PROTIME-FITNESS HOLISTIC HEALTH AND WELLNESS

  SHIFT WORK CAN BE HARMFUL TO YOUR HEALTH Working hours that deviate from an individual's natural body clock are associated with greater cardiovascular risk, according to research presented at ESC Preventive Cardiology 2021, an online scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC). "Our study found that for each hour the work schedule was out of sync with an employee's body clock, the risk of heart disease got worse," said study author Dr. Sara Gamboa Madeira of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. At least 20% of European employees work atypical hours or shifts,2 and growing scientific evidence associates these with deleterious cardiovascular outcomes.3 Several explanations have been proposed, including sleep disruption and unhealthy behaviors. This study focused on the role of circadian misalignment, which is the difference between the "social clock" (e.g., work schedules) and the individual "biological clock." Dr. Gamboa Madeira...

  A major risk of injury for recreational runners Almost half of all recreational runners incur injuries, mostly relating to knees, calves, or Achilles tendons, and the level of risk is equally high whatever your age, gender, or running experience. These are the findings of a thesis within sport science. Doctoral student Jonatan Jungmalm recruited a little over 200 recreational runners from the list of entrants for the Göteborgsvarvet Half Marathon and monitored them over a period of one year. To take part in the study, they had to have been running for at least a year, have run an average of at least 15 km per week over the past year, and have been injury-free for at least six months. The participants were men and women in the age range 18-55. Calculation shows injury for half of the runners. Over the year of the study, the recreational runners filled in a training diary, entering information about how far they ran each day and whether they felt any pain. Those who suffered sudden...

  DOES EXERCISING INCREASE APPETITE? Worldwide 39 percent of adults were overweight in 2016, according to statistics of the World Health Organization. In the US, the prevalence of obesity was 42.4 percent in 2017/2018, according to a survey of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). Concurrently millions of people want to lose weight. Physical exercise is an important option to achieve this. After all, more calories are consumed through sport than when sitting, standing, or lying down. But what influence does sport have on (direct) eating habits? Scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Nebraska (USA) have now investigated this question for the first time. Randomized study "In the sports context, we have the phenomenon of people overeating after physical activity," said Prof. Köhler, Professor of Exercise, Nutrition, and Health at the Technical University of Munich. "People want to reward themselves and their bodies for being...

  Sugar may harm children's brain development. New research shows how high consumption affects learning, memory Sugar practically screams from the shelves of your grocery store, especially those products marketed to kids. Children are the highest consumers of added sugar, even as high-sugar diets have been linked to health effects like obesity and heart disease, and even impaired memory function. However, less is known about how high sugar consumption during childhood affects the brain's development, specifically a region known to be critically important for learning and memory called the hippocampus. New research led by a University of Georgia faculty member in collaboration with a University of Southern California research group has shown in a rodent model that daily consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages during adolescence impairs performance on a learning and memory task adulthood. The group further showed that changes in the gut bacteria may be the key to sugar-induced m...

  Study confirms link of processed meat to cardiovascular disease and early death Link is with processed meat but not with unprocessed red meat or poultry A global study led by Hamilton scientists has found a link between eating processed meat and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease. The same study did not find the same link with unprocessed red meat or poultry. The information comes from the diets and health outcomes of 134,297 people from 21 countries spanning five continents, tracked by researchers for data on meat consumption and cardiovascular illnesses. After following the participants for almost a decade, the researchers found consumption of 150 grams or more of processed meat a week was associated with a 46 percent higher risk of cardiovascular disease and a 51 percent higher risk of death than those who ate no processed meat. However, the researchers also found moderate levels of consumption of non-processed meats had a neutral effect on health. "Evidence of an associ...

  Exercise, healthy diet in midlife may prevent serious health conditions in senior years. Following a routine of regular physical activity combined with a diet including fruits, vegetables, and other healthy foods may be key to middle-aged adults achieving optimal cardiometabolic health later in life, according to new research using data from the Framingham Heart Study published today in the  Journal of the American Heart Association , an open-access journal of the American Heart Association. Cardiometabolic health risk factors include metabolic syndrome, a cluster of disorders such as excess fat around the waist, insulin resistance, and high blood pressure. The presence of metabolic syndrome may increase the risk of developing heart disease, stroke, and Type 2 diabetes. Researchers noted it has been unclear whether adherence to both the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' 2018 Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans and their 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Ame...

  HAPPY PEOPLE DON'T SWEAT THE LITTLE STUFF Suppose you drop your morning coffee, and it splatters everywhere. Later a colleague drops by to say hello. Do you grumble a testy acknowledgment or cheerfully greet her? In a new study on brain activity led by University of Miami psychologists, researchers found that how a person's brain evaluates fleeting negative stimuli -- such as that dropped cup -- may influence their long-term psychological well-being. "One way to think about it is the longer your brain holds on to a negative event or stimuli, the unhappier you report being," said Nikki Puccetti, a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Psychology and lead author of the study published Monday in the  Journal of Neuroscience . "Basically, we found that the persistence of a person's brain in holding on to a negative stimulus is what predicts more negative and less positive daily emotional experiences. That, in turn, predicts how well they think they're doing ...