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Fitness News - February 2007
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Wednesday, 28 February 2007
Use of growth hormone to boost athletic performance can lead to diabetes, reports a study published ahead of print in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
The study reports the case of a 36 year o ld professional body-builder who required emergency care for chest pain.
He had lost 40 kg in 12 months, during which he had also experienced excessive urination, thirst, and appetite.
He admitted to using anabolic steroids for 15 years and artificial growth hormone for the past three. He had also taken insulin, a year after starting on the growth hormone.
This was done to counter the effects of high blood sugar, but he had stopped taking it after a couple of episodes of acute low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia) while at the gym.
Tests revealed that his liver was inflamed, his kidneys were enlarged and that he had very high blood sugar. He was also dehydrated, and diagnosed with diabetes.
He was given intravenous fluids and gradually increasing amounts of insulin over five days, after which he was discharged. His symptoms completely cleared up, and he was no longer diabetic.
The use of growth hormone has steadily risen among amateur athletes and bodybuilders all round the world, say the authors, because it is easy to buy online and difficult to detect in screening tests unlike anabolic steroids.
The authors believe that this is the first reported case of diabetes associated with the use of high dose growth hormone, and urge anyone taking high doses to regularly check their blood sugar levels.
Wednesday, 21 February 2007
Naples, Florida (PRWEB) - Golf vacation packages available from Body Balance for Performance combine resort getaways with professional golf instruction from top-rated schools like Aviara Golf Fitness Academy. Body B
alance for Performance, a leading golf fitness company, offers three-day Golf Fitness Vacations in San Diego, Hawaii, and Naples.
Body Balance for Performance has partnered with Go Vacations Golf to supply golf vacation reservations at top resorts across America. "We'll be making all the necessary arrangements, all the way down to scheduling tee times" said Roger Brunetti, CEO of Go Vacations Golf.
These vacation packages feature locations like La Playa Beach and Golf Resort, home of the David Ledbetter Academy. This four-star, full-service resort is located directly on the Vanderbilt beaches of north Naples.
Ko Olina, Hawaii is another popular Golf Fitness Vacation. Their 18-hole championship course was rated as one the "Top 75 Resort Courses in the U.S.," according to Golf Digest.
All the schools utilize patented technology to analyze the body mechanics of each individual golf swing. "The 3R Training Approach puts advanced technology in the hands of our expert Golf Academy instructors," said David Ostrow, physical therapist and owner of Body Balance for Performance. "This Golf Vacation is designed to help you become more consistent, gain distance, and play pain free - all while on vacation."
This technology has been incorporated by Golf Fitness Vacation partners like Aviara Golf Fitness Academy. Featuring prestigious students like Larry Mize and Scott Simpson, Aviara carries a reputation as "one of the top schools in the nation," according to Golf Magazine.
Golf Fitness Vacations are available in these locations:
- San Diego's Aviara's Golf Fitness Academy, featuring Kip Puterbaugh
- Naples's David Ledbetter Academy, featuring Scott Holden
- Hawaii's Ko Olina's Golf Fitness Academy, featuring Greg Nichols
Wednesday, 14 February 2007
A health club in Basingstoke has become one of the first in the country to use specially-developed fitness equipment to help children take exercise whilst their parents use treadmills and rowing machines of their
own.Beechdown Health Club runs two classes weekly for the 5-7 year old and for the 8-10 age groups using Gymkids equipment, which includes miniature treadmills, airwalkers, rowing machines and cycling machines. Staff have even seen how the younger children use the equipment to mimic the activities of their parents. Outside of class times, the equipment remains available within the Health Club for the children to use in their own time.
“We don’t make the classes overly structured and very much place the emphasis on fun,” explains Beechdown’s Melanie Crook. “We have a five minute warm-up, pipe in some pop music, put the Gymkids equipment in a circle, number them as stations and give the children one minute on each piece of equipment. The children enjoy it - it makes them feel quite grown up to have their own gym – and we’ve had good reviews from the parents.”
“These products are not intended to enhance muscle development but to encourage children to enjoy fitness and take part in regular cardiovascular activity,” explains Gymkids’ Steve Smith. “In using the products, children will only ever push against their own weight. The objective is to make exercise fun from an early age and, in so doing, help engender healthy, active habits that will last a lifetime.”
The Gymkids range has been designed to make fitness more fun for children. Products are grouped for suitability for the nursery (under 5s), Key Stage One (5-7 years) and Key Stage Two (7 – 11 years) age group. The company is also working with primary schools on the creation of fitness suites, the integration of the equipment into structured PE lessons and in the introduction of Gymkids Fun & Fitness after school clubs.
Source:
www.clickpress.com
Tuesday, 13 February 2007
A recent investigation into the health effects of playing video games, conducted by the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA), a teaching institution and certification agency for fitness trainers, resu
lted in some unexpected findings.Video games have often been blamed as a contributing factor to the nation's epidemic of obesity, high blood pressure, Type II diabetes and other lifestyle diseases largely caused by inactivity and a lack of physical exercise. However, with the implementation of new technologies, video games may prove to be just what fitness experts are looking for to help their clients get more active, increase their heart rate and spend less time sitting on the couch.
"Exertainment and home video consoles are the wave of the future," asserts Dr. Josh Trout, Professor of Kinesiology at California State University Chico, who specializes in video game technology and exercise movement. "Exergaming can provide excellent health benefits, but so can a Stairmaster, lifecycle or treadmill, if you do it. If a person has chosen a sedentary lifestyle, there is not much a new technology is going to do for them. On that note, exergaming, and exertainment, is an excellent way for getting kids hooked on physical activity, producing good exercise habits that can last their lifetime."
Since 1988, the International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA) has provided personal trainers, aerobic instructors and medical professionals in every field of healthcare with an education in the fitness sciences. The ISSA has been providing certification and continuing education to personal trainers who own and operate fitness facilities, managers and fitness directors of health clubs and general populations that want to increase their knowledge base.
In examining the potential benefits of movement based video games on the nation's fitness, the ISSA reached into this pool of educated and knowledgeable fitness professionals and posted several questions on their interactive members' discussion board. Personal trainers were asked about possible health benefits and risks related to the use of 'exertainment' technologies implemented in such consoles as the Microsoft Xbox, the Sony Playstation 3, and the Nintendo Wii.
It is important to note that medical side effects of playing video games have been reported, including photosensitive epilepsy, hand and eye strains, auditory hallucinations, wrist pain, neck pain and repetitive strain injuries. All the case studies showing negative consequences of playing were of children and adolescents who used video games excessively. While sufficient research is still needed, ISSA's findings suggest that people who play video games excessively are at the most risk for developing health problems. As with anything in life, the key to reaping health benefits from exergaming lies in moderation.
Regardless of your intentions for playing, whether it is to relax after a hard day's work, a long night studying, or just to sit on the couch, you just might find yourself breaking a sweat and burning some calories when you think all you're doing is having a good time.
Source:
eMediaWire
Monday, 12 February 2007
Boston - Folate and vitamin B12, two important nutrients for the development of healthy nerves and blood cells, may work together to protect cognitive function among seniors, reports a new epidemiological study f
rom the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University (USDA HNRCA). According to Martha Savaria Morris, PhD, epidemiologist at the USDA HNRCA, "we found a strong relationship between high folate status and good cognitive function among people 60 and older who also had adequate levels of vitamin B12." The study, published in the January 2007 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, also determined that low vitamin B12 status was associated with increased cognitive impairment.
Using data collected from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1999 and 2002, Morris and colleagues found that people with normal vitamin B12 status and high serum folate, which is a measure of folate in the blood, had higher scores on a test of cognitive function. Blood tests were used to determine folate and vitamin B12 levels, and the cognitive function test assessed aptitudes such as response speed, sustained attention, visual spatial skills, associative learning, and memory. Cognitive impairment was identified when a subject fell into the bottom 20th percentile of the distribution on the test.
"People with normal vitamin B12 status performed better if their serum folate was high," explains Morris, corresponding author of the study. "But for people with low vitamin B12 status, high serum folate was associated with poor performance on the cognitive test." Seniors with low vitamin B12 status and high serum folate were also significantly more likely than seniors in other categories to have anemia, a condition caused by reduced amounts of hemoglobin in oxygen-carrying red blood cells, or by a deficiency in the number or volume of such cells.
"For seniors, low vitamin B12 status and high serum folate was the worst combination," says Morris. "Specifically, anemia and cognitive impairment were observed nearly five times as often for people with this combination than among people with normal vitamin B12 and normal folate." Vitamin B12 deficiency, which affects many seniors due to age-related decreases in absorption, can impact the production of DNA needed for new cells, as well as neurological function.
Vitamin B12 is normally consumed in meat, fish, poultry, eggs, and dairy products, and folate is found in leafy green vegetables, citrus fruits, and beans. Although folate occurs naturally in many foods, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 1998 required that all enriched cereal-grain products be fortified with folic acid, the synthetic form of folate, in order to help prevent birth defects in infants.
Morris notes that the study's results are inconsistent with the idea that high folate status delays detection of vitamin B12 by masking one of its key signs: anemia. "When folate fortification was considered, opponents raised the possibility that because more folate might mask anemia, many cases of vitamin B12 deficiency would go undetected, causing people with the condition to suffer neuropsychiatric consequences. But in our study, the people with low vitamin B12 who also had high serum folate were more likely to exhibit anemia and cognitive impairment than subjects with low vitamin B12 status and normal serum folate. So although having high serum folate had an impact on cognitive function in our study, it did not cure anemia, as opponents of food fortification have suggested."
Senior author Jacob Selhub, PhD, director of the Vitamin Metabolism Laboratory at the USDA HNRCA and professor at the Friedman School, says, "Our findings support the often-expressed idea that many seniors would benefit from more folate, but the research shows that we must look at the effects this would have on seniors with age-related vitamin B12 deficiency, who may be more numerous than once realized. There are also indications that too much folic acid and too little B12 is a general phenomenon that affects other systems in the body, and might be a factor in some other diseases."
As with any epidemiological study, Morris cautions that the results show association and not causation. She also notes that because the study only measured levels of total folate in the blood, it is uncertain whether the results were due to unmetabolized folic acid in the body. "We encourage further studies of these relationships and their underlying mechanisms," write Morris and her colleagues at Tufts. "We hope our findings both inform the continuing debate about folic acid fortification and influence future efforts to detect and treat low vitamin B12 status among seniors."
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