MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Michael Rebold, PhD, CSCS
Assistant Professor
Department of Exercise Science
Bloomsburg University
Bloomsburg, PA 17815
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Rebold: We assessed how common smartphone uses (texting and talking) interfere with treadmill exercise.
We found that when individuals use their smartphones during exercise for texting or talking, it causes a reduction in exercise intensity.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Edward "Ted" Weiss, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Nutrition and Dietetics
Saint Louis University Saint Louis MO
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Weiss: Results from one of our previous study yielded a surprising result that diet-induced weight loss improved insulin sensitivity (major diabetes risk factor) by the same amount as exercise induced weight loss. We thought that the exercise-induced weight loss would have yielded benefits from the weight loss itself but also from a weight loss-independent benefit that has been reported in other studies. One explanation for dietary restriction providing the same benefit of exercise was that it also provides benefits besides those that are attributable to weight loss. Our recently completed/published study was designed to evaluate this possibility and the finding do suggest what we hypothesized... i.e. that dietary restriction provides benefits above and beyond that which are attributable to weight loss.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Terry Boyle, PhDCIHR Fellow, MSFHR Trainee, Honorary UBC Killam Fellow
Cancer Control Research, BC Cancer Agency
School of Population and Public Health, The University of British Columbia
Australian NHMRC Early Career Fellow
The University of Western Australia
Cancer Control Research, BC Cancer Agency
Vancouver BC Canada
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Boyle: Little is known about what causes non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), so trying to identify risk factors is particularly important for the prevention and control of this cancer. There is really good evidence that people who are physically active have a lower risk of some cancers (such as colon and breast cancers), but not many studies have investigated whether being physical active is associated with the risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The key finding of this case-control study was that study participants who were in the higher (second, third, and fourth) quartiles of vigorously intense physical activity performance in their lifetimes had about 25 percent to 30 percent lower risk for NHL, compared with those who were in the lowest (first) quartile of vigorously intense physical activity.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Edward "Ted" Weiss, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Department of Nutrition and Dietetics
Saint Louis University
Saint Louis MO 63104
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Weiss: Public health recommendations are to keep sodium consumption below 2300 mg/day to avoid adverse health effects. However, most people in the US consume over 4000 mg/day. Furthermore, endurance athletes are often advised to add sodium to their diets to replace the sodium that is lost in sweat and are often lead to believe that the additional sodium is important for exercise performance. Clearly these recommendations are at odds with each other.
In a double-blind placebo-controlled trial, we evaluated the effect of salt capsule consumption (containing a 1800 mg sodium) on exercise performance and on thermoregulation during 2 - 2.5 hours of running or cycling. Exercise performance was not different between the salt and placebo conditions (i.e. it didn't provide benefit or harm for performance) nor did any of the markers of thermoregulation differ, suggesting that the salt didn't help (or hurt) the body's ability to cool itself.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Hannah Arem, MHS, PhD
Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics
National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Arem: The 2008 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans recommend a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate-intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity activity per week for “substantial” health benefit, and suggest “additional” benefit with more than double the exercise minimum. However, the guidelines note that there is a lack of evidence for an upper limit of health benefit. We set out to define the dose-response relationship between leisure-time physical activity and mortality and to determine the upper limit of benefit associated with higher levels of aerobic exercise.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Dr. Arem: We found that study participants who met the recommended minimum level of leisure-time physical activity derived most of the mortality benefit, with a 31% lower risk of death compared to inactive individuals. Study participants who engaged in three to five times the recommended minimum level of leisure-time physical activity had a marginally increased mortality benefit, with a 39% lower risk of death compared to inactive individuals. Three to five times the recommended minimum is equivalent to a weekly minimum of walking 7 hours or running 2 hours 15 minutes.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Klaus Gebel
GradDipExRehab, MExSc, MAppSc, PhD
Senior Research Fellow
Centre for Chronic Disease Prevention
College of Public Health, Medical & Veterinary Sciences
James Cook University
Cairns Australia
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Response: The physical activity guidelines in most countries recommend for adults to accumulate at least 150 minutes of moderate physical activity (e.g. brisk walking) or 75 minutes of vigorous activity (e.g. jogging or cycling) or an equivalent combination of moderate and vigorous activities where 2 minutes of moderate-intensity activity counts the same as 1 minute of vigorous-intensity activity. However, there have only been a few studies that examined the health benefits of different proportions of moderate and vigorous activity in the composition of total activity. The objective of this study was to examine whether the proportion of total moderate-to-vigorous activity that is achieved through vigorous activity is associated with all-cause mortality, independently of the total amount of moderate-to-vigorous activity. Data were used from the 45 and Up study from the state of New South Wales in Australia, the largest cohort study ever conducted in the Southern hemisphere.
Medical Research: What are the main findings?
Response: During 1,444,927 person-years of follow-up, 7,435 deaths were registered. Compared with those who reported no moderate-to-vigorous activity (crude death rate=8.34%), the adjusted hazard ratios for all-cause mortality were 0.66 (95% CI 0.61-0.71; crude death rate=4.81%), 0.53 (0.48-0.57; 3.17%), and 0.46 (0.43-0.49; 2.64%) for reporting 10-149, 150-299, and for ≥300 minutes of activity per week respectively. Among those participants who reported any moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, the proportion of vigorous activity showed a dose-response relationship with all-cause mortality: compared with those reporting no vigorous activity (crude death rate=3.84%) the fully-adjusted hazard ratio was 0.91 (95% CI=0.84-0.98; crude death rate=2.35%) in those who reported some vigorous activity (but <30% of total activity); and 0.87 (0.81-0.93; 2.08%) among those who reported ≥30% of activity as vigorous. These associations were consistent in men and women, across categories of body mass index and volume of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, and in those with and without existing cardiovascular disease or diabetes mellitus.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Kirsti Uusi-Rasi, PhD, Adjunct Professor
Senior Researcher
UKK Institute for Health Promotion Research
Tampere FinlandMedical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Dr. Kirsti Uusi-Rasi: Falls are the leading cause of unintentional injuries and fractures in
older adults, head injuries and fractures being the most severe
consequences. Therefore, falls prevention is important when trying to
prevent injuries. There is strong high-quality evidence from previous
studies that exercise that includes strength and balance training can
reduce the risk of falling in older adults. However, there are also
studies that have reported no benefit in reducing the actual incidence
of falls. Effects of vitamin D have also been studied widely, and
vitamin D is known to be vital for bone metabolism and health.
However, results regarding effects on falls and fractures are
inconsistent. Furthermore, persons with low vitamin D levels (serum
25OHD) have been associated with lower physical performance and
greater decline in physical functioning, but clinical trials exploring
the role of vitamin D in reducing falls and fractures and in improving
physical functioning are inconclusive. Because there is hardly any
evidence about exercise and vitamin D together, we investigated the
separate and combined effects of multimodal exercise training and
vitamin D supplementation in reducing falls and injurious falls among
older women at risk for falling.
We assigned 409 participants randomly to one of four groups with:
1)vitamin D 800 IU/day and exercise
2) placebo and exercise
3) vitamin D 800 IU/day without exercise
4) placebo without exercise.
Exercise consisted of strength, balance, mobility and agility group training.
At the end of two years, exercise seemed to be more effective in
reducing injurious falls in this age group, with or without vitamin D.
Exercise also improved physical functioning (strength, balance and
mobility). In general, the training program was well tolerated with no
severe adverse effects or injuries. Vitamin D helped maintain femoral
neck BMD and increased trabecular bone density at the tibia. Our study
also suggests that the current vitamin D recommendation (800 IU/d for
older people) is adequate.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Peter Kokkinos, PhD, FAHA, FACSM
Veterans Affairs Medical Center
Professor, Georgetown University School of Medicine
George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences
Director, LIVe Program
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?
Dr. Kokkinos: This is a prospective study and part of a larger cohort, the Veterans Exercise Testing Study (VETS) designed to assess the association between aerobic fitness and the risk of developing Chronic Kidney Disease or CKD. Our cohort included 5,812 middle-aged male Veterans from the Washington, DC Veterans Affairs Medical Center. All participants were CKD-Free prior to entering the study.
Exercise capacity was assessed by a graded exercise test and peak Metabolic Equivalents or METs were determined. Accordingly, we established the following four age-adjusted fitness categories based on Quartiles of peak METs achieved: Least-fit (≤25%; 4.8±0.90 METs; n=1258); Low-fit (25.1%-50%; 6.5±0.96 METs; n=1614); Moderate-fit (50.1%-75%; 7.7±0.91 METs; n=1958), and High-fit (>75%; 9.5±1.0 METs; n=1436).
Multivariable Cox proportional hazard models were used to assess the exercise capacity-CKD association. The models were adjusted for age, BMI, blood pressure, medications, CVD, Risk factors, race, and history of alcoholism. Medical Research: What are the main findings?Dr. Kokkinos: During a median follow-up period of 7.9 years, 1,000 individuals developed CKD. The CKD-fitness association was independent, inverse and graded. The CKD risk was 22% lower for every 1-MET increase in exercise capacity.
When considering fitness categories, CKD risk decreased progressively as fitness status increased. Specifically, when compared to the Least-Fit individuals the risk of developing CKD was 13% 45% and 58% lower for individuals in the Low-Fit; Moderate and High-Fit categories, respectively.
These findings support that higher aerobic fitness lowers the risk of developing CKD. The average exercise capacity necessary to realize these health benefits was just over 6.5 METs (Low-fit). This level of fitness is achievable by many middle-aged and older individuals by daily exercises such as brisk walking. Moderate intensity exercises are effective in improving aerobic fitness regardless of age or comorbidities. Thus, exercise interventions for individuals at risk for CKD and those with preclinical CKD may be implemented to prevent or at least attenuate the rate of developing CKD.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Juan Del Coso Garrigós
Profesor CC. de la Act. Física y del Deporte
Responsable del Laboratorio de Fisiología del Ejercicio
UNIVERSIDAD CAMILO JOSÉ CELA
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Response: From a scientific point of view, it is well known that salt (either in capsules or included in a drink) can improve physical performance and several other physiological factors such as plasma volume maintenance, thermoregulation, etc in endurance activities. These effects are more evident when the amount of salt ingested during exercise matches the amount of salt lost by sweating. By using only sports drinks, it is impossible to replace all the salt lost by sweating because they only contain a relatively small amount of salt in their compositions (between ½ and 1/3 of the amount of salt lost by sweating).
In fact, some of the investigations that determined the effectiveness of ingesting salt in sports have been financed by most popular sport drinks trademarks. However, sports drink companies only include a part of the salt lost by sweating because for them, taste is elemental for their markets! I suppose that, if they include more salt in their commercially available drinks, they would be more effective to prevent dehydration and performance decline, but at the same time, the taste of the drink would diminish the amount of beverage ingested worldwide.
In this case, in the sport drinks market there is a well- established balance between taste and physiological effectiveness.
As an example, most “salted” sport drinks contain 20-25 mM of sodium while it is well known that sweat sodium concentration ranges from 20 to 60 mM (salty sweater can reach 100 mM!!). This is not a regulatory limitation, because UE considers sports drinks to carbohydrate-electrolyte solutions that contain sodium between 20 and 50 mM.
Our main finding is: To ingest salt capsules, in addition to the habitual rehydration routines with sports drinks, improves performance in a triathlon. This ergogenic effect was mediated by better maintenance of body water and electrolytes balances.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Harold P. Erickson Ph.D.
James B. Duke Professor, Department of Cell Biology
Duke Univ. Med. Center Durham, NC 27710
MedicalResearch: What is the background for this study?Dr. Erickson: In Jan 2012 a paper reported the discovery of irisin, a hormone reportedly lopped off a precursor in muscle and sent through the bloodstream to fat tissue, where it turned white fat into brown fat. Brown fat burns calories, and is what hibernating animals – and even human babies -- use to keep warm. Turning on brown fat had exciting promise for obesity, diabetes, etc. Dozens of labs around the world jumped on the discovery and started trials in animals and humans of how irisin levels in blood were altered by exercise and a variety of metabolic challenges.
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings? Early reports.Dr. Erickson: The follow-up studies from different labs reported a huge range of values for the level of irisin in blood, so they could not all be right. And most of them failed to find any significant effect of exercise. In 2013 two papers criticized the irisin study. A commentary article by Harold Erickson (Adipocyte 2:289-93) reported two substantial flaws in the original study. A research paper by S. Raschke, J. Eckel and colleagues (PloS one 8:e73680) concluded that humans did not make significant amount of irisin. The human gene for irisin has a deleterious mutation in the start codon, and Raschke et al showed that this reduced irisin expression to only 1% the level with the normal start. These two reports may have slowed new labs entering the field, but many groups already invested continued to publish. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Liana Machado PhD
Department of Psychology Brain Health Research Centre
University of Otago Dunedin New Zealand
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response:A large body of data indicates links between chronic physical activity levels and cognitive performance in healthy populations. Although the bulk of evidence comes from studies in older adults, a number of studies have established links in children and in young adults. However, the mechanisms supporting the exercise-cognition links have remained unclear. Finding from an earlier study of ours, published in the journal Neuropsychology, pointed toward cerebrovascular factors as potentially important. In our new study in Psychophysiology, we found evidence suggesting that higher oxygen availability in the brain is one of the cerebrovascular factors that helps support better cognitive performance in people who exercise more regularly, thus providing important insight toward understanding why cognitive performance improves with regular exercise.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Francesca Mallamaci
Professor of Nephrology
Head of the Hypertension Unit at the Department of Nephro-Urology, CNR-IBIM Research on Clinical Epidemiology and Pathophysiology of Renal Diseases and Hypertension, Reggio Calabria, Italy
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?Dr. Mallamaci: It is well known that physical activity is beneficial both in normal individuals and in patients with heart failure which represent a high risk category of patients. We have scanty information about physical activity in dialysis patients. So the aim of our study was to test the effectiveness of a low-intensity, easy to implement, home exercise program on physical performance in about 300 dialysis patients in a multicenter, randomized, controlled clinical trial (EXCITE, ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01255969). What we found in our study was that dialysis patients who performed exercise improved their physical performance and this was documented by 2 well known and validated performance tests such as the Six Minute Walking Test and the Sit-to-stand-to sit test. We found also that after 2 year follow-up dialysis patients who were in the active exercise arm had a lower rate of hospitalization and a trend to a better survival, compared to dialysis patients in the control arm of the study. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com: Interview Invitation
Dr. Wenji Guo
University of Oxford
Medical Research: What is the background for this study?Response: Previous studies report increased risk for breast cancer in postmenopausal women who have a higher Body Mass Index (BMI) – a measure of body fat based on height and weight. However, BMI is unable to distinguish between excess weight due to fat rather than muscle. More direct measures of fatness, such as body fat percentage, may be better indicators of disease risk. And although probable evidence for the relationship between physical activity and breast cancer now exists, questions still remain over the role of vigorous compared to lower intensity physical activity.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Angela Alberga, PhD
Eyes High Postdoctoral Fellow
Werklund School of Education
University of CalgaryRonald J. Sigal, MD, MPH, FRCPC
Professor of Medicine, Kinesiology, Cardiac Sciences and Community Health Sciences
Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Cumming School of Medicine, University of Calgary
Health Senior Scholar, Alberta Innovates-Health Solutions
Member, O'Brien Institute of Public Health, Libin Cardiovascular Institute and Julia McFarlane Diabetes Research CentreMedical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Response: The Healthy Eating, Aerobic and Resistance Training in Youth study examined the effects of exercise on body composition and cardiometabolic risk markers in adolescents with obesity. A total of 304 overweight or obese adolescents were randomized to four groups. The first group performed resistance training involving weight machines and some free weights; the second performed only aerobic exercise on treadmills, elliptical machines and stationary bikes; the third underwent combined aerobic and resistance training; and the last group did no exercise training. All four groups received nutritional counseling. In analyses involving all participants regardless of adherence, each exercise program reduced percent body fat, waist circumference and body mass index to a similar extent, while the diet-only control group had no changes in these variables. In participants who exercised at least 2.8 times per week, we found that combined aerobic and resistance training produced greater decreases in percentage body fat, waist circumference, and body mass index than aerobic training alone. Waist circumference decreased close to seven centimeters in adherent participants randomized to combined aerobic plus resistance exercise, versus about four centimeters in those randomized to do just one type of exercise, with no change in those randomized to diet alone.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Professor Emrah Düzel
Director, Institute of Cognitive Neurology and Dementia Research, OvG Univ. Magdeburg, Germany
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience
University College London
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Professor Düzel:We found that even in old age, intensive and long-term (3 months) aerobic exercise can improve blood flow in the hippocampus, a brain structure that is of critical importance for memory. The increase in blood flow is evident during a resting state and this means that the exercise improves the overall perfusion of the hippocampus. Such effects had previously only been reported in young adults. As previously observed in young adults, the change in blood flow after exercise is related to the improvement of specific memory skills. We found the closest relationship between improved blood flow and recognition memory for complex objects. This is interesting because this type of memory is likely to benefit from “pattern separation”, a process that in animal studies of exercise is tightly associated with hippocampal neurogenesis.
However, we also found that the exercise-related improvement in hippocampal blood flow and in recognition memory was absent in the older seniors of our study cohort. Those who were beyond 70 did not show any improvement. We reasoned that this may have been due to higher levels of stress in the older seniors. Therefore, we investigated whether elevated serum cortisol levels dampened the benefits of exercise in the older seniors. But this was not the case making it unlikely that stress levels can account for these findings.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview Invitation with: Dr. Iffat Rahman Ph.D.
Unit of Nutritional Epidemiology, Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Box 210, 17177 Stockholm, Sweden
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Rahman: Our study suggests that moderate to high level of physical activity could protect against heart failure in women.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pietro Manuel Ferraro, MD PhD Candidate
Division of Nephrology
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart
Rome Italy
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Ferraro: We analyzed the association between physical activity and energy intake and the risk of developing kidney stones in three large cohorts of U.S. health professionals. The 215,133 participants included did not have any history of kidney stones when follow-up began. During 20 years of follow-up, 5,355 of them developed a kidney stone. Initially, we found that participants with higher physical activity levels had a reduced risk of developing stones in two of the three cohorts. However, after accounting for a number of factors that could potentially confound the association such as age, body mass index and dietary intake, the association was no longer significant. Similarly, energy intake was not associated with a reduced risk of developing kidney stones. (more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Saurabh S. Thosar, Ph.D.,
Postdoctoral Researcher
Oregon Institute for Occupational Health Sciences,
Oregon Health & Science University
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Thosar:We discovered that 3 hours of sitting leads to an impairment in shear rate and an impairment in femoral artery endothelial function. When systematic breaks are added in the sitting time the shear rate and the endothelial function are preserved.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with Marco Perez, MD
Instructor in Cardiovascular Medicine
Director, Inherited Cardiac Arrhythmia Clinic
Stanford University Medical Center
Cardiac Electrophysiology & Arrhythmia Service
Stanford, CA 94305-5233
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Perez: It was already known that obesity is an important risk factor for atrial fibrillation. We studied over 80,000 postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative who were followed for the onset of atrial fibrillation, an irregular heart rhythm associated with stroke and death. We found that those who exercised more than 9 MET-hours/week (equivalent to a brisk walk of 30 minutes six days a week) were 10% less likely to get atrial fibrillation than those who were sedentary. Importantly, the more obese the women were, the more they benefited from the exercise in terms of atrial fibrillation risk reduction.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Dr Ellen Flint, BA MSc PhD, Research Fellow
Department of Social & Environmental Health Research
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Tavistock Place, London
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Flint: Men and women who commuted to work by cycling, walking or public transport had significantly lower BMI and percentage body fat than their car-using counterparts. This was the case despite adjustment for a range of factors which may affect both body weight and commuting mode preference (e.g. limiting illness, age, socioeconomic position, sports participation and diet). The differences were of a clinically meaningful magnitude. For example, compared to car users, men who commuted via active or public transportation modes were on average 1 BMI point lighter. For the average man in the sample this would equate to a difference in weight of almost half a stone (3kg).
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Sylvie Mesrine, Gynecologist, MD
Inserm, CESP Centre for Research in Epidemiology and Population
Health, U1018, Nutrition, Hormones and Women's Health Team,
Villejuif, France.
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Answer:We wanted to disentangle the effect of recent physical activity (within the
previous four years) from the effect of past physical activity (5-9 years
earlier) on postmenopausal breast cancer risk. Our most important finding
was that recreational/transport physical activity (including walking,
cycling and engaging in other sports), even of modest intensity, seemed to
have a rapid impact on breast cancer risk: it was quite rapidly associated
with a decrease in breast cancer risk, which was however attenuated when
activity stops. To our knowledge, our study is the first to independently
assess the association between breast cancer risk and recreational physical
activity both 5 to 9 years earlier and within the previous 4 years.
Furthermore, the association of recent recreational physical activity and
breast cancer risk decrease was observed whatever the recent levels of
gardening or do-it yourself activities.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Kristian Karstoft MD
The Centre of Inflammation and Metabolism and The Centre for Physical Activity ResearchDepartment of Infectious Diseases and CMRC, Rigshospitalet
Faculty of Health Sciences,
University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Karstoft:Four months of Interval-walking training (IWT; five sessions/week, one hour/session) in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus maintained insulin secretion, improved insulin sensitivity index and disposition index in opposition to energy-expenditure and time-duration matched continuous walking training (CWT).
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: James Fisher BSc (Hons) MSc PGCLT(HE)
Senior Lecturer Sports Conditioning and Fitness
IFBB Certified Weight Training Prescription Specialist
Centre for Health, Exercise and Sport Science
Faculty of Business, Sport and Enterprise
Southampton Solent University, Southampton
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Answer: The study reports that pre-conceived ideas about exercise order, and rest intervals are not substantiated by evidence, and that advanced training routines such as pre-exhaustion appear to induce no greater strength adaptations than simpler training methods. Ultimately, that a single set of each exercise performed at a repetition duration which maintains muscular tension is all that is necessary to induce significant increases in strength in even trained persons.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Gundula Behrens
Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine
University of Regensburg
Franz-Josef-Strauss-Allee 11
93053 Regensburg, Germany
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study? Dr Behrens: We studied the relations of obesity and physical activity to the incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) among more than 100,000 middle-aged to elderly men and women living in the U.S. People with a large waist circumference (43.5 inches (110 cm) or over in women and 46.5 inches (118 cm) or over in men) had a 72% increased risk of COPD as compared to people with a normal waist circumference. In contrast, individuals who were physically active five times or more per week had a 29% decreased risk of COPD as compared to their physically inactive counter-parts.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com: Interview with: Lukas Schwingshackl, MSc
Department of Nutritional Sciences
University of Vienna
Vienna, AUSTRIA
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Lukas Schwingshackl: The results of the present meta-analyses showed that, in patients with established diabetes, aerobic training might be more effective in reducing glycosylated haemoglobin and fasting glucose when compared with resistance training. Combined aerobic and resistance training was more powerful in reducing glycosylated haemoglobin compared with aerobic training, and more effective in reducing glycosylated haemoglobin, fasting glucose and tricylglycerols when compared with resistance training. However, these results could not be confirmed when only low risk of bias studies were included.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Peter Kokkinos PhD
Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Cardiology Division
Washington, DC 20422
Medical Research: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Kokkinos:The main finding of the study is that we defined an exercise capacity threshold for each age category (<50; 50-59; 60-69; and ≥70 years of age). The mortality risk increases progressively below this threshold and decreases above it. We then calculated the 5 and 10-year mortality risk for each age category.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Xuemei Sui, MD, MPH, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Exercise Science
Division of Health Aspects of Physical Activity
Arnold School of Public Health
University of South Carolina
Columbia, SC 29208
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Sui: In the present study, cancer survivors who reported performing resistance exercise (RE) at least 1 day of the week had a 33% lower risk of all-cause mortality compared with individuals who did not report participation in resistance exercise. Further, there was an inverse relationship between resistance exercise and all-cause mortality in those who were physically active, but not in those who were physically inactive. Although leisure-time physical activity was not associated with a lower risk of all-cause mortality, the present results support the benefits of resistance exercise and physical activity was during cancer survival.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview Fergus Shanahan, MD, DSc
Professor and Chair,
Department of Medicine, and
Director, Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre
University College Cork, National University of Ireland
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Professor Shanahan:We already know that most (if not all) of the elements of a modern lifestyle in socio-economically developed societies influence the composition and performance of the microbiota colonising the human body. The composition of the microbiota or disturbances of it have been linked with an increased risk of various chronic non-communicable diseases including immune-allergic disorders and metabolic diseases including obesity. In particular, loss of microbial diversity is a feature of many of these disorders. The most important aspect of our study is that draws attention to the possibility that exercise may have a beneficial effect on the microbiota and is associated with a more diverse microbiota.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:Wei Bao MD, PhD
Postdoc fellow, Epidemiology Branch
Division of Intramural Population Health Research
NICHD/National Institutes of Health
Rockville, MD 20852
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Wei Bao: This study, to our knowledge, is the first attempt to examine the associations of physical activity and sedentary behaviors with risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) among women with a history of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM), which is a high-risk population of T2DM. The main findings are:
(1) Physical activity is inversely associated with risk of progression from GDM to T2DM. Each 5-metabolic equivalent hours per week increment of total physical activity, which is equivalent to 100 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activity or 50 minutes per week of vigorous physical activity, was related to a 9% lower risk of T2DM; this inverse association remained significant after additional adjustment for body mass index (BMI).
(2) An increase in physical activity is associated with a lower risk of progression from gestational diabetes mellitus to T2DM. Compared with women who maintained their total physical activity levels, women who increased their total physical activity levels by 7.5 MET-h/wk or more (equivalent to 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity physical activityor 75 minutes per week of vigorous physical activity) had a 47% lower risk of T2DM; the association remained significant after additional adjustment for BMI.
(3) Prolonged time spent watching TV, as a common sedentary behavior, is associated with an increased risk of progression from gestational diabetes mellitus to T2DM. Compared with women who watched TV 0 to 5 hours per week, those watched TV 6 to 10, 11 to 20, and 20 or more hours per week had 28%, 41%, and 77%, respectively, higher risk of T2DM. The association was no longer significant after additional adjustment for BMI.
(more…)
MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Dr Nikola Drca
Department of Cardiology at the Karolinska Institute,
Karolinska University Hospital
Stockholm Sweden
MedicalResearch: What are the main findings of the study?Dr. Nikola Drca: We found that intense physical activity like leisure-time exercise of more than five hours per week at the age of 30 increased the risk of developing atrial fibrillation later in life by 19%. In contrast, moderate-intensity physical activity like walking or bicycling of more than 1 hour per day at older age (age 60) decreased the risk by 13%. (more…)
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MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Michael Rebold, PhD, CSCS
Assistant Professor
Department of Exercise Science
Bloomsburg University
Bloomsburg, PA 17815
Medical Research: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Dr. Rebold: We assessed how common smartphone uses (texting and talking) interfere with treadmill exercise.
We found that when individuals use their smartphones during exercise for texting or talking, it causes a reduction in exercise intensity.
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