Vitamin D and the athlete: risks, recommendations, and benefits

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Stone Hearth

News Nutrients. 2013 May 28;5(6):1856-68. doi: 10.3390/nu5061856; Vitamin d and the athlete: risks, recommendations, and benefits; Ogan D, Pritchett K.; Source: Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Health Science, Central Washington University, 400 E. University Way, Ellensburg, WA 98926, USA. danastorlie@yahoo.com.

Abstract

Vitamin D is well known for its role in calcium regulation and bone health, but emerging literature tells of vitamin D’s central role in other vital body processes, such as: signaling gene response, protein synthesis, hormone synthesis, immune response, plus, cell turnover and regeneration. The discovery of the vitamin D receptor within the muscle suggested a significant role for vitamin D in muscle tissue function. This discovery led researchers to question the impact that vitamin D deficiency could have on athletic performance and injury. With over 77% of the general population considered vitamin D insufficient, it’s likely that many athletes fall into the same category. Research has suggested vitamin D to have a significant effect on muscle weakness, pain, balance, and fractures in the aging population; still, the athletic population is yet to be fully examined. There are few studies to date that have examined the relationship between vitamin D status and performance, therefore, this review will focus on the bodily roles of vitamin D, recommended 25(OH)D levels, vitamin D intake guidelines and risk factors for vitamin D insufficiency in athletes. In addition, the preliminary findings regarding vitamin D’s impact on athletic performance will be examined. Source

How sugar overload can damage heart

Posted on June 14, 2013 by Stone Hearth News

HOUSTON – (June 14, 2013) – Too much sugar can set people down a pathway to heart failure, according to a study led by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth).A single small molecule, the glucose metabolite glucose 6-phosphate (G6P), causes stress to the heart that changes the muscle proteins and induces poor pump function leading to heart failure, according to the study, which was published in the May 21 issue of the Journal of the American Heart Association. G6P can accumulate from eating too much starch and/or sugar.
Heart failure kills 5 million Americans a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The one-year survival rate after diagnosis is 50 percent and there are 550,000 new patients in the United States diagnosed with heart failure each year.
“Treatment is difficult. Physicians can give diuretics to control the fluid, and beta-blockers and ACE inhibitors to lower the stress on the heart and allow it to pump more economically,” said Heinrich Taegtmeyer, M.D., D.Phil., principal investigator and professor of cardiology at the UTHealth Medical School. “But we still have these terrible statistics and no new treatment for the past 20 years.”

Taegtmeyer performed preclinical trials in animal models, as well as tests on tissue taken from patients at the Texas Heart Institute who had a piece of the heart muscle removed in order to implant a left ventricle assist device by O.H. “Bud” Frazier, M.D., and his team. Both led to the discovery of the damage caused by G6P.
“When the heart muscle is already stressed from high blood pressure or other diseases, and then takes in too much glucose, it adds insult to injury,” Taegtmeyer said.
The study has opened doors to possible new treatments. Two drugs, rapamycin (an immunosuppressant) and metformin (a diabetes medication) disrupt signaling of G6P and improved cardiac power in small animal studies.
“These drugs have a potential for treatment and this has now cleared a path to future studies with patients,” Taegtmeyer said.

Swiss ball improves muscle strength and walking performance in ankylosing spondylitis

 

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Stone Hearth News

Madrid, Spain, 12 June 2013: A new study presented at EULAR 2013, the Annual Congress of the European League Against Rheumatism, demonstrates that progressive muscle strengthening using a Swiss ball is effective in improving muscle strength and walking performance in patients with Ankylosing Spondylitis (AS).

Patients randomised to the exercise programme showed statistically significant improvements in muscle strength with no worsening of disease activity; in addition these patients reported greater satisfaction with their treatment than those in the control group.

AS is a chronic inflammatory rheumatic disease affecting the spine and joints in the lower back and pelvis. 0.1-2% of the population suffers from AS, with the highest prevalence in northern European countries.2 Initial symptoms are chronic pain and stiffness in the middle and lower part of the spine, which is worse at rest and eased by exercise. However, many patients find their mobility to be significantly restricted, impacting their ability to exercise.

According to lead author Mr Marcelo de Souza physiotherapist of the Rheumatology Division, Federal University of Sao Paulo, Brazil, “exercises are recommended in the management of patients with AS, yet the benefits of specific exercise programmes are not as well defined.”

“Our study has confirmed that a progressive muscle strengthening programme using a Swiss ball significantly improves functional capacity, muscle strength, and mobility in patients with AS, with no harmful effects on disease activity,” Mr de Souza concluded.

There was a statistically significant improvement in strength in the intervention (exercise) group, compared to the control group, for the muscles used in the exercises: abdominal (p =0.003), rowing exercises (p=0.02), squat (p=0.01), triceps (p=0.021) and reverse fly (p=0.02). The intervention group also improved the 6-minute walk test* (p=0.005) at week 16.

There was also a statistically significant difference between the two groups in terms of treatment satisfaction at all times (p <0.001), measured using a Likert scale.†

60 clinically and demographically similar patients were randomized to either the intervention group or the control group, with 30 patients in each. Eight exercises were completed by the intervention group with free weights on a Swiss ball, twice a week for 16 weeks. Loads were reassessed and increased every 4 weeks. The control group remained on a waiting list, receiving drug therapy but without any exercise.

Source

Vitamin C may be beneficial against exercise-induced bronchoconstriction

 

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Stone Hearth News

Vitamin C may substantially reduce bronchoconstriction caused by exercise, says Dr. Harri Hemila from the University of Helsinki, Finland. Hemila’s meta-analysis “Vitamin C may alleviate exercise-induced bronchoconstriction” was published in BMJ Open (7 June, 2013). Exercise-induced bronchoconstriction means the transient narrowing of the airways that occurs during or after exercise. It can cause symptoms such as cough, wheezing and the shortness of breath. Formerly, this condition was called exercise-induced asthma.

 

The Respiratory System at a Glance: “… an accessible introduction and revision text [that] provides a user-friendly overview of the respiratory system…”

Usually, the diagnosis of exercise-induced bronchoconstriction is based on a 10% or greater decline in forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) caused by exercise. About 10% of the general population suffers from exercise-induced bronchoconstriction, but among some fields of competitive winter sports the prevalence can be up to 50%.
Previously, vitamin C was found to halve the incidence of common cold episodes in people enduring heavy short-term physical stress, which indicated that vitamin C might also have other effects on people under heavy physical exertion. The new systematic review focused on the effect of vitamin C on bronchoconstriction caused by exercise and identified three relevant randomized placebo-controlled trials. Each of the three identified trials found that vitamin C halved the FEV1 decline caused by exercise challenge test. The pooled estimate of vitamin C effect indicated a 48% reduction in the FEV1 decline caused by exercise.
Dr. Hemila concludes that given the low cost and safety of vitamin C and the consistency of positive findings in three randomized trials on EIB, it seems reasonable for physically active people to test vitamin C on an individual basis if they have respiratory symptoms such as cough associated with exercise.
Source

Sport at competitive level improves the academic performance of secondary education students

 

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Stone Hearth News

Academic performance is better if young people play sports competitively, as is clear from the findings of the thesis presented by Ana Capdevila Seder at the Universitat Jaume I. The thesis has been directed by the lecturer of Teaching Body Language and director of the UJI Sports Service Carlos Hernando Domingo.
Academic performance in adolescence is a matter of concern for teachers, parents and researchers. Similarly, the sedentary lifestyle is affecting more and more children and young people, causing, among other, cardiorespiratory ailments and diseases specific to adulthood. In the adolescence, specifically among secondary education students, sports abandonment occurs massively and the main cause is focused on the lack of time to combine sport and studies.
The main results of the research conducted by Ana Capdevila show that the profile with a better academic performance corresponds to female students studying in private schools or state-subsided schools who play sports (even competitively) and with parents who have higher education and practice sport. In addition, the findings show that athlete students have better study habits and spend less time on sedentary leisure activities than non-athlete students.

Other remarkable results from the study of the assistant professor in the Department of Education at the UJI have been the positive influence that the practice of sport of parents has on children’s academic performance, and also in their sport practice, because if parents practice sport, almost 86 per cent of children do too. Similarly, the family plays a key role in facilitating that children can combine study tasks and sport. Their greater involvement in issues such as transport, food or rest increases performance.
Young athletes have scored higher on the test on study habits; especially in areas such as attitude and time schedule to study (they are more motivated to study and the reasons why they do it are more clear to them). This fact suggests the importance of arranging the free time when this time is occupied, in large part, by training and racing, and how profitable it is to invest time in active leisure instead of sedentary leisure activities, thus showing that sport at competition level improves performance and does not interfere with studies during adolescence.
The study involved 313 adolescents in the second cycle of compulsory secondary education in Castellón de la Plana, 124 of which were athletes (with a minimum commitment of 10 hours of sport per week) and 189 non-athletes. Students answered two questionnaires, the CHTE questionnaire on study habits and practice, and the PFYTL on physical activity and leisure. In addition, parents were administered a questionnaire and participants’ academic marks were also taken into account in the research.
Source

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15-minute walks taken after meals help curb risky rise in blood sugar, new GW study says

 

Posted on June 12, 2013 by Stone Hearth News

WASHINGTON, DC (June 12, 2013)—A fifteen minute walk after each meal appears to help older people regulate blood sugar levels and could reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a new study by researchers at the George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services (SPHHS). The study, published today in Diabetes Care, found that three short post-meal walks were as effective at reducing blood sugar over 24 hours as a 45-minute walk of the same easy-to-moderate pace. Moreover, post-meal walking was significantly more effective than a sustained walk at lowering blood sugar for up to three hours following the evening meal.
"These findings are good news for people in their 70s and 80s who may feel more capable of engaging in intermittent physical activity on a daily basis, especially if the short walks can be combined with running errands or walking the dog,” said lead study author Loretta DiPietro, PhD, MPH, chair of the SPHHS Department of Exercise Science. “The muscle contractions connected with short walks were immediately effective in blunting the potentially damaging elevations in post-meal blood sugar commonly observed in older people,” she said.
The findings, if confirmed by additional research, could lead to an inexpensive preventive strategy for a pre-diabetic condition that can over time develop into frank type 2 diabetes, she said. An estimated 79 million Americans have pre-diabetes but most have no idea they are at risk. Other studies have suggested weight loss and exercise can prevent type 2 diabetes but this is the first study to examine short bouts of physical activity timed around the risky period following meals—a time when blood sugar can rise rapidly and potentially cause damage.

DiPietro and her colleagues recruited ten people age 60 and older who were otherwise healthy but at risk of developing type 2 diabetes due to higher-than-normal levels of fasting blood sugar and to insufficient levels of physical activity. Older people may be particularly susceptible to impairments in blood sugar control after meals due to insulin resistance in the muscles and also due to a slow or low insulin secretion from the pancreas. Post-meal high blood sugar is a key risk factor in the progression from impaired glucose tolerance (pre-diabetes) to type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, DiPietro said.
Participants completed three randomly-ordered exercise protocols spaced four weeks apart. Each protocol comprised a 48-hour stay in a whole-room calorimeter, with the first day serving as a control period. On the second day, participants engaged in either post-meal walking for 15 minutes after each meal or 45 minutes of sustained walking performed at 10:30 in the morning or at 4:30 in the afternoon. All walking was performed on a treadmill at an easy-to-moderate pace. Participants ate standardized meals and their blood sugar levels were measured continuously over each 48 hour stay.
The team observed that the most effective time to go for a post-meal walk was after the evening meal. The exaggerated rise in blood sugar after this meal—often the largest of the day—often lasts well into the night and early morning and this was curbed significantly as soon as the participants started to walk on the treadmill, DiPietro said.
Most people eat a big afternoon or evening meal and then take a nap or watch television. “That’s the worst thing you can do,” DiPietro said. “Let the food digest a bit and then get out and move,” she says. A walk timed to follow the big evening meal is particularly important because this research suggests high post-dinner blood sugar is a strong determinant of excessive 24-hour glucose levels, DiPietro said.
The results of this study must be confirmed with larger trials that include more people, DiPietro cautioned. Still this study monitored blood sugar levels continuously for 48-hour periods and controlled the environment carefully. The findings have tremendous public health importance in that they offer powerful evidence that smaller doses of exercise repeated several times per day have greater overall benefits to blood sugar control among older people than one large sustained dose –especially if those short bouts are timed just right.
Source

The Healing Power of Meditation

Posted on June 9, 2013 by Stone Hearth News

Regular meditation practice has a powerful impact on the mind and body, rewiring the brain and bringing us all kinds of benefits: contentment and well-being, resilience and focus, better mental and physical health, and greater empathy and compassion. This wide-ranging anthology brings together pioneering Tibetan Buddhist teachers, scientific researchers, and health professionals to offer fascinating perspectives on the mind and emotions, new studies, and firsthand accounts of how meditation is being applied to great effect in health and social care today.

• Sogyal Rinpoche and Jetsün Khandro Rinpoche on how meditation unlocks the mind’s healing power
• Jon Kabat-Zinn on the benefits of mindfulness in mainstream health care
• Clifford Saron on the Shamatha Project, the most comprehensive study of the effects of meditation ever conducted
• Sara Lazar on what happens to our brain when we meditate
• Erika Rosenberg on how meditation helps us relate better to our emotions
• Dr. Lucio Bizzini, MD, on how Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy is used to treat depression
• Ursula Bates on how mindfulness supports terminally ill patients as they approach the end of their lives

Plus chapters from other innovators who apply meditation in health care and social work: Dr. Edel Maex, MD, Dr. Cathy Blanc, MD, Rosamund Oliver, and Dr. Frédéric Rosenfeld, MD.

Source: Wiley