beautiful eyes

 

 

7 foods for healthy eyes

Top 10 Foods to Lower Cholesterol

A bad diet is a key cause of unhealthy cholesterol levels. But here are the top...

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  If you have unhealthy cholesterol levels (or want to prevent them), one of the first things you should examine is your diet. Are you eating foods that help reduce cholesterol? Or avoiding the ones that cause unhealthy cholesterol levels to creep higher? If not, we've got 10 cholesterol-lowering foods you should grab next time you're at the grocery store. Bonus: Lowering your bad (LDL) cholesterol can make your RealAge 3.3 years younger if you're a man, 0.6 years younger if you're a woman!

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  Almonds and Cholesterol

  Almonds are pretty hardworking nuts when it comes to lowering your cholesterol. First, they're rich in unsaturated fats that help raise healthy HDL cholesterol while lowering unhealthy LDL. Second, these fats also help make LDL cholesterol less likely to oxidize. Which is a fabulous thing, because when LDL oxidizes, it's more likely to gunk up your arteries and cut blood flow to the heart. Snack away. But do keep an eye on portion size. Almonds are high in calories, and all you need are a couple of ounces a day to reap benefits.

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  Drink Orange Juice

  OJ manufacturers are doing everything they can to make their health food more appealing -- including fortifying their juice with plant-derived cholesterol-busting compounds known as phytosterols. A review of 84 scientific studies revealed that getting 2 grams of phytosterols a day - the amount in a couple 8-ounce glasses of sterol-fortified OJ -- could help lower harmful LDL levels by more than 8 percent. Check with your doctor first regarding whether citrus will interact with any of your medications. If it does, look for sterol-fortified margarine, milk, soymilk, cheese, or breads instead.

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  About Olive Oil and Cholesterol

  This oil is a nutritional superstar -- rich in antioxidants and heart-healthy monounsaturated fats that help lower "bad" LDL cholesterol and increase "good" HDL. In fact, in a study of people with high cholesterol, blood samples showed less potential for harmful clotting just two hours after the study subjects ate a meal with olive oil. That's because olive oil is rich in phenolics, plant substances that makes blood less likely to clot. All you need is about 2 tablespoons a day for benefit (use it in place of other fats).

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  Steamed Asparagus

  There's nothing wrong with a platter of crudités or a salad if you want to improve your diet, but steaming may help improve the cholesterol-lowering capabilities of some produce, including asparagus. Other veggies that get better after a short bout in the steam: beets, okra, carrots, eggplant, green beans, and cauliflower. Researchers think steaming these veggies may help them do a better job of binding bile acids, which means your liver needs to use up more LDL cholesterol into order to make bile. That translates into less circulating LDL in your bloodstream.

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  Oatmeal and Cholesterol

  Your mama was right. Starting the day with a bowl of warm, toasty oatmeal is a smart move. Of all the whole grains, oats are the best source of soluble fiber -- the kind that forms a gel to prevent cholesterol from being absorbed into your bloodstream. Shoot for five to 10 grams of soluble fiber per day. If you have 1¼ cups of cooked oatmeal for breakfast, you'll start your day with 5 grams of the stuff. Top your oatmeal with a chopped-up apple for an extra 3 grams of fiber, and you're set.

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  Cook Pinto Beans

  Next time you make chili, add pinto beans to the pot. They're packed with soluble fiber to help drive down cholesterol. And in a study, people who ate a half-cup of pinto beans a day lowered their total cholesterol by 8 percent in just 12 weeks. Ole! (Tip: If you use canned beans, rinse them to wash away excess sodium.)

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  Blueberries Lower Cholesterol

  You've heard by now that blueberries are a nutritious superfood. One reason why they're so great? They help keep your arteries clear by reducing blood levels of artery-clogging LDL. Researchers suspect it's because the berries support liver function so well. The end result: cholesterol gets swept out of your system much more easily. Enjoy blueberries fresh, frozen, or freeze-dried. They still have the same benefits.

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  Tomatoes and Cholesterol

  Include lycopene-rich tomato products in your diet every day for a few weeks, and you may knock your bad LDL cholesterol levels down by as much as 10 percent, according to a recent study. Researchers think the lycopene in tomatoes inhibits LDL production while at the same time helping break down this artery-clogging fat. You'll need to consume at least 25 milligrams of lycopene a day for cholesterol benefits. That's about a half cup of tomato sauce. Bring on the marinara!

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  About Avocado and Cholesterol

  We always keep ripe avocados in the RealAge kitchen. Why? They're chock-full of heart-healthy monounsaturated fats that help knock down bad LDL cholesterol and triglycerides while boosting healthy HDL cholesterol. Even better, we love the fruit's (yep, it's a fruit) mild flavor and creamy texture. Mash avocado into guacamole, add slices to a sandwich, chop it up in a salad, or -- for a tasty snack -- simply spread a little on whole-grain crackers with a tiny pinch of coarse sea salt.

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  About Chocolate and Cholesterol

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Narrow focus on physical activity could be ruining kids' playtime

 

September 21, 2014

University of Montreal

While public health authorities focus on the physical activity benefits of active play, a new study reveals that for children, playing has no goal -- it is an end in itself, an activity that is fun, done alone or with friends, and it represents "an opportunity to experience excitement or pleasure, but also to combat boredom, sadness, fear, or loneliness."'By focusing on the physical activity aspect of play, authorities put aside several aspects of play that are beneficial to young people's emotional and social health,' says a professor.

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While public health authorities focus on the physical activity benefits of active play, a new study from the University of Montreal reveals that for children, playing has no goal -- it is an end in itself, an activity that is fun, done alone or with friends, and it represents "an opportunity to experience excitement or pleasure, but also to combat boredom, sadness, fear, or loneliness." "By focusing on the physical activity aspect of play, authorities put aside several aspects of play that are beneficial to young people's emotional and social health," explains Professor Katherine Frohlich of the university's Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, who supervised the study. "Play is a way to achieve various objectives, including the improvement of physical health and the development of cognitive and social aptitudes. Obviously, we must ensure children's development and combat obesity. But to get there, must we distort play?"

The study involved a photography and interview project with 25 Montreal area children, aged 7 to 11 years, as they photographed and talked about their favourite ways to play. One 10 year old girl loved climbing on a modern art sculpture near her home, for example. "Play is an activity that brings pleasure and is purposeless," explained the study's first author Dr. Stephanie Alexander, also of the university's Department of Social and Preventive Medicine. Children's photographs of their leisure activities show that sports are well represented -- balls, bicycles, hockey, and baseball -- but so are many sedentary activities, such as puzzles, knitting, reading, movies, and video games. Animals and pets were also photographed by many.

The semi-structured interviews allowed Alexander to better understand the meaning of play for the children. "Play reframed as a way for improving physical health removes the spontaneity, fun, and freedom in children's play, which is also important for their well-being," Alexander said. "Active play alone does not make up many children's preferences." It is also clear that risk-taking is an integral part of children's play preferences. "Allowing children to take acceptable risks while remaining vigilant is indeed beneficial to their development," Alexander added. "An overemphasis on safety may contribute to the emergence of a generation of young people that is less and less able to cope with the unpredictable."

In summary, the researchers identified four dimensions of play particularly important to children: play as an end in itself (children play for fun, not for exercise or for developing their mental and social skills); play isn't necessarily active (many children also enjoy more sedentary games); children feel ambiguous about scheduled play activities (children have little time for free play); and risk is considered a pleasurable component of their play. "Despite the abundance of messages targeting children and play and health, children's perspectives are rarely taken into account within public health, although they have social and scientific value," Frohlich said. "We hope that our findings will inform and improve the way authorities and indeed parents approach playtime."

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of Montreal. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. S. A. Alexander, K. L. Frohlich, C. Fusco. Problematizing "Play-for-Health" Discourses Through Children's Photo-Elicited Narratives. Qualitative Health Research, 2014; 24 (10): 1329 DOI: 10.1177/1049732314546753

Can 1 miracle plant solve the world's 3 greatest problems?

 

Kenaf, the carbon-sequestering monster plant, provides food, shelter and carbon credits.

 

Photo: Stop-global-warming.org

If someone were to tell you that they had a technology — a weed actually — that could sequester huge amounts of carbon permanently while lifting villagers out of poverty by providing both protein-rich food and super-insulated building materials, you might start to wonder if they were, well, smoking a different weed. 

But it appears that one retired building contractor, Bill Loftus, has actually come upon a brilliant application of the fast-growing, carbon-sucking plant known as Kenaf. Kenaf is in the Hibiscus family and is thus related to both cotton and okra. Originally from Africa, this 4,000-year-old crop was used for its fiber. It has the astonishing ability to grow up to 14 feet in one growing season, yielding 6-10 tons of fiber per acre and making it a great source of pulp for paper.

But researchers have also discovered (PDF) a corresponding ability of Kenaf to inhale huge quantities of our most abundant global warming gas — CO2. We all now know we need to dramatically reduce our emissions, but even if we were to cut them by 50 percent in the next 10 years (an almost unachievable goal), we still have decades worth of CO2 that has yet to impact the climate. In other words, we need a technology that can actively pull CO2 out of the air and store it ... permanently, now.

It turns out that Kenaf can absorb 3-8 times more CO2 than a tree. One acre of Kenaf can pull about 10 tons of CO2 out of the air per growing season, and in some parts of the world it can be cut back and regrown for a second season. With proper management, a single acre planted in Kenaf could absorb 20 tons of CO2.

But its not enough to simply absorb CO2. In order to create verifiable carbon credits, the CO2 must be sequestered permanently. This is where Bill Loftus comes in. Having worked for decades in the green building industry, he realized the abundant fiber of the Kenaf plant would be perfect as a filler to produce light-weight, super-insulating, fireproof concrete blocks that permanently sequester the carbon.

He patented the block, which weighs under 9 lbs, and is currently using it in two pilot projects in Haiti and South Africa, areas that have been hard hit by natural disasters and famine. The plant leaves are rich in protein (34 percent) and much-loved by chickens. So early in the season, it makes perfect feed in areas where feed is often not even available. The chickens in turn fertilize the soil and provide food for the villagers.

I still have a few questions — in particular about soil depletion and the invasiveness of the species — but I will be interviewing the CEO of Quantum-ionics, the distributor of the block, to get more answers. In the meantime you can check out Bill Loftus' website and join his crusade to stop global warming, one kenaf plant at a time.

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