SportsGeezer

Remember Fat But Fit? Good. Now Forget It.

Remember fat but fit--the assertion that those of us who carry a few extra pounds were just as healthy as those who don't?  Well, forget it, because a new study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests researchers got it wrong, again. The Boston Globe reports that the study, which tracked almost 38,000 women, considered height, weight and amount of weekly physical activity, including walking, jogging, bicycling and swimming. Women were considered active if they followed government-recommended guidelines and got at least 30 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week, including brisk walking or jogging. Women who got less exercise than that were considered inactive. Researchers found that, compared with normal-weight active women, the risk for developing heart disease was 54 percent higher in overweight active women and 87 percent higher in obese active women. By contrast, it was 88 percent higher in overweight inactive women; and 2 1/2 times greater in obese inactive women.
Read more in the Boston Globe.

Hypertension: A Good Reason to Just Say Yes to Drugs

No. Hypertension does not mean being tense. No. Hypertension cannot be cured by losing weight. Yes, as many as 66 percent of people 60 and older have elevated pressures that warrant treatment, so you would think at least 50 percent of people over 60 would get their facts straight. They don't, as Jane Brody reports in the New York Times. The big take away here: don't count on getting your blood pressure down without drugs. It's a nice idea, and weight loss, improvements in diet and exercise habits can help people lower an elevated pressure, but, the Times tells us, most people need help from medication, notably a diuretic in combination with one or two other drugs. Read more in the New York Times. 

Minimal Agreement About Maximum Heart Rates

The New York Times' Gina Kolata confesses that she suffers from maximum heart rate envy of her husband, even though her husband will not disclose his maximum heart rate.  Geezer confesses that he has always been confused by notions of maximum heart rate and target heart rate (calculated by the Karvonen method or the  Zoladz method?) and wonders if all of that math is worth the effort. Alas, Kolata reports that many others are also math-averse, or just skeptical of the value things like the "notoriously inaccurate" formula for determining your maximum rate: 220 minus your age.  One problem with heart rate monitoring, Olympic marathon coach Kevin Hanson tells the Times, is that it can play mind games with you: if your heart rate is very high, you may worry yourself to a slower pace when a slower pace is not necessarily beneficial. Another problem is that monitoring heart rates can make athletes anxious, and that anxiety will further increase heart rate. So should we monitor, or not? In the end, this piece suggests that it doesn't really matter, as long as we don't worry about it. Read more in the New York Times.

Does Arginine Do Anything Good, and If So, What?

Admittedly, Geezer's notion of the perfect dietary supplement is a glass of dry white wine, slightly chilled and not too oaky. So when an old friend began recently to sing the praises of the amino acid arginine, Geezer was skeptical. Now, after doing a bit of research about the broadly marketed dietary supplement, which is known to increase the availability of nitric oxide (generally a good thing) and is alleged to treat heart disease, prevent cancer and improve erections, he is still skeptical. When the makers of Heartbar, a soy-based health bar with arginine added, claimed that their product could could reduce the risk of heart disease, they were called on the claim by the Federal Trade Commission. And the reliable UC Berkeley Guide to Dietary Wellness, for one, warns that "arginine can have serious side effects, especially when taken with certain other drugs. Long-term safety of arginine supplements is unknown. Increased nitric oxide might be dangerous for people with certain medical conditions, such as kidney failure or cancer. And no one knows what’s the right dose or when it should be taken."
Read more about arginine in the UC Berkeley Wellness Guide to Dietary Supplements.

Three Tips You Probably Never Thought of to Beat High Blood Pressure

From Best Life Magazine, Rodale's sharp new reach for mean who stopped worrying about the resiliency of their abs a few years ago, comes these three tips for beating high blood pressure.

Look into Coenzyme Q10.
Australian researchers recently found that men who supplemented their diets with this antioxidant experienced a 17-point drop in blood pressure. Best Life quotes Mark Moyad, MD, Phil F. Jenkins director of preventive and alternative medicine in the department of urology at the University of Michigan Medical Center, saying “Coenzyme Q10 cleans up free radicals in the blood-vessel  walls, allowing them to dilate. Even those with only a family history of high blood pressure should take 75 to 100 milligrams a day.”

Stay Calm
Meditating for 20 minutes a day can lower systolic blood pressure by five points and diastolic pressure by 2.8 points, according to a recent study in Current Hypertension Reports. To reap the same benefits, sit comfortably, close your eyes, and slowly repeat a peaceful mantra, such as the classic ohm or simply calm.

Realign your neck.
Doctors at the University of Chicago found that chiropractic adjustment of the Atlas (C1) vertebrae relaxes the arteries at the base of the skull, improving blood flow and resulting in a 17-point drop in systolic blood pressure and an eight-point drop in diastolic blood pressure. To find a certified chiropractor, visit amerchiro.org.

Read more about how to beat high blood pressure in Best Life.

Noise Boosts Blood Pressure

Add to the list of things of things that can boost your blood pressure the near- ubiquitous annoyance of noise. The  Washington Post reports that a study conducted by he Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Imperial College London, looked at 140 people who lived near London's Heathrow Airport, as well as airports in Athens, Milan and Stockholm. The Post reports that while the volunteers slept, the researchers remotely measured their blood pressure every 15 minutes, and also analyzed the noise level in the bedrooms. Researchers found a noticeable increase in blood pressure when noise levels grew louder than 35 decibels, even when the participant stayed asleep, the researchers found. The noise from aircraft increased blood systolic pressure (the top number in a reading) an average of 6.2 mmHg, the Post reports, and diastolic pressure an average of 7.4 mmHg, the researchers found. This increase in blood pressure was also seen from other noise, such as road traffic. Read more in the Washington Post.

Orgasms Are Good for your Health

Just in time for Valentine's Day, the health editors of the Los Angeles Times give us a six-part series on the science of orgasm: how it works, why it sometimes doesn't work, and what one (or two) might do to make it work better. While the most interesting part of the series may be here, Geezer respectfully directs his gentle readers to the health benefits of orgasms, which, according to the Times, include clearing arteries, possibly reducing the risk of breast cancer and prostate cancer, and increasing one's pain threshold. Those who need more reasons to seek more orgasms may find them in the L.A, Times.

Large Study Says Fitter Is Longer Living

Jeannine Stein, writing in the newly beleaguered Los Angeles Times, tells us that large-scale (seven years, 15,660 men, average age 59) study suggests that the fitter you are, the less likely it is that you will soon be dead. The Times reports that those men who were in the "very highly fit" category had a 70 percent lower death risk during that time period than those in the "low fit" category. Those considered moderately fit had about a 50 percent lower death risk compared with the low-fit group.
Read more in the L.A. Times.

The Scientific American: More Activity=Slower Aging

Just listen for a minute: When researchers at King's College in London examined the genetic markers of biological aging of some 2,400 twins, they found that a comparison of  the subjects who exercised the most (an average of 199 minutes weekly) to those who worked out the least (a mere 16 minutes or less a week) suggested that the exercise mavens were on average as much as a decade biologically younger than the slackers. The Scientific American reports on the study, which focused on the length of telomeres, and which was published in Archives of Internal Medicine.  Sciam reports that the scientists speculate that stress, inflammation and oxidative stress (cell damage caused by oxygen exposure) may be responsible for shortened telomeres in physically inactive people.
Read more in the Scientific American.

What Exercise Really Won't Do for You

The bottom line in NYT's health writer Gina Kolata's surprising piece questioning the ballyhooed benefits of exercise is this: "It is impossible to know with confidence whether exercise prevents heart disease or whether people who are less likely to get heart disease are also more likely to be exercising." Why would people who are less likely to get heart disease be more likely to exercise? That's where statistics demonstrate their indifference to political correctness. Because, Kolata tells us, active people "tend to be more educated, and education is one of the strongest predictors of good health in general and a longer life." Same deal, says Kolata, for people who are less likely to get cancer. What exercise is good for--it can lift your mood, lower blood pressure and help you lose weight-- and what is is alleged to be good for--just about everything--is a lot less clear than most people, including Gina Kolata, would like it to be, and this piece goes a long in separating the wheat from the chaff. Great word, "chaff." Chaff. Chaff. Chaff.
Read more about what exercise won't really do for you in the New York Times.