4/12/15 4/12/15

Women's heart risk lower with exercise 2-3x/week than daily

A large study using data from 1.1 million women recently published in the journal Circulation offers evidence that strenuous physical activity 2-3 times per week significantly lowered their coronary heart disease risk while more frequent strenuous exercise actually increased it.

6/21/14 6/21/14

Antioxidants in excess can increase inflammation and blunt benefits of exercise

Antioxidants, even glutathione, taken in excess can increase rather than ameliorate harmful inflammation...The use of antioxidants must be calibrated with careful consideration of the balance between protective and suppressive effects according to the needs of the individual patient.

6/12/14 6/12/14

Walking in the evening improves cardiovascular markers better than walking in the morning

Walking is beneficial any time of day, but an interesting study published recently in the journal Preventive Medicine demonstrated significantly more improvement in some key cardiovascular lipid and inflammatory markers by walking in the evening versus in the morning.

5/24/14 5/24/14

Exercise: moderation is best for the heart

Exercise can benefit with surprisingly little effort and time as documented by recent studies, but like everything else there is a dose-response curve, meaning that the effect of exercise varies with the dose (intensity, duration). Now there is more evidence that exercising too intensively can do harm, particularly to the cardiovascular system.

11/19/13 11/19/13

Atrial fibrillation risk increased by non-steroidal antiinflammatory drugs

NSAIDs increased the risk for atrial fibrillation. Practitioners must bear in mind the potential for all non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to cause atrial fibrillation by aggravating or triggering latent autoimmune inflammation due to gut barrier compromise.

3/6/13 3/6/13

Sitting the rest of the day wipes out the benefit of an hour of vigorous exercise

Adding to the evidence demonstrating the marked metabolic impairment caused by sitting most of the day (and the benefit of sit-stand desks), research recently published in PLoS One (Public Library of Science) shows that the benefit of a full hour of exercise is wiped out by sitting the rest of the day...One hour of daily physical exercise cannot compensate for the negative effects of inactivity on insulin sensitivity and plasma lipids if the rest of the day is spent sitting. Reducing inactivity by low intensity activities such as walking at a leisurely pace and standing is more effective than physical exercise in improving these parameters in sedentary subjects. Our study suggests that in addition to health interventions that stress the importance of spending enough energy to maintain a neutral energy balance, a minimal daily amount of non-sitting time should also be promoted.