Welcome to “FitnessMantra Weekend”, your once-a-week health news update. As always you can also stay updated with the latest in fitness news by subscribing separately to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed.

In the highly-encouraging-news-item-of-the-week category, chalk down this little gem: doctors could soon write out prescriptions to patients that read like their gym class schedules.

In Rx: Get Active, one of my favorite columnists, Sally Squires of the Washington Post writes that doctors from two large and influential medical groups: The American College of Sports Medicine and The American Medical Association are trying to encourage doctors to literally “prescribe fitness” by encouraging their patients to exercise regularly.

More than half of Americans fail to get the 30 minutes of physical activity recommended daily to provide health benefits, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Cars, elevators, remote controls and other modern devices all help to engineer physical activity out of daily life. Extended work days and long commutes add to the problem.

Sedentary Death Syndrome? Well that’s a new term doctors have come up with to describe the life-threatening effect of leading highly inactive lives. Did you also know that by some estimates close to 250000 lives are annually affected by this problem? Or that, on average, a sedentary person spends $1500 more than his active counterpart?

It’s absolutely no wonder, then, that Dr. Robert Sallis, a California physician who recently became president of the American College of Sports Medicine, says:

“Exercise is medicine. We know that it works very well. We just don’t have the proper way to administer it.”

While you get a refill on your prescription to get active today, read some of the week’s top health and fitness stories:

1. Way to Shrink, Grow Fat Is Found: Scientists reported yesterday that they have uncovered a biological switch by which stress can promote obesity
2. Exercise Stimulates The Formation Of New Brain Cells: Experiment studies show both exercise and antidepressants increase the formation of new cells in an area of the brain that is important to memory and learning.
3. Late starters can live longer if they get moving: Even in middle age, adopting a healthy lifestyle can lower the risk for heart disease and premature death within years of changing habits, researchers reported on Thursday.
4. Pill to make dieters ‘feel full’: Italian scientists have developed a pill that expands in the stomach to make dieters feel full. They liken the effect to eating a bowl of spaghetti and say the pill can stop hunger for a few hours.
5. Superfood ‘ban’ comes into effect: Products claiming to be superfoods will be banned under new EU rules coming into effect on Sunday - unless the claim can be proved.
6. Dietary calcium protects bones better: Which source is better: calcium-rich foods or supplements? A preliminary study by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine suggests dietary calcium may be better at protecting bone health.
7. Vitamin C ‘benefits diabetics’: Vitamin C could help reduce some of the complications associated with diabetes, research suggests.
8. Obesity to fuel Alzheimer’s rise: Rising rates of obesity will lead to dramatic increases in the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease, experts have predicted.
9. The myth of the weekend warrior: The new findings may just be one more sign that we really are a nation of slugs.
10. No trans fats? No problem for NYC: Across the city, most fast food chains say they’ve already made the switch days before the July 1 deadline, which is Sunday.
11. Spike in kids’ health issues foretells problems: More time in front of the television and use of other electronic media, decreased physical activity, increased time spent indoors, increased consumption of fast foods and sugar-sweetened beverages, and changes in parenting are all likely to blame
12. U.S. Diabetes Rate Soars: The U.S. diabetes epidemic is picking up speed like a “runaway train,” the CDC says
13. Sugary Drinks Fattening Up Preschoolers: Canadian researchers found that 2- to 4-year-olds who regularly drank sugar-sweetened beverages such as soft drinks and fruit drinks between meals were more than twice as likely to be overweight at age 4 1/2, compared to kids who didn’t drink these bevera
14. Americans doing better managing diabetes: Americans appear to be doing a better job of managing diabetes, with more than half of diabetics reaching recommended targets for controlling blood sugar last year
15. Whole grains may help heart: Eating plenty of whole grains can help keep your arteries healthy, potentially warding off heart disease and stroke, a new study shows.
16. Soy to boost bone density?: Italian researchers found that a combination of genistein, calcium and vitamin D helped protect postmenopausal women’s bone density better than calcium and vitamin D alone.
17. FDA urged to review sweetener’s safety: Italian researchers published a new study last week that showed aspartame, widely used in soft drinks, might cause leukemia, lymphoma and breast cancer in rats.
18. Rx: Get Active: “We’re trying to get every physician to prescribe exercise at every visit.”
19. Plate aids diabetes weight loss: Using a simple portion control dinner plate can help people with type 2 diabetes lose weight and decrease reliance on medication, research shows.
20. American Kids Shaping Up With Trainers: With many high school students not getting exercise at school unless they play a sport, more parents are turning to trainers to help their children stay fit
21. Can Shots Safely ‘Melt Away Fat’?: A growing number of doctors, nurses and even spa personnel are offering the procedure known in medical circles as injection lipolysis — and more colloquially as the “flab jab.”

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Have a great weekend!

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Welcome to “FitnessMantra Weekend”, your once-a-week health news update. As always you can also stay updated with the latest in fitness news by subscribing separately to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed.

If you live in the U.S. you are already aware of the profusion of products sweetened with that corn-based alternative to good old sugar: High Fructose Corn Syrup. Earlier, in High-Fructose Corn Syrup: Giving you that empty feeling I gave a few reasons why it’s better to avoid products that have HFCS (especially if the total sugar per serving exceeds about 6-7g). Today, additional information about such sweetened products only serves to strengthen my stand on artificial sweeteners of all kinds.

The Washington Post article titled Fructose-Sweetened Drinks Tougher on Arteries describes experiments which showed that the arteries of people consuming fructose sweetened products were adversely affected with fatty deposits as opposed to those of people who only drank glucose-sweetened drinks.

The researchers found that 9 weeks later, 24-hour post-meal triglyceride (blood fat) levels went up after 2 weeks of fructose-sweetened drink but went down in those who consumed glucose-sweetened drinks.

Those who drank fructose-sweetened drinks also had a boost in fasting blood concentrations of LDL (”bad”) cholesterol and other measures. Those levels were unaltered in those consuming glucose-sweetened drinks, however.

These results were especially pronounced when the participants already had a weight problem. Given such increasing evidence the best recourse would be to avoid unnatural and artificial sweeteners and use the original sugar but sparingly. Even when you have to sweeten your daily cup of coffee, it’s better to go with just plain sugar or brown sugar, as I wrote in “Sweeteners and sugar substitutes - why I just use sugar“.

Now onto this week’s top health and fitness stories:

1. Pack nutrition into your picnic basket: Put a new twist on potato or pasta salad by substituting chopped vegetables for some of the higher-calorie potatoes or pasta.
2. Dine out, don’t pig out - readers give strategies: “My husband and I share! How easy is that?” writes Carine of Laguna Hills, Calif. “half the calories, and it’s cheaper, too,” she points out.
3. Omega-3s may hike baby’s IQ: Children whose mothers get enough omega-3 fatty acid during pregnancy may have sharper problem-solving skills in infancy, a small study suggests.
4. Dietary supplements face stricter regulations: For the first time, makers of dietary supplements, including vitamins and herbal pills, will be required to test their products, the Food and Drug Administration said Friday.
5. Fructose-Sweetened Drinks Tougher on Arteries: Fructose-sweetened drinks are more likely to provoke the development of fatty artery deposits in overweight adults than glucose-sweetened beverages, researchers say.
6. Omega-3 fatty acids may help slow prostate cancer: A new study in U.S. with mice suggests that a diet high in omega-3 fatty acids found in fish oil and certain types of fish might help slow prostate cancer, media reported Friday.
7. Ambulance for the obese a Calgary first: Calgary paramedics are now driving the first ambulance in Canada specifically designed for obese patients. The ambulance can accommodate people weighing up to 1,000 pounds, so obese patients don’t have to be reluctant about calling for medical help.
8. Calorie info for NYC fast food joints stays veiled: Fast food restaurants in New York are getting a temporary reprieve from a first-in-the-nation rule requiring them to put calorie information on their menus.
9. Feds, legal threats put snacks on a diet: America’s snack food makers are marketing smaller portion packs, using healthier fats and reducing sugar in some of the nation’s favorite potato chips and cookies.
10. Cinnamon may keep blood sugar down: Adding some cinnamon to your dessert may temper the blood sugar surge that follows a sweet treat, a new study suggests.
11. Canada threatens trans fat limits if no cuts made: The Canadian government called on the food industry on Wednesday to tightly limit artery-clogging trans fats, and threatened mandatory cuts if enough is not done in the next two years.
12. Study finds staggering cost of treating diabetics: One out of every eight U.S. federal health care dollars is spent treating people with diabetes, a study found
13. More seniors-only fitness centers popping up: The gym, Nifty After Fifty, is one of many fitness centers popping up around the country aimed at serving older clients.
14. No progress seen in U.S. women diabetics’ death rate: The death rate for U.S. men with diabetes has fallen sharply since the early 1970s even as more people develop the disease, but women are not making the same progress, researchers said on Monday.
15. Pre-Diabetic Changes Double Heart Disease Risk: Even the very earliest signs of diabetes can increase the risk of dying from heart disease, a new Australian study says.
16. Japan’s New Public Health Problem Is Getting Big: Outside Japan, the country is known for a high reliance on low-fat fish and seaweed dishes. But meat and high-fat foods feature ever more prominently on Japanese tables.
17. Vitamin D primer: there’s no one recommendation for all: It has long been known vitamin D helps our bodies form and maintain strong, healthy bones and prevents fractures in the elderly but it may also help cut the risk of cancer.
18. Low-carb diet ‘cancer risk’ claim: Low-carbohydrate diets may increase the risk of people suffering bowel cancer, scientists have claimed.

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Have a great weekend!

Technorati Tags: health, fitness, health news, fitness news, health links, fitness links, del.icio.us

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