By Rachael Rettner, MyHealthNewsDaily

Even minimal exercise of the body and mind may improve cognitive function in older adults, a new study suggests. 

The findings suggest that for some  older adults, light physical activities such as stretching and toning, as well as watching DVDs, may help with cognitive function, the researchers said.

The study involved 126 adults in their 70s who felt that their memory and thinking skills had declined recently, and who were not regular exercisers.

Participants were randomly assigned to one of four groups: one group played mentally stimulating computer games and practiced aerobic exercise; one group played the computer games and practiced stretching and toning; one group watched educational DVDs and practiced aerobic exercise; and one group watched the DVDs and practiced stretching and toning.

All activities were preformed for an hour a day, three days a week for 12 weeks.

The "stretching and toning" and "educational DVD" activities were intended to be "control" activities — that is, the researchers did not think these activities were intense enough to have an effect on participants' cognitive function.

However, participants in all groups saw improvements in their cognitive function compared with the beginning of the study.

The findings suggest that many types of activities, even those that only lightly stimulate the body and brain, can improve cognitive function if practiced frequently enough.

"Just doing something may be more important than exactly what they're doing," said study researcher Deborah Barnes, of the University of California, San Francisco.

Because the study involved older adults who had complained of memory and thinking problems, the findings may not be true of those who aren't experiencing such problems, Barnes said.

Not everyone agrees with the researchers' conclusions. Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, a preventive cardiologist at Lenox Hill Hospital in N.Y., said that while exercise and mental activity are important, it's too soon to say whether any type of activity is beneficial.

The new study was short, and it's possible that over a longer period, some of the activities would turn out to be more beneficial than others, Steinbaum said. In addition, some tests commonly used to assess cognitive function were not used in this study, she said.

Previous studies in healthy older adults have found that aerobic exercise and intense mental activity improved cognitive function more than light exercise and less-intense mental activity, such as watching DVDs.

It's possible that participants in the new study simply got better at taking the tests that assessed cognitive function. (Participants took the same tests more than once during the study.) However, in a separate experiment, older adults who took these tests more than once but did not practice any physical or mental activity did not improve their scores as much as participants who did physical and mental exercises.

Before starting a new exercise regimen, it's a good idea for older adults to get approval from a doctor first to make sure the activity level is safe, Barnes said. 

The study is published today (April 1) in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.           

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By Rachael Rettner
MyHealthNewsDaily

Hair care concerns may keep some African-American women from exercising routinely, new research suggests. 

The study, which surveyed African-American women in North Carolina, found that close to 40 percent of respondents said they sometimes avoided exercise because of their hair. About a third said hair concerns prevented them from working out as often as they would like.

Women who exercised less frequently because of their hair were less likely to meet recommendations for weekly physical activity, the researchers said.

Many African-American women straighten their hair with heat or other products, a process that takes time and money, and can be undone with exposure to sweat or moisture. In addition, hair straightened with chemical relaxers is fragile, which precludes frequent washing. As a result, women  who straighten their hair may want to avoid sweating — and, thus, exercising, said study researcher Dr. Rebecca Hall, a dermatologist at the Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.

As a group, African-American women are among the least likely to meet physical activity guidelines (at least 150 minutes of moderate exercise a week is recommended), compared to other ethnic groups, the researchers said. And about four out of five African American women are overweight or obese, according to The U.S. Department of Health & Human Services.

Therefore, strategies to promote physical activity among African-American women must address hair care issues, the researchers said.

Hall and colleagues surveyed 103 African-American women ages 21 to 60 who visited the university's dermatology department in October 2007.

Sixty-two percent of the women had a chemically relaxed hairstyle, and most washed their hair every one to two weeks.

All respondents said exercise was important, but about 38 percent of them said they sometimes avoided exercise because of their hair. Thirty-six percent said they avoided swimming, and 29 percent said they avoided aerobic and gym activities. Half said they had considered modifying their hairstyles to accommodate exercise.

The results were originally presented at a meeting in 2007. Surgeon General Dr. Regina M. Benjamin raised the issue again last year, telling the New York Times, "When you’re starting to exercise, you look for reasons not to, and sometimes the hair is one of those reasons."

The study also found 32 percent of respondents said sweating or humidity exacerbated scalp itching, and many reported hair and scalp symptoms, such as hair breakage and flaking.

"The high percentage of African-American women with baseline scalp complaints suggests that dermatologists need to consider these symptoms when providing care for African-American women," the researchers wrote in the Dec. 17 issue of the journal Archives of Dermatology. 

The hair care issue is not easily solvable, Hall, said. "Somebody might say, 'Oh, just cut your hair,' but that does not make sense. We have to figure out better ways to address this issue," Hall said.

Because the study was conducted in one region, it's not clear whether the results apply to women across the country, the researchers said. In addition, because the study was conducted at a dermatology clinic, the prevalence of scalp conditions may be greater than in the general population. 

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If you want to burn fat, it's better to hit the treadmill than the weight room, a new study suggests.

The results show aerobic workouts are better than resistance training for reducing fat mass.

And a workout that combines the two activities — lifting weights in addition to running — is no better at burning fat than running alone, the researchers said. The findings contradict the idea that resistance training can help with weight and fat loss by improving metabolism, the researchers said.

But the findings don't mean that resistance training is not useful. The study found that resistance training was better at increasing lean body mass than aerobic training alone. And for older adults who are experiencing muscle loss, resistance training is beneficial, the researchers said.

But for young, healthy adults who want to lose weight, aerobic training may be the way to go.

"Balancing time commitments against health benefits, our study suggests that aerobic exercise is the best option for reducing fat mass and body mass," said study researcher Cris Slentz, an exercise physiologist at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. "It's not that resistance training isn't good for you; it's just not very good at burning fat," Slentz said.

The study involved 234 overweight and obese adults who did not have diabetes, and did not exercise regularly before the study. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three workouts: a resistance training workout (consisting of three days of weight lifting per week); an aerobic workout (running 12 miles a week); or a combination workout (three days of weight lifting plus 12 miles of running a week). The workout regimens lasted eight months.

The aerobic training group and the combination group lost more weight and fat mass than the resistance-training group.

Despite requiring double the exercise time, the combination workout did not reduce body mass and fat mass beyond what was seen in the aerobic training group, the researchers said.

While some studies suggest resistance training can improve metabolic rate, and thus allow people to burn more calories, the new results do not suggest this. Regardless of participants' metabolic rate, they did not lose more weight or fat mass with resistance training.

"No one type of exercise will be best for every health benefit," said study researcher Leslie Willis, an exercise physiologist at Duke. "However, it might be time to reconsider the conventional wisdom that resistance training alone can induce changes in body mass or fat mass due to an increase in metabolism, as our study found no change."

Although a focus on weight loss is understandable, "when considering the big picture, I like to encourage individuals to pursue a complete exercise program — including both aerobic exercise and resistance training," said Barbara Bushman, a professor at Missouri State University's Department of Kinesiology who was not involved in the study. "If time is limited and it comes down to one or the other, this study, as well as [statements from the American College of Sports Medicine] would seem to be in agreement that aerobic exercise along with dietary restriction are of the greatest benefit," Bushman said.

The study is published in the Dec. 15 issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology.

Pass it on: Aerobic workouts are best for fat loss. 
 

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Raji Cyrus/UCLA

A profile MRI of the brain with color shaded areas corresponding to areas of increased gray matter volume in active people. The blue crosshairs point to increased volume in the hippocampus with more calories burned per week. The hippocampus is the key memory and learning center of the brain.

Seniors who fit in the most daily physical activity – from raking leaves to dancing – can have more gray matter in important brain regions, researchers reported on Monday.

The scientists have images that show people who were the most active had 5 percent more gray matter than people who were the least active. Having more little gray brain cells translates into a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease, other studies have shown.

“People really want to know what they can do to reduce their risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” said Dr. Cyrus Raji of the University of California in Los Angeles, who presented his team’s findings to a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

“This shows it is easier than you think.”

Raji’s team looked at the records of 876 adults, who were recruited into a larger study on heart health starting in 1989. They all got magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) brain scans in 1998 and 1999, when they were on average 78 years old, and filled out detailed questionnaires on exercise and other types of activity.

Most of them were a little overweight – with a body mass index or BMI of 27. People with BMIs above 25 are considered overweight and at 30 they are considered clinically obese.

The researchers found a huge difference in the amount of activity people reported. They were asked about everything from cycling to yard work, dancing and bicycle riding.

“The most active burned 3,434 calories per week (an extra 500 calories per day on average) compared to those in the bottom percentile who only burned 348 calories per week [through activities],” Raji said. “The most active had 5 percent more gray matter volume than the least active. That's a big number when you think about the tremendous biological forces that have to be at work for brain volume to change at all.”

And the MRIs showed the differences were in areas of the brain like the hippocampus, which is heavily damaged in Alzheimer’s disease.

“By strengthening this area, an active lifestyle can reduce risk for Alzheimer's,” Raji said. "Virtually all of the physical activities examined in this study are some variation of aerobic physical activity, which we know from other work can improve cerebral blood flow and strengthen neuronal connections.”

Money is limited for new medical research, so the UCLA team went through the records from another study -- that explains why some of the data is old. "This is the largest study of its kind that has ever been done," Raji said.

But even older data can be a gold mine for researchers. To log exercise, the volunteers wrote down all the activities they could remember over a two-week period. Some went back and filled out questionnaires five years later, so Raji's team could make some comparisons.

"We found that individuals who increased calories burned over five years also had more gray matter volume," Raji said.

Raji isn't sure how some people only managed to burn off 348 extra calories a week, but said they may have been ill or even bedridden.

When they looked in more detail at the surveys, the researchers noted that it was the people who managed to work exercise into their daily lives who racked up the most weekly calories. So unless people enjoy standard “exercise” such as running, they should find something they like and are likely to stick to, said Raji.

“No pharmaceutical drug on the market has been shown to have these effects on the brain -- not a single drug,” said Raji. And exercise is available to anyone. “And it doesn’t cost anything,” he said.

In the first 10 years of the study, 97 people developed Alzheimer’s, and just about a quarter of them were in the top 25 percent of exercisers. Raji said the disease was detected very early in this study because the volunteers were being studied so intensely. “Most had not yet been diagnosed by their primary care physicians,” he said.

Now the team is going to go through the surveys to see if the people who had the most gray matter were the least likely to develop Alzheimer’s – or if the brain disease progressed more slowly in those with the most gray matter. And they want to follow up with as many of the volunteers as possible to see how they have fared.

“I really do believe that we have strong evidence that physical activity can be a way to reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s disease,” Raji said.

How many calories can you burn doing various activities? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has a calculator here. An hour of dancing can burn 330 calories an hour while walking burns about 280 calories an hour.

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By Anna Azvolinsky
MyHealthNewsDaily

Regular, moderate physical activity such as brisk walking can increase life expectancy by several years, even for people who are overweight, a new large study shows.

While higher levels of activity were linked to even longer life expectancies, moderate activity was beneficial, according to the study of people ages 40 and older. The benefit of exercise was seen regardless of people's weight, age, sex and health conditions such as heart disease and cancer.

For example, obese participants who did moderate exercise for 150 minutes a week lived an average of 2.7 to 3.4 years longer, depending on how obese they were, than those who were obese and did not exercise.

Those who were overweight (but not obese) and did 150 minutes of moderate exercise weekly lived 3.9 years longer those who were overweight and did not exercise.

Normal-weight people who exercised for 150 minutes or more weekly lived about 4.7 years longer than normal-weight people who did not do regular moderate exercise.

"Many individuals in the U.S. are overweight or obese," and find that reducing their weight is difficult, said study researcher I-Min Lee, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Our study shows that by being physically active, even overweight or obese people can increase their life expectancy, compared to someone of the same weight who is not active."

The researchers say this is the first study to estimate years of life lost due to physical inactivity and body mass index (BMI).

When the researchers considered all study participants, they found that those who did 75 minutes of moderate-intensity activity weekly lived 1.8 years longer, on average, compared with people who did no physical activity.

Greater amounts of physical activity were associated with additional life expectancy gains. At the highest level of activity — 450 minutes per week — the gain was 4.5 years.

"This finding provides further evidence that there is a clear, direct dose-response relationship between volume of physical activity and years of life gained," said Mark Tremblay, director of the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the University of Ottawa, Canada.

The researchers used data gathered during six previous studies, including a total of nearly 640,000 men and women ages 40 and over. Over a follow-up period of about 10 years, about 82,500 of these participants died.

Normal-weight individuals who exercised at a moderate level for at least 150 minutes weekly lived about 7.2 years longer, on average, compared with people who were inactive and obese.

The study was limited in that it relied on self-reported physical activity and height and weight, said Stuart Olshansky, a professor of epidemiology at the University of Illinois who was not involved in the work.

Still, Olshansky said, "the authors have provided us with a very convincing argument that exercise is about the only equivalent of a fountain of youth that exists today."

The study is published today (Nov. 6) in the journal Public Library of Science (PLOS) Medicine.

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CDC.gov, Preventing Chronic Disease

Sit-stand devices used in the Take-a-Stand Project in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 2011.
The Take-a-Stand Project was a partnership with a sit-stand device manufacturer, Ergotron, Inc, Eagan, Minnesota.

Office workers who spent an hour or so a day at stand-up workstations felt more energized, productive and even happier, researchers reported on Thursday. And if they keep it up, they may help reduce the damage done by sitting at a desk all day.

Study after study has shown that sitting all day long is bad for you. People risk developing lower back problems, kidney disease, heart disease and other ills – even if they exercise outside of work.

“If you go out for a 30 minute run , and then sit for eight hours at work, you could still have health problems because you are sitting all day,” said Nicolaas Pronk, a vice president at Minnesota-based HealthPartners, a non-profit health care organization that provides clinics, health insurance and does health care research.

Pronk decided to test special workstations on the organization’s employees.

They recruited 34 volunteers to test some of the commercial workstations on the market that allow users to sit or stand, as they like, without having to move all their stuff.  They tried models made by Ergotron, Inc. of Eagan, Minnesota.

“There are different devices out there. The ones we tested, you clamp them onto the desk. It has a keyboard tray and you push up or push down as you want to sit or stand,” Pronk said. “Ergotron is located in the same town as we are. So we partnered with them.”

The question is, will people use them and if they do, do they stand up for enough of their days to make a difference. And if so, how does that affect them?

Over seven weeks, 10 workers stayed at their usual desks, while 24 used the new workstations, Pronk and colleagues report in this week’s issue of the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.

To be scientific, Pronk’s team checked in with workers several times a day to see whether they were standing or sitting and to see how they felt. “We provided all participants a prepaid cellular telephone and sent text messages at three random times throughout the course of the work day. Immediately upon receiving a text message, participants responded to the question, ‘Tell us what you are doing right now: sitting, standing, or walking?’ by using 0, 1, or 2 for sitting, standing, or walking, respectively,” the researchers wrote.

They also surveyed the workers more thoroughly three times during the study, once at the end of the seven weeks.

People really liked them, Pronk said. “People felt happier. They felt more confident. They were more productive. Across the board, the feedback was very positive.”

The workers who used the devices were lavish in their praise – 87 percent felt more comfortable,  87 percent felt energized, 75 percent felt healthier, 71 percent felt more focused, 66 percent felt more productive, 62 percent felt happier, and 33 percent felt less stressed.

“Not a single person in the intervention group indicated that they did not like the device,” Pronk said. In fact, HealthPartners now offers them to all employees.  “Around 30 percent have them. There are about 2,000 people today who have one at their station,” Pronk said.

People sat, on average just over an hour less every day. While standing didn’t help lower back pain, it reduced upper back and neck pain by 54 percent, Pronk found.

Research is piling in that that shows just the act of sitting most of the day can cut years off your life. Researchers reported in July that cutting the time that people spend sitting to less than three hours would increase the U.S. life expectancy by two years. And reducing the time spent watching TV to less than 2 hours daily would increase life expectancy by 1.4 years.

Last month, British researchers found that people who spent the least amount of time sitting were also the least likely to have chronic kidney disease.

Pronk is himself sold on the idea. “I don’t think this is a fad. It’s a new way of doing your work,” he said. He uses one now. “I probably stand about 80 percent of the time when I am in my office. I leave it up when I leave at night so it’s up when I come in in the morning,” Pronk said.

Part of the appeal may be that employees can control the device themselves. “You literally can push this device up with your hand and you can stand up,” he said.

“It has an impact on their work while they at work. The fact is that sedentary job tasks will end up making people sit for such long periods of time that it truly, literally, affects their longevity, so this is a very important area of intervention. The entire work force can go home more energetic and energized than they came in in the morning. That makes a huge difference from a work-life balance perspective.”

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Using a computer may protect against memory loss late in life, as long as you also make sure to exercise, a new study suggests. 

In the study, which included older adults, computer use and exercise reduced the risk of memory loss, whereas doing either activity alone did not.

Participants who engaged in moderate physical activity (such as brisk walking) and used a computer were 64 percent less likely to have mild cognitive impairment compared with those who did not exercise and did not use a computer.

Mild cognitive impairment is a condition in which people experience noticeable declines in their cognitive function, including memory and language problems, but are still able to perform everyday activities.

"The aging of baby boomers is projected to lead to dramatic increases in the prevalence of dementia," said study researcher Dr. Yonas Geda, a physician scientist with Mayo Clinic in Arizona. "As frequent computer use has becoming increasingly common among all age groups, it is important to examine how it relates to aging and dementia."

Video: Sparking memories musically

However, the study relied on participants to remember how often they had exercised or used a computer in the past year. More studies will be needed that follow people forward in time to confirm the results.

Computers and exercise
Some previous studies have found a link between exercise and a reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), while others have linked cognitively stimulating activities, such as reading books, playing games or using a computer, and a reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment. But no studies have examined the combined effects of exercise and computer use.

Geda and his colleagues surveyed 926 people ages 70 to 93 living in Olmsted County, Minn. Participants were asked whether they had engaged in moderate physical activity, such as brisk walking, hiking, aerobics, strength training, yoga or weight lifting, in the past year, and how frequently they participated in the activities. They were also asked about the extent of their computer use.

Participants were examined by a physician to diagnose MCI.

Of the 205 study participants who did not exercise and did not use a computer, 41 (20 percent) showed signs of MCI. Of the 314 who both exercised and used a computer, 20 (6 percent) showed signs of MCI, the study found.

People who either used a computer or exercised experienced some protection against mild cognitive impairment, compared with people who did neither activity, but that finding could have been due to chance, the study said.

The results held even after the researchers took into account factors that could affect cognitive function, such as age, sex, education level, depression and the number of calories they ate in a day.

Protecting the brain
The researchers speculated that people who engage in both physical activity and computer use may be healthier, more disciplined individuals. In other words, these activities could simply be a marker for a healthy lifestyle.

It's also possible these activities benefit the brain directly. Exercise may increase production of growth factors that promote the survival of nerve cells. Computer use, and other mentally stimulating activities, may enhance connections in the brain, making it more resistant to damage, Geda said.

Because the study was conducted in one county, it's not clear whether the results can be generalized to the population as a whole. In addition, a sedentary lifestyle caused by too much computer use may predispose people to health problems, the researchers said.

The study is published in the May issue of the journal Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

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