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Volume 2, Issue 7
Healthy diet and exercise reduces chance of cancer recurrence
Yoga helps ease depression and anxiety
Exercise increases "good" HDL cholesterol levels
Strength training makes your muscles stronger and younger!
Walking program helps low-income mom's lose weight
Healthy diet and exercise reduces chance of cancer recurrence
Each year, medical advancements in medications and technology help patients fight and ward off cancer. But new research recently presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology indicates that basic lifestyle changes, including diet and exercise, can also help prevent cancer recurrence.
The recent study, conducted by researchers at the Dana Farber Institute, focused on a group of 101 women diagnosed with breast cancer. During the 16 week study the women were assigned to either the "normal" care group of the or to the aerobic exercise and strength training group. Results indicated that the women in the exercise group lowered their insulin levels by 20 percent, which has a positive impact of cancer recurrence.
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Yoga helps ease depression and anxiety
A wide variety of medications are available to treat depression and anxiety, but a new study published in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine indicates that yoga's postures and controlled breathing can also be highly beneficial.
Study participants were split in to two groups, a control group and a yoga group. After 60 minutes of yoga, brain scans indicated a 27% boost in levels of the neurotransmitter gamma-aminobutyric (GABA) in the yoga group as compared with the control group. Low brain levels of GABA are associated with anxiety and depression
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Exercise increases "good" HDL cholesterol levels
Over the years numerous research studies have pointed to the fact that individuals who exercise regularly have higher levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), or good cholesterol. Low HDL levels are an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death worldwide. In an effort to more precisely determine the impact exercise has on HDL levels, Japanese researchers performed a meta-analysis of 25 previous studies that addressed this topic.
Results indicated that studies consistently showed an increase of HDL cholesterol with regular exercise. The minimum amount of weekly exercise that was needed in order to change HDL-C levels was 120 minutes or 900 calories burned. The effect of exercise was greater in those who had a higher total cholesterol level and in those with a body mass index of less than 28.
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Strength training makes your muscles stronger and younger!
As people age their muscles tend to atrophy, however, researchers at the Buck Institute for Age Research have found that regular strength training not only improves muscle strength and function but it also impacts the muscles gene expression, essentially making them younger.
Researchers analyzed small samples of muscle tissue from a group of healthy young and older adults, and found that older and younger muscle tissues differed significantly in their gene expression profiles. This said, after older adults participated in six months of strength training, not only did they increase their muscles strength, but the gene profiles more closely resembled that of their younger counterparts.
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Walking program helps low-income mom's lose weight
Statistics show that low-income, minority women are disproportionately effected by obesity and a variety of other chronic diseases. Recent research has found that giving low-income mothers of young children pedometers and teaching them how to use them significantly boosts their levels of physical activity.
Researchers gathered a group of 93 overweight and obese women, to participate in an 8-week program including instruction on physical activity and healthy eating, along with 30 minutes of exercise, and also participated in 45 minutes of moderate intensity exercise, equivalent to a brisk walk, four days a week. In the end participants increased their daily activity levels from 5,969 steps (3 miles a day) to 9,757 steps (4.9 miles a day) and lost an average of 6.5 pounds, 1.4 inches from their waists and lowered their body fat percentage by 1.4 percent.
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Sources
1 American Society of Clinical Oncology, 2007
2 Streeter CC, Jensen JE, Perlmutter RM, Cabral HJ, Tian H, Terhune DB, Ciraulo DA, Renshaw PF. (2007). Yoga Asana sessions increase brain GABA levels: a pilot study. Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 13, 419-26
3 Kodama S, et al. (2007). Effect of aerobic exercise training on serum levels of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol: a meta-analysis. Archives of Internal Medicine , 167, 999-1008.
4 Melov S, Tarnopolsky MA, Beckman K, Felkey K, Hubbard A. (2007). Resistance exercise reverses aging in human skeletal muscle. PLoS ONE , 2, e465
5 Clarke KK, Freeland-Graves J, Klohe-Lehman DM, Milani TJ, Nuss HJ, Laffrey S. (2007). Promotion of physical activity in low-income mothers using pedometers. Journal of the American Dietetic Association, 107, 962-7.
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