Moderate Exercise Relaxes Blood Vessels

Moderate exercise might help older adults' blood vessels relax, a study has found - pointing to one reason why exercise lowers the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

As people age, their blood vessels can become more constricted and less pliable in response to blood flow, a change that contributes to high blood pressure and clogged arteries.

But in the new study, older men who took up regular exercise were able to substantially reduce this effect of ageing.

The findings are good news for sedentary older adults, researchers say, because the benefit required only moderate activity - namely, taking a walk five times a week.

"This is exercise that I would stress can be done by most older adults," said senior study author Dr Christopher A. DeSouza of the University of Colorado in Boulder.

He and his colleagues report the findings in the medical journal Hypertension.

The study included 28 healthy but sedentary men: 13 in their 20s and 15 in their 60s. For the first phase of the research, DeSouza and his colleagues used a test called plethysmography to measure blood vessel function in each man's forearm. They found that the older men's blood vessels were generally more constricted than those of their younger counterparts.

Next, the researchers had eight of the older men begin a three-month exercise program, while the rest remained sedentary. The exercisers worked out moderately, typically walking for about an hour, five days per week.

At the end of the three months, the exercise group showed a sharp turnaround in blood vessel constriction - with test results looking more like those of the younger men from the earlier study than the sedentary group their own age.

The improvement in blood vessel function occurred without improvements in the men's weight, body fat, blood pressure or other traditional indicators of heart health.

This is important, DeSouza told Reuters Health, because even if people aren't seeing obvious benefits from exercise - like a smaller waistline - they may still be making improvements on the inside.

Another key point, he noted, is that all of the older men in the study had been long-time couch potatoes, yet were still able to benefit from starting an exercise routine in their 60s.

"It's that old adage, 'It's never too late to start," DeSouza said.

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Bariatric Surgeries - A Ray Of Hope For The Morbidly Obese

Carolyn Sayre

Losing weight is an uphill battle — especially for the morbidly obese. Diet and exercise often fail. Drugs are not very effective. And in the end, many people suffer for years only to be left with one last and very expensive resort: surgery. That was certainly the case with Shawn Tarman, a 42-year-old woman from Willow Grove, Penn., who says she'd tried absolutely everything to lose weight. She finally resorted to gastric bypass surgery, a procedure that shrinks the stomach, and lost over 100 pounds.
In the last decade, bariatric surgeries like gastric bypass have become an acceptable method for treating the 15 million people in the U.S. who suffer from morbid obesity. "Obesity can be life threatening," says Dr. Philip Schauer, president of the American Society for Bariatric Surgery (ASBS). "And surgery is the next best step." Despite this, only 1% of patients who are eligible for surgery (those with a BMI over 40 or a BMI of 35 or more in conjunction with an obesity-related disease) actually get it. Sometimes, people just don't want to undergo a surgical procedure, but more often than not, obese patients are dissuaded by difficult insurance companies and are sometimes discouraged by doctors who feel they may not be the right age for the procedure.
But two new studies presented the annual meeting of the ASBS in San Diego, Calif., from June 11 to 16 show that adolescents and seniors, two age groups that have traditionally been urged to shy away from bariatric procedures, can actually benefit from surgical intervention. Another study shows that insurance companies could wind up spending less by approving bariatric surgery when compared to the life-long cost of obesity. And the latest piece of science shows that even though patients lose weight, they still need to be careful around certain indulgences — substances like alcohol have been found to have an even greater effect after surgery.
Researchers from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas have found that teenagers handle bariatric surgery even better than adults. The study of 309 adolescents and 55,192 adults found that only 5.5% of teenagers had complications after surgery compared with 9.8% in adults. "There has always been a lot of concern that doing surgery in a young person, however extreme the case is, will carry a lot of complications," says Dr. Esteban Varela, lead author of the study and director of Minimally Invasive Surgery at VA North Texas Health Care System. "But it is even safer." Between 2000 and 2003, the number of teenagers who had bariatric surgery tripled. While the number is growing, with 771 adolescents signing up in 2003, teenagers still represent less than 1% of all bariatric surgeries — a number that will begin to increase as more doctors view the practice as safe.
From the same center, a similar study of the elderly population showed that seniors do not experience significantly more complications than young adults. In fact, only 13% of patients, age 65 and older, who had laparoscopic adjustable gastric banding (LAGB) — a surgical procedure that inserts a hollow band around the stomach to limit food intake — had complications. Even more compelling, nearly two-thirds of patients lost their excess weight and significantly improved their obesity-related conditions like diabetes. "No one questions whether we should offer knee or hip replacements to people over age 65," says David A. Provost, an associate professor at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who authored the study. "Weight loss surgery can provide similar quality of life improvements with less risk."
Even though Medicare and Medicare began covering bariatric surgery last year, many private insurance companies still do not want to pay for such an expensive procedure, which can cost anywhere from $10,000 to $40,000. However, a small preliminary study presented at the conference could change some of this thinking. Researchers found that the average cost of bariatric surgery is often completely recouped by the patient after three years, after which time the medical expenses of patients who did not have surgery are twice as high. "Patients who come in for surgery have a lot of medical problems," says Dr. Anita Courcoulas, lead author of the study. "It makes sense that it would end up costing less." A larger study still needs to be done, but this new research shows that surgery may actually be the cheaper option in the long term.
Most insurance companies will make patients jump through hoops before they will actually pick up the tab for bariatric surgery. Providers often require that patients lose a specified amount of weight by staying on a medically enforced diet plan. However, a new study from Duke University Medical Center found that 62% of bariatric surgery patients trimmed the excess fat regardless of whether they lost or gained 10 pounds before surgery. "There is no value in policies like this," says Dr. Eric DeMaria, the study's lead author. "If there is no value, we shouldn't use it as a requirement."
Bariatric surgery isn't a cure-all. There are still significant diet and lifestyle changes that need to be enforced. For example, a new study from Stanford University shows that patients who have gastric bypass are more susceptible to the effects of alcohol. Inspired by an episode of Oprah Winfrey in which most individuals who had undergone gastric bypass said they got drunk faster on less alcohol, the researchers decided to test this theory. The study found that for people who had the surgery, drinking 5 ounces of wine would give them an average blood alcohol level of 0.08, while the level of non-patients was only at 0.05. People who had the surgery also took 108 minutes to sober up, while non-patients only needed 72 minutes. Since the stomach is smaller after bypass, alcohol is absorbed faster and takes longer to clear the system.
It may be an uphill battle, but the evidence at this year's conference shows that gastric bypass surgery is more effective and safer that originally thought, and can significantly improve the quality of life for all ages. It certainly did for Shawn Tarman. "Eating used to be my life," Tarman says. "And surgery helped me get that life back."

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6 Importance Of Exercising During Pregnancy

While exercises are good for your health, exercising during pregnancy can brings added benefits. Generally, exercise should be light, especially during the first few weeks of pregnancy while your body adjusts to the changes. Heavy exercise can divert blood flow from crucial areas and most women that exercise regularly should tone down their workouts during pregnancy.

Walking, swimming, and yoga are two popular exercise activities suitable for pregnant women. Other forms of exercise like weight lifting are okay too as long as it is not too strenuous. Most experts recommend exercising 3-4 times a week, unless a medical condition prevents it. If in doubt, always consult a physician first. Listed below are some of the top reasons for exercising during pregnancy.

1. Exercise can reduce the length of labor and reduce recovery times. The right exercise routines will increase stamina needed for delivery.

2. Improve emotional health - exercise lowers stress and improves emotional health and can make it easier for the new mother to get through the experience of pregnancy.

3. Exercise can help with weight management after the child is born. A common concern with most mothers is losing weight after pregnancy. Exercising during pregnancy can make postpartum weight loss easier.

4. Exercise is good for your unborn baby. By keeping your body healthy, you are also helping out your baby.

5. Reduced pregnancy side effects - Symptoms like headaches, fatigue, swelling, and constipation are common in pregnant women. Exercising has been shown to reduce the occurence of these symptoms.

6. Decrease risk of premature birth - exercise has been shown in studies to decrease the risk of premature birth by about 50%.

Make sure to drink plenty of fluids before exercising, have a nutritious diet, and avoid over exertion. Also, listen to your body - if you start feeling sick or nauseous, then you should stop and rest.

Some have tried "The Look Good, Feel Great" Pregnancy Kit and have had some very positive experiences.

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The Best 5 Women Abdominal Exercises

Women’s abs exercises are slowly becoming the most popular topic here at Real Women’s Fitness. Women want to know how to flatten their abs and get more definition and tightnesss. Here are the five best exercises for developing a sexy midsection.

1 - Hanging Knee Raise

The hanging knee raise is one of my favorites and is the best exercise for the lower abs by far. Your legs are quite heavy objects and using your abs to lift them up and then to do a reverse crunch is an excellent method of targetting and punishing the lower abs.

The hanging knee raise should be done slowly whilst hanging from a chin up bar. You should never swing your legs in place but instead the motion should be controlled and your abs should be tensed throughout the whole ROM.

One of the temptations in the exercise is to let your upper legs do the work or to lean back half way through it to make it easier. If you want the best results you have to keep everything nice and controlled. The best way to do this is to keep your mind focussed on your lower abs and make sure they are doing the work.

2 - The Decline Crunch

If you have a decline sit up board at your gym you should use it every time you train your abs. Doing a sit up or a crunch on a decline board is one of the best ways to make your abs do a little bit more work and it is a very effective exercise for building midsection strength and power.

One of the things I love most about this exercise is that there are so many ways to jazz it up. For example, you can:

* alter the height of the board
* do a crunch or a full sit up
* add a twist to the top of the motion
* add a weight to your chest
* perform super slow declines

If you try to vary the way you do it each time you go to the gym you will see unprecedented success with this exercise.

3 - Bicycle Crunches

Recently a fitness book I was reading wrote that in their studies of the abs exercises it was the bicycle crunch that caused the abs to tense the most. It was (supposedly) twice as effective as the crunch for ‘crunching’ your abs.



I found this interesting and so I began experimenting with it. At first I pumped them out quickly and didn’t find them very challenging at all. However, when I slowed down the bike crunch and focussed on my abs and my breathing I found that it worked quite well.

The idea is to mix both the lower and the upper abs in one exercise. You fully extend out one leg while the other is bent and you touch your opposite elbow to the bent leg as if you are doing a twisting crunch. Then you repeat for the other side without taking any rest or dropping your torso back down so the whole time you are doing them your upper body is in a crunch position. It’s tough.

4 - Fitness Ball Crunches

I love these things and I will always write about them even when the ‘fitness ball craze’ is over. Why? Because they work so well.

Fitness ball crunches take the pressure off of your back and target your abs so well that the other muscles that usually come in to play during a crunch are left alone. This is a great thing for people who are struggling to get the movements right or who have a big waist and want to minimize the amount it gets worked so as to avoid it getting bigger.

When you get the motion of the fitness ball crunch right you are in for some serious growth. The idea is to roll the ball backwards as you crunch down so that your butt gets closer to the ground and then do the opposite on the reverse part. Try it.

5 - Sprinting

What the…? I hear you all say! Sprinting? Is he crazy? Well, you won’t find this listed at any other fitness site as a great abs exercise and if you do you know they are copying from Real Women’s Fitness.

When I was in sprinting training my abs grew like no other time. It is a mixture of the faster weight loss and the massive amounts of horemones that are released when the fast running is done. Also, the art of running is quite beneficial to the abs.

So, next time you are in the mood for some weight loss exercise try a few sessions of sprinting and see whether your abs respond. I bet they do!

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