Just a Bit of Movement Can Make a Large Difference

Everyone knows that spending hours upon hours each day at a desk is not good for your physical or mental health. But what are you supposed to do if you work at a desk job? Here is a quick and easy way to make things better. In a new study by researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Center and the Johnson & Johnson Human Performance Institute found that tiny changes can go a long way. They looked at three different movement conditions with 30 adults.

In one group, the participants sat for six hours straight and got up only to use the bathroom. In the second group, they started the day with a 30 minute treadmill activity of moderate walking. The third group had six 5-minute bursts of moderate intensity walking every hour. The researchers looked at everyone’s stress hormones and at their mood, energy, fatigue and appetite.

And what did they find? They found that the benefits of the micro-workouts far outweighed those of the other participants. As the researchers explained,

“Overall, microbouts of activity led to sustained effects along the day, while the effects of a single bout of activity performed early in the morning did not last throughout the day.”

As the study author Jack Groppel explained, even a bit of activity throughout the day can really improve well being.

Tips for Staying Healthy This Winter

Most of us are more prone to sickness in the winter. It’s cold and wet and we don’t always exercise as much as we should or eat as well as we might. Here are some tips for staying healthy this winter.

Exercise Helps with Alzheimer’s Disease

man-1464787_960_720Here is one of the secrets of avoiding Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers who presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America have found that if you exercise four times a week you can cut your risk of developing the disease. Using MRI data, researches have found that adults with mild cognitive impairment who exercise four times a week over a six-month period had an increase in brain volume.

And, people who participated in aerobic exercise had even greater gains than did those who stretched.

Dr Laura Baker, from Wake Forest School of Medicine (WFSM) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina said, “Even over a short period of time, we saw aerobic exercise lead to a remarkable change in the brain.”

Read more about the study to see more details.

Fascinating Links Between Psychological and Physical Issues

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Now here is a weird connection. Depressed teenagers are more likely to develop arthritis when they get older. Together, Swiss and German researched assessed 6500 teenagers to see what types of links they could find between mental illness and physical problems. They did find that certain physical manifestations can be tied to psychological issues.


They found, for instance, that depression is often followed by arthritis and diseases of the digestive system; anxiety disorders are more common if the teenager already has heart disease; a link between epilepsy and eating disorders was found as well! The findings were published in PLOS One.

Which Color Do People Select More When Eating?

apple-1726962_960_720We all want our kids to eat more greens, and the fact that they don’t might actually not be their fault. A recent study conducted by the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy and published today in the journal Scientific Reports shows that we are hard-wired to select red food over green. They found that our visual sense is the first one that we use to select our food.

As Raffaella Rumiati, the coordinator of the study and a Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience, explained

“According to some theories, our visual system evolved to easily identify particularly nutritious berries, fruits and vegetables from jungle foliage. We are visual animals, unlike others, dogs, for example, who depend on their sense of smell. We are particularly efficient at distinguishing red from green. It is mainly the colour of food that guides us, and our experiments show how. To date, only a few studies have been focused on the topic.”


Interestingly, they found that the preference for red over green doesn’t translate to non-edible objects. Rumiati explained that “This means that the colour code of the visual system activates correctly only with food stimuli.”

 

Does Your Fitness Tracker Really Make You Fit?

running-watch-1246430_960_720Everyone loves his trendy fitness tracker – but does it really increase your exercise and make you more fit? Companies claim, of course, that they will make you move more and become more fit. They say that it will encourage you top up your steps.

A new study published in the medical journal Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology has found, however, that the benefits of wearing one of these devices is short lived. As study leader Professor Eric Finkelstein, of Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore, said:

“Over the course of the year-long study, volunteers who wore the activity trackers recorded no change in their step count but moderately increased their amount of aerobic activity by an average of 16 minutes per week.” He continued, “However, we found no evidence that the device promoted weight loss or improved blood pressure or cardiorespiratory fitness, either with or without financial incentives.”

Interestingly enough, he points out that the device might actually have the exact opposite influence. As Dr. Finkelstein explained, “While there was some progress early on, once the incentives were stopped, volunteers did worse than if the incentives had never been offered, and most stopped wearing the trackers.”

The team looked at 800 people from the ages of 21-65 who were monitored for 12 months with a Fitbit Zip device. They were divided up into four groups. One group just used the Fitbit. One group was offered money if they hit 50,000 steps a week. One group was also offered money but had to give it to charity and one group was given information about exercise but wasn’t given a device to use.

After six months, all of the incentives were removed but the participants were allowed to continue using their trackers. Only the participants who were in the cash incentive group showed an increase in physical activity. And – when the incentives were removed – 90% of the people stopped using the trackers. And most of those people returned to the level of activity they had recorded prior to starting.