Fitness
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by Dr Alex Jimenez | Alzheimer's, Exercise, Fitness
(HealthDay News) — Healthy aging of the brain relies on the health of your heart and blood vessels when you’re younger, a new study reports.
People with risk factors for heart disease and stroke in middle age are more likely to have elevated levels of amyloid, a sticky protein known to clump together and form plaques in the brains of people with Alzheimer’s disease, the researchers said.
Amyloid In The Brain
MRI scans revealed larger deposits of amyloid in the brains of seniors who smoked, had high blood pressure, were obese, diabetic or had elevated cholesterol levels when they were middle-aged, said lead researcher Dr. Rebecca Gottesman. She’s an assistant professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore.
All of these risk factors can affect the health of a person’s blood vessels, otherwise known as vascular health, leading to hardening of the arteries and other disorders.
“Amyloid is what we think, by leading hypotheses, accumulates to cause Alzheimer’s disease. So this suggests that vascular risk in middle age may play a direct role in the development of Alzheimer’s disease,” Gottesman said.
Two or more risk factors nearly tripled a person’s risk of large amyloid deposits. One risk factor alone increased the likelihood of amyloid deposits by 88 percent, the study found.
Obesity
Obesity in particular stood out as a strong risk factor, on its own doubling a person’s risk of elevated amyloid later in life, said Steven Austad, chair of biology of aging and the evolution of life histories at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.
“In terms of one risk factor by itself, that turned out to be the most important one, which is interesting,” Austad said. “Twenty years ago obesity was not the problem that it is now, suggesting that 20 years from now things might be considerably worse.”
Gottesman and her colleagues examined data from nearly 350 people whose heart health has been tracked since 1987 as part of an ongoing study. The average age of the study participants was 52 at the start of the study. Sixty percent were women, and 43 percent were black. The average follow-up time was almost 24 years.
When the participants entered the study, none of them had dementia. About two decades later, they were asked to come back and undergo brain scans to check for signs of amyloid.
The researchers discovered a link between heart risk factors and brain amyloid. The relationship did not vary based either on race or known genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s.
Poor Blood Vessel Upkeep
Heart risk factors that cropped up late in life were not associated with brain amyloid deposits. What a person does in their middle age is what apparently contributes to their later risk of elevated amyloid, not what happens later, Gottesman said.
The study did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship, but there are several theories why the health of a person’s blood vessels might be linked to Alzheimer’s.
Blood and spinal fluid contain amyloid, and some think that unhealthy blood vessels might allow amyloid to leak out of the bloodstream and into brain tissue, said Austad, a spokesman for the American Federation for Aging Research.
“The idea that the first injury to the brain is really an injury to the blood vessels of the brain has been around for a while, and this would support that, generally,” Austad said. “The amyloid plaques, you’re not seeing them inside the vessels. You’re seeing them outside the vessels, in the brain.”
Blood vessels also play a role in flushing out broken-down amyloid particles that naturally occur in a person’s brain, said Keith Fargo, director of scientific programs and outreach for the Alzheimer’s Association.
“You can imagine if there’s something wrong with your brain’s circulation, it could affect the clearance of this amyloid in some way,” Fargo said.
Hardened arteries also can lead to strokes or mini-strokes that affect the ability to think and remember in some people as they age, which contributes to dementia and Alzheimer’s, Gottesman said.
Based on these findings, people who want to protect their brain health should protect their heart health, and the sooner the better, Fargo said.
“You don’t want to wait until your 60s to start taking care of yourself. It has to be a lifetime commitment,” Fargo said.
The findings were published April 11 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
SOURCES: Rebecca Gottesman, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor of neurology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore; Steven Austad, Ph.D., chair of biology of aging and the evolution of life histories, University of Alabama, Birmingham, and scientific director, American Federation for Aging Research; Keith Fargo, Ph.D., director of scientific programs and outreach, Alzheimer’s Association; April 11, 2017, Journal of the American Medical Association
News stories are written and provided by HealthDay and do not reflect federal policy, the views of MedlinePlus, the National Library of Medicine, the National Institutes of Health, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness
The types of cooking oils you eat may be sabotaging your health, making you lazy and setting you up to develop Type 2 diabetes, says a Canadian researcher.
Consuming high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) but not monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs), can make you lazy and fat, especially if you’re a woman, says Sanjoy Ghosh, a professor at the University of British Columbia’s Okanagan campus
For decades, heart disease was linked to saturated fats, which are found in meats and in full-fat products such as whole milk and butter. That belief caused the deliberate removal of saturated fatty acids from our diets, replacing them with MUFAs, found in avocado, nuts, seeds, and olives, and PUFAs, found in commonly used oils such as corn, sunflower, cottonseed, soybean, and canola. PUFAs are found in almost all convenience foods, including potato chips, cookies, cakes, and crackers.
Ghosh and his collaborator, UBC biologist and data analyst Jason Pither, examined data from 21 European countries. First, they studied pre-teen girls. Second, they examined the blood glucose levels of adult women. They also included other details such as the amount of time they spent watching television.
They concluded that there was a clear connection between the consumption of polyunsaturated fats and an increase in sedentary behavior, especially in the pre-teens, and an increase in diabetes among women.
“This data is extremely significant,” says Ghosh. “Nobody has made this connection and it’s time for an intervention. And if someone is beginning an exercise program without taking a close look at the fats, especially PUFA they are consuming, or changing what they’re eating, then it might be doomed to failure.”
The study was published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry.
Recent studies have found that switching saturated fats for polyunsaturated fats didn’t lower the risk of heart disease — in fact, it may have raised it. A 2016 study examined the records of more than 9,400 people and found that while swapping saturated fats for vegetable fats like corn oil reduced cholesterol levels by 14 percent, it didn’t improve survival. In fact, those whose cholesterol was reduced the most had the highest risk of dying when compared to a control group that ate a diet high in saturated fats.
by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness
Being physically inactive raises the risk of losing the ability to perform activities of daily living – both before and after a stroke – according to results from a long-term U.S. study.
“Physical activity reduced the risk of dependence in both basic activities of daily living (for example, dressing and getting across a room) as well as instrumental activities of daily living (for example, managing money or grocery shopping), which are considered to be more cognitively demanding,” said lead author Dr. Pamela M. Rist from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston.
“These instrumental activities of daily living can be important determinants of quality of life among stroke patients, so it is important to find factors which reduce the risk of dependence in these activities as well as in basic activities of daily living,” she told Reuters Health by email.
Rist’s team studied 18,117 individuals participating in the national Health and Retirement Study in an effort to find out whether physical activity and body mass index (BMI), a common measure of overweight and obesity, could predict disability.
During 12 years of follow-up, the amount of physical activity people did was not associated with the risk of stroke, but it was associated with the likelihood of being independent three years after a stroke.
Those who were physically inactive at baseline were significantly less likely to be independent at that point, compared with those who were physically active at baseline.
Somewhat surprisingly, this difference between inactive and active stroke survivors was also evident three years before their strokes, researchers report in the journal Neurology.
Obesity, in contrast, was associated with an increased risk of stroke, but it was not associated with loss of independence during the follow-up period, regardless of whether an individual suffered a stroke.
“Individuals can reduce their risk of dependence before and after stroke events by being physically active, which in our study was defined as participating in vigorous physical activity at least three times per week,” Rist said.
The researchers recommend further study to clarify whether increases in physical activity might also improve outcomes after a stroke.
by Dr Alex Jimenez | Fitness, Health, Wellness
Walk into any�HIIT�class or CrossFit box and chances are you�ll be asked to do a variation of a plyometric jump. Box jumps, frog leaps and tuck jumps help you improve your�VO2 max�(speed), flexibility and�range of motion. But that�s not all. Their explosive power works your entire body, while getting your heart rate up.
Kat Ellis, head trainer and instructor at�Uplift Studios�in New York City, says, �Plyometrics are a mix of stability and strength, and create a strong foundation for doing explosive�weightlifting�moves like the�clean and jerk�and�snatch.�
But if you�re not nailing down the form of these moves properly, you can risk injuring yourself and cause strain on your joints. That�s where tempo training comes in. Modulating movement based around a tempo allows the body to activate fast twitch muscle fibers and to learn to distinguish the difference between speed and power, Ellis explains. �The body finds a moment of explosive activation. For example if you�re doing a�push-up, concentrate on lowering the chest down for three seconds and pushing back up to a plank in one. The tempo, is 3-2-1, push.�
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Plyometrics help develop�core strength�and joint stability, too. �Tempo training forces you to slow things down. You�re regressing the exercise to make sure your whole body is truly engaged,� Ellis explains.
According to the�National Academy of Sports Medicine, plyometrics are broken down into three phases: the eccentric phase, the amortization phase and the concentric phase. Take the box jump, for instance. The eccentric phase is when you�re in a half-squat position with your knees bent. When you drive from your heels to jump, that�s the amortization phase. The concentric phase is when you finally land on the box and release the energy and tension in your muscles. With that said, take Ellis�s lead, as she breaks down these three popular jumps.
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Bust a Move: 3 Plyometrics Exercises, Broken Down
1. Frog Leaps
Progression 1
How to:�Stand with your feet a little wider than hip-distance apart with your toes slightly turned out to the sides. Raise your arms at your sides with your hands overhead and palms facing forward (a). Sit into a deep sumo squat with your butt back and down so your weight is evenly distributed from your arches to your heels (b). Press up from the squat and lift your right leg up to hip height, bending your right knee (c). At the same time, engage your right oblique muscles so you bring your right thigh towards your right elbow (d). Return to the starting position and repeat on the left side. Alternate for five reps on each side.
Progression 2
How to:�Sit back into a deep sump squat position with your hands overhead together and palms facing forward (a). Driving from your heels, jump up, bending your knees so your thighs touch or brush up against your thighs (b). Land softly into a sumo squat before jumping again (c). Do five to eight reps.
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2. Tuck Jumps
Progression 1
How to:�Stand with your feet hip-distance apart with your toes facing forward (a). Sit into a squat with your arms at your sides raised to shoulder height, palms facing each other (b). As you stand up from the squat, lift your right leg to hip height with your right knee bent (c). At the same time, place one palm on top of the other to meet your right knee. Repeat on the left side (d). Alternate for five reps on each side.
Progression 2
How to:�Start in a squat position with your arms at shoulder height and palms facing each other (a). Jump up as high as you can, driving your knees towards your chest, almost touching the palms of your hands (b). Re-extend your legs to land softly on the ground (c). Do five to eight reps.
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3. Box Jumps
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Progression 1
How to:�Stand behind a box or step with your feet shoulder-width apart and a slight bend in your knees (a). Step one foot at a time onto the box, keeping the slight bend in your knees, and then step back down one foot at a time (b). Do five reps.
Progression 2
How to:�Stand behind a box with your feet shoulder-width apart and a slight bend in your knees (a). Jump onto the box with both feet, landing with your knees slightly bent (b). Jump back down and repeat for five to eight reps. Note: If you�re doing this move in a CrossFit WOD, standard technique is to straighten your legs at the top of the box, standing tall, before hopping or stepping back down.
GIFs: Tiffany Ayuda / Life by Daily Burn
This article originally appeared on DailyBurn.com.
by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness
Some people who rely on fitness trackers to see how hard they work out may want to rethink this approach, according to a small study that suggests the increasingly popular devices may get more accurate heart rate readings when users are at rest than during exercise.
The study tested four popular wristbands, each of which has a light-emitting diode (LED) that measures heart rate from tiny changes in skin blood volumes by using light reflected from the skin.
Participants in the study – 40 healthy adults – wore two trackers on each wrist and compared resting and exercise heart rate readings on the devices to the gold standard used by doctors: an electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) test.
At rest, the Fitbit Surge got heart rate measurements that most closely matched the ECG results, and the Basis Peak was furthest off. In tests that also included the Fitbit Charge and Mio Fuse, none of the trackers got exercise heart rate readings that came close to the ECG.
These results suggest that while the trackers may help monitor daily activity, it’s not clear the heart rate readouts would be accurate enough to help patients with certain health problems make medical decisions, the authors note in Annals of Internal Medicine.
“At any moment, the tracker could be off by a fair bit, but at most moments, it won’t be,” said lead study author Lisa Cadmus-Bertram of the University of Wisconsin in Madison.
“This is why our paper doesn’t suggest that the commercial trackers we tested would be sufficient for medical applications where high precision is needed during exercise,” Cadmus-Bertram said by email. “Yet for the typical recreational user, they may still provide feedback that’s useful and motivational.”
To assess the accuracy of the trackers, researchers examined heart rate data for participants who were 49 years old on average and slightly overweight.
First, they looked at the amount of agreement between the readings from the trackers and the ECG tests.
When participants were seated, researchers took readings for the trackers and the ECG tests at one-minute intervals for 10 minutes.
The narrowest range of differences between the trackers and the ECG, indicating the most accuracy, was for the Fitbit Surge. The range for this tracker ranged from an underestimation of 5.1 beats per minute to an overestimation of 4.5 beats per minute.
The widest range of difference at rest was for the Basis Peak, which ranged from an underestimation of 17.1 beats per minute to an overestimation of 22.6 beats per minute.
When participants exercised on a treadmill, the ranges were even wider. The Mio Fuse ranged from an underestimation of 22.5 beats per minute to an overestimation of 26 beats per minute, for example, while the Fitbit Charge range from an underestimation of 41 beats per minute to an overestimation of 36 beats per minute.
The study is small, and researchers found only limited repeatability with results for the same participant under the same conditions.
Still, the findings are an important first step in understanding the clinical validity of wrist trackers many patients already use, said Dr. Daniel Cantillon, a researcher at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio who wasn’t involved in the study.
“We need data testing these devices among patients with specific disease states, such as heart failure, atrial fibrillation and other chronic medical problems, where it is possible that additional variation will occur with physical activity,” Cantillon said by email.
In particular, patients with the most common heart rhythm disorder, atrial fibrillation, shouldn’t rely on the trackers to detect abnormal rhythms, said Dr. Sumeet Chugh, a researcher at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles who wasn’t involved in the study.
“There is a lot at stake here,” Chugh said by email. “When it comes to the use of wrist-worn trackers, we need to be confident of accuracy comparable to treadmill testing if we are going to use the information for patient care.”
A spokesperson for Fitbit told Reuters Health that Fitbit trackers “are not intended to be medical devices” but instead “to give a more informed picture” of overall health. “Extensive internal studies . . . show that Fitbit’s PurePulse technology performs to industry standard expectations for optical heart rate on the wrist,” the spokesperson said.
Mark Gorelick, Chief Science Officer at Mio Global, said in a statement that the company’s technology “helps consumers understand the intensity of their exercise, based on their personal profile and heart rate data, and empowers them to proactively manage their health and reduce risk of lifestyle-related diseases.”
by Dr Alex Jimenez | Diets, Fitness
Just a bit of vigorous exercise each day could help some children and teens reduce their risk of developing heart problems and diabetes, researchers say.
The new study looked at nearly 11,600 kids, aged 4 to 18, in the United States, Brazil and Europe.
The investigators found that replacing light exercise with as little as 10 minutes a day of intense activity may provide significant cardiometabolic benefits for young people who have relatively large waists and elevated levels of insulin in their blood. These are factors that put them at risk for developing heart problems and metabolic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes.
“The results suggest that substituting modest amounts of vigorous physical activity for longer-duration light exercise may have cardiometabolic benefits above and beyond those conveyed by moderate activity and the avoidance of sedentary behavior,” lead author Justin Moore said.
Moore is an associate professor of family and community medicine at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. He noted that more research is needed because additional factors that contribute to disease risk — such as diet and genetics — need to be taken into account.
“If such studies provide robust results, a relatively brief but intense dose of physical activity — perhaps as little as 10 minutes day, which is certainly feasible for most youth — could turn out to be part of a ‘prescription’ for children to achieve or maintain cardiac and metabolic health,” Moore said in a medical center news release.
The study was published recently in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise.
by Dr Alex Jimenez | Fitness, Health, Wellness
Strapless dresses. Destination getaways. Bachelorette parties. Wedding season festivities come with many opportunities to dress up and bare all. Whether you’re looking to get fit for your own special day or trying to sculpt for a BFF’s, this 10-minute HIIT workout from Nike trainer Lauren Williams will do the trick (and then some).
Ready to get your heart rate way, way up? Watch this video for a full demonstration on how you can strengthen and lengthen all over without any equipment. If you can’t watch, the fat-burning workout is described below, too. Get ready to get sweaty!
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Squats: Slowly squat down with the feet turned out slightly. This movement helps to open up the hip flexors and get the quads working right off the bat. Continue squatting for 45 seconds.
Plank roll-downs: From standing, roll your body down toward the ground and walk the hands out so you’re in a plank position. Hold for five seconds. Walk hands back toward body and roll back up to stand. Repeat. Continue for 45 seconds.
Side shuffle with high knees: To start getting your heart rate up, quickly shuffle from one side to the other. Take a few shuffle steps to one side and begin to raise knees high, up towards your chest, for three seconds. Shuffle to the other side and repeat the high knees motion. Continue switching off between the two exercises for 45 seconds.
Plank with squat hold: From a high plank position, jump and place the feet flat on the ground so you’re squatting in a chair pose. Hold the squat for three seconds, then jump the feet back to return to high plank. Continue one minute.
Push ups: Complete push-ups with your hands wider than the width of a yoga mat for 45 seconds.
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Forearm plank: For an active rest that continues to keep your heart rate up, hold a forearm plank for one minute.
Squat with rotation: From a squat position, jump and turn your body 180 degrees, landing in a squat facing the opposite direction as when you started. Continue rotating from side to side in a squat position for one minute. You’ll burn fat while you strengthen your quads and hamstrings.
Forearm to high plank: From a forearm plank raise yourself up to a high plank (with hands on the ground) and slowly creep your hands out in front of your body slightly. Walk the hands back under the shoulders, lower to forearm plank, and repeat. Continue for one minute. To modify, simply bring the knees to rest on the floor. This move burns out the triceps and also strengthens the core at the same time.
Split squat lunge jumps: Start in a lunge position with the right leg forward, left leg back. Make sure both knees are bent at a 90-degree angle. Hold the lunge for three seconds, then jump to switch the front and back legs. Continue for one minute. The hold in between each jump ensures an extra tough burn.
Mountain climbers from plank: From plank, begin to jog your legs in towards your chest for a mountain climber movement. Make sure to keep your hips in line with your back, so they don’t lift up toward the ceiling. Continue for one minute.
Shuffle with burpee: From a demi squat position, shuffle three steps to one side, then drop the body down to the ground for your burpee. Quickly pop back up before shuffling to the other side and repeating. Continue for one minute.
