Sitting too much, REGARDLESS of physical activity level, can kill you, says new study

Posted on March 29, 2012 by Stone Hearth News

Arch Intern Med. 2012 Mar 26;172(6):494-500.

Sitting time and all-cause mortality risk in 222 497 Australian adults.

van der Ploeg HP, Chey T, Korda RJ, Banks E, Bauman A.

Source

Level 2, Medical Foundation Building. hidde.vanderploeg@sydney.edu.au.

Abstract

BACKGROUND:

Prolonged sitting is considered detrimental to health, but evidence regarding the independent relationship of total sitting time with all-cause mortality is limited. This study aimed to determine the independent relationship of sitting time with all-cause mortality.

METHODS:

We linked prospective questionnaire data from 222 497 individuals 45 years or older from the 45 and Up Study to mortality data from the New South Wales Registry of Births, Deaths, and Marriages (Australia) from February 1, 2006, through December 31, 2010. Cox proportional hazards models examined all-cause mortality in relation to sitting time, adjusting for potential confounders that included sex, age, education, urban/rural residence, physical activity, body mass index, smoking status, self-rated health, and disability.

RESULTS:

During 621 695 person-years of follow-up (mean follow-up, 2.8 years), 5405 deaths were registered. All-cause mortality hazard ratios were 1.02 (95% CI, 0.95-1.09), 1.15 (1.06-1.25), and 1.40 (1.27-1.55) for 4 to less than 8, 8 to less than 11, and 11 or more h/d of sitting, respectively, compared with less than 4 h/d, adjusting for physical activity and other confounders. The population-attributable fraction for sitting was 6.9%. The association between sitting and all-cause mortality appeared consistent across the sexes, age groups, body mass index categories, and physical activity levels and across healthy participants compared with participants with preexisting cardiovascular disease or diabetes mellitus.

CONCLUSIONS:

Prolonged sitting is a risk factor for all-cause mortality, independent of physical activity. Public health programs should focus on reducing sitting time in addition to increasing physical activity levels.

PMID:

22450936

[PubMed - in process]

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GOLDEN BOY PROMOTIONS SIGNS PHIL "THE ITALIAN SENSATION" LO GRECO THE UNBEATEN WELTERWEIGHT JOINS THE PREMIER TEAM IN BOXING LOS ANGELES, March 28 - An international hit who has thrilled fans everywhere from his native Canada to his ancestral home of Italy, Phil "The Italian Sensation" Lo Greco will expand his reach even further in the coming months and years, as it was announced today that the unbeaten welterweight has signed a promotional agreement with Golden Boy Promotions who will co-promote him along with his Italian co-promoter OPI 2000. "This is the greatest moment of my career so far and I promise Golden Boy Promotions that I will give them many more great moments before I'm done," said Lo Greco. "I am looking forward to fighting the best the division has to offer both here at home and around the world and my goal, just like any boxer's, is to win a world championship." "We're excited to have Phil Lo Greco on our team and we believe he has what it takes to become another Golden Boy Promotions world champion," said Oscar de la Hoya, President of Golden Boy Promotions. "He has a fan-friendly style and he has proven to be a draw in Canada and Italy, but our goal is to bring him to the United States and I know he will be just as popular here." "We're very happy to be working with Oscar de la Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions on Phil's career as they are the best in the business," said Salvatore Cherchi, President of OPI 2000. Born in Toronto, but raised in Sicily until the age of nine, when he and his family returned to Canada, Phil Lo Greco (22-0, 12 KO's) began boxing at the age of 10, eventually winning a host of national titles before he enlisted in the Italian Army in 2003 at the age of 18. While in Italy, Lo Greco qualified for the 2004 Olympic team, but decided instead to pursue a professional career in Canada, which he began in 2006. Since then, his professional record has been perfect, and he has packed houses in Canada as well as Italy thanks to his talent, exciting style and charisma. In June of 2010, he won the vacant WBC international welterweight title with a ninth round knockout of Slawomir Ziemlewicz and the 27-year-old has since scored two more victories, setting up what promises to be the biggest year of his career in 2012. A date and opponent for Lo Greco's Golden Boy Promotions debut will be announced shortly. For more information, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com;www.opi2000.com follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/GoldenBoyBoxing,www.twitter.com/phil_lo_greco, or visit us on Facebook at Golden Boy Facebook Pageand Phil Lo Greco Facebook Page.

Sugary drinks up men’s heart risks: new study

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Stone Hearth News

Men who drank a 12-ounce sugar-sweetened beverage a day had a 20 percent higher risk of heart disease compared to men who didn’t drink any sugar-sweetened drinks, according to research published in Circulation, an American Heart Association journal.

“This study adds to the growing evidence that sugary beverages are detrimental to cardiovascular health,” said Frank B. Hu, M.D., Ph.D., study lead author and professor of nutrition and epidemiology in the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, Mass. “Certainly, it provides strong justification for reducing sugary beverage consumption among patients, and more importantly, in the general population.”

Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Risk factors include obesity, smoking, physical inactivity, diabetes and poor diet.

Researchers, who studied 42,883 men in the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study, found that the increase persisted even after controlling for other risk factors, including smoking, physical inactivity, alcohol use and family history of heart disease. Less frequent consumption — twice weekly and twice monthly — didn’t increase risk.

Researchers also measured different lipids and proteins in the blood, which are indicators, or biomarkers, for heart disease. These included the inflammation marker C-reactive protein (CRP), harmful lipids called triglycerides and good lipids called high-density lipoproteins (HDL).

Compared to non-drinkers, those who consumed sugary beverages daily had higher triglyceride and CRP and lower HDL levels.

Artificially sweetened beverages were not linked to increased risk or biomarkers for heart disease in this study.

Beginning in January 1986 and every two years until December 2008, participants answered questionnaires about diet and other health habits. They also provided a blood sample midway through the survey. Follow-up was 22 years.

Participants were primarily Caucasian men 40-75 years old. All were employed in a health-related profession.

Health habits of the men in the study may differ from those of the general public, but findings in women from the 2009 Nurses’ Health Study were comparable, Hu said.

The American Heart Association recommends no more than half of discretionary calories come from added sugars. For most American men, that’s no more than 150 calories per day and 100 for most American women. Discretionary calories are those left in your “energy allowance” after consuming the recommended types and amounts of foods to meet all daily nutrient requirements.

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Co-authors are: Lawrence de Koning, Ph.D.; Vasanti S. Malik, Sc.D.; Mark D. Kellogg, Ph.D.; Eric B. Rimm, Sc.D.; and Walter C. Willett, M.D., Dr.PH. Author disclosures are on the manuscript.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research funded the analysis and the National Institutes of Health funded the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.

Statements and conclusions of study authors published in American Heart Association scientific journals are solely those of the study authors and do not necessarily reflect the association’s policy or position. The association makes no representation or guarantee as to their accuracy or reliability. The association receives funding primarily from individuals; foundations and corporations (including pharmaceutical, device manufacturers and other companies) also make donations and fund specific association programs and events. The association has strict policies to prevent these relationships from influencing the science content. Revenues from pharmaceutical and device corporations are available at www.heart.org/corporatefunding.

NR12 – 1049 (Circ/Hu)

Additional Resources:

• Sugar-sweetened beverages are the No. 1 source of added sugars in our diet. The American Heart Association recommends you limit sugar sweetened beverages to no more than 450 calories from beverages a week (based on a 2000-calorie per day diet). Better still, choose water or unsweetened teas. For more information, visitwww.heart.org/nutrition.
• Heart-Health Risk Assessments from the American Heart Association -http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/More/ToolsForYourHeartHealth/Heart-Health-Risk-Assessments-from-the-American-Heart-Association_UCM_306929_Article.jsp
• Heart Attack – http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/HeartAttack/Heart-Attack_UCM_001092_SubHomePage.jsp

Source

Why diabetics and the overweight should get up and walk around every 20 minutes: new study

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Stone Hearth News

Diabetes Care. 2012 Feb 28. [Epub ahead of print]

Breaking Up Prolonged Sitting Reduces Postprandial Glucose and Insulin Responses

Dunstan DW, Kingwell BA, Larsen R, Healy GN, Cerin E, Hamilton MT, Shaw JE,Bertovic DA, Zimmet PZ, Salmon J, Owen N.

Source

Baker IDI Heart and Diabetes Institute, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE Observational studies show breaking up prolonged sitting has beneficial associations with cardiometabolic risk markers, but intervention studies are required to investigate causality. We examined the acute effects on postprandial glucose and insulin levels of uninterrupted sitting compared with sitting interrupted by brief bouts of light- or moderate-intensity walking.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Overweight/obese adults (n = 19), aged 45-65 years, were recruited for a randomized three-period, three-treatment acute crossover trial: 1) uninterrupted sitting; 2) seated with 2-min bouts of light-intensity walking every 20 min; and 3) seated with 2-min bouts of moderate-intensity walking every 20 min. A standardized test drink was provided after an initial 2-h period of uninterrupted sitting. The positive incremental area under curves (iAUC) for glucose and insulin (mean [95% CI]) for the 5 h after the test drink (75 g glucose, 50 g fat) were calculated for the respective treatments.

RESULTS The glucose iAUC (mmol/L) ⋅ h after both activity-break conditions was reduced (light: 5.2 [4.1-6.6]; moderate: 4.9 [3.8-6.1]; both P < 0.01) compared with uninterrupted sitting (6.9 [5.5-8.7]). Insulin iAUC (pmol/L) ⋅ h was also reduced with both activity-break conditions (light: 633.6 [552.4-727.1]; moderate: 637.6 [555.5-731.9], P < 0.0001) compared with uninterrupted sitting (828.6 [722.0-950.9]).

CONCLUSIONS Interrupting sitting time with short bouts of light- or moderate-intensity walking lowers postprandial glucose and insulin levels in overweight/obese adults. This may improve glucose metabolism and potentially be an important public health and clinical intervention strategy for reducing cardiovascular risk.

PMID:

22374636

[PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

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Berries benefit brain: “strong scientific evidence” from Congress-chartered journal

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Stone Hearth News

Strong scientific evidence exists that eating blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and other berry fruits has beneficial effects on the brain and may help prevent age-related memory loss and other changes, scientists report.

Their new article on the value of eating berry fruits appears in ACS’ Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

In the article, Barbara Shukitt-Hale, Ph.D., and Marshall G. Miller point out that longer lifespans are raising concerns about the human toll and health care costs of treating Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of mental decline.

They explain that recent research increasingly shows that eating berry fruits can benefit the aging brain. To analyze the strength of the evidence about berry fruits, they extensively reviewed cellular, animal and human studies on the topic.

Their review concluded that berry fruits help the brain stay healthy in several ways. Berry fruits contain high levels of antioxidants, compounds that protect cells from damage by harmful free radicals. The two also report that berry fruits change the way neurons in the brain communicate. These changes in signaling can prevent inflammation in the brain that contribute to neuronal damage and improve both motor control and cognition.

They suggest that further research will show whether these benefits are a result of individual compounds shared between berry fruits or whether the unique combinations of chemicals in each berry fruit simply have similar effects.

###

The American Chemical Society is a nonprofit organization chartered by the U.S. Congress. With more than 164,000 members, ACS is the world’s largest scientific society and a global leader in providing access to chemistry-related research through its multiple databases, peer-reviewed journals and scientific conferences. Its main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.

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Exercise changes DNA, in a good way, as does caffeine: Karolinksa researchers

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Stone Hearth News

You might think that the DNA you inherited is one thing that you absolutely can’t do anything about, but in one sense you’d be wrong. Researchers reporting in the March issue of Cell Metabolism, a Cell Press publication, have found that when healthy but inactive men and women exercise for a matter of minutes, it produces a rather immediate change to their DNA. Perhaps even more tantalizing, the study suggests that the caffeine in your morning coffee might also influence muscle in essentially the same way.

The underlying genetic code in human muscle isn’t changed with exercise, but the DNA molecules within those muscles are chemically and structurally altered in very important ways. Those modifications to the DNA at precise locations appear to be early events in the genetic reprogramming of muscle for strength and, ultimately, in the structural and metabolic benefits of exercise.

“Our muscles are really plastic,” says Juleen Zierath of Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. “We often say “You are what you eat.” Well, muscle adapts to what you do. If you don’t use it, you lose it, and this is one of the mechanisms that allows that to happen.”

The DNA changes in question are known as epigenetic modifications and involve the gain or loss of chemical marks on DNA over and above the familiar sequence of As, Gs, Ts, and Cs. The new study shows that the DNA within skeletal muscle taken from people after a burst of exercise bears fewer chemical marks (specifically methyl groups) than it did before exercise. Those changes take place in stretches of DNA that are involved in turning “on” genes important for muscles’ adaptation to exercise.

When the researchers made muscles contract in lab dishes, they saw a similar loss of DNA methyl groups. Exposure of isolated muscle to caffeine had the same effect.

Zierath explained that caffeine does mimic the muscle contraction that comes with exercise in other ways, too. She doesn’t necessarily recommend anyone drink a cup of joe in place of exercise. It’s nevertheless tempting to think that athletes who enjoy a coffee with their workout might just be on to something.

Broadly speaking, the findings offer more evidence that our genomes are much more dynamic than they are often given credit for. Epigenetic modifications that turn genes on and back off again can be incredibly flexible events. They allow the DNA in our cells to adjust as the environment shifts.

“Exercise is medicine,” Zierath says, and it seems the means to alter our genomes for better health may be only a jog away. And for those who can’t exercise, the new findings might point the way to medicines (caffeinated ones, perhaps?) with similar benefits.

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