SportsGeezer

Headache Relievers May Cause Headache Pain

For many sufferers of headache pain, the best route to pain relief may be fewer pain relievers. That's the opinion of experts at some called, painfully, the International Headache Society, which last year published revised criteria to help doctors recognize and treat headaches that stem from the overuse of headache  medication. According to the society, signs of trouble include headaches that occur 15 or more days a month, along with the heavy use of pain medications for three months or more. Overuse is defined by the society as taking pain medication for 15 or more days a month. The New York Times reports that migraine sufferers seem to be especially susceptible to rebound episodes. The paper writes that many doctors begin weaning these patients off painkillers by prescribing drugs to help prevent attacks, then gradually reducing doses of the painkillers used to treat acute episodes.
Read more about headaches caused by headache relievers in the New York Times.

Two Words on Matching Body Type to Sport: Forget It

If you're small, you should run, and if you're tall, you should swim. So goes the common wisdom about what kind of bodies perform better at what kind of sports. In this somewhat conflicted piece in the New York Times, Gina Kolata explains the physiological and physical reasons why tall swimmers do generally swim faster than short swimmers and why small, thin runners generally run faster than tall, heavily-built runners.
She points out that, among other things, tall swimmers also have an advantage because when bodies are horizontal in the water, long bodies have an automatic edge. Distance running, says Kolata, prefers another kind of body. Because running requires that you lift your body off the ground with each step, propelling yourself forward, the lighter you are, the easier the lift, and the faster you go.
Having said all that, Kolata reminds us that unless we plan to compete in the next Olympics, and Geezer does not, it matters less what we excel at than what we enjoy.
Read more in the New York Times.

Wait, You Mean Bad Cholesterol Doesn't Even Matter?

Remember all those years we spent worrying about our levels of LDL cholesterol, otherwise known as bad cholesterol?  Well, according to research conducted at the Heart Research Institute in Sydney, Australia and at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, that was a monumental waste of energy. What really matters, the research indicates, is the levels of HDL, otherwise known as good cholesterol. U.S. News and World Report tells us that the incidence of heart attack, stroke and other cardiovascular problems was 40 percent lower in the one-fifth of participants in a major trial who had the highest HDL cholesterol levels, regardless of their LDL cholesterol levels.
Get the good stuff; Read an abstract of the study in the New England Journal of Medicine.

A Drink a Day May Improve Memory

While it's true that the evidence is not indisputable--the experiments from which it derives, for example, involved rats, not humans-- there is some suggestion that moderate alcohol consumption may improve memory. The Scientific American reports on research conducted at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, where investigators fed three groups of rats a diet consisting of 0, 2.5 or 5 percent ethanol. The 2.5 percent ethanol diet, the researchers estimated, was equivalent to a one to two drinks per day for some people or two to three for others, depending upon their size, metabolism or genetic background. Sciam reports that the animals that consumed moderate amounts of alcohol fared better on two kinds of memory tests compared with the teetotalers. Rats on a heavy alcohol diet did not do well on an object recognition test (and, in fact, showed signs of neurotoxicity), but they performed better than their normal brethren on the emotional memory task.
Read more in the Scientific American online.

Is Your Team Lackiing Spirit? Try This:

Running With Friends Is Better Than Running Alone

For years, Gina Kolata, New York Times science writer and long-time runner, preferred to run alone. Well, not alone exactly. She preferred to run with her iPod. All of that changed when a friend suggested that if she ran with a group, Kolata would run farther, faster, and the miles would fly by. Thus Kolata discovered several benefits of running with friends that she had never imagined.
"You will probably have conversations during runs that you could never imagine having if you were sitting face to face with a neighbor or a work colleague," she writes. "And you may become unexpectedly close to people you would never have met or gotten to know in your other life. ...Along the way, you will discover quiet roads and hidden trails..."
Read more in the Times.

Danger Lies at Both Ends of Sleep: Too Little and Too Much

How much sleep should a healthy person get?  Most experts put the amount at seven to eight hours a night. And when reseachers at the University of Warwick and University College London examined sleep patterns and death rates over two decades among 10,308 civil servants, they went with the seven hour ideal. BBC reports that the scientists found that people who cut their sleeping from seven to five hours a night had twice the risk of a fatal cardiovascular problem of those who stuck to the recommended seven hours a night. The same researchers were more surprised to learn that those who increased their sleep to eight hours or more a night were more than twice as likely to die during the period of the study as those who had not changed their habit.
Read more from the BBC.

The Ups and Downs of Ankle Weights

Are ankle weights good or evil, that is the question. And the answer is: It depends on who you are and how you use them. Dr. Anthony Luke, assistant professor of orthopedics and director of primary care sports medicine at UC San Francisco, told the L.A. Times that ankle weights make muscles, such as hamstrings, quadriceps and glutes, work harder to do the same motion. "It's giving a better workout for those big muscles, but it will put more force on the joints as well as the muscles. If there's an existing problem, it can make things more difficult."
Kent Adams, director of the exercise physiology lab at Cal State Monterey Bay, warns that the extra weight can increase the impact loading on the hips and knees, especially in the case of people who are frail or overweight. Adams suggests that if you want more bang for your workout, you increase cardio intensity by varying your speed or climbing hills.
Read more in the L.A. Times.

Research Shows Exercise Helps Kick Depression

What's better for treating depression Zoloft or exercise? James A. Blumenthal, a professor of psychology at Duke University wondered about that, and conducted some research to find out. The L.A. Times reports that Blumenthal divided 202 patients into four groups. After 16 weeks, 47 percent of the people who took the antidepressant Zoloft improved. But some 45 percent of those who exercised in supervised groups improved, and 40 percent of those who exercised on their own improved, a statistically insignificant difference from the drug group result. About 30 percent of those in the placebo group improved, a finding consistent with the placebo effect.
The paper reports that Blumenthal speculates that exercise may increase endorphin or serotonin levels, so-called feel-good brain chemicals.
Read more in the L.A. Times.
Read an abstract of the research in Psychosomatic Medicine.

Why Eating Less Leads to Longer Lives

For more than 70 years, the Scientific American reports, scientists have known that cutting calories by 30 percent would lead to a longer life, but they never knew why. Until now. Sciam reports that researchers at Harvard Medical School have found evidence that the phenomenon is likely linked to two enzymes—SIRT3 and SIRT4—in mitochondria (the cell's powerhouse that, among other tasks, converts nutrients to energy). They found that a cascade of reactions triggered by lower caloric intake raises the levels of these enzymes, leading to an increase in the strength and efficiency of the cellular batteries. By invigorating the mitochondria, SIRT3 and SIRT4 extend the life of cells, by preventing flagging mitochondria from developing tiny holes (or pores) in their membranes that allow proteins that trigger apoptosis, or cell death, to seep out into the rest of the cell. According the Scientific American, the researchers determined that lower caloric intake sends a signal that activates a gene inside cells that codes for the enzyme NAMPT (nicotinamide phosphoribosyltransferase). The two- to four-fold surge in NAMPT in turn triggers the production of a molecule called NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), which plays a key role in cellular metabolism and signaling. The uptick in NAD levels, in turn, activates the SIRT3 and SIRT4 genes, increasing levels of their corresponding SIRT3 and SIRT4 enzymes, which then flood the interior of the mitochondria. Sinclair says he's not sure exactly how SIRT3 and SIRT4 beef up the mitochondria's energy output, but that events leading to cell death are at the very least delayed when there are vast quantities of the enzymes. Got that? Read more in the Scientific American.

Wait, there's more, also in the Scientific American.