SportsGeezer

How to Stop Tension Headaches

Swedish researchers have three English words for those seeking relief from chronic tension headaches: "forget the drugs." Instead, their research suggests, longtime headache sufferers should try exercise, acupuncture, and relaxation training. The Scientific American reports that scientists at Sahlgrenska Academy, Goteborg University, designed a study in which 90 patients who had chronic tension-type headaches for an average of 7 years were randomly assigned to physical training, relaxation training, or acupuncture. Acupuncture was administered using 10 to 12 needles during 30-minute weekly sessions for 10 to 12 weeks; Physical training included five exercises focused on the neck and shoulder muscles, repeated about 100 times each, along with ergometric cycling and stretching; and the patients who were taught relaxation learned "breathing techniques, stress coping techniques, and "how to relax during activity and how to relax in everyday living."  The  study, which is written up in Cephalagia, found that acupuncture significantly reduced headache intensity at 3 months and 6 months, physical training was associated with reduced headache intensity and more headache-free periods immediately after the last treatment and after 6 months, and r relaxation training led to significant improvements in headache intensity and frequency immediately after the training and at 3 and 6 months.

For Mid-lifers, Exercise Better than Dieting

Is it better to diet or to exercise? The correct answer, of course, is "all of the above."  Now, recent research shows that, given the option of doing only one of the above, the better answer is "exercise please". The Scientific American reports on a study of of 34 adults in their 50s and 60s, who were divided into two groups. One group, dieted, the other worked out. Both groups were determined to lose weight. And they did. At the end of one year, Sciam reports, the average weight loss was 17 pounds.  The big diff?  Only the exercisers preserved muscle mass, strength and endurance.
Read more in the Scientific American.

How to Tell if You're Too Competitive

It's possible that you, like Geezer, have noticed that many of your friends seem a bit hyper-competitive. OK, perhaps all of your friends are totally hyper-competitive, and the only thing that can make them less competitive is a competition for "least competitive person."  Not to worry. Help is just a click away, thanks to this Men's Health questionaire designed to reveal exactly how disturbed your friends really are. Hope you win.

Knee Problems? Try Pumping Up Quads

The pain and the motion limitations caused by some knee problems may be alleviated by strengthening quadriceps. That, at least, is the opinioin of researchers at Boston University and UC San Francisco, who looked at MRIs of 265 men and women suffering from knee osteoarthritis. The scientists measured the amount of cartilage lost over periods of 15 months and 30 months, and tracked it with the  participants' quadriceps strength.  The L.A. Times reports that those who had the strongest quads had the least cartilage loss. Those with the weakest quadriceps had about 20 percent cartilage loss over time, whereas those with a medium amount of quadriceps strength had just slightly more. The paper reports that the strongest group had about 60 percent less deterioration than the weakest group. 
Read more in the LA Times.

AMC's Best Hikes Along Cliffs

AMC Outdoors, the excellent magazine of Appalachian Mountain Club, inviites readers to "dance wiith vertigo atop the Northeast’s most impressive cliffs." It's an offer than many of Geezer's more sensible associates would eagerly decline, but, as the AMC understands, a certain curious readership will find it irresistible. The piece takes hikers to Acadia National Park, to Mount Pisgah in Vermont, to the Trapps at Mohonk Preserve in New York, and to five other vertigo-inducing sites. Find all of them here.

Waltzing To Fitness

It is hard, Geezer admits, to imagine Lawrence Welk as a fitness guru, but as this L.A. Times piece on the health benefits of waltzing points out, Welk's  famous "and a one, and a two, and a three" may have improved the cadio health of many millions of people. The Times directs our attention to a study, presented at a recent meeting of the American Heart Association, that indicates that dancing the waltz three times a week for eight weeks was just as effective in improving cardiopulmonary function as exercising on a treadmill or bicycle for the same period. The piece quotes Jeff Allen, author of "The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ballroom Dancing," who explains that in the American-style waltz, there are 30 to 36 bars per minute, so you're doing 90 weight changes per minute or more.
Read more from CBS News about the health benefits of waltzing.

The Trouble With Trainers: Lack of Training

Personal trainers may be in greater demand than ever, but there has been, unfortunately, little demand for certification of their training. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that virtually anyone can become a certified trainer because there are no national educational standards for the field, and that numerous Web sites offer personal trainer certification after just a few hours of online training — and a few hundred dollars. The paper report that out of roughly 275 certification programs in the fitness world, only four are certified by a third-party accreditation organization. What's a consumer looking for a reliable trainer to do? Get demanding, the piece suggests, and starting asking about a personal trainer's qualifications before they join a health club.
Or, they can check out Outside magazine's guide to online personal trainers.

Vitamin D May Fight Infection

Vitamin D, believed by some researchers to have the power to slow some cancers and prevent diseases as varied as Type 1 diabetes, multiple sclerosis and schizophrenia, is now suspected of staving off some of the respiratory infections that seem to visit us most often in the winter. Science News reports on a study of more than 100 articles about vitamin D that suggests that a vitamin D deficiency may underlie a vulnerability to infections by bacteria, viruses, and fungi.  The study, published in Epidemiology and Infection,  points to an infection-fighting role for vitamin D, which is produced in skin exposed to sunlight but is present in few foods.

For Disk Ruptures, Hold the Knife

Geezer's regular squash partner has had so many surgeries to repair ruptured disks that he could probably do the operation himself. Now comes a study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, that suggests he may have been just as well off with no surgery at all. The New York Times reports on the study, which looked at outcomes of nearly 2,000 people with disk problems and compared the condition, two years down the road, of those who had surgery and those who didn't. The Times reports that about 70 percent of the patients in the two groups said they had a “major improvement” in their symptoms. No one who waited had serious consequences, and no one who had surgery had a disastrous result. Read more in the Times.

Two Strikes Against Marathoners: Calcium and Skin Cancer

First, the bad news from Europe about marathoners: The New York Times reports that researchers at University Clinic in Essen, Germany have found that healthy men over 50 who had finished at least five marathons in the last five years were more likely to have major calcium deposits in their arteries than healthy men who did not run as much.
Then the additional bad news from Europe about marathoners: The Washington Post reports that researchers at the Medical University of Graz, Austria have found an increased incidence of skin cancer among men who run marathons.  The Post reports that the Austrian scientists recruited 210 marathon runners for their study and matched them for age and sex with 210 other people they signed up at five recreation centers in Austria. The marathon runners had more abnormal moles and lesions, and 24 were referred for surgical treatment, while there were 14 treatment referrals among the non-marathoners. The highest rate of referral for treatment, the paper reports, 19 percent, was among the marathoners who trained the most, more than 43.5 miles per week.
Read more about what you can do to protect yourself from skin cancer in the Washington Post.