SportsGeezer

Paragliding Allegedly Offers More Fun Than Danger

Geezer wants to know if the fact that France has approximately 25,000 people who enjoy paragliding is a recommendation of the sport or a condemnation. The New York Times seems to cite it as evidence that the U.S. is, once again, behind the times. Still, the paper sees hope for us, and this interesting story, suggesting that paragliding is not nearly as dangerous as an intelligent person might assume, offers an encouraging account of the writer's first flight. The piece quotes a family physician and paragliding pilot who has studied accidents for Ushpa, saying he believes paragliding's injury rate is similar to that of activities like motorcycling, horseback riding and snowmobiling. Read more in the Times, or visit Google's first page of links to sites about paragliding, where, curiously, one finds sponsored links for life insurance.

Men's Health's New Rules of Stretching

Stretching, Geezer has read, is not what it used to be. It used to prevent pulled muscles; now it pulls muscles.  What a completely confused amateur athlete to do? 
The short answer is: It's complicated. The longer answer is: It's still complicated, but if you want to see seven exercises to stretch different muscle groups without putting them at risk, read this article in Men's Health on the New Rules of Stretching.

Is Yo-Yo Dieting Unhealthy?

Word around diet land has it that yo-yo dieting--taking it off, putting it on, taking it off, putting it on--is generally bad for health. Could that be true?  Some inquisitive reader has put that question to New York Times Health Answer Person C. Claiborne Ray, who tells us to chill. Studies that suggest a connection between variations in body weight and illness and death do not distinguish between intentional and unintentional weight loss.
"Therefore," Ray's cited panel of expert authors concludes, "obese individuals should not allow concerns about hazards of weight cycling to deter them from efforts to control their body weight."
Bottom line, however, is Ray's reminder that losing excess weight slowly and permanently, through reasonable calorie cuts and increased exercise, is the ideal.
Read more about Yo-Yo dieting at MedicineNet.

London Times' Handy Healthy Living Diary

Finding new ways to recycle newspaper content online is the Holy Grail of increasingly depressed editors at increasing depressed daily papers. For this effort: a colorful 12-month calendar of eating and fitness tips, the London Times gets an A--for awesome. Make it a WA, for wicked awesome, as they say in this godforsaken, just-springlike part of the country where Geezer has chosen to squander his best years. It's the kind of nifty online feature whose conception might just keep a print editor employed for another year or two.

Too Little Sleep May Raise Blood Pressure

The next time someone complains of high blood pressure, tell them to sleep it off. New research, just published in the journal Hypertension, suggests that that may be possible--over a sufficient period of time. As the New York Times reports, the study of more than 4,800 men and women, ages 32 to 59, found that those who got five hours of sleep a night or less were about 60 percent more likely to develop hypertension than those who slept six to eight hours. That's the good news. That bad news is this: If you're already getting six to eight hours sleep and still have high blood pressure, you can forget about sleeping it off. The study found that people who got nine or more hours of sleep were no less likely to have high blood pressure than those who slept six to eight hours. Read more in Hypertension, then take a long nap.

The Great Eight: Best Hiking Trails of the Northeast

The newly and nicely redesigned magazine, amc outdoors, offers up a very useful piece for readers who happen to live in the Northeast,describing eight great hikes in states from Virginia (OK, the Northeast is a little larger than expected) to Maine. AMC Outdoors gives us the usual goods: time, distance and difficulty; and more, including the name of the best closest watering hole, for those who have completed the hike (or those would rather spend the day drinking than walking).
And the winners are:
Breakneck Ridge, Hudson Valley, New York
Mount Tom Traverse via the Metacomet-Monadnock Trail Easthampton/Holyoke, Mass.
Old Rag Mountain, Shenandoah National Park, Va.
Cadillac Mountain via the South Ridge Trail Acadia National Park, Maine
Camels Hump via the Monroe and Dean Trails Northern Vermont
Rattlesnake Swamp Trail/Appalachian Trail Delaware Water Gap, N.J.
Bondcliff Traverse, Pemigewasset Wilderness Central White Mountains, New Hampshire
Welch-Dickey Loop Southern White Mountains, New Hampshire
To learn what makes these eight hikes classics, read AMC Outdoors, then think about joining the club.

A Dangerous Fungus Appears to Like Contact Lenses

The L.A. Times gives those of us who wear contact lenses (and those of us who garden) something new to worry about. It's called Fusarium keratitis, and if it goes untreated, this eyeball loving fungus can cause blindness. Historically, the Times reports, Fusarium keratitis has been  associated with situations in which some type of organic matter has come into contact with the eye at the point of an abrasion. And historically, the disease has been extremely rare. Now, however, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating 176 suspected cases of the disease, and of the 30 cases reviewed to date, 28 involved contact lens wearers. According to the Times, 21 reported using ReNu brand products, and five reported using a combination of ReNu and products made by other companies.
Symptoms include redness or irritation of the eye, blurred vision, tearing, excessive discharge and sensitivity to light. The scary news, says the newspaper piece, is that the condition is sometimes mistaken for a bacterial infection and treated with topical steroids, which only worsens the condition.

Do Omega-3s Make Us Mellow?

Do omega-3 fatty acids make us mellow? Maybe. Or maybe they just make us mellow enough that we don't want to kill someone. The New York Times reports on a study conducted by an Oxford University scientist that tested the theory on 231 men in a British prison--a place where, generally speaking, violence was more likely to erupt than it is in most households. Half of the men in the study were given a placebo and the other half were given fatty acids and supplements. Over time, the Times reports, the antisocial behavior (as measured by assaults and other violations) of the inmates who had been given the supplements dropped by more than a third relative to their previous records. The control group showed little change. Read more, and give that excitable goon on your basketball team an extra helping of salmon.

Beach Tennis Rocks Strange World of Southern California

Yes, it started in Southern California, and yes, it is often played by people wearing swimsuits, and yes, many of those people wearing swimsuits are beyond their swimsuit-wearing prime, but then, yes, it started in Southern California and those people are also swinging tennis rackets, which might ordinarily provide enough respectability to offset the swimsuit thing, except in this case they are not swinging tennis rackets on the tennis court but on the beach. Whatever. It's Southern California, and the sport is called Beach Tennis, and, as this piece in the L.A. Times reports, it "provides an excellent workout for the glutes, quads and hamstrings and, to a lesser extent, the arms. The sand not only forces the muscles to work harder, it slows the game considerably, making it adaptable for seniors and kids..."
The Rules:
The Times reports that Beach Tennis is played with standard tennis rackets and balls, and the goal is to get the ball over the net. The scoring sequence — 15, 30, 40 — is the same as in tennis, but there's no deuce point, and players are allowed only one serve. Beach tennis is played like badminton, in that the ball is swatted back and forth, like a shuttlecock, and doesn't hit the ground. The net is four inches lower than a beach volleyball net, and the court is 60-by-30 feet, similar to a beach volleyball court. The winner is the first to win eight games, rather than the standard six in tennis. Ideally, the game is played with two people on each side, like doubles tennis.
The Danger: Singles games are strenuous, and games with more than two players per side can be dangerous — teammates tend to get beaned by flailing rackets.
More on Beach Tennis from USA Today.

Lawsuit Challenges Sunscreen Claims

Is sunscreen the snake oil of the 21st century? Sam Rudman, a lawyer who is leading a class-action charge against five sunscreen sellers says it is. Rudman's suit argues that the use of terms such as "sunblock," "waterproof," and "all day protection" encourage a false sense of security that actually endangers those who use products such as Coppertone, Banana Boat and Hawaiian Tropic. In this piece. ABC News reports on the suit, and quotes dermatologists who advise us to keep using the sunscreen, even if every claim by every manufacturer is not literally true. Geezer is with the docs. He argues that most claims made about the dangers of skin cancer are not in dispute. Listen to a podcast about the lawsuit on Marketplace.