Fitness, Health, and Wellness

By Matt Haney: "In the conversation about a tax on sugary beverages in San Francisco, most of the attention has focused on the detrimental health impacts of soda, and whether or not a tax on sugary beverages will lead to less use.

These are important questions, with big implications, and ones that the scientists, doctors, and researchers are perfectly qualified to handle. Take the politics out of it, and much like global warming, the science and the facts fall clearly on one side in this debate. Soda is a unique driving factor in causing obesity, which is the greatest public health crisis facing our country, particularly among children.

Still, less attention has been given to an equally important consideration: The impact that soda use has on our schools’ ability to ensure educational opportunity for all, and the urgent need for more resources to address its devastating impacts.

As a Commissioner on the San Francisco Unified School District Board of Education, I am responsible, along with my Board colleagues, for providing each student in San Francisco schools with an equal opportunity to succeed and achieve his or her full potential.

When children walk through our doors, they come in with a range of needs—academic, social, behavioral, and physical. Schools understand that you can’t address these needs in isolation. You can’t focus solely on teaching algebra if your students haven’t eaten or can’t see the chalkboard. Successful schools must understand and address the wide range of factors that affect educational achievement."...

For full post, click title above or here: http://www.choosehealthsf.com/sodas_impact_on_schools

By Patti Neighmond and Richard Knox - (NPR)

"More than 1 in 4 adult Americans say they've recently suffered a bout of low-back pain. It's one of the most common reasons people go to the doctor. And more and more people are being treated for it.

America spends more than $80 billion a year on back pain treatments. But many specialists say less treatment is usually more effective.

In fact, there's evidence that many standard treatments for back pain — surgery, spinal injections and painkillers — are often ineffective and can even worsen and prolong the problem."...

Full post at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/01/13/255457090/pain-in-the-back-exercise-may-help-you-learn-not-to-feel-it

By Gretchen Reynolds - NYTimes - Nov. 27th, 2013 -

(Selected quote)

..."Their method was simple. They randomly divided their volunteers into two groups, one of which was assigned to run every day at a moderately intense pace on a treadmill for 45 minutes. The other group did not exercise.

     Meanwhile, the men in both groups were told to generally stop moving so much, decreasing the number of steps that they took each day from more than 10,000 on average to fewer than 4,000, as gauged by pedometers. The exercising group’s treadmill workouts were not included in their step counts. Except when they were running, they were as inactive as the other group.

     Both groups also were directed to start substantially overeating. The group that was not exercising increased their daily caloric intake by 50 percent, compared with what it had been before, while the exercising group consumed almost 75 percent more calories than previously, with the additional 25 percent replacing the energy burned during training.

     Over all, the two groups’ net daily energy surplus was the same.

The experiment continued for seven days. Then both groups returned to the lab for additional testing, including new insulin measurements and another biopsy of fat tissue.

     The results were striking. After only a week, the young men who had not exercised displayed a significant and unhealthy decline in their blood sugar control, and, equally worrying, their biopsied fat cells seemed to have developed a malicious streak. Those cells, examined using sophisticated genetic testing techniques, were now overexpressing various genes that may contribute to unhealthy metabolic changes and underexpressing other genes potentially important for a well-functioning metabolism.

    But the volunteers who had exercised once a day, despite comparable energy surpluses, were not similarly afflicted. Their blood sugar control remained robust, and their fat cells exhibited far fewer of the potentially undesirable alterations in gene expression than among the sedentary men.

     “Exercise seemed to completely cancel out many of the changes induced by overfeeding and reduced activity,” said Dylan Thompson, a professor of health sciences at the University of Bath and senior author of the study. And where it did not countermand the impacts, he continued, it “softened” them, leaving the exercise group “better off than the nonexercise group,” despite engaging in equivalently insalubrious behavior."...

Full post at: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/27/the-power-of-a-daily-bout-of-exercise/?_r=0#!&nbsp

By Gretchen Reynolds - NYTimes:
"This year, exercise science expanded and fine-tuned our understanding of how physical activity affects our brains, joints,hearts, and even genes, beginning before birth and continuing throughout our lifespans, which can be lengthened, it seems, by exercise, especially if we pick up the pace."... 
 

Full post at: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/25/for-fitness-intensity-matters/?_r=0

From H4HInitiative.com:
"Our mission is to raise public awareness of healthy hydration, and encourage sustainable healthy hydration habits, by sharing scientific research, educational materials and practical tools. Nutritional advice typically focuses on food intake. Yet, the quantity and quality of the fluids we drink every day can have a significant impact on our well-being and long-term health. Therefore, one of our primary challenges is to communicate the fundamental need for healthcare policymakers and practitioners to proactively provide healthy hydration advice.

For more, click on title above or here: http://www.h4hinitiative.com/about-us/our-mission#sthash.A8ynzrsj.dpuf

By Bamboo Fitness
Debunking the myth

"Have you ever heard the saying, “Muscle weighs more than fat?” Perhaps at some point in your life you were working your butt off in the gym in an attempt to lose weight. During this time, you hopped onto the scale weekly, sometimes even daily. Some days were better than others. Sometimes the numbers on the scale decreased, but to your dismay, this wasn’t always the case. Some weigh-ins showed that the scale read higher than your starting weight. Other days the scale wouldn’t budge. This would depress and sadden you. To soothe your worries and soften the blow of the scale, perhaps a family member, friend, personal trainer, or doctor told you that you shouldn’t freak out because the scale is showing that there has been a gain in muscle and that “muscle weighs more than fat.” Maybe you relaxed after hearing this. Maybe you were skeptical of this comment."... 

For full post, click on title above or here: 
http://bamboocorefitness.com/one-pound-of-fat-versus-one-pound-of-muscle-clearing-up-the-misconception/  

Photo caption: "A new study shows that a gene regulator called REST, dormant in the brains of young people (left), switches on in normal aging brains (center) to protect against various stresses, including abnormal proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases. REST is lost in critical brain regions of people with Alzheimer’s (right). (Source: Yankner Lab)"

"Why do neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s affect only the elderly? More than a century of research into the causes of dementia has focused on the clumps and tangles of abnormal proteins that appear in the brains of people with neurodegenerative diseases. However, scientists know that at least one piece of the puzzle has been missing because some people with these abnormal protein clumps show few or no signs of cognitive decline...."

For full post, click on title above or here: http://www.biosciencetechnology.com/news/2014/03/aging-brain-needs-rest

"Whether you prefer being up at dawn or burning the midnight oil depends on your genes, experts have found.  Some of us leap out of bed each morning, raring to start the day. Others need at least one alarm clock - preferably one with a snooze button - to ensure they get to work on time.  And some of us happily stay up chatting until the wee small hours, while others prefer to be tucked up listening to 'Book at Bedtime' with the lights turned out.

We really are divided into larks and owls. And this is set by our genes, says neurogeneticist Dr Louis Ptacek of University of California."...

Full post at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25777978

"While boosting health and fitness are often promoted as the key benefits to increased physical activity, growing ­attention is now being given to its potential to impact across all areas of life.
 

Gregor Henderson, who advises the UK government on public health and wellbeing issues, said there was now good scientific evidence that taking part in sport boosted educational achievement, ­increased confidence and ­improved mental health.
 

But he said these benefits were not always recognised, which made young people less likely to take part if they believed only winning and being good at sport were important.
 

One example of the wider benefits of sport is in the field of educational achievement, with growing scientific evidence that activity boosts learning ability. A study by researchers at the universities of Strathclyde and Dundee last year found links between exercise and exam success in English, maths and science."...

For full post, click on title above or here: http://www.scotsman.com/news/health/exercise-improves-academic-ability-1-3406781

Clockwise from top left: me, Deepak Chopra, MD, Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project, Christiane Northrup, MD, Walter Willet, MD and Chair of the Harvard Nutrition Dept., Arianna Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post (middle). A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending the 2014 Institute For Integrative Nutrition (IIN) Conference in...

For full post, click on title above or here: http://www.elizabethrider.com/top-5-favorite-quotes-integrative-nutrition-conference/

By Nancy Bazilchuck

(Selected quote)..."A team of researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), the University of Oslo and the University of Sydney is now working to determine how the brain works during different kinds of meditation.

Different meditation techniques can actually be divided into two main groups. One type is concentrative meditation, where the meditating person focuses attention on his or her breathing or on specific thoughts, and in doing so, suppresses other thoughts. The other type may be called non-directive meditation, where the person who is meditating effortlessly focuses on his or her breathing or on a meditation sound, but beyond that the mind is allowed to wander as it pleases. Some modern meditation methods are of this non-directive kind."...

For full post click title above or here: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2014-05-brain-meditation.html
 

"Scientists often liken the process of discovery to doing a jigsaw. At first, few pieces fit and the picture is a mystery. Then suddenly two or three pieces lock together and an image starts to take shape.

This is what is happening in the study of apparently unrelated, chronic diseases such as multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, diabetes and asthma. These conditions are increasingly common both in the UK and elsewhere; their causes have puzzled doctors and scientists for decades.

Now pieces of the jigsaw are starting to fit together – and they focus on vitamin D which is produced naturally in the skin when exposed to sunlight."...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/10686624/Vitamin-D-could-it-stop-modern-diseases.html

By Gretchen Reynolds, NYTimes Wellness

"An ingenious new study of marathon runners and their non-running spouses should reassure anyone headed for a spring marathon that prolonged training doesn’t damage the heart, a concern that has been raised in previous research. At the same time, becoming fit as a marathoner doesn’t seem to protect the heart to the extent you might expect, although it may have unexpected benefits for your spouse."...

For full post, click title above or here:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/what-running-can-do-for-the-heart/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Mindfulness techniques are becoming popular and one of the more potent combinations for achieving deeper mindfulness is exercise and meditation.