Regular readers know that I am a big fan of walking. If you want to learn more about the benefits of the superb, and under-appreciated, exercise, please check out my Page- Why you should walk more.
Herewith chapter and verse from USA Today on where people in the world walk most. Sorry to see that the U.S. was so far down the list.
Filed under cardio exercise, Exercise, exercise benefits, walking
One of the stated aims of this blog is to live past 100. Posts every day touch on that goal, but mostly in a ‘part of the big picture’ way. Herewith some positive ideas from Harvard Health publications directly on the subject of super-aging.
Finding role models who are older than we are gets more difficult as we age. But in the last few years, medical science has identified a new group we can aspire to join — the super-agers. The term refers to people in their 70s and 80s who have the mental or physical capability of their decades-younger counterparts.
Although super-agers’ brains show less cell loss than those of their contemporaries, their IQs and educational levels are similar. What sets them apart might be that they view problem-solving differently, Dr. Dickerson says. “They may approach these tasks as a challenge they can succeed at, in contrast to typical older adults who may give up.” Continue reading
I have written numerous times about the value of walking as an exercise. I have a Page – Why you should walk more which I hope you will check out for further details on this superb form of exercise. Well, now comes Harvard Health Publications with a fresh look at this old exercise – Interval Walking.
Warm weather is here, and you may be walking more to take advantage of being outside. Why not ramp up your routine with bursts of fast-paced walking? The technique, known as interval walking, “is a great way to get the most exercise bang for your buck,” says Dr. Aaron Baggish, associate director of the Cardiovascular Performance Program at Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.
Interval walking is a form of interval training, which describes any form of exercise in which you purposely speed up or slow down at regular intervals throughout the session. The benefits of interval training in athletes and people in cardiac rehabilitation are well studied. Dr. Baggish says interval walking hasn’t been examined as much, but he believes the same benefits apply. “Something about strenuous exercise is good for the body. It improves endurance, reduces blood pressure, and helps with weight loss,” he explains. Continue reading
Having written tons about the physical benefits of exercise, it seems timely to mention the emotional ones, too.
Please also check out my Page Important facts about your brain (and exercise benefits),
Tony
Filed under cardio exercise, Exercise, exercise and brain health, exercise benefits
With both Alzheimer’s and dementia in my family, I am interested in all research on the subject.
Tufts reported the following in its Health and Nutrition Letter.
Could a trimmer waistline in middle age help you avoid Alzheimer’s later in life? That’s the suggestion of a study, published in Molecular Psychiatry, from the National Institute on Aging. Researchers analyzed data on 1,394 participants in a long-running study of aging, followed for an average of 14 years, who regularly underwent cognitive testing. A total of 142 participants developed Alzheimer’s disease during the study.
After adjusting for other factors, each additional point of body-mass index (BMI) at age 50 was associated with an earlier onset of Alzheimer’s of 6.7 months. “Our findings clearly indicate that higher adiposity at midlife is associated with a long-lasting effect on accelerating the clinical course of Alzheimer’s disease,” Madhav Thambisetty, MD, PhD, and colleagues concluded.
The study was not designed to prove cause and effect, however, and it’s not clear whether the association between obesity and Alzheimer’s risk might begin even earlier. It’s also true that newly diagnosed Alzheimer’s patients tend to weigh less than normal, not more.
To read further on the subject, please check out my Page – Important facts about your brain – (and exercise benefits).
Tony
Filed under aging, aging brain, brain exercise, cardio exercise, Exercise, exercise benefits, Tufts
There will be lots of celebrations of the bicycle in the coming four weeks because May is National Bicycle Month. As regular readers know, I ride around 7000 miles a year, an average of over 20 miles per day. So cycling is a labor of love for me.
I have tried to explain to myself first as well as others who asked, why I love to ride my bike. Until recently, the best I could come up with is that I feel like I am flying. Not soaring high, just flying along several feet above the bike path.
Riding on Northerly Island in Chicago
I know that when I ride, I am at once totally in the moment of propelling the bike forward and at the same time I experience a very enjoyable feeling of expansion – an almost out of body sensation.
This has been wonderfully explained by former University of Chicago professor, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Flow. Continue reading
Filed under biking, cardio exercise, Exercise, exercise benefits, regular bike riding, safe biking, summer biking
Suppressing production of the protein myostatin enhances muscle mass and leads to significant improvements in markers of heart and kidney health, according to a study conducted in mice. Joshua T. Butcher, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the Vascular Biology Center at Augusta University, will present the work at the American Physiological Society’s annual meeting during the Experimental Biology 2017 meeting, held April 22–26 in Chicago.
The researchers zeroed in on myostatin because it is known as a powerful inhibitor of skeletal muscle growth, meaning that people with more myostatin have less muscle mass and people with less myostatin have more muscle mass. Studies suggest obese people produce more myostatin, which makes it harder to exercise and harder to build muscle mass.
Brain
“Given that exercise is one of the most effective interventions for obesity, this creates a cycle by which a person becomes trapped in obesity,” Butcher said. Continue reading
Filed under brain exercise, cardio exercise, Exercise, exercise benefits, myostatin
Easter comes at a time when the weather is mellowing and more folks think about getting outside and enjoying the air. Maybe slimming down. The whole idea of Easter is rejuvenation, right? Spring; new life. Well, biking is the coolest way I know to get outside and feel reborn.
I hope you will enjoy these images and ideas as much as I do.
I just love that little poster. The Earth sends a lil extra luv to those on bicycles… It says so right there.
What’s not to like?
Most years I ride my bike farther than I drive my car. That’s something you might be able to do …
Isn’t it interesting that Minneapolis is one of the top cities for biking in the country?
It’s a good day for a ride …
Happy Easter, bunny!
One little safety note: besides a helmet, get those biking gloves. If When you fall, you are going to put your hands out in front of you. The gloves will protect them from glass, dirt and anything else on the road.
Tony
Filed under biking, cardio exercise, Easter, Easter wishes, Exercise, exercise benefits, regular bike riding
I would like to thank reader, Garry, for tipping me off to this study on Parkinson’s disease and exercise.
From an analysis of more than 3,400 patients with Parkinson’s disease, researchers found that those who engaged in a minimum of 150 minutes of physical activity a week experienced much slower declines in health-related quality of life (HRQL) and mobility over 2 years, compared with patients who exercised less than 150 minutes weekly.
Note: This recommendation exactly equals that of the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services. Which states: Adults 18 to 64 should get:
2.5 hours/wk of moderate intensity exercise.
OR 1.25 hours a week of vigorous aerobic physical activity
Or Some combination of the above – equivalent episodes of at least 10 minutes spread throughout the week. Continue reading
The split between mind and body seems clearest in the realm of exercise. Each is good for us, but is one better?
Professor Sam Wang, Ph.D. Molecular Molecular Biology and Neuroscience, Princeton University covers the subject extensively in Lecture 23 of his course The Neuroscience of Everyday Life which I took from The Great Courses.
Opinion has been split on the subject.
“It is exercise alone that supports the spirits and keeps the mind in vigor.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero – 65 BC.
“Exercise invigorates and enlivens all the faculties of body and mind…. It spreads a gladness and a satisfaction over our minds and qualifies us for every sort of business, and every sort of pleasure.” – John Adams, Second President of the U.S.
On the other hand, that curmudgeon, Mark Twain said, “I take my only exercise acting as pallbearer at the funeral of my friends who exercise regularly.”
The business of brain-training is a multi-million dollar operation. It includes software and games we can play on our computers, Nintendo, smart phones as well as specialized machines. Also, there are the puzzles, like Sudoku, crosswords and other pattern recognition games.
Eat less; move more; live longer. Let’s be more specific about that moving part.
According to the U.S. Dept of Health and Human Services:
Adults 18 to 64 should get:
2.5 hours/wk of moderate intensity exercise.
OR 1.25 hours a week of vigorous aerobic physical activity
Or Some combination of the above – equivalent episodes of at least 10 minutes spread throughout the week.
That is really not a lot of exercise to sneak into a seven-day week. But, this is an old guy who has been retired for 17 years talking. What about the guy/gal who is clocking 50 or more hours a week on a demanding job with after work dinners and out of town travel assignments. All of a sudden a total of 2.5 hours a week becomes difficult to downright impossible.
Consider a desk that allows you to stand to protect yourself from the damage of prolonged sitting.
Well, WebMD has some really good ideas on how to squeeze some exercise into each day – even with a demanding job. You can check them all out at the link, but here are some that particularly impressed me. Continue reading
Filed under cardio exercise, Exercise, exercise benefits
Lifestyle patterns, including regular exercise and staying slim, are associated with a risk of overall heart failure but are more strongly associated with the heart failure subtype HFpEF, according to a study published today in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Before getting into the study, I want to reiterate the mantra of this blog: eat less; move more; live longer. Certainly words to live by.
Heart failure is a medical condition defined by the inability of the heart to meet the demands of the body, particularly during exertion. Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction (HFpEF) is a subtype of heart failure that involves the heart and other organs and is characterized a stiff heart muscle that is unable to fill adequately with blood, resulting in fluid backing up into the lungs and body.
Heart failure with preserved ejection fraction accounts for up to 50 percent of heart failure cases and is associated with poor outcomes. It has also proven to be resistant to available therapies, leading to prevention being a critical part of controlling the growing burden of this disease.
“We consistently found an association between physical activity, BMI and overall heart failure risk,” said Jarett D. Berry, MD, associate professor in the department of internal medicine and clinical sciences and director of cardiac rehabilitation at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and the study’s senior author. “This was not unexpected, however the impact of these lifestyle factors on heart failure subtypes was quite different.”(my emphasis)
Filed under BMI, cardio exercise, Exercise, exercise benefits
Eat less; move more; live longer. That is the mantra of this blog. moving more keeps the organic machines we know as our bodies in tip top shape. As it turns out exercise is also good for the old cabeza.
Moderate-intensity exercise can help improve your thinking and memory in just six months.
You probably already know that exercising is necessary to preserve muscle strength, keep your heart strong, maintain a healthy body weight, and stave off chronic diseases such as diabetes. But exercise can also help boost your thinking skills. “There’s a lot of science behind this,” says Dr. Scott McGinnis, an instructor in neurology at Harvard Medical School.
Exercise boosts your memory and thinking skills both directly and indirectly. It acts directly on the body by stimulating physiological changes such as reductions in insulin resistance and inflammation, along with encouraging production of growth factors — chemicals that affect the growth of new blood vessels in the brain, and even the abundance, survival, and overall health of new brain cells.
It also acts directly on the brain itself. Many studies have suggested that the parts of the brain that control thinking and memory are larger in volume in people who exercise than in people who don’t. “Even more exciting is the finding that engaging in a program of regular exercise of moderate intensity over six months or a year is associated with an increase in the volume of selected brain regions,” says Dr. McGinnis. Continue reading
Filed under aging brain, brain, brain exercise, brain function, cardio exercise, Exercise
I just ran across these in my web wanderings and wanted to share them. If you ride a bike you get it. If you don’t, maybe you should consider it.
Maybe this is actually a yoga picture, or gymnastic shot more than a bike one, but I loved it.
Tony
Filed under biking, cardio exercise, Exercise, exercise benefits, regular bike riding
We have only about six weeks of winter left, but it it never too late to remind you that snow shoveling is dangerous business.
While I strongly support calorie burning exercises to build up your cardiovascular system and other benefits, it is important to know your limits. If you are not currently working out or don’t consider yourself to be “in condition,” please think twice before you grab that snow shovel and race out to clear the walk.
The American Journal of Emergency Medicine reported that more than 195,000 people were treated in U.S. Emergency Rooms for snow-shovel-related incidents from 1990 to 2006. This is an average of 11,500 individuals per year. Keep in mind that this information only covers folks who actually went to the ER for treatment. Plenty more stayed home and nursed their wounds ….
About 2/3 of these incidents occurred among males. Children younger than 18 made up 15.3% of the cases. Older adults (above 55 years) accounted for more than 20%.
Continue reading
Filed under cardio exercise, Exercise, snow shoveling
It seems that no matter how well I plan to take it easy during the holidays, I still end up feeling exhausted when they’re over. Even though I try to avoid malls and holiday traffic all together, it seems that even the cooking and laughing and staying up late are enough to leave me feeling […]
via Top 10 Ways To Stay Healthy This Winter — Our Better Health
I thought you would enjoy this very timely list of ideas and actions this holiday season.
Eat less; move more; live longer.
Tony
Filed under cardio exercise, cold weather exercising, Exercise
