Fitness
Weight loss program to help stay healthy, prevent heart disease and diabetes
If you’re obese or overweight then, you need to take the assistance of a well being or health knowledgeable to battle the bulge as doing so can assist you to chop down the chance of coronary heart illness and even diabetes. Attempt to eat nicely, train every day, keep stress-free and get a superb evening’s sleep to remain wholesome and hearty since it’s no secret that numerous folks acquire weight and develop into overweight owing to sedentary existence.
In an interview with HT Life-style, Dr Urvi Maheshwari, Consulting Doctor at Zynova Shalby Hospital, revealed, “Components corresponding to lack of bodily exercise, poor consuming habits, sure well being circumstances and medicines, and even genetics could make you pile up these extra kilos. One who’s obese or overweight can have a better danger of coronary heart illness, diabetes, gallbladder issues, and liver and kidney points. Thus, weight administration can assist decrease blood stress, ldl cholesterol, and blood glucose ranges, elevating one’s odds of getting a coronary heart assault.”
Insisting that it’s higher to seek the advice of an knowledgeable who will information you relating to important weight reduction methods, Dr Urvi Maheshwari recommended some weight reduction ideas that you need to observe to maintain your coronary heart wholesome and really helpful the next weight reduction program that may assist one to remain wholesome and hearty:
• Sticking to a weight reduction program really helpful by the knowledgeable will assist one to keep up an optimum weight by making vital modifications to the weight-reduction plan and train. You can be recommended to undertake wholesome habits to maintain coronary heart issues at bay and improve your lifespan. Heart problems occurs as a result of managed blood stress, ldl cholesterol, and blood sugar that progressively fur up our arteries known as atherosclerosis, resulting in coronary heart assault and stroke. After consulting the physician, one should take medicines to handle all these circumstances. Verify your blood stress, blood sugar, and levels of cholesterol frequently as advised by the physician.
• One should eat a weight-reduction plan inclusive of all of the important vitamins to grill that extra fats. Go for contemporary fruits, greens, entire grains, pulses, lentils, and entire grains. It’s a good suggestion to steer clear of junk, oily, spicy, and canned meals. This implies you have to keep away from pizza, pasta, sweets, Chinese language meals, and bakery gadgets.
• Lower down on smoking, alcohol and illicit use of medicine to maintain the guts wholesome.
• Train every day for not less than half-hour in a day to scale back the chance of coronary heart issues. To remain stress-free, do Yoga and meditation that may calm you down. Get a superb evening’s sleep of not less than 8 hours daily to have a wholesome coronary heart.
With the new year coming up, you’re probably thinking about how to live your longest, healthiest life. Of course, eating well and working out regularly help—but new research has shown exactly how much.
A recent study just broke down exactly how much longer you can expect to live if you’re active—and how much exercise you need to do.
So how can you live longer? Here’s the deal, according to the research.
Meet the experts: Ryan Glatt, CPT, senior brain health coach and director of the FitBrain Program at Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, California. Scott Kaiser, MD, a geriatrician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California. Alfred Tallia, MD, professor and chair in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
What did the study find?
The study, which was published recently in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, crunched data from National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey (NHANES). The researchers specifically looked at Americans aged 40 and older who wore activity monitors for at least four days during the study period.
The researchers then compared the most active participants with the least active ones, along with their life expectancy. No shocker here: People who worked out the most had the longest life expectancies.
Specifically, scientists found that people over the age of 40 could live an extra 5.3 years if they were as active as the top 25 percent of the population.
In terms of exercise, the most active group logged about 160 minutes a day of walking. The least active group, meanwhile, spent about 49 minutes a day walking—meaning they’d have to add 111 minutes to their schedules if they wanted to see the benefits.
How much activity should I do to increase my life expectancy?
It’s hard to say for sure. This particular study only looked at four days of data collected from people who wore activity monitors. Still, it found that aiming for 160 minutes of activity a day was considered the best.
What type of exercise should I do to increase my life expectancy?
In general, just staying active is important for longevity, says Ryan Glatt, CPT, senior brain health coach and director of the FitBrain Program at Pacific Neuroscience Institute in Santa Monica, California. And, if you’re not currently very active, you’ll likely see the biggest gains from ramping up your daily movement.
“The benefits are most significant for individuals who are inactive, as even small increases in physical activity substantially reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases and premature death,” he says.
The type of exercise doesn’t matter—as long as you’re moving. “Exercise is the closest thing we have to a miracle drug,” says Scott Kaiser, MD, a geriatrician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California. “Even a 10-minute burst can yield great results.”
For a bonus, Kaiser recommends making your workout a “dance routine, as studies indicate that exercises that combine physical and cognitive challenges can especially improve memory and brain health.”
How else can I increase my life expectancy?
Along with being active, Kaiser suggests doing these things to increase your longevity:
- Eat a varied diet that includes plenty of green leafy vegetables, berries, and other foods rich in phytonutrients, which are helpful for brain health.
- Practice mindfulness to try to lower your daily levels of stress.
- Try to stay socially connected to others.
- Volunteer, if you can. “It turns out that volunteering, giving back, and having a strong sense of purpose in life are secret ingredients of healthy aging and are some of the most powerful ways we can improve our brain,” Kaiser says.
- Try to find creative outlets, like playing an instrument or painting.
- Focus on getting plenty of quality sleep to help your brain recharge and reset at night.
Additionally, “we know from other studies that premature mortality is related to several health behaviors—smoking, excess alcohol intake, dietary excess (obesity), and others, and physical inactivity is among these behaviors,” says Alfred Tallia, MD, professor and chair in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. In general, people who don’t have those health behaviors tend to live longer, but longevity is personal, he says.
Still, exercising regularly can’t hurt. As a result, Tallia says the study “re-enforces the idea that more physical activity is better for folks.”
Korin Miller is a freelance writer specializing in general wellness, sexual health and relationships, and lifestyle trends, with work appearing in Men’s Health, Women’s Health, Self, Glamour, and more. She has a master’s degree from American University, lives by the beach, and hopes to own a teacup pig and taco truck one day.
Group doing box step-up exercise in CrossFit-style workout class. (Photo by BearFotos on Shutterstock)
Though CrossFit is often seen as a sport for the super fit, that shouldn’t put you off from trying it. CrossFit is designed to be accessible to everyone, with scalable workouts suited for all ages and abilities, embodying its principle that the needs of elite athletes and beginners differ only by intensity, not kind. By combining strength and aerobic exercise, CrossFit can be an effective way of improving functional fitness, muscle strength and cardiovascular health.
But if that’s not enough to convince you, our latest study suggests CrossFit’s benefits for physical health may even potentially reduce the need to use prescription drugs in people living with long-term conditions. This may offer an alternative to traditional medication-based treatment for a range of health conditions, as well as potentially easing the demand on healthcare services.
To conduct our study, we recruited 1,211 people from the UK who did CrossFit. Participants ranged in age from 19-67 – though the majority of participants were in either the 30-39 (38%) or 40-49 (26%) groups. Participants were asked about their health, what prescription drugs they took and any changes in their prescriptions since starting CrossFit.
Of the 1,211 participants, 280 said they took at least one prescription drug to manage a health condition prior to starting CrossFit. Some of the most common health conditions in question included anxiety and depression, asthma, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes and chronic pain.
We found that 54% of participants who’d been taking a prescription drug before starting CrossFit said they decreased their dosage after starting. Among this group of 151 people, 69 reported stopping their medication entirely, while the remaining 82 said they had cut their prescription dosage by more than half. These improvements happened primarily within the first six months of training.
Younger participants, specifically those aged 20 to 29, were more likely to reduce their medication. In this group, 43% reported cutting their prescription dosage by more than half, and 27% stopped needing to use a prescription drug altogether (compared to 29% and 25% respectively across all age groups).
We also found that 40% of all participants said they required fewer visits to the doctor after starting CrossFit.
For people with long-term health issues such as chronic pain, CrossFit helped many manage their symptoms. Our study found that of those participants who reported taking painkillers prior to starting CrossFit, particularly to manage arthritis or back pain, over half reduced their medication.
Some even postponed or canceled surgeries for joint or muscular issues due to the strength and fitness they had gained after starting CrossFit. Of the 71 people who reported canceling or postponing surgeries, 55% said it was because their symptoms improved, while 31% actually reported they no longer needed surgery at all.
Benefits of CrossFit
While our study can’t directly prove that CrossFit caused these changes, the effects that CrossFit has on so many aspects of health may help explain why regular exercisers saw a decrease in their prescription drug use.
First, CrossFit is of course beneficial for physical fitness. Improvements in areas such as cardiovascular fitness and metabolic health may help in managing chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.
Second, because CrossFit is often done as a group in a gym setting, it fosters a sense of community, team spirit and support. This sense of community may enhance mental health and wellbeing. Exercise also releases endorphins – chemicals in the brain that boost happiness and decrease pain. These two factors may help explain why a number of the study’s participants reported using fewer antidepressants after starting CrossFit.
Third, the fact that CrossFit’s combination of strength, aerobic and functional exercises helps enhance muscle strength and endurance can alleviate pressure on joints and reducing pain. The high-intensity nature of CrossFit also promotes the release of endorphins which can alleviate discomfort and enhance physical resilience, leaving participants feeling more empowered and uplifted.
As well, CrossFit emphasises movement patterns and mobility, which can help improve flexibility and reduce stiffness. All of these factors might help explain why some of the participants who’d suffered with chronic pain prior to starting CrossFit relied less on painkillers after six months of training
Nonetheless, this study has some limitations to note. The data relies on self-reported information, which can lead to biased results as participants may not accurately remember their prescription use or be influenced by their feelings about CrossFit.
Additionally, the study didn’t track other lifestyle changes participants might have made, such as diet modifications or other forms of exercise. So more research is needed to understand the full picture. Nonetheless, our findings provide promising evidence about the benefits of CrossFit that could contribute to reducing the strain on healthcare services.
(© LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS – stock.adobe.com)
TIANJIN, China — Your body’s ability to handle a workout might be more than just a matter of physical prowess – it could be your brain’s insurance policy. That’s the fascinating conclusion from a massive new study that’s rewriting our understanding of the connection between fitness and cognitive health. According to scientists, your heart and lung fitness might be one of the best defenses against cognitive decline.
The comprehensive study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, reveals that individuals with higher cardiorespiratory fitness not only perform better on cognitive tests but also face a significantly lower risk of developing dementia – even if they carry genetic risk factors for the condition.
The Power of Cardiorespiratory Fitness
Cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) – a measure of how well your body can supply oxygen to your muscles during physical activity – has long been recognized as a crucial indicator of overall health. Think of it as your body’s engine efficiency: the better your CRF, the more effectively your heart and lungs can keep your body running during exercise. This fitness metric naturally declines as we age, with the decline accelerating more rapidly in our later years. By our 70s, we might be losing over 20% of our CRF per decade.
In this landmark study, researchers from various institutions, including Tianjin Medical University and the Karolinska Institute, followed over 61,000 participants from the UK Biobank for up to 12 years. The participants, all between 39 and 70 years-old, underwent a simple six-minute exercise test on a stationary bike to measure their cardiorespiratory fitness levels. Unlike previous studies that required participants to exercise to exhaustion, this study used a more manageable submaximal exercise test, making it more practical for people of various fitness levels.
The results were striking. People with high CRF showed better performance in several cognitive areas, including prospective memory (remembering to do things in the future), verbal and numeric memory, and processing speed. But the benefits didn’t stop there. Over the study period, 553 participants developed dementia. However, those with high CRF levels had a 40% lower risk of developing any type of dementia compared to those with low fitness levels.
Perhaps most intriguingly, the study found that high cardiorespiratory fitness could delay the onset of dementia by about 1.5 years. This finding is particularly significant given that delaying dementia onset by even a small amount can have substantial public health implications.
Genetics Meets Fitness
One of the most compelling aspects of this research was its examination of how fitness levels interact with genetic predisposition to dementia. The researchers used a polygenic risk score – essentially a measure of genetic risk factors for Alzheimer’s disease – to categorize participants into low, moderate, and high genetic risk groups.
The surprising finding? Even among people with moderate to high genetic risk for dementia, those with high CRF levels showed a 35% lower risk of developing dementia compared to their less-fit counterparts. This suggests that staying physically fit might help offset some of the genetic cards we’re dealt when it comes to cognitive decline.
The study population was notably diverse in age and fitness levels, though predominantly white and from less socioeconomically deprived areas. This broad representation helps make the findings more applicable to the general population, although the researchers note that the results might be even more pronounced in more diverse populations.
Call to Action
The takeaway of this research are clear: maintaining good cardiorespiratory fitness isn’t just about physical health – it’s an investment in your cognitive future. While we can’t control our genetic predisposition to conditions like dementia, we can influence how our bodies respond to these predispositions through lifestyle choices.
The good news is that improving CRF doesn’t require extreme measures. Regular aerobic activities like brisk walking, swimming, cycling, or dancing can help maintain and improve cardiorespiratory fitness. The key is consistency and gradually building up your endurance over time.
As we face an aging global population and rising concerns about dementia, this research offers a hopeful message: while we can’t turn back the clock on aging, we might be able to keep our cognitive engines running smoother, longer, simply by keeping our bodies fit. It seems that when it comes to brain health, the old adage holds true – a healthy body really does promote a healthy mind.
Paper Summary
Methodology
The researchers used data from the UK Biobank, focusing on 61,214 participants who completed a six-minute submaximal exercise test on a stationary bike. Each participant’s CRF was calculated based on their heart rate response to increasing workloads during the test. The researchers also collected detailed information about participants’ lifestyle, medical history, and genetic risk factors. Cognitive function was assessed through various tests measuring different aspects of memory and thinking speed. The participants were then followed for up to 12 years to track who developed dementia.
Key Results
The study found that compared to those with low CRF, participants with high CRF had better cognitive performance at baseline and a 40% lower risk of developing dementia. High CRF was associated with delaying dementia onset by 1.48 years. Among people with moderate to high genetic risk for dementia, high CRF reduced the risk by 35%. The benefits were consistent across different age groups, though slightly stronger in middle-aged adults.
Study Limitations
The participants were generally healthier and more socioeconomically advantaged than the general population. Some people with health conditions couldn’t participate in the exercise test, potentially skewing results. The study relied on medical records for dementia diagnosis, which might have missed some cases. The submaximal exercise test, while more practical, isn’t as accurate as maximal testing for measuring CR
Discussion & Takeaways
The research suggests that maintaining good cardiorespiratory fitness could be a powerful strategy for preventing or delaying dementia, even in people with genetic risk factors. The study’s large scale and long follow-up period provide strong evidence for the protective effects of fitness on cognitive health. The findings support the importance of regular physical activity for brain health and suggest that CRF could be used as a predictor of cognitive health.
Funding & Disclosures
The study was supported by grants from the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Council for Health Working Life and Welfare, and the Karolinska Institutet Research Foundation. The researchers declared no competing interests, and the funders had no role in the study’s design, conduct, or reporting.
Virginia man allegedly attempted to brazenly shoplift from Walmart during holiday ‘Shop with a Cop’ event
Bruins Earn First Big Ten Win Over Washington
Takeaways from No.11 Wisconsin's 67-64 Loss to Michigan
Ski season to open at two mountain state resorts – WV MetroNews
Nine Wyoming Cowboys Earn All-Mountain West Football Honors – SweetwaterNOW
Colorado Rockies game no. 116 thread: Zac Gallen vs José Ureña
See it: Tesla crashes into Columbus convention center at 70 mph
Why Marjorie Taylor Greene was ‘kicked out’ of the Freedom Caucus according to Rep. Buck
Fox News Politics: Georgia the whole day through
Death of missing Oregon girl found in stream ruled homicide
Video: How Pardoning Hunter Complicates Biden’s Legacy
Democratic challenger Adam Gray flips California's 13th Congressional District in nation's final House race
The Take: Why is Biden going to Angola?
Will Trump's next term make him richer? : Consider This from NPR
DOGE chief Musk bashes massive government spending on illegal immigrants: ‘Boggles the mind!’
-
Science1 week agoDespite warnings from bird flu experts, it's business as usual in California dairy country
-
Health1 week agoCheekyMD Offers Needle-Free GLP-1s | Woman's World
-
Technology1 week agoLost access? Here’s how to reclaim your Facebook account
-
Entertainment6 days agoReview: A tense household becomes a metaphor for Iran's divisions in 'The Seed of the Sacred Fig'
-
Technology5 days agoUS agriculture industry tests artificial intelligence: 'A lot of potential'
-
Sports4 days agoOne Black Friday 2024 free-agent deal for every MLB team
-
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/23906797/VRG_Illo_STK022_K_Radtke_Musk_Scales.jpg "Elon Musk targets OpenAI’s for-profit transition in a new filing")
Technology3 days agoElon Musk targets OpenAI’s for-profit transition in a new filing
-
News2 days agoRassemblement National’s Jordan Bardella threatens to bring down French government