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del.icio.us Friday

27

October

Fitness Mantra del.icio.us pageI am starting a weekly feature which will appear every Friday on Fitness Mantra. It is simply a review of the current week’s best health, fitness and nutrition related stories from all over the world that I am tracking using the del.icio.us bookmarking service. You can also subscribe to the Fitness Mantra del.icio.us feed separately.

Without further ado here are the week’s top stories:

  1. Government to issue new guidelines for exercise: There’s a food pyramid to help guide people’s eating habits, so why not one for exercise? The government said Thursday that it would develop guidelines for physical activity.
  2. Moderate Exercise May Lower Cold Risk: A new study shows postmenopausal women who exercised regularly lowered their risk of coming down with coldscolds compared with more sedentary women.
  3. Coffee May Protect Against Diabetes: Drinking caffeinated coffee was found to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by as much as 60% in a newly published study that included people at high risk for the disease.
  4. Cupcake Turns 25: Dietitian Believes Trans Fat Has Kept It Together All These Years: At the beginning of Licensed Dietitian Bonnie Minsky’s career, she wanted to show school kids the difference between real and fake food. It was 1981. She purchased a Hostess Cupcake and let it sit for a few months. As she suspected, it kept its form and did not break down, unlike her apple, which started becoming spoiled in a few days. Did it ever cross her mind that the cupcake would still be in “pristine” form 25 years later? Never.
  5. Trans fat warnings sought for fast food | Chicago Tribune: Big fast food chains would be required to post trans fat warnings under a measure unveiled Wednesday by Ald. Edward Burke (14th).
  6. To Spend Less On Gas, Lose The Spare Tire: Americans could save enough gas to fuel 1.7 million vehicles for an entire year simply by shedding enough pounds to be as svelte as the Americans of 1960.
  7. Red Wine vs. Colon Cancer: People who drink three or more glasses of red wine a week are less likely to get the abnormal colon growths that can lead to cancer, according to a new study.
  8. Exercise Helps Smokers Quit: The nicotine treatment worked pretty well. Just over half of the smokers on nicotine replacement alone were able to quit. Exercise plus nicotine worked even better. Eighty percent of those who moved their butts put out their butts.
  9. Staying lean may help the body to reject cancerous cells: Keeping slim may help ward off cancer, according to a study which has discovered that lean animals are better able to fight the disease than obese ones.
  10. Study: Veggies could stem mental decline: Eating two or more servings of vegetables a day may slow a person’s mental decline by about 40 percent compared with a person who consumes few vegetables, according to a six-year study of nearly 4,000 Chicago residents age 65 or older.
  11. Berry juice may be a heart tonic: Scientists in India have developed a way to extract juice effectively for the first time from a berry which is thought to be good for the heart.
  12. Studies: College Kids Packing on Pounds: The “Freshman 15″ is more like 5 to 7, but it is followed by the “Sophomore 2 or 3,” say researchers who led two of the largest and longest studies ever done of weight gain among college students.
  13. Chefs not counting calories, study finds: A survey of 300 restaurant chefs around the country reveals that taste, looks and customer expectations are what matter when they determine portion size. Only one in six said the calorie content was very important and half said it didn’t matter at all.

If you missed any of these stories during the week, now through the weekend is a great time to catch up and be in the know. Look for this feature every Friday!

Knowledge is power, especially in the world of fitness.

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Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines for Cancer Prevention

29

September

Every five years the American Cancer Society publishes its Guidelines on Nutrition and Physical Activity for Cancer Prevention which serve as a foundation for its communication, policy, and community strategies and ultimately, to affect dietary and physical activity patterns among Americans.

They are developed by a national panel of experts and typically are representative of the most current scientific evidence related to dietary and activity patterns and cancer risk. This report was published Sept 28th 2006 in teh ACS Journal “CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians“.

Exercise: The More, the Better:
elliptical trainersIt should come as no surprise given the national obesity epidemic, that the chief recommendations of the Guidelines are related to weight-management. Noting that a third of the more than 500,000 cancer deaths each year are connected to diet and physical activity - about the same number of deaths linked to smoking, the ACS is now recommending more active exercise rather than just leisurely walks.

While earlier guidelines said 30 minutes of cumulative activity including everyday things like walking from the parking lot to the mall or climbing the stairs at home should be enough for adults, the new guidelines point out that may not be enough.At least 30 minutes of moderate to vigorous activity in addition to those everyday activities at least 5 days a week is the new standard to follow.Dr. Harvey Cohen of Duke University Medical Center says, “That can have positive effects on the physical function as well on cognitive function.”

Fruits and Vegetables:
fruits and vegetables At no time has the need for including more of these fiber and vitmain rich foods been greater than right now. The new guidelines, as did previous ones, recommend eating at least 5 servings of fruits and vegetables each day. These foods may reduce the risk of various types of cancers including lung, esophagus, stomach, and colorectal cancer. Reducing refined carbohydrates like regular pasta, white rice/bread and switching to whole grains while at the same time limiting red and processed meat in favor of fish, poultry, or beans is also highly recommended.

Alcohol:
The guidelines recommend limiting alcohol to 2 drinks a day for men and 1 for women, if at all consumed. Cutting alcohol out completely is especially recommended for women at high risk of breast cancer especially when they don’t get enough folate in their diet.

Summary:
The chief recommendations of the new guidelines are:

  • Maintain a healthy weight throughout life.
  • Adopt a physically active lifestyle.
  • Eat a healthy diet, with an emphasis on plant sources.
  • Limit alcohol, if you drink it at all.

You can read the summarised Nutrition and Physical Activity Guidelines for Cancer Prevention or read the complete version in either text or pdf format from the CA Online Website

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