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Volume 2, Issue 1
Exercise, diet and sleep help kids stay slim
Regular vigorous exercise can reduce risk for breast cancer
Obesity may trigger early puberty for girls
Exercise helps improve lung function in smokers
New moms can walk those baby pounds away!
Exercise, diet and sleep help kids stay slim
While it is a well known fact that regular exercise and a healthy diet help kids stay slim, a recent study out of Northwestern University has found that getting enough sleep is also important.
Researchers studied the sleep habits of 2,281 children, ages 3-12. Parents and/or the children were asked to fill out "time diaries" to record sleep information. The participants were contacted five years later to follow-up on their sleep patterns.The study found that children who get more sleep tend to have lower body mass indexes and were less likely to be overweight five years later than children who get less sleep. It is recommended that children ages 5-12 get 10 or 11 hours of sleep per night and teens ages13-18 get 8 to 9 hours.
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Regular vigorous exercise can reduce risk for breast cancer
A seven-year study of over 110,000 women in California has found that women who participate in long-term, strenuous physical activity, such as swimming laps, running and aerobics, can reduce their risk of developing breast cancer.
Researchers found that women with a long-term history of doing more than five hours a week of strenuous exercise were 20 percent less likely to develop invasive breast cancer and 31 percent less likely to develop in situ? breast cancer than those who did less than 30 minutes of strenuous exercise per week.
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Obesity may trigger early puberty for girls
Girls are now entering puberty at a significantly younger age than they did 30 years ago. This trend is in line with the growing rates of obesity in the United States over the last 30 years.
Research recently published in Pediatrics indicates that childhood obesity may, in fact, lead to early onset puberty in girls. The study of 354 girls from around the country found that increased body fat in girls as young as 3, and large increases in body fat between the ages of 3 and 6, are associated with early onset puberty- defined as entering puberty before the age of 9.
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Exercise helps improve lung function in smokers
It is indisputable that smoking is bad for your health and can lead to a multitude of health problems, such as cancer, emphysema and asthma. Many of the health problems associated with smoking are irreversible,but new research indicates that exercise can help to improve lung functioning among smokers.
A group of Spanish researchers recently found that moderate to high levels of regular exercise may help slow lung function decline in smokers and lower their risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by up to 21 percent. This said, not smoking or quitting smoking is still the number one way to prevent health problems, including COPD.
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New moms can walk those baby pounds away!
Many new moms find it difficult to lose weight after giving birth. However, new research out of Harvard Medical School indicates that walking-an activity moms can do on their own, with friends, or with their new baby-can help shed pounds.
Researchers studied 902 women, having them report on their diet, exercise and TV viewing in the 6 months following giving birth. Results indicated that women who walked a minimum of 30 minutes a day, ate relatively few trans fats and watched less than two hours of TV per day were the most likely participants to lose their pregnancy weight one year after giving birth
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Sources
1Snell EK, Adam EK, Duncan GJ. (2007). Sleep and the body mass index and overweight status of children and adolescents. Child Development, 78, 309-23.
2Dallal CM, et al. (2007). Long-term Recreational Physical Activity and Risk of Invasive and In Situ Breast Cancer: The California Teachers Study. Archives of Internal Medicine, 167, 408-15.
3Lee JM, Appugliese D, Kaciroti N, Corwyn RF, Bradley RH, Lumeng JC. (2007). Weight status in young girls and the onset of puberty. Pediatrics, 119, e624-30.
4Pierrou S, et al. (2007). Expression of Genes Involved in Oxidative Stress Responses in Airway Epithelial Cells of Smokers with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, 175, 577-586.
5American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 2007.
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