Exercise oficially extends life

Following a healthy lifestyle can lead to a longer life, even among people who are already well into their 70s, new research shows.

Getting regular exercise, staying engaged with friends and family, and abstaining from smoking were all associated with longer life in a study that followed people in their mid-70s and older for close to two decades.

These healthy traits apparently added, on average, five years to women’s lives and six years to men’s.

The study is among the first to identify specific lifestyle behaviors associated with longer life, even among people with chronic health problems and those over the age of 80, researchers say.

“Our results suggest that encouraging favorable lifestyle behaviors even at advanced ages may enhance life expectancy,” concluded the researchers from Sweden’s Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University.

The study, published in the journal BMJ, included about 1,800 people who were followed for 18 years from the mid-1980s.

Everyone in the study was 75 years old or older at enrollment, and 9 out of 10 (92%) died during the follow-up. Half lived for 90 years or longer, with women being more likely to survive to this age than men. Those who lived longer were also more likely to be highly educated, participate in physical and non-physical leisure activities, have rich social networks, and engage in regular exercise.

Physical activity was the single biggest predictor of longevity. People who regularly swam, walked, or performed other exercise lived an average of two years longer than people who did not. Longevity in former smokers was similar to that of people who had never smoked, but 4 out of 5 former smokers quit between 15 and 35 years before entering the study.

People with the healthiest lifestyles lived an average of 5.4 years longer than those with the least healthy lifestyles. Even among people over the age of 85 and those with chronic health conditions, a healthy lifestyle appeared to prolong life by four years. The study did not include information on diet, so it is unclear how healthy and unhealthy eating behaviors affected life span.

The researchers also didn't know lifestyle behaviors prior to old age. Despite these limitations, Gisele Wolf-Klein, MD, says the findings add to the evidence that it is never too late to improve health and prolong life.

Wolf-Klein is director of geriatric education for the North Shore-LIJ Health System in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

“It has been known for a long time that adjusting lifestyle behaviors at any age can be beneficial in terms of health and survival,” she says. She cites as an example her mentor in geriatric medicine who was a smoker until he had a massive heart attack in his mid-70s. “He gave up smoking ‘cold turkey’ after that and began exercising on a stationary bicycle 30 minutes every day,” she says. “He is still doing it at the age of 94.”

30 mins of Exercise a day as good as 60, in some cases.

A new study at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark has found that sedentary, slightly overweight healthy young men, who worked up a sweat exercising 30 minutes daily for three months, lost a similar amount of weight and body fat as those who did 60 minutes of daily exercise.

The researchers describe the findings of their randomized controlled trial in a study reported online recently in the American Journal of Physiology.

The researchers suggest one reason for the surprising result is that the exercise felt "doable" for the participants in the 30 minutes a day group, who even felt afterwards that they could have done more. In contrast, the 60 minutes a day group probably compensated by eating more, therefore losing less weight than expected.

This second point would fit in with the results of previous research that the researchers point to in their background information. This suggests that the reason exercise often produces a disappointing amount of weight loss is because a diet-induced negative energy balance (where calories consumed aren't enough to cover daily energy needs) often triggers "compensatory mechanisms", such as lower metabolic rate and increased appetite.

Perhaps 60 minutes of exercise results in more overcompensation than 30 minutes. On average, the men who exercised 30 minutes a day lost 3.6 kg in three months, and those who exercised 60 minutes a day lost 2.7 kg. The reduction in body fat was about 4 kg for both groups.

The result is significant because 40% of Danish men are thought to be moderately overweight. Overcoming barriers to exercise in a group that does none at all should be easier if the aim is to attain 30 minutes a day than 60 minutes a day.

The study is part of an interdisciplinary trial called FINE, a Danish acronym for physical activity for a long healthy life, which has generated strong data in a group of 60 or so participants.

For the study, the researchers randomly assigned each of 62 healthy, sedentary, moderately overweight young men to one of three groups: a high exercise group (burning about 600 kcal per day with about 60 minutes of aerobic exercise), a moderate exercise group (300 kcal per day, 30 minutes exercise), and a control group that continued to be sedentary.

They monitored the men as they followed their program for 13 weeks.The participants trained every day through the study period. The training sessions were planned to produce a light sweat, but the participants were also instructed to increase the intensity three times a week.

The results showed that body weight went down by 2.7 kg in the high exercise group, and 3.6 kg in the moderate exercise group. Fat mass went down by 4.0 kg and 3.8 kg respectively.

Olympic Athlete Interview: Julia Wilkinson




Photo: Julian Finney/Getty Images

Swimmer Julia Wilkinson has exactly 11 days to go before her first race at the London Olympic Games. No stranger to the international stage, the Stratford, Ontario native represented Canada at the 2008 Games in Beijing, where she  broke the Canadian record in the semi-final of the 200-meter individual medley and finished seventh in the final. She has represented Canada at the Wold Championships and the Commonwealth Games, as well as numerous national and international competitions. We stole a few minutes from her busy schedule to talk motivation, active kids, and yoga!

BMP: What achievements are you most proud of?

JW: Representing Canada at the Olympic Games. Even though I want to do much more than just "be there", there is no better feeling in the world than having the opportunity to represent your country at the Olympics. It's something that so many athletes dream of but so few are lucky enough to experience.

BMP: Do you think Canada’s top athletes have anything in common with the general population who want to get fit?

JW: The general population who want to get fit share something with top athletes: they want something out of exercise. We want to win. They want to get fit! It's all about having a goal, because that is where all your motivation stems from.



Photo: Paul Chiasson/Canadian Press

BMP: Are there days where you don’t feel like training? In those moments, what motivates you/what advice would you give to those who can’t seem to get motivated?

JW: Of course there are days when I don't feel like training, for any number of reasons: I am too sore or tired from my previous workout, I am distracted by other fun or stressful activities, or I just simply "am not in the mood". My goal is the first thing that keeps me going: winning an Olympic medal is incredibly hard to do, and there are lots of people you have to beat. People who are training. I try to imagine what they are doing in that moment, and that gets me out of bed fast! Also, I always know that I will feel better after I am done working out, because the guilt I will feel from not working out is significantly worse than any pain I will feel during a workout. Plus, hard exercise releases endorphins! If you are feeling like crap before you go to the gym, you will feel better after. You just need to remind yourself of that.

BMP: What are your top tips for those who want to lead a more active lifestyle but don’t know where to start?

JW: I tell people what I always tell my mom: the first workout is always the worst! Don't fall into a pattern of working out once, thinking it's "too hard", and then not going back again for another month. You will just keep repeating "workout number one", and trust me, nothing is worse than workout number one. The first time I get in the pool after a week off, every stroke is a struggle. But you have to get through it, and you will find your rhythm. You don't need to start off like a crazy person--you will burn out--but make a realistic goal about going to the gym and sticking to it. Say you will do at least forty-five minutes three times per week for a month. Then assess if you "like" working out. I think you will want to keep doing it.

BMP: What’s your favourite healthy snack?

JW: I love granola with plain yogurt and fresh berries. Sometimes I splurge and buy the freshly made, albeit super expensive, granola. This snack is great for before or after training: carbs to keep you going, protein to replenish your muscles, and antioxidants in the berries!



Photo: Deanna McCollum



BMP: Many people are concerned that our schoolchildren are not as active as they should be – if you could implement one initiative in Canadian schools what would it be?

JW: Kids should have physical education every single day in school. I can almost hear people gasping at this, but they should. Phys. Ed has been slashed year after year and now the kids are barely doing it at all (my mom is an 8th grade teacher in Ontario). Also, we have become so concerned that kids will feel "bad" about themselves if they are forced to do exercise and aren't good at it. Well, I was forced to do math, and I am not good at math. You can only get better at something if you are coached (or taught) and practice. Basketball is not all that different from math, at the end of the day: some people will be naturally gifted at it, some will have to work hard and will still never score a basket. But no one will get better if they refuse to participate! And, as someone with a degree in communication, math really doesn't play a huge role in my life (other than counting how many lengths I have to do) but exercise is something that affects everyone! Why would you take out a course that builds a foundation for a child's healthy life? Kids aren't born sedentary, they learn laziness. We can stop it before it starts.

BMP: What for you is the number one benefit to leading an active life?

JW: Obviously, leading an active life equals leading a healthy life, that is a given. But for me, being an athlete has been huge for my self-esteem, and that is something that is always in jeopardy for young kids, especially girls. Watching yourself improve and achieving a goal in sport - whether it is making the high school team or the Olympic team - spills over into the rest of your life. I believe I can do anything if I really want to, and it's because of what sport has taught me. 

BMP: What’s your favourite ‘active health’ activity to do on a day off from training?

JW: Yoga! I would do yoga every day if I had time! I used to hate it, because I was so bad at it, but then I stopped measuring myself against others and only against myself. I always feel much better after I have some one-on-one time with my yoga mat.

Olympic Athlete Series coming soon!

Although the driving force behind the Bloomberg Manulife Prize is rewarding talented researchers, we're also dedicated to inspiring and motivating Canadians all year round: we want you to get active, and we're on hand with tips, articles, and motivational tools to help.

We're incredibly lucky that some of the country's top athletes are excited about our project, and have agreed to exclusive interviews. They'll talk about how they get motivated on the off-days, what healthy snacks they love, and what drives them to sporting greatness.

We'll have runners, swimmers, kayakers, fencers and more every week in the run up to this summer's Olympic Games in London - and we're hoping these sporting heroes will inspire you to lace up those running shoes or take a dive in the pool.

Watch this space!

Stand up for a longer life

Are you sitting down right now? You might want to stand up.

According to a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, sitting for long periods increases your risk of all-cause early death.

In the study, researchers followed 222,497 Australian adults for several years. Over the course of the study, participants who sat for more than 11 hours a day had the highest risk for all-cause mortality, followed by those who sat between 8 and 11 hours daily. Those who sat for less than four hours a day had the lowest risk of all-cause mortality.

The revelation that sitting can kill isn’t necessarily new. In the past several years, study after study has confirmed that living a sedentary life — going from your bed to your desk to the couch and back to bed every day — can damage our health in a variety of ways. In fact, it has been shown to increase risk for heart disease, obesity, diabetes, dementia, and some cancers.

Another recent study actually found that sitting is so detrimental, its effects are almost impossible to exercise away. The study followed 27 Finnish men and women over two days. On the first day, they exercised; on the second day, they did not. When researchers measured the muscle activity and heart rate of the participants, they found that though they burned calories through exercise, it did not increase their overall muscle activity. Researchers also found that desk workers’ muscles are inactive for about 70 percent of the day — regardless of whether the day includes any fitness training.

The takeaway: Reduce the amount of time you spend sitting however possible. Try these tips to up your daily activity:

• Walk more. One of the simplest ways to offset the effects of sitting is to walk. If you can, walk or bike to work instead of driving. If you take public transportation, get off a few stops earlier to squeeze in more steps — experts recommend buying a pedometer and aiming for 10,000 daily steps.
• Stand up at work. Experts estimate that standing burns 50 percent more calories than sitting, so whenever possible, think on your feet on the job. Stand during meetings, while you’re on the phone, and depending on the type of work you do, consider adding a standing desk to your office.
• Fidget while you work. According to researchers at the Minnesota Obesity Center, fidgeting might be what separates thin people from overweight people. To increase your daily activity, make a point to get up and walk around your office every half an hour, if possible.
• Make TV time active. Instead of vegging out on the couch when you get home, add activity to your evenings by doing jumping jacks, pushups, crunches, and other fat-blasting moves during commercial breaks of your favorite shows.

Research backs link between exercise and mental health

The physical benefits of regular exercise are often the most publicised, but while taking inches off your waistline, an active lifestyle has also been proven to do wonders for your emotional well-being.

According to Boston University psychology professor Michael W. Otto and Jasper A. J. Smits, associate professor of psychology at Dallas’s Southern Methodist University, one reason exercise positively affects mental wellness is that it increases the production of serotonin. Low levels of this neurotransmitter have been linked to depression, they write in their recent book Exercise for Mood and Anxiety: Proven Strategies for Overcoming Depression and Enhancing Well-Being.

Then there is the theory that exercise “whips your body into better shape” to handle stressors, they contend.
Exercise in itself is a stressor, forcing the body to adapt to the demands placed on it, and this kind of regular stress may help you be physiologically better at handling stress in general.

In their book, the two refer to several long-term, large-scale studies supporting the positive effects of exercise on mood.

A 2010 meta-analysis of 70 studies on the subject published in Annals of Behavioral Medicine, for instance, found that adults who reported sad or depressed moods—but not at levels that were considered psychiatric disorders—reported meaningful improvements in their mood as they started doing regular exercise.
A 2007 Psychological Medicine study of adolescents found that 16 percent of those who weren’t physically active developed an anxiety disorder over a four-year period compared to half that rate among those who exercised regularly.

Another study, from 2000 and published in Preventive Medicine, found that exercise is linked to less anger and “cynical distrust” as well as stronger feelings of social integration.

Perhaps the most convincing argument in favour of regular exercise for mood is also the simplest: unlike the goal of losing weight, the benefits of physical activity on a person’s mental state are almost immediate, Otto and Smits say. About 20 minutes into a workout, you start feeling better; that effect can last hours or even into the next day.

The authors don’t discount the role that medication and talk therapy can play in the treatment of conditions like depression and anxiety, and they emphasize that suicidal thoughts need immediate treatment. However, they argue that in many cases, exercise can function as the body’s own natural antidepressant.

Exercise is one component of the Canadian Mental Health Association B.C. branch’s Bounce Back: Reclaim Your Health program. Funded by the provincial Ministry of Health, the free program is geared to people with milder mental-health problems and helps them recognize and deal with signs of stress, low mood, and worry.

Some of the coping strategies are delivered through workbook materials and telephone coaching, with one being centred on using exercise to improve how you feel.

Planned exercise has been shown to boost mood, reduce tension and anxiety, and improve self esteem. Additional benefits include fun, social contact, structure provided in the day, plus wider long-term physical health benefits.

Psychologists Otto and Smits admit that sometimes even they find it tough to get off the couch and exercise. In their clinical practice, they’ve heard every excuse when it comes to avoiding physical activity: feeling too busy, tired, depressed, or unmotivated. They offer dozens of practical strategies to put intentions into action, such as bringing an audio book to reward yourself after the fact.

Exercise, they maintain, is your chance to approach the world with “appropriate selfishness—doing what you need to do to feel better today”.

“Keep this in mind as you think about your next workout,” they write. “You are doing it to feel less stressed, less down, and more relaxed. You are doing it for the sense of energy it provides and for the sense of being in tune with your body.…The key is getting out there and making your exercise a regular part of your life.”

Another reminder of why you need to get moving!

We know you know, but here it is again: exercise is the most natural and easy way you can stay healthy and live longer. The first scientific study to show this was published in London, England, back in 1843. At that time, research had already revealed that the mortality rate of sedentary people was higher than that of those who were physically active. Now, outside of other factors like smoking, age and diet, we know that exercise considerably reduces the risks of today’s most common diseases, namely heart disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer... Not to mention the benefits on the most common psychological state in our times: depression. Here's a short reminder of some of the ways an active lifestyle benefits you:

Heart Disease
Overall, exercise reduces the risk of heart disease by more than 40% in terms of all major risk factors. People who are very active physically, such as marathon runners and triathletes, rarely suffer from heart disease. Exercise protects you in many ways: increased good cholesterol (HDL) and, with a lot of exercise, a drop in bad cholesterol (LDL); reduced blood pressure between 8 mm and 12 mm (sometimes enough to avoid medication) and reduced abdominal fat (the most dangerous fat for the heart). As well, exercise is a key part of post-heart attack treatment.

Cancer
Physically active people are less likely to end up with cancer than those of us who are sedentary. Should they have the misfortune of being hit with this disease, they have a greater chance of surviving, since their physical condition enables them to handle more the powerful and thus more effective treatments. The most common cancers whose risk is reduced by exercise: breast cancer (namely from the anti-estrogen effect of exercise) and colon cancer. The risk can drop by 30% to over 50%. No other prevention factor is as powerful! In the fight against obesity, exercise could also reduce the risk of developing cancers of the pancreas and oesophagus.

Type 2 Diabetes
This is the most common form of diabetes in the world. Exercise is effective prevention of diabetes, since it acts like a shot of insulin. It reduces blood sugar levels and improves the effectiveness of the available insulin. This results in the body being able to control its own blood sugar with less insulin. This hypoglycaemic effect is all the more apparent in endurance athletes. They produce up to two times more insulin than the average adult but maintain normal blood sugar levels. Moreover, when an overweight person loses weight, exercise attacks head-on one of the major risk factors of Type 2 diabetes: obesity.

Depression
Moderate aerobic exercise fights depression by letting people play an active role in improving their situation. Exercise helps make them feel more in control of their life. It is also believed that exercise affects us biochemically by freeing certain euphoric substances in the brain like endorphins and serotonin (anti-depressive effect). All in all, exercise practised regularly acts as a statin (a medication that lowers cholesterol levels), an antihypertensive, an anti-estrogen medication, a hypoglycaemic and an antidepressant. If you could put exercise into a pill, it would definitely be the most sold drug in the world, and the only one without side effects except for the odd ache or pain!

Exercise to lose weight: time or intensity?

More and more people are turning to exercise to lose weight and stay healthy, but the same question often comes up: to lose fat, should we do moderate exercise for a longer period of time or vigorous exercise for a short period of time?

First, you should know that we are talking about aerobic exercise - the type of effort increases metabolism, which, in turn, increases calorie expenditure. These are the best exercises you can do to lose weight, and can be done at moderate or high intensity. Intensity is considered moderate if you are a bit hot and are breathing quicker than at rest. Intensity is high if you are hot and breathing quickly without actually becoming out of breath. Think cross-country skiing on flat ground, snowshoeing in shallow snow, speed-walking or light winter jogging, swimming, or using a cardiovascular exercise machine (stationery bike, elliptical machine, treadmill, step machine, etc.).
 
Focus on Duration
 
This is a realistic approach. If you want to lose weight, and you are not in shape, you will find it easier to do moderate exercise versus high-intensity exercise. Plus, you will be less likely to injure yourself, which is a risk when an unfit person starts straight into vigorous exercise. By putting the emphasis on duration, you give yourself the chance to exercise every day and control your weight. If you exercised intensely, you would have to sometimes take days to rest to allow your muscles to recuperate.

This being said, how long should you practise moderate aerobic exercise? The best thing to do during the first few weeks is to schedule in three ten-minute sessions of exercise (or two 15-minute sessions) during the day, if possible every day. The idea is to stimulate your metabolism two or three times a day, for a total of 30 minutes of moderate physical activity, which is the minimum amount of exercise recommended by experts for people to remain healthy. This plan will help you use up about 150 calories more per day, or 1,000 more per week. If you want to speed up weight loss and are very motivated, you can gradually increase your total exercise sessions to 45 minutes a day. You will lose, more or less, one pound of fat in less than 2.5 weeks as long as you do not increase the calories you eat.

Secondly: Intensity

After one month of moderate exercise, you will have improved your physical condition and started to lose weight. You can then think about increasing your training. There are two advantages to higher intensity exercises: better cardio and more calorie expenditure per minute. By doing more vigorous exercises, you also create a larger “energy debt” for your body. In other words, after doing so, your metabolism remains high and you continue to burn calories for two or three extra hours without lifting a finger! This post-exercise burn, often “forgotten” when calculating the number of calories used, is immense, especially if you exercise several times a week.

Compromising with Intervals

The major problem with intense exercise is that you could lose motivation in the long run. Therefore, it is worthwhile to integrate more intense work into moderate exercise sessions: in other words, interval training. Let’s say you speed walk at about 110-120 steps per minute. During your 10-to-15- minute session, walk even quicker for about 30 seconds every two minutes at a pace of about 130-135 steps per minute. You can apply the same principle to swimming, cross-country skiing, winter jogging or running on a treadmill. Why are intervals beneficial? They increase the number of calories burnt without increasing the time you exercise. In concrete terms, you will still be exercising for 30 minutes a day, but you will be burning 1,300 calories a week instead of 1,000.

In fact, interval training provides great results for those who want to lose weight and improve their health through exercise. A study at the Centre of Preventive Medicine and Physical Fitness at the Montreal Heart Institute confirmed the effectiveness of this type of exercise. Nine months after following the Kilo-Actif program, 62 obese people participating in the study lost an average of 5.5% of their body mass and 5.15% around their waist. Moreover, they had increased their physical ability by 15%. Their bad cholesterol (LDL) had dropped by 7%, and their good cholesterol (HDL) had climbed by 8%. And all that in under a year!

Move Every Day to maintain weight

Recently researchers at the Mayo Clinic in the USA revealed the essential role that daily physical activity plays in regulating our weight. Twenty subjects (10 slim and 10 obese) were equipped with a sophisticated system for evaluating daily calorie expenditure and then monitored for ten days. They noticed that the slim subjects burned approximately 350 calories more per day than their obese counterparts. Also interesting: the obese subjects were sedentary for two hours longer per day.

The Most Effective Type of Exercise?

When it comes to getting off the sofa and moving around, anything is better than nothing. But experts have found that not all exercise is created equal.

When it comes to heart health, cardiovascular - or aerobic - exercise is what you need to focus on, with stretching and weight training playing a supporting role.

Good forms of cardiovascular exercise include swimming, which is an overall body workout and which really gets your heart pumping; walking, when done with purpose; and running, which  is well known for its overall health benefits and has a great impact on heart health in particular.

If you prefer to exercise at a gym there are a great number of aerobic classes to choose from, including spinning, aerobics, Tae-bo and many more. You can also join a dance group and learn salsa or ballroom dancing, both of which are extremely good cardiovascular exercises and just so happen to be great fun.

The American Heart Association advises that whichever option you choose, to be effective you must do it regularly, three to four times a week, for a minimum of 30 minutes and it must increase your heart rate for the duration. You can also break your exercise sessions down to 10 minutes three times a day, if necessary.

And while weightlifting may make you look good on the outside, the experts advise that unless it is done in conjunction with aerobic exercise it will not have much of an impact on heart health.

Don't forget; The heart is a muscle, so the stronger it is, the more effective it will be in pumping blood around the body, improving oxygen transport and circulation. 

And the more physical activity we do the better chance we have of lowering our blood pressure, and the less pressure there is on the heart the healthier it will be.

An active prescription

Good news, hot on the heels of our prize-giving events, where Dr. Steven Blair expressed concerns over physicians neglecting to recommend exercise: More and more U.S. adults are being told by their doctor to get out and get active, according to government survey released this week.

Nearly 33 per cent of adults who saw a doctor in the previous year said they were told to exercise. That was up from about 23 percent in 2000, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported.

The report also found more women got that advice than men. And among people with chronic health problems, diabetics, were the most likely to get the advice and cancer patients were least likely.

The most dramatic - and surprising - increases were reported in patients age 85 and older. In 2000, about 15 percent were told by doctors to exercise. By 2010, almost 30 percent were getting such a recommendation. "It's very encouraging that doctors feel people at that age still have time to live and can make their health better," said Pat Barnes, a CDC health statistician who was lead author of the report.

The report was based on a survey of nearly 22,000 adults in 2010. The CDC then compared the results to similar surveys done in 2000 and 2005.

The doctors' advice may be getting through to at least some people. Other CDC data has found that about 51 percent of Americans said they exercise regularly in 2009, up from about 46 percent in 2001.

However, more than one third of U.S. adults are obese, a statistic that's held steady for nearly a decade.

Dr. Blair's tips for a longer, healthier life

January is the month when resolutions are made and broken, but we're here to help you get fit and healthy, not just for 2012, but for good.

The main objective of the Bloomberg Manulife Prize is to get important research findings to you, the public. And so we are delighted that our inaugural winner, Dr. Steven Blair has a message that is simple, effective, and easy to incorporate into your everyday life: 30 minutes of moderate exercise per day.

Sure, you've been told exercise is good for you - but here's a world-class scientist who has broken it down: if you do 30 minutes of light activity per day, you have a very good chance of reducing your mortality rate by 50%. That's it! You're decreasing the chances of dying early from heart problems, stroke, diabetes and a host of other unwelcome ends.

To make things even easier, here's a handy little video, and below, we've distilled some of Dr. Blair's advice into concrete action points so you can get started straight away:

Do it today!

• Book a regular sports activity with friends: try tennis, swimming, or badminton twice a week
• Get a dog (or offer to walk someone else's): Research shows that most dog owners get the recommended 150 minutes exercise per week just from walking their pet.
• Get off the bus one stop early or park a few blocks from work, the walk contributes to your 30 minutes a day (one study found that for every increase of 10 minutes in your walk to work, there is a 12% reduction in the likelihood of getting high blood pressure).
• Try giving up TV: A large Australian study found that TV watchers (lifetime average of 6 hours per day) live about 5 years less than those who don't watch TV.
• How about dancing? Any kind counts, but try latin favourites like Salsa and Samba to really get your heart pumping.
• You've heard it before - take the stairs instead of the elevator.
• Be active around the house: activities like cleaning windows, vacuuming, and gardening can all contribute to your 30 minutes.

ADHD and Active Kids

Although experts find it hard to agree on specific diagnosis criteria for attention defecit hyperactivity disorder, a recently published study has claimed that about one in twenty children suffer from some form of this difficult condition. Treatments vary, but more and more children in North America and beyond are being prescribed prescription drugs for “developmentally inappropriate levels of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity that cause significant impairment in daily functioning.”

In response to the growing  apprehension surrounding children on psychiatric medications, the Journal of Physical and Active Health published a study this year examining the connection between rates of physical activity among children and symptoms of ADHD, and the results are certain to please parents, children and physical education advocates alike.

To cut straight to the chase, the “Conclusions” section of the study states: “Using a community-based, nationally representative sample of children aged 5 to 7 years old from the United States, the results of the current study suggest that physical education, as a structured form of physical activity, may be considered as associated with lower levels of symptoms of ADHD across time.”

According to the authors of the study, physical exercise bolsters the brain’s ability to generate brain tissue and can also work therapeutically to reduce the “mental fatigue” associated with ADHD. Noting that children afflicted with ADHD tend to have impaired social skills, the study’s authors suggest that structured, group-based physical activity - in addition to providing benefits “similar… to those of pharmacological interventions,” - can help children improve their social skills while alleviating their symptoms and receiving the physical benefits of exercise.

The element of structure seems key here – while afflicted students showed markedly reduced tendencies toward disruptive behaviors in the classroom on days when a ten-minute recess was provided, the study notes that unstructured physical activity increase the likelihood of aggressive and violent behaviors on the part of children with ADHD, meaning more structured forms such as physical education would likely be of the most benefit, with the additional advantage of being curriculum-based and therefore more “school-friendly.”

This is all great news, but it bears mentioning that the mechanism by which this principle operates is still unclear. The study notes that physical activity is known to stimulate activity in the cathecholamine system (a collection of brain cells associated with dopamine and norepinephrine), the dysfunction of which has been connected to symptoms of ADHD, which is about as user-friendly an explanation as it looks. It’s also suggested that physical activity has a calming effect on children with ADHD simply because being tired mellows them out, an explanation that seems rather elegant in its simplicity. Either way, while acknowledging that the discontinuation of routine physical activity can lead to a persistent reemergence of symptoms, the study points out that there are few if any negative consequences to pursuing this course of treatment, and the potential benefits to children are impressive, including addressing the childhood obesity epidemic.

Click here to see the study, which is refreshingly brief and readable.

 

Stand up for health and fitness

Just when you thought that if there was one place in this world you were safe it would be your favorite easy chair, a growing body of research has emerged suggesting that too much time spent sitting could be putting you at greater risk of developing cancer.

Findings presented  last month at the American Institute for Cancer Research in Washington, D.C. say that simple routine exercise does not negate the risk of cancer in people who live otherwise sedentary lifestyles, to the tune of nearly 49,000 cases of breast cancer and 43,000 cases of colon cancer that could have been prevented by just spending less time sitting.

Dr. Neville Owen, with the Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne, Australia, attributes the risk to the physiological effects of inactivity on a sedentary body. According to Dr. Owen, long periods of muscle inactivity produce biological signals known as “biomarkers” that have been linked to cancer: “It's been surprisingly consistent with what strong relationships there are between physical inactivity and these biomarkers of cancer risk.”

Other research published in 2002 found that the levels of biologically available sex hormones, the excess of which could lead to hormone-related cancers such as those of the breast, ovaries or prostate, could be reduced through physical activity. The established advice from cancer researchers has long been that we should be getting a certain amount of exercise per week (the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommend 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week), and no one is trying to invalidate that advice. However, there may be much more to staying active to curtail cancer than regular exercise.

Alpa Patel, strategic director for the American Cancer Society's Cancer Prevention Study-3, says that “there’s benefit in just moving around.” This “moving around” can be anything from taking the stairs to your office to getting up for a cup of water every once in a while, and every effort you take throughout the day to make your body move and respond works to reduce the risk of cancer. While it may raise alarms in the many workers who spend up to an estimated fifteen and a half hours a day sitting, Joan Vernikos, former director of life sciences at NASA, says that just standing up every thirty minutes or so can be helpful.

And think about it: now instead of sending droll e-mail to colleagues around the office, why not amble on over to their desks and give them the benefit of your charm in person, while reducing your risk of cancer at the same time? Your body will thank you for it.

Read the AICR release on this research:http://www.aicr.org/press/press-releases/getting-up-from-your-desk.html

'Fat gene' is no excuse

The study of human genomics has, aside from providing comfortable careers for writers of dystopian science fiction, led to the isolation and identification of many genes that play a part in determining the physical characteristics of the bodies in which they reside.

Among these, around thirty-two have been discovered that predispose people to being obese, which  have unfortunately been blamed for the rapidly rising rates of obesity around the globe.

But a recent study by researchers in the UK aims to put these “fat gene” myths to rest, demonstrating that regardless of whether someone carries one or more of these genes, they are entirely capable of maintaining a healthy weight through a healthy diet and regular exercise.

By analyzing more than fifty studies of over 200,000 worldwide carriers of a particular obesity gene, the results of the study show that even those who carry the gene but live active and healthy lifestyles have a reduced risk of becoming obese compared to those who do not.

These findings are in line with a number of other recent studies which suggest that our genes are not necessarily the immutable and deterministic blueprints that the Orwells and Huxleys of this world would have us believe.

“Physical activity gives [carriers of the gene] the opportunity to lose weight,” says Cambridge University medical researcher Dr. Ruth Loos. “So it goes against the often held view that if it’s in your genes, it’s out of your control. We show that even though it’s in your genes, you still have control.”

The study strikes a blow against the usefulness of genetic screenings for genes identified as being related to obesity, which are currently commercially available and rising in popularity despite some scientists’ reservations regarding their validity and usefulness. Lennert Veerman with the University of Queensland has published a paper attacking the credibility of such screenings, citing their lack of predictive power, irrelevance to treatment options, and the way they encourage patients to focus on the genetic aspects of their condition when a focus on improving their actual lifestyle is both more tangible and more effective.

The new research demonstrates that whether you have the gene or not, the only way to effectively fight obesity is through proper diet and exercise. But the publication of the research will hopefully encourage more people to take more responsibility for their own bodies by focusing on increasing their activity levels rather than any extrinsic factors.

Is your morning commute making you sick?

A study conducted by Swedish researchers recently published in BMC Public Health suggests that those who commute to work by car or public transportation are more likely to have problems with both their physical and mental health than active commuters who walk or ride their bicycles to work.

The results are based on the findings of two public health surveys conducted in 2004 and 2008 by a team of Swedish researchers that culled data from around 21,000 people between the ages of 18 and 65 who work in Scania, Sweden. The study has found that those who commute to work by car or train are more likely to report stress, exhaustion, and generally poor health in addition to a greater number of missed work days compared to active commuters. The study also points out that the longer the commute, the worse the health complaints were reported, especially for those who rely on long commuter train rides to work every day. 

Dr. Redford Williams, professor of medicine and Director of the Behavioral Medicine Research Center at Duke University in North Carolina, says of the results, “We know that people who have a lot of demands and very little control over how they meet those demands are at a higher risk for negative health effects. And when you're relying on a train to get to work, it's totally out of your control most of the time."

An article by ABC News on the findings points out that while the research has not identified whether or not such a long commute to work is directly responsible for health problems, the present difficulties with finding work often do not allow job-seekers a lot of flexibility in choosing jobs that are far from where they live, suggesting that the problem is likely to persist for a while coming. 

Williams opines that, in light of these findings, those with a choice should probably choose a job requiring the shortest commute. Since the active commuters reported less stress and fewer health worries than those relying on cars or public transportation, the study’s findings seem to confirm that a good way to decrease stress and improve your overall health is to oil up that bicycle and counteract the stress of the workplace with a good blast of wind in the face on the way to work. 

The full text of the study’s findings can be found here.

Nature and the Outdoors Vital for Kids

Time spent outdoors is now being considered as one of the main markers for Canadian kids' health and activity levels. Exposure to fresh air and nature has been shown not only to raise overall health, but also to alleviate anxiety, and improve concentration and feelings of wellbeing. 

Since 2005, Active Healthy Kids Canada has been issuing “report cards” with the objective of assessing Canada’s commitment to active, healthy children at all levels: at  schools, in the community, and  as it is regulated at the municipal, provincial and national levels. The Active Kids Canada Report Card for 2011 has just been released, with a new twist:  the report card now includes an indicator for “Nature and the Outdoors.” 

The analysis of outdoor activity alongside other indicators such as playground equipment, community programming and educational policy, is based on the idea that even spending a little more time outside offers major potential benefits to kids for becoming active and healthy. And while a conclusive “Nature and the Outdoors” grade for the 2011 Report Card has not been decided (in light of the difficulty in achieving comprehensive data on the subject), the research has led to new findings which will hopefully lead to increased outdoor activity in Canadian children.

For instance, it’s been discovered that as they progress from elementary school to high school, kids spend much less time exercising outdoors, even though spending time outside can help alleviate anxiety and similar conditions in children while improving their concentration and mood. The trend away from outdoor exercise in children has been called “nature deficit disorder,” by American researcher Richard Louv – a trend this new addition to Active Healthy Kids Canada’s yearly Report Card hopes to counteract.

Stressing that “being out in nature” can be as simple as spending an afternoon sitting under a tree, researchers like Louv and Leanne Clare of the David Suzuki Foundation insist that the first step toward healthier children is getting them to spend more time in the outdoors. 

Those who have directed their efforts toward research on the relationship between nature and healthy children hope to use the knowledge they are gaining to encourage educators and communities to implement nature in their programming, a tactic they believe can be applied to anything from working with troubled children to practicing math. While this year’s results were inconclusive, researchers hope to draw attention to this relationship in the interest of advising schools, communities and policy makers on how to improve the health of Canadian children with nature.

Links to this and previous years’ Report Cards, as well as explanations of Healthy Active Kids Canada’s mission statement and methodology can be found here: www.activehealthykids.ca/ReportCard/2011ReportCardOverview.aspx

Working out when under the weather

With cold and flu season fast approaching, the active lifestyle many of us enjoyed during the summer may be waning. When the inevitable winter sniffles arrive, many of us naturally prefer to hide under the duvet than dedicate ourselves to exercise, but staying active can often help shorten the duration of common colds and in the long run, findings show that exercise helps your immune system fight simple infections.

How do you decide whether you should be getting physical when feeling under the weather? Here's what Dr. Edward R. Laskowski at the Mayo Clinic advises:

• Mild to moderate physical activity is usually ok if you have a garden-variety cold and no fever. Exercise may even help you feel better by opening your nasal passages and temporarily relieving nasal congestion.
• Exercise is usually OK if your signs and symptoms are all "above the neck" — symptoms you may have with a common cold, such as runny nose, nasal congestion, sneezing or minor sore throat. Consider reducing the intensity and length of your workout, though, or you may feel worse. Instead of going for a run, take a walk, for example.
• Don't exercise if your signs and symptoms are "below the neck" — such as chest congestion, hacking cough or upset stomach.
• Don't exercise if you have a fever, fatigue or widespread muscle aches.
• Let your body be your guide. If you have a cold and feel miserable, take a break. Scaling back or taking a few days off from exercise when you're sick shouldn't affect your performance. Remember if you do choose to exercise when you're sick, reduce the intensity and length of your workout. If you attempt to exercise at your normal intensity when you have more than a simple cold, you could risk more serious injury or illness.

And when you feel better? Keep exercising in the winter months to avoid illness. Some findings report that moderate intensity exercise - daily 20 to 30 minute walks, going to the gym every other day, or biking with kids a few times a week - may reduce the number of colds you get. In one study reported in the American Journal of Medicine, women who walked for a half-hour every day for one year had half the number of colds as women who did not exercise. In this study, researchers associated regular walking with increasing levels of infection-fighting white blood cells. In another study, researchers found that the number of T-cells - a specific type of white blood cell - in 65-year-olds who exercised regularly was as high as those of people in their 30s.

Walking and life expectancy

Walking is one of the simplest, least expensive, and most effective things you can do for your health. It strengthens bones, tunes up the cardiovascular system, and, psychologically, can clear a cluttered mind. Hundreds of studies have documented its benefits, and now, researchers say that later in life, walking becomes as much an indicator of health as a promoter of it.

As we get older, the stroll that was once a walk in the park may get difficult for any number of reasons: angina, arthritis, bad balance, failing vision. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have shown that after about age 65, how fast we walk may predict how long we have to live.

Walking, or gait, speed has long been recognized as a proxy for overall health and vitality and has been measured in many research projects. The University of Pittsburgh researchers didn't conduct a new study, but used some sophisticated statistical techniques to pool the results of nine that had already been done. They standardized the disparate ways gait speed had been measured in those studies — no small feat — and then did some further analysis to see how gait speed correlated with how long people lived.

What they found was a remarkably consistent association between faster gait speed and longer life that was true for both men and women ages 65 and older. More precisely, each increase of 0.1 meter per second in gait speed was associated with a 12% reduction in the risk of dying during a study's follow-up period. They also calculated that people with gait speeds of 1 meter per second or faster lived longer than would be expected given their age or gender. (One meter per second is equivalent to 2.2 miles per hour and just a bit slower than the speed needed to cross the street at most timed traffic lights.)

When the researchers factored in body mass index, blood pressure, prior hospitalization, and several other factors, the relationship between gait speed and longevity didn't change much. In other words, walking speed seemed to be independently associated with life expectancy, not just a marker for other conditions that would affect it.

More number crunching produced interesting correlations between gait speed and five- and 10-year survival rates that make some easy comparisons possible. For example, just 15% of the men ages 75 to 84 with a very slow gait speed of less than 0.4 meters per second (imagine someone shuffling) lived for another 10 years. In contrast, half of those with a speedier gait of 1.2 meters per second or faster lived at least 10 years. Women live longer than men, so the survival rates were longer at both slow and fast speeds for them, but the pattern was the same: faster walkers had much better five- and 10-year survival rates than slower ones.

So does this mean that if you're older and you work on improving your walking speed, you'll live longer? No, you can't draw that kind of a cause-and-effect conclusion from this study, which is based on statistical associations in observational studies. On the other hand, countless other studies have shown associations between physical activity and better health and longer life. For the vast majority of people at any age, regular walking improves health.

The University of Pittsburgh re searchers envision a day when standardized measures of gait speed, along with other information, might be a low-tech way for doctors and other clinicians to assess the overall health and life expectancy of their patients. In fact, you could do it yourself at home. All that's needed is a reliable watch that keeps track of seconds and some tape to mark off four meters in a hallway or large room. A slow gait could trigger action to improve modifiable risk factors or, in a very old person, to avoid certain interventions — say, certain types of surgery — because life expectancy is too short. Clinicians would also be a position to give their fast-walking patients the good news about their health and life expectancy prospects.