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.
A stroke, or cerebrovascular accident, is a condition that occurs when partial blockages in the blood supply to the blood result in loss of some or all brain function. According to Wikipedia, it is the third leading of death and leading cause of disability in the United States!And now the good news: even moderate fitness can lower the risk of a person having a stroke.
A study from the University of South Carolina’s Prevention Research Center in Columbia, led by Steven Hooker, shows that as little as a half-hour brisk walk everyday helped:
For their research, Hooker and his colleagues used data from a study of more than 61,000 adults at the Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas. After taking a treadmill test, the participants periodically answered health surveys. The latest research divided the group into four levels of fitness and looked at how many of them had strokes, following them an average of 18 years. Overall, there were 692 strokes in men and 171 in women.
The study found that men in the most fit group had a 40 percent lower risk of stroke than the least fit men. The most fit women had a 43 percent reduction in their risk of stroke compared with women in the least fit group. For moderate levels of fitness, the risk reduction ranged from 15 to 30 percent for men and 23 to 57 percent in women. [MSNBC]
The best part was that these results were independent of other risk factors for stroke like smoking and being overweight. Chalk one up for the thousands (maybe we should just stop counting!) of benefits of regular exercise.
Before you lace up those running shoes, skim through the week’s top health and fitness stories:
- Aching neck? Try strength training: New research suggests that strength training may ease chronic neck and shoulder pain, a problem that has grown increasingly common as people spend more time on computers.
- Being fit - even moderately - cuts stroke risk: Being merely moderately fit - walking briskly half an hour a day - can lower the risk of having a stroke
- Eating low fat dairy products reduces hypertension risk?: The study showed those who ate two servings of dairy products per day were 11 percent less likely to have hypertension than those who used less than one serving per month, United Press International reported.
- Salty Snacks Mean More Sodas for Kids: Kids who load up on salty meals and snacks get thirsty, and too often they turn to calorie-filled sodas. So maybe cutting back on the salt is a good way to cut the calories.
- Whole grains help deflate belly rolls: “This is the first clinical study to prove that a diet rich in whole grains can lead to weight loss and reduce the risk of several chronic diseases,”
- TV ads in Spanish may fuel kid obesity: study: A siege of fast-food commercials on Spanish-language television channels in the United States may be helping drive an obesity epidemic among Latino youth, researchers reported on Tuesday.
- NHS ‘limiting obesity operations’: Hospitals in England and Wales are refusing referrals for obesity operations on costs grounds
- Why carbs are the new diet craze: […] amazing new research puts spuds squarely at the center of the latest weight-loss buzz, along with other unfairly maligned carbs such as corn and rice.
- Calorie Count to Appear Soon on New York Menus: Did you hear that beginning March 31, all chain restaurants in New York City will have to prominently post calorie data on their menus?
- Guess What Real Men Eat: Real men don’t eat meat and potatoes - at least not only meat and potatoes. Now, they’re also dining on fruit, vegetables and whole grains - and enjoying them, too.
- City inmates get healthier diet: No butter. No sweets. And skim milk only. In New York City jails, life just got a whole lot blander.
- Obesity ‘requires climate plan’: The chairman of the International Obesity Taskforce wants world leaders to agree a global pact to ensure that everyone is fed healthy food.
- The 20 Worst Foods in America: To further enlighten you on the prevalence of preposterous portions, we spent months analyzing menus, nutrition labels, and ingredient lists to identify the food industry’s worst offenders. Our primary criterion? Sheer caloric impact.
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Have a great weekend!
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Here’s an example of an after-dinner heart-stopper: Chili’s offers a Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream with 1,600 calories, 78g of fat and 215g of carbs.
