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Is five minutes of exercise a day enough? If a big commitment is daunting, there’s good news for those who prefer to start small, says this professor.One of the most popular New Year’s resolutions is to exercise more. Many of us set ambitious goals requiring a big, regular commitment, but then abandon them because they’re too much to fit in. Plans to exercise more in the new year are often broken within a month. So how can we exercise more regularly in the new year? If the aim is to build long-term fitness and health, the exercise must be sustainable....

How did U.S. exercise trends go from reinforcing white supremacy to celebrating Richard Simmons? That evolution is explored in a new book by a historian of exercise, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, author of the book Fit Nation: The Gains and Pains of America’s Exercise Obsession, out Jan. 2023. Nowadays, at the beginning of every New Year, many Americans hit the gym to work off their holiday feasts. This momentum usually starts to fade in mid-January, according to a 2019 analysis of data on fitness tracking apps by Bloomberg. But such new year’s resolutions are pretty new—as is the concept of exercise...

Fitness influencers and Twitter users blasted a TIME interview for portraying exercise as an activity with roots in White supremacy. "How did U.S. exercise trends go from reinforcing white supremacy to celebrating Richard Simmons?" the TIME article, titled "The White Supremacist Origins of Exercise, and 6 Other Surprising Facts about the History of U.S. Physical Fitness" asked. The article was heavily mocked on Twitter, with critics saying it was destroying the media's credibility. "Honestly, I want them to keep pumping articles like this out to eviscerate every remaining shred of their credibility and perceived legitimacy," British rapper Zuby tweeted. "It...

Regular physical activity can extend colorectal cancer patients' lives. In a first-ever study, scientists looked at the impact of exercise on the gut microbiome of cancer patients and reported a positive association. Researchers found physical activity was also beneficial to obese cancer patients, who typically have a less healthy gut microbiome. The team found that regular physical activity can aid in creating a healthy gut microbiome, while also reducing inflammation. These findings were reported in patients independent of their body mass index (BMI). "A patient who is active has a more diverse microbiome and lower abundances of colorectal cancer-promoting bacteria,...

A study found aerobic exercise can reduce the risk of metastatic cancer by 72%. According to the researchers, intensity aerobic exercise increases the glucose (sugar) consumption of internal organs, thereby reducing the availability of energy to the tumor. The study combined an animal model with human volunteers. The human data indicated 72% less metastatic cancer in participants who reported regular aerobic activity at high intensity, compared to those who did not engage in physical exercise. The animal model exhibited a similar outcome. Prof. Levy stated, "Our study is the first to investigate the impact on the lungs, liver, and lymph...

Exercising on an empty stomach helped people to burn about 70% more fat than those who exercised two hours after eating, a study found. Sports scientists also found that the participants—who undertook both fasted and fed exercise in the evening—did not overcompensate for the calories skipped earlier in the day. While studies have suggested the benefits of exercise could be increased when done in the morning following an overnight fast, the team's own research found that evening exercise, between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m., is the most popular time for people due to other commitments. Therefore, the researchers designed the...

If the brain no longer responds correctly to the hormone insulin (insulin resistance), this also has a negative effect on the metabolism in the body and the regulation of eating behavior. A recent study shows that as little as eight weeks of exercise can help restore the brain's insulin sensitivity in severely overweight adults. This opens up new therapeutic possibilities for reducing obesity and diabetes risk factors in the future. Fourteen women and seven men aged 21–59 years with a body mass index of 27.5–45.5 took part in the study. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to determine insulin...

Bright orange scooters now share — and sometimes command — Pittsburgh’s sidewalks. They’re an integral part of the Move PGH pilot project, the city’s plan to bundle transit options to help residents get around without owning a car, whether by bus, bike, scooter, zip car or more. Statistics reported by Move PGH, a year into its two-year pilot, are encouraging: People have taken more than 576,000 scooter trips for a total of hundreds of thousands of miles. They have biked tens of thousands of miles, and ridden Scoobi mopeds for more than 14,000 miles. Experience has dispelled Initial fears about...

Regular treadmill exercise helped improve Parkinson's disease symptoms in mice in a recent study. Scientists found positive results in using exercise to stop the spread of the α-synuclein protein and reverse biochemical, cellular, and anatomical changes that occur in the brains of mice with Parkinson's disease in the absence of drugs. The mice ran on a treadmill consistently in 30-minute intervals for six days a week, over two months. Pahan and his team were quick to note while treadmill exercise is something that can be easily available and accessible, some patients with Parkinson's might not be able to run on...

This latest research indicates a little bit of daily activity could well be the most beneficial approach, at least for muscle strength. And happily, it also suggests you don't have to put in a mountain of work every day. The four-week training study had three groups of participants performing an arm resistance exercise and changes in muscle strength and muscle thickness were measured and compared. The exercise consisted of 'maximal voluntary eccentric bicep contractions' performed on a machine which measures muscle strength in each muscle contraction you would do at the gym. An eccentric contraction is when the muscle is...

"If that stubborn body fat isn't going away, consider adding High-Intensity-Interval-Training or HIIT to your exercise routine," says Professor Zeljko Pedisic of Victoria University, Melbourne. HIIT increases fat burning more than aerobic exercise, finds a study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine. How was the study conducted? Authors of the study pooled results from 18 controlled intervention trials on the effects of HIIT on the rate of fat burning during exercise. The intervention trials included a total of 511 adult participants who were engaged in supervised HIIT, moderate-intensity aerobic exercise, or a non-exercising control group. The duration of...

Researchers say they have debunked the urban myth that healthy underweight people “eat whatever they want and burn it off with exercise”. A study of healthy Chinese adults considered underweight, according to the widely used Body Mass Index (BMI), found they not only do not eat as much food as people with a “normal” BMI, they are also less physically active. More from AsiaOne Read the condensed version of this story, and other top stories with NewsLite. “Our data suggests they eat about 12 per cent less than adults with a normal BMI,” the team of scientists wrote in an...

Elite tennis players have an uncanny ability to clear their heads after making errors. They constantly move on and start fresh for the next point. They can’t afford to dwell on mistakes. Peter Strick is not a professional tennis player. He’s a distinguished professor and chair of the department of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute. He’s the sort of person to dwell on mistakes, however small. . . . . . .For a long time, it has been understood that the adrenal glands were turned on and off by a couple discrete pathways coming from the brain....

The inability to stand on one leg for 10 seconds in mid- to later life is linked to a near doubling in the risk of death from any cause within the next 10 years, finds research. To improve standardization of the test, participants were asked to place the front of the free foot on the back of the opposite lower leg, while keeping their arms by their sides and their gaze fixed straight ahead. Up to three attempts on either foot were permitted. In all, around 1 in 5 (20.5%; 348) participants failed to pass the test. The inability to...

Researchers identified a greater increase in functional capacity, the ability to perform activities of daily living, as a result of Nordic walking in patients with coronary heart disease compared to standard high-intensity interval training and moderate-to-vigorous intensity continuous training. Cardiovascular rehabilitation and exercise training programs following major cardiovascular events are associated with considerable improvements in functional capacity and cardiorespiratory fitness, as well as mental health. However, some individuals do not enjoy monotonous forms of exercise, such as walking and stationary cycling, and therefore may stop exercising once their cardiovascular rehabilitation program is completed. Researchers explored more diverse exercise options that...

Aerobic exercise reprograms the immune system to reduce pancreatic tumor growth and amplify the effects of immunotherapy, a study finds. The study provides new insight into how the mammalian immune system, designed to attack foreign invaders like bacteria, can also recognize cancer cells as abnormal. Exercise-induced increases in levels of the hormone adrenalin cause changes to the immune system, say the study authors, including in the activity of cells that respond to signaling protein interleukin-15 (IL-15). Biological systems that fight disease and repair tissue are intertwined, the researchers say, with IL-15 signaling, based on the context, either encouraging the recovery...

When should I fit exercise within my schedule? For most, the answer depends on our family's schedule and working hours. Recent findings suggest that the effectiveness of exercise depends on the time of day (Exercise Time Of Day, ETOD). Now, a randomized controlled trial not only confirms convincingly that ETOD affects the effectiveness of exercise, but also shows that these effects differ between types of exercise, and between women and men. Investigator Dr. Paul J Arciero, said: "Here we show for the first time that for women, exercise during the morning reduces belly fat and blood pressure, whereas evening exercise...

Exercise increases levels of a chemical involved in brain cell growth, which bolsters the release of the "feel good" hormone dopamine, a new study shows. Dopamine is known to play a key role in movement, motivation, and learning. Experts have long understood that regular running raises dopamine activity in the brain and may protect nerve cells from damage. In addition, past research has tied exercise-driven boosts in the dopamine-triggering chemical called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and in dopamine levels to improvements in learning and memory. Researchers showed that mice running on a wheel for 30 days had a 40% increase...

Structured aerobic exercise training over 12 weeks improves blood vessel function in people with stage 3 and 4 chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a new study by physiologists at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. Researchers also found that exercise reduced blood pressure reactivity in this population. The article is published ahead of print in the Journal of Applied Physiology. This study was conducted in 38 men—primarily Black men—and 10 women with CKD who were randomly split among a structured and a supervised group. The aerobic "spin" group rode stationary bikes and the non-aerobic group participated in stretching...

A diet involving short-term, severe calorie restriction was safe, feasible, and resulted in a decrease of blood glucose and growth factor concentration, reduction in peripheral blood immunosuppressive cells, and enhanced intratumor T-cell infiltration in cancer patients receiving standard-of-care therapy, according to a trial. Preclinical research has demonstrated that severe calorie restriction in the form of cyclic fasting or fasting-mimicking diet (FMD) has potent anticancer effects when combined with standard pharmacological treatments. The researchers administered an FMD regimen to the study participants that consisted of a five-day, low-carbohydrate, low-protein, plant-derived diet, which provided up to 600 Kcal on day 1 and...