Fitness

Vaping Could Make Young Adults Physically Weaker

Published

2 hours ago

September 9, 2024

Vaping Could Make Young Adults Physically Weaker

MONDAY, Sept. 9, 2024 (HealthDay News) — In exercise bike tests, twentysomethings who’d been vaping for at least two years had much lower exercise capacity than those who didn’t, and the losses were equal to those of folks who’d spent a similar amount of time smoking.

The vaping young adults “found it harder to breath, their muscles became more fatigued, and they were less fit overall,” said study lead author Dr. Azmy Faisal of Manchester Metropolitan University in the U.K.

“In this regard, our research indicated that vaping is no better than smoking,” said Faisal, who presented the findings Sunday in Madrid at the annual meeting of the European Respiratory Society (ERS).

According to Faisal, it’s long been known that the use of e-cigarettes “is linked to lung inflammation and damage, and harmful changes to the blood vessels.”

But for young smokers, could a switch to vaping still be healthier? In an ERS news release, he said the jury is still out on that.

“We don’t yet know what longer-term vaping use does to our bodies,” he explained.

To help find out, the Manchester team recruited 60 people in their 20s, all of whom appeared to have normal lung function based on standard tests.

Twenty neither vaped nor smoked, 20 had vaped for at least two years and 20 had smoked for at least 2 years.

Each participant was subjected to exercise tests on a stationary bike, with the intensity of the exercise increased until each person reached their maximum.

Heart, lung and muscle responses were monitored. Artery function was assessed via blood tests and ultrasound.

Some differences were easily gauged. For example, the smokers and vapers visibly got out of breath even before they reached exercise capacity, and long before participants who neither vaped nor smoked.

Vapers’ and smokers’ legs also got fatigued earlier during exercise. Blood tests typically showed high levels of lactate (a sign of muscle fatigue) before they reached top capacity, the researchers said.

Blood tests and ultrasound scans also showed reduced blood vessel performance among the smokers/vapers compared to folks who had neither habit.

In measurements of exercise capacity, vapers and smokers scored about the same, with capacities topping out at 186 watts and 182 watts, respectively. That’s compared to the average 226 watt maximum exercise capacity seen among the never-smokers/vapers.

Finally, average oxygen consumption among exercising vapers and smokers was much lower than that of never-smokers/vapers, at 2.7 litres per minute, 2.6 litres per minute and 3 liters per minute, respectively.

“In this study, we looked at a group of young people with no apparent signs of lung damage,” Faisal said. “Among the people who had been vaping or smoking for at least two years, we saw important differences in how well they coped with exercise.”

Dr. Filippos Filippidis is chair of the ERS Tobacco Control Committee and a reader in public health at Imperial College London. He wasn’t involved in the study.

According to Filippidis, “although it’s always a challenge to know if the associations we find in these studies are causal or a result of some other systematic differences between groups, people who vape need to be aware that using these products could make them less fit and able to take part in exercise. Doctors and policymakers also need to know about the risks of vaping, and we should be doing all we can to support children and young people to avoid or quit vaping.”

Because these findings were presented at a medical meeting, they should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

Find out more about the dangers of vaping at the American Lung Association.

SOURCE: European Respiratory Society, news release, Sept. 8, 2024

Related Topics:cycling exercise fitness news Vaping

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Fitness

YouTube is restricting European teens' access to fitness videos. Why?

Published

9 hours ago

September 9, 2024

Press Room

YouTube is restricting European teens' access to fitness videos. Why?

The video-streaming platform says that repeated exposure to certain types of videos could hurt teenager’s self-esteem and body image.

European teenagers may notice a change in their YouTube recommendations, after the video platform said it will stop ushering them toward some types of health and fitness videos, particularly those that “idealise” certain body types.

YouTube – which is among the most popular social media apps for teens – recommends videos that are similar to those the viewer has watched previously.

That means people can fall into feedback loops, watching many similar videos in a row and at times delving into more extreme content.

YouTube first rolled out these restrictions in the United States last year, and is now expanding them in Europe and around the world, on the guidance of its youth and family advisory committee.

The new rule is an effort to prevent teens from forming “negative beliefs about themselves,” Dr Garth Graham, who heads YouTube Health, and James Beser, YouTube Youth’s director of product management, said in a statement.

So what does this mean and what kind of content will now be restricted?

Which videos will YouTube restrict for teenagers?

YouTube said it will now limit repeated recommendations of videos that:

Idealise particular fitness levels or weight groups
Compare and idealise certain physical features, or
Are socially aggressive, meaning they show intimidation or fighting.

These types of content “may be innocuous as a single video, but could be problematic for some teens if viewed repetitively,” Graham and Beser said.

How does social media affect body image?

Social media can lead to poor body image, eating disorders, and mental health issues, according to a major review of 50 studies from 17 countries published last year.

That’s because people tend to compare themselves to others they see online, internalise a thin or fit standard as the ideal body type, and engage in self-objectification.

That doesn’t mean everyone is affected equally.

Women and girls, overweight people, and those who already have poor body image tend to be most affected by social media, while people who feel OK about their bodies and have high social media literacy are less affected – a dynamic that researchers call a “self-perpetuating cycle of risk”.

Meanwhile, a 2021 study found that fitness YouTubers – which has been dubbed the “Fitspiration” community – promote unhealthy behaviours, and that viewers reinforce those practices in the comments.

What other steps has YouTube taken?

YouTube already restricts teenagers’ access to some content involving eating disorders and physical fights.

With the new policy, YouTube can also redirect people to crisis hotlines when they search for things related to suicide, self-harm, and eating disorders.

The company also said it worked with organisations in Germany and France to craft the update.

What are regulators doing about the problem?

YouTube and other social media sites have come under fire for their effect on young people’s mental health and well-being, and some governments have threatened to crack down.

In the United Kingdom, for example, communications regulator Ofcom ordered tech companies in May to take steps to stop their algorithms from “recommending harmful content to children,” including content on self-harm and eating disorders.

The European Union’s Digital Services Act, which was adopted in 2022, also calls on tech giants to limit children’s access to content that could harm their “health, physical, mental and moral development”.

Fitness

Avneet Kaur Is “Getting Back” To Her Fitness Routine With An Intense Arm Workout

Published

17 hours ago

September 8, 2024

Press Room

Avneet Kaur Is “Getting Back” To Her Fitness Routine With An Intense Arm Workout

After a long summer break, it looks like Avneet Kaur is back to the exercise grind. The actress, who has already impressed us with her impeccable fashion choices, has now taken us through her fitness journey. Avneet posted a video on her social media sharing her heavy workout routine. In the video, we can see Avneet doing a series of arm and core workouts. Sharing the video on Instagram, Avneet wrote, “Getting back at it. Do you guys like hitting the gym?”. The star started her workout with a heavy weightlifting exercise. She started with bent-over rows exercise with weight plates. This effective exercise is known for strengthening the muscles responsible for maintaining proper spinal alignment and shoulder retraction. Doing this exercise daily can build your arm strength, alleviate upper back pain and improve your overall posture.

(Also Read: Avneet Kaur In A Sheer Aqua Dress Could Rival The Blue Beaches Of Mykonos)

Moving on, she did some pull-downs that strengthen your back, shoulders, arms and core, leading to improved stability and grip strength. She then did the seated cable wide high row, which is a strength training exercise that works for the back and upper arm.

After weightlifting and strength training, Avneet moved on to core exercises to build strength and stability. She did sets of abs crunches, dead bugs and concluded her workout with a plank. All these exercises enhance flexibility and strengthen your core, lower back muscles and obliques.

Avneet Kaur is back to her fitness journey with a bang and we are taking notes.
(Also read: Take Inspiration From Avneet Kaur In London And Shop At These Iconic Shopping Hubs)
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Fitness

Fitness: How much are you really exercising?

Published

1 day ago

September 8, 2024

Press Room

Fitness: How much are you really exercising?

Most people struggle to accurately report the duration, frequency and intensity of their workouts, but a recent study gives some clarity on how long and how hard we need to exercise.

Published Sep 08, 2024 • Last updated 6 hours ago • 4 minute read

A more accurate picture of exercise habits has appeared alongside the proliferation of fitness trackers. Photo by Jacob Ammentorp Lund /iStockphoto

Most recommendations on the amount of exercise that is needed to improve health are based on self-reported data. Study subjects are quizzed on how often they engage in physical activity, what types of activity they do and how long they typically exercise. Yet most respondents struggle to accurately report their movement patterns, especially when asked to reach back several days or weeks.

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It’s not just poor recall that makes self-reporting such a challenge. There’s a strong tendency to be generous when recounting exercise frequency and duration. The same goes for intensity; due to its subjective nature, it’s even more challenging to interpret whether a workout was easy, moderate or hard.

These flaws in data collection have been acknowledged by most researchers, but up until the last few years there were few other options. Sophisticated activity trackers are expensive, limiting the ability to use them on a large pool of study subjects. But with the proliferation of consumer-based wearables that collect data 24/7, a more accurate picture of exercise habits is starting to appear.

But accurately tracking physical activity isn’t the only challenge when it comes to determining the role exercise plays in boosting health and wellness. Time spent being sedentary is subject to the same fallacies in self-reporting. People routinely underestimate the number of hours they spend in front of a screen or in a chair. And since the amount of active versus sedentary pursuits is considered a valuable predictor of health and longevity, more accurate data would provide a detailed and scientifically validated set of guidelines regarding how hard and how often we need to exercise in order to combat the consequences of inactivity.

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With that goal in mind, a team from the Mackenzie Wearables Research Hub at the University of Sydney in Australia examined data from a whopping 73,729 study subjects wearing fitness trackers to get a true picture of the impact exercise and sedentary time have on long-term health.

“We examined the joint associations of sedentary time and intensity-specific physical activity with all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality,” said the researchers.

Wearing an accelerometer for one week, the subjects offered insight into their daily habits, including the volume and intensity of physical activity and the amount of time spent being sedentary. Daily activity was classified into four categories: sedentary, standing chores of everyday life (washing dishes, cooking), walking activities (gardening, house cleaning, commuting) and high-energy physical activity (purposeful exercise and vigorous movement). There were also four categories of intensity: sedentary, light, moderate and vigorous. Data was categorized based on volume and intensity of activity and analyzed against records of deaths occurring during a six-year followup period.

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Some of the results echoed similar studies, including confirmation that the most sedentary subjects were more likely to die within the followup period. Also endorsed was the theory that physical activity of any intensity reduces mortality risk. But the study adds more clarity on how long and how hard we need to exercise to improve longevity.

“Specifically, we showed that a median of six minutes per day of vigorous physical activity, 30 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous activity, 64 minutes a day of moderate or 163 minutes of light physical activity may attenuate the association between high sedentary time (more than 11 hours a day) and mortality,” said the researchers.

How does this information change what we already know about the impact of exercise on long-term health? More than just stating the need to accumulate 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week, the research team provides a set of guidelines based on intensity. So instead of setting the same bar for runners, walkers and plodders, individuals can set a baseline target of weekly exercise minutes according to the intensity of their workout. Runners need six minutes of exercise a day to lessen their risk of chronic disease, brisk walkers need 64 minutes and plodders need 163 minutes to ward off the unhealthy consequences of too many hours spent sitting behind a desk or looking at a screen.

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Keep in mind that these numbers represent the minimum amount of exercise needed to reduce the risk of chronic disease. The longer the workout and the more vigorous the intensity, the greater the benefits, and not just to health. Building muscle, improving aerobic endurance and optimizing joint range of motion are building blocks for improved athletic performance and overall fitness. Fit individuals maintain their quality of life longer than those who meet exercise minimums.

Adding more exercise minutes to your week, some of which are at an intensity that pushes your limits, and reducing the time spent being inactive remains the goal of anyone who wants to maintain their health and vigour as they age. And just to be sure you’re not overestimating how much and how hard you exercise, consider using an activity tracker (such as an Apple Watch, Fitbit or Garmin) to keep yourself honest.

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