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Closest Thing to a Wonder Drug? Try Exercise

October 25, 2016

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After I wrote last year that diet, not exercise, was the key to weight loss, I was troubled by how some readers took this to mean that exercise therefore had no value.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Of all the things we as physicians can recommend for health, few provide as much benefit as physical activity.

In 2015, the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges put out a report calling exercise a “miracle cure.” This isn’t a conclusion based simply on some cohort or case-control studies. There are many, many randomized controlled trials. A huge meta-analysis examined the effect of exercise therapy on outcomes in people with chronic diseases.

Let’s start with musculoskeletal diseases. Researchers found 32 trials looking specifically at the effect of exercise on pain and function of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee alone. That’s incredibly specific, and it’s impressive that so much research has focused on one topic.

Exercise improved those outcomes. Ten more studies showed, over all, that exercise therapy increases aerobic capacity and muscle strength in patients with rheumatoid arthritis. Other studies proved its benefits in other musculoskeletal conditions, like ankylosing spondylitis, and even some types of back pain.

For people (mostly middle-aged men) who had had a heart attack, exercise therapy reduced all causes of mortality by 27 percent and cardiac mortality by 31 percent. Fourteen additional controlled trials showed physiological benefits in those with heart failure. Exercise has also been shown to lower blood pressure in patients with hypertension, and improve cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

People with diabetes who exercise have lower HbA1c values, which is the marker of blood sugar control, low enough to probably reduce the risk of complications from the disease. Twenty randomized controlled trials have showed that patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease can walk farther and function better if they exercise.

Multiple studies have found that exercise improves physical function and health-related quality of life in people who have Parkinson’s disease. Six more studies showed that exercise improves muscle power and mobility-related activities in people with multiple sclerosis. It also appeared to improve those patients’ moods.

The overall results of 23 randomized controlled trials showed that exercise most likely improves the symptoms of depression. Five others appear to show that it improves symptoms in patients with chronic fatigue syndrome. In trials, exercise even lessened fatigue in patients who were having therapy for cancer.

What other intervention can claim results like these?

Even studies of older, hospitalized patients show a beneficial effect from multidisciplinary interventions that include exercise. Those randomized to such interventions in the hospital were more likely to be discharged to go home, and to spend less time in the hospital over all — and at a lower cost.

Although we don’t think of it this way, you can make a pretty good argument that exercise is as good as drugs for many conditions. A 2013 meta-analysis of meta-analyses (that’s how much data we have) combined and analyzed the results from 16 reviews of randomized controlled trials of drug and exercise interventions in reducing mortality. Collectively, these included 305 trials with almost 340,000 participants.

Diuretic drugs (but not all drugs) were shown to be superior to exercise in preventing death from heart failure. But exercise was found to be equally good as drugs in preventing mortality from coronary heart disease. Exercise was better than drugs in preventing death among patients from strokes.

Many people will be surprised at how little you need to do to achieve these results. Years ago, in an effort to get in shape, I tried the P90X routine. It proved too hard for me. Later, when I tried the Insanity workout, it beat me so badly that people at work kept asking me if I was ill. Two years ago, I tried P90X3. It was a bit more manageable, but I still couldn’t keep it up.

I have not been alone in thinking that physical activity to improve health should be hard. When I hear friends talk about exercising, they discuss running marathons, participating in CrossFit classes or sacrificing themselves on the altar of SoulCycle. That misses the point, unfortunately. All of these are much more than you need to do to get the benefits I’ve described.

The recommendations for exercise are 150 minutes per week of moderate intensity physical activity for adults, or about 30 minutes each weekday.

Moderate intensity is probably much less than you think. Walking briskly, at 3 to 4 miles per hour or so, qualifies. So does bicycling slower than 10 miles an hour. Anything that gets your heart rate somewhere between 110 and 140 beats per minute is enough. Even vacuuming, mowing the lawn or walking your dog might qualify.

Today, my goals are much more modest. Trekking from my office to the clinic and back again gives me 30 minutes of exercise. Or, I walk to the supermarket from my office to grab lunch, at a mile each way. In colder weather, I spend half an hour on the elliptical machine. Doing this five days a week gets me the activity I need.

Although it feels as if there’s nothing we can do to change people’s behavior, there is evidence to the contrary. A systematic review and meta-analysis of advice and counseling by health professionals found that promotion of physical activity works.

Doctors and clinics that made efforts to promote exercise to patients needed to engage 12 adults on the subject to get one additional adult to meet recommended levels of activity one year later. That might not sound impressive, but it’s one of the better such results.

After the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges wrote its report, an editorial in the BMJ, a prominent medical journal, countered that exercise wasn’t a “miracle cure.” Instead, the authors argued it was “the best buy for public health.”

If that’s the best “counterpoint,” then physical activity seems like a no-brainer.

Article sourced here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/21/upshot/why-you-should-exercise-no-not-to-lose-weight.html

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Glen Barnett discusses Exercise as Medicine

August 2, 2016

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Here is a concept that I really want you to consider, I want you to view exercise and being active as medicine, a dose of goodness to manage your health, weight and wellness.  It has been proven over and over that as a preventative measure to ill health and as a ‘cure’ for a lot of ailments, exercise is the best medicine around.

So if we know that this ‘medicine’ called exercise can have such a positive effect on our well being then why isn’t everyone taking their daily dose?   Who knows maybe fear, laziness or indecision?  Here’s some help.

Start with a goal and see your goal as being your dessert – something you’re really looking forward to but you need to earn it.   Get to your goal in small bite size pieces. If your goal is to drop 20kg then plot some smaller increments in your calendar rather than the big figure down the track.

Make sure you get your exercise dosage correct so get some guidance.  It is important to know how much exercise should be ‘absorbed’ to give you the maximum benefit for your goal.  Exercise should be prescribed in a specific dose you know that works for you including type, intensity, frequency and duration.  Definitely sample different types of exercise medicine, until you’ve found what ‘medicinal remedy’ fits best with you or is easiest to swallow.   Basically make sure the exercise you ‘take’ is something you enjoy and something that is going to help you get to your goal.

Make a commitment to your health, yourself and your future. Taking a daily dose of exercise medicine in some way nearly every day will lead to a positive lifestyle change and a very healthy habit

So if you decide you want to get a dose of one of the best medicines for your health, call me, “Dr” Glen, at Coffs Coast Health Club on 66586222 and we can organise a FREE prescription to get you started.

 

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Top tips for getting fit (if you’re not much of an athlete)

September 13, 2015

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If you’re not much of an athlete right now, here are some ideas to help you get in shape.

Your running shoes/tennis racquet/softball glove/high-school sports trophy collection are tucked into the back of some closet, quietly gathering dust. Nowadays your main form of exercise is walking between the couch and the fridge. You’re handier with the remote than you are with a racquet.

And yet … you’d like to be in better shape. Maybe even train in a particular sport. Maybe even compete in the Senior Games. Crazy, right — at your age?

Nope. You’re never too old for physical activity, said Mary Frances Visser, a professor of human performance at Mankato State University who researches the effects of exercise on older adults.

“Physiologically there are no real limits,” said Visser, an associate editor for the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity. “You’re limited by your own physiology in certain ways, but in terms of saying ‘Nobody over the age of 60 should ever do X’ — that’s nuts.”

Aging itself can bring upon a desire for better health, said Gary Westlund, founder and president of Charities Challenge, a nonprofit that sponsors races focusing on health issues.

“It’s a very common experience that people, when they get into their 60s and even 70s, one of their motivations is, ‘I want to be a better man this year than I was last year,’ That includes, of course, ‘I want to be healthier, fitter, I want to run faster, row faster,’” said Westlund, who is certified as a health and fitness specialist by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM).

Exercise is especially important as you get older because physically fit people are better able to cope with, and heal from, health challenges that accompany aging.

Even if you’re already experiencing some of those challenges — even if you basically haven’t risen from the couch since George Bush Sr. was president — it is possible to get back what you have lost.

Visser knows a woman who “was a total couch potato all of her life” until, at 55, she decided to compete in the Senior Games in the 50-yard dash. She spent a year training and eventually “wound up medaling in the 100-yard dash in the National Senior Games.”

Westlund met an 85-year-old runner at his organization’s Challenge Aging 5K race last fall.

“It was his first road race I believe, or one of his first road races. He had taken up running at 83. He had the fastest 5K time in Minnesota last year — at any 5K — for a man 85 or older.”

This year’s Minnesota Senior Games are May 28 to 31 — probably too tight a deadline if you’re just now lacing up a new pair of sneakers. But you could start training for next year, Visser said. (And next year’s state games are qualifiers for the nationals.)

If you have a medical condition — high blood pressure, diabetes, heart history problems, joint disease — check with your doctor, Westlund said. Otherwise, women up to age 55 and men up to 45 can probably start doing light to moderate exercise without the doctor’s green light. Information about aging and physical activity is available at the ACSM’s website (www.acsm.org), the National Institutes of Health’s Senior Health site (www.nihseniorhealth.gov/exerciseforolderadult) and the National Institute on Aging’s site (www.nia.nih.gov/health/publication/exercise-physical-activity/introduction).

When you first start, don’t expect to whip yourself into shape in a week. “The human body at 20 and the human body at 50 are very different,” Visser said. “You can really, really hurt yourself if you do too much too soon.”

Visser recommends starting with five minutes of activity and working up to eight, then 10 and on up to at least 30. Add weightlifting, stretching and so on to regain muscle mass, flexibility and balance.

Article sourced here:  http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/goodlife/300831881.html

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Over 50’s Fitness by Glen Barnett – Why Group Exercise?

November 25, 2014

group_picI bet there have been times where you wanted to participate in an activity, but were worried about doing it alone. Group exercise is a great alternative to going solo. These classes are growing in popularity each and every year. They have the benefit of having varying ages, varieties and fitness levels, even in “seniors” (horrible word for some I know) classes.
What is group exercise?Group exercise is where a group of people get together and participate in activities.

The activities might be:
Walking Groups
Fitness classes
Dancing classes
Aqua classes
Riding Groups

Group exercise should be:
Fun, Motivating and Safe
Fun – if it’s fun you’ll do it – right?  Just because you’re young at heart but slightly older in other parts, doesn’t mean that you need to sit on the bench and watch life pass you by.   Group interaction is something that is often missing from alot of older populations lives.  In group activities you will get words of encouragement, a joke or two being thrown around, a pat on the back, not to mention being with people who share a common interest.
Working out with a group will keep you on your toes, maintain your motivation, and provide a great incentive as is a terrific form of motivation.   You also have the added accountability of a concerned question like, “Where have you been?” or “we’ve missed you”,  when you don’t show up for a couple of sessions.
Safety should always come first with any type of activity, whether it be the shoes you wear, the qualifications of the instructor or the environment you workout in.    Get some advice from qualified caring people in your life – your GP, your local footwear specialist and even your local gym will help you make decisions on what to exercise in and where to do it.
It is interesting at any age to see where you sit amongst the masses, not on a competitive basis but as a guide to see where you are at now, where you’ve been and how you improve. For instance ask yourself,  what is my fitness like? What is my flexibility like? I’m having trouble putting my shoes on and that bloke over there was almost hugging his legs. Why is that 72 year old lady lifting 5kg more than I can? What is my strength like? You may just be surprised as to where you find yourself.
Group activities – get involved – the more the merrier as they say and you definitely won’t regret it.
We have really great classes for older adults every week day at Coffs Coast Health Club.
Give me a call if you’d like to join us. 66586222
Glen

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Over 50’s Fitness by Glen Barnett – Top 10 Health Tips (Part Two)

November 18, 2014

laughter_600x450I hope you got a lot out of my Top 4 health and fitness tips from last week.  Here are my other top 6 tips. They may not all be your cup of tea but they are worth pondering to see if they can make a difference in your world, or may make a difference to someone you know who needs a bit of help,  a good kick in the butt or a wake up call.

Exercise your mind – it’s a muscle too.
Exercise those neural pathways and learn something new
Overcome frustration when you’re surfing the net, posting on Face Book, Twittering or even checking you email in box – your brain enjoys the challenge.
If you haven’t explored or haven’t a clue what I’m talking about in that previous point then enrol in a computer course today.
Don’t forget good old crosswords, Sudoku and scrabble to keep your brain from atrophying.

Get Educated and take control of what is going on for you.
Got a health issue?  Understand it so you can be the final decision maker in any treatment that you need rather than being lead along a blinkered path.
Ask questions.
Get clarification.

Don’t focus on what you can’t do, focus on what you can do and then build on them.  Things may seem tough and get you down but take this into consideration:
Remember there’s always someone worse off than you that wishes they could do what you can do, so cherish the things you can do.

Choose your attitude – you can choose to have a bad day or you can choose to have great day.
Having a bad day? Someone else is having a worse one.
Choosing to have a good day could be the simple choice of wearing a frown or a smile.

Dance, laugh and sing regularly and feel those endorphins flood your soul.
“You don’t stop laughing when you grow old, you grow old when you stop laughing (or dancing, or singing).”
Give It a try – you want regret it.

Make sure every day when you leave your house you have remembered the most important but often forgotten thing to wear – your smile.
Wear a smile and have friends, wear a frown and have wrinkles.
We would love to see you down at Coffs Coast Health Club so why not give Glen a call on 66586222 and come on in for a free class or session.

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Good Friends Are Good for You

November 16, 2014

They might get on your nerves at times, but good friends have bigger benefits than you may realize.
good friends“You got to have friends to make that day last long,” sings Bette Midler. But good friends may help your life last longer, too, according to an Australian study. Conducted by the Centre for Ageing Studies at Flinders University, the study followed nearly 1,500 older people for 10 years. It found that those who had a large network of friends outlived those with the fewest friends by 22%.

Why is this so? The authors suspect that good friends discourage unhealthy behaviors such as smoking and heavy drinking. And the companionship provided by friends may ward off depression, boost self-esteem, and provide support. Also, as people age, they may become more selective in their choice of friends, so they spend more time with people they like.

Close relationships with children and relatives, in contrast, had almost no effect on longevity. Lynne C. Giles, one of the four researchers who conducted the study, emphasized that family ties are important; they just seem to have little effect on survival.

The Health Benefits of Good Friends

Lots of research has shown the health benefits of social support.

 One such study, reported in the journal Cancer, followed 61 women with advanced ovarian cancer. Those with ample social support had much lower levels of a protein linked to more aggressive types of cancer. Lower levels of the protein, known as interleukin 6, or IL-6, also boosted the effectiveness of chemotherapy. Women with weak social support had levels of IL-6 that were 70% higher in general, and two-and-a-half times higher in the area around the tumor.

In 1989, David Spiegel, MD, a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, published a landmark paper in Lancet. Itshowed that women with breast cancer who participated in a support group lived twice as long as those who didn’t. They also had much less pain.

Sheldon Cohen, PhD, a psychology professor at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh, has shown that strong social support helps people cope with stress.

“Friends help you face adverse events,” Cohen tells WebMD. “They provide material aid, emotional support, and information that helps you deal with the stressors. There may be broader effects as well. Friends encourage you to take better care of yourself. And people with wider social networks are higher in self-esteem, and they feel they have more control over their lives.”

Other studies have shown that people with fewer friends tend to die sooner after having a heart attack than people with a strong social network. Having lots of friends may even reduce your chances of catching a cold. That’s true even though you’re probably exposed to more viruses if you spend a lot of time with others.

“People with social support have fewer cardiovascular problems and immune problems, and lower levels of cortisol — a stress hormone,” says Tasha R. Howe, PhD, associate professor of psychology at Humboldt State University. “Why? The evolutionary argument maintains that humans are social animals, and we have evolved to be in groups. We have always needed others for our survival. It’s in our genes. Therefore, people with social connections feel more relaxed and at peace, which is related to better health.”

Friends Can Be Stressful

Friends can be a source of stress, though. In fact, friends can cause more stress than others precisely because we care so much about them.

Julianne Holt-Lunstad, PhD, an assistant professor of psychology at Brigham Young University, has found that dealing with people who arouse conflicted feelings in us can raise blood pressure more than dealing with people we don’t like.

“My colleagues and I were interested in relationships that contain a mix of positivity and negativity,” she says. “For example, you might love your mother very much, but still find her overbearing or critical at times.”

By attaching people to portable blood pressure monitors, Holt-Lunstad and her colleagues found that blood pressure was highest when people were interacting with someone they felt ambivalent about.

What she found really surprising was that these interactions caused higher blood pressure than those with people the research subjects felt completely negative about. “We suspect that people we feel positive toward can hurt us that much more when they make a snide comment or don’t come through for us because they are important to us. Friends may help us cope with stress, but they also may create stress.”

So would we be better off having no friends at all?

Hardly. “One thing research shows is that as one’s social network gets smaller, one’s risk for mortality increases,” Holt-Lunstad says. “And it’s a strong correlation — almost as strong as the correlation between smoking and mortality.”

The Impact of Loneliness

What about loners? Are they at greater risk of dying because they prefer to be alone?

Only if they feel lonely. One study found that drug use among young people was higher among those who said they were lonely. Older lonely people tended to have higher blood pressure and poorer sleep quality. They also were more tense and anxious.

Another study found that college freshmen who had small social networks and claimed to be lonely had weaker immune responses to flu vaccinations. They also had higher levels of stress hormones in their blood.

Unfortunately, Americans have fewer friends than they used to, according to a recent study, “Social Isolation in America,” published in the American Sociological Review. The authors found that from 1985 to 2004, the number of Americans who feel they have someone with whom they can discuss important matters dropped by nearly one-third. The number of people who said they had no one they could discuss such matters with tripled to nearly 25%. The authors suspect that long work hours and the popularity of the Internet may contribute to the decline in close relationships.

The study also found that the percentage of people who talk about important matters only to family members increased from 57% to 80%. Those who depend solely on their spouse for these talks increased from 5% to 9%.

How Women’s Friendships Are Different From Men’s

In general, women are better at maintaining friendships than men. Women “tend and befriend,” says Shelley E. Taylor, PhD, a psychology professor at UCLA. They respond to stress by protecting and nurturing others (“tending”), and by seeking support from others (“befriending”). This pattern regulates the seeking, giving, and receipt of social support, Taylor says. It produces health benefits by reducing psychological and biological stress.

And Margaret Gibbs, PhD, a professor of psychology at Fairleigh Dickinson University, found that men and women relate to others differently throughout life.

“We found that women seemed more geared to empathy, while male friendships are more geared to companionship and altruism,” she tells WebMD. “Male friendships are more about helping each other — mending the lawn mower, that sort of thing. Women’s friendships tend to have a more emotional content — listening to friends’ stories and coming up with helpful solutions.”

Article sourced from http://www.webmd.com/balance/features/good-friends-are-good-for-you

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Over 50’s Fitness & Health by Glen Barnett – No Sweat in the Brain Gym

September 21, 2014

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Research sourced from the American Academy of Neurology suggests that during later years, people who read books, played games, participated in computer activities and even did craft activities had a 30-50% decrease in their risk of developing memory loss compared to those who did not do those activities.
Here are some ideas for your own Brain Gym.
Explore new horizons, whether that be new environments, new books, new languages, new social groups or even new hobbies.  Get excited about the possibilities of increasing your wisdom and becoming a know all!

Learn a new physical skill.  Staying active will keep your heart pumping and let that oxygen rich blood surge around your body and fill your brain with much needed H20. Try a dance class, aerobics classes, Tai Chi, body boarding, trampolining or even juggling.

Practice doing two or three tasks at once.  (This one is probably a new concept for the men reading this article as women apparently do this their entire lives.)  Multi-tasking is like mental juggling and keeps those neurons firing.  If you’re having trouble with this one be warned you will be looking for trouble if you ask a woman to explain it to you.

Keep your memories alive.  Write your life story.  Open those memory pathways and draw those memories to the forefront of your mind.  Enjoy and relish your past.  Your family will love to read your history and maybe surprised and unaware of just what you got up to.

Sharpen your pencil as you sharpen your mind by regularly doing puzzle’s like Jumbled Words.  These are often regularly seen in magazines and newspapers.  The harder the puzzle the stronger your brain becomes when you solve it or try to solve it.

Switch hands. Make friends with your less dominant hand by doing simple tasks using it.  This will stimulate neural pathways with tasks that may be second nature with your dominant hand but a whole new ball game to your less dominant hand. Try brushing your teeth, switching your knife and fork or even writing.

Laugh. Laughing stimulates five different parts of your brain, so laugh often to help keep your brain from aging. Laughter Yoga workshops and classes are a great fun social way to get this integration happening.

So if you’ve been reading this article and already forgotten what it’s about then you might need to oxygenate your brain with some exercise and start creating your own Brain Gym today!  Call Glen at Coffs Coast Health Club on 66586222 if you need a hand.

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