Dr. John's Health Matters
Welcome to Dr. John's Health Matters blog.
The articles posted here are from various sources who are duly acknowledged. I would appreciate being immediately notified, if any copywritten material needs to be removed. This blog is not intended to replace the qualified advice of a licensed health practitioner. Readers should exercise their own judgment. Enjoy, subscribe, participate and tell others :)
Following:
Navigate
COMING SOON!
Expand all | Collapse all 
Search
Click Tags under Articles
NOTE: SEARCH BY KEYWORD FUNCTIONS BELOW ARE TEMPORARILY MALFUNCTIONING. USE AT OWN RISK.
Or Display Full Article by
Posts tagged "walking"
Wednesday, Sep 2nd, 2009 ↓People Who Don't Own A Car And Live Near Fast Food At Greater Risk For Obesity →
Sept 2, 2009 (Sciencedaily.com)—Living without a car in close proximity to fast food restaurants is associated with excess body mass index and weight gain, according to a University of Pittsburgh study available online and published in the September issue of the Journal of Urban Health. Indeed, adults in areas with high fast food concentration who didn’t have a car were as much as 12 pounds heavier than those who lived in neighborhoods that lacked such restaurants.
“Owning a car is generally associated with a more sedentary lifestyle and excess weight gain because people spend more time in their cars and less time walking,” said Sanae Inagami, M.D., study lead author and assistant professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. Yet, when Inagami and her colleagues looked at whether a high concentration of fast food restaurants impacted this association, they found that not owning a car in areas where fast food was more readily available increased the risk of obesity.
“Fast food may be specific to weight gain in particular populations and locations,” she said. “People who are less affluent don’t own cars and can’t go distances for healthier foods. As a result, they may end up opting for the lower-priced and high caloric foods available at fast food chains.”
For full article see link above.
Tags: car driving food fast fat obesity restaurant lifestyle sedentary weight gain walking risk overweight neighbourhood
Tags: school anxiety stress children child yoga breathing walking listening attention calm emotion reduce technique meditation academic social pressure
Specific Pesticide Directly Linked to Parkinson's Disease →
Aug 14, 2009(NaturalNews.com)— According to the National Parkinson Foundation, about 1.5. Americans currently have Parkinson’s Disease (PD) — the motor system disorder which afflicts actor Michael J. Fox. Another 60,000 or so people in the U.S. will be diagnosed with PD in 2009. The four main symptoms of this often devastating disease are trembling in the hands, arms, legs, jaw, and face; rigidity, or stiffness of the limbs and trunk; bradykinesia (slowness of movement) and impaired balance and coordination. As the disease progresses, people with PD may have difficulty walking, talking, and swallowing.
NaturalNews has previously reported (http://www.naturalnews.com/026177_d…) how research is pointing more and more to a “smoking gun” behind Parkinson’s. It appears PD doesn’t just strike at random. Instead, it is most likely triggered by chemicals in the environment that are literally toxic to the human brain. Now a new study has zeroed in on one specific suspect — a pesticide called B-hexachlorocyclohexane (B-HCH).
Used widely in the United States from the 1950s through the 1970s in agriculture, the chemical was also found until fairly recently in the insecticide lindane, used as a treatment to kill fleas and ticks on pets and lice in humans. Even if you’ve never treated a dog or cat with lindane or worked in agriculture, the odds are you’ve still been exposed to the toxin. Banned in the l970s, B-HCH is a dangerous contaminant that won’t go away — it is still found as a contaminant in water and soil.
Now a team of researchers have found it in human blood. What’s more, they’ve identified elevated serum levels of the pesticide in patients with Parkinson’s disease, strongly raising the possibility this specific pesticide is tied in to the development of PD.
The study, just published in the Archives of Neurology, involved team work led by Jason R. Richardson, PhD, assistant professor of environmental and occupational medicine at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ) Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and resident member of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute, and Dwight C. German, PhD, professor of psychiatry at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas. The scientists measured the levels of 16 pesticides in blood samples from patients with PD or Alzheimer’s disease. They also searched for pesticides in blood collected from a control group with no known neurological diseases.
All three groups of research subjects were found to have about the same levels of 15 pesticides. But when it came to B-HCH, it was a different story. B-HCH was found in 76 percent of the patients with Parkinson’s, 40 percent of the control group patients and 30 percent of the patients with Alzheimer’s. What’s more, not only was B-HCH found more frequently in PD patients, the amount of B-HCH in the blood of the Parkinson’s Disease patients was much higher .
For full article see link above.
Tags: pesticide B-HCH Parkinson's Disease chemical toxin blood contamination water soil motor control trembling rigidity stiffness bradykinesia balance coordination walking talking swallowing environment pollution trigger brain
Health Tip: If You're Tired of Walking →
Walking is a great form of exercise — you can burn calories, yet it’s fairly easy on your feet and joints.
But if you’re bored with your walking routine, the American Podiatric Medical Association offers these low-impact alternatives:
- Take a swim, or sign up for a water aerobics class.
- Take a dance class.
- Sign up for an aerobics, Pilates or yoga class.
- Hop on a bike and start pedaling, whether it’s outdoors or on a stationary bike.
- Use an elliptical machine.
- Work out with some light weight lifting.
- Remember the fun of childhood; exercise with a hula-hoop or jump rope.
— Diana Kohnle
Walking May Shorten Labor and Reduce Need for Epidurals →
CLEVELAND, April 14 09 (Medical News) — Women who walk off early labor pains are rewarded with shorter labors than women who lie in bed through the first stage of labor, according to a Cochrane review.
The first stage of labor was about an hour shorter for women who maintained upright positions — sitting, standing, walking, kneeling, squatting, or on hands and knees — compared with those who were recumbent, wrote Annemarie Lawrence, M.D., of the Institute of Women’s and Children’s Health at the Townsend Hospital in Douglas, Australia, and colleagues.
For full medical article, see link above.
Rev Up Your Walk, Live Longer - RealAge Tip of the Day →
Mar 01 09 (Real Age) — A comfortable daily walk is a good place to start if you want to live younger and longer.
But include a few spurts of power walking, too. This kind of “interval training” can be a great way to boost your exercise capacity — an emerging marker of longevity.
Build Up Your Steam
In a large study of women, exercise capacity — a measure of how hard you’re able to work out — was tightly connected with mortality rates. The women who had low exercise capacity were almost twice as likely to die during the study follow-up period, compared with the women who had more exercise power.
For full article, see link above.
Exercise better than walking for low back, but not for long-term pain relief.
Graded Exercise for Recurrent Low-Back Pain: A Randomized, Controlled Trial With 6-, 12-, and 36-Month Follow-ups
Spine: 1 February 2009 - Volume 34 - Issue 3 - pp 221-228
http://journals.lww.com/spinejournal/pages/articleviewer.aspx?year=2009&issue=02010&article=00003&type=abstract
Abstract
Study Design. The study was a randomized controlled trial. Treatment was for 8 weeks, with follow-up posttreatment and at 6-, 12-, and 36- months.
Objective. The purpose was to evaluate the effect of a graded exercise intervention emphasizing stabilizing exercises in patients with nonspecific, recurrent low back pain (LBP).
Summary of Background Data. Exercise therapy is recommended and widely used as treatment for LBP. Although stabilizing exercises are reportedly effective in the management of certain subgroups of LBP, such intervention protocols have not yet been evaluated in relation to a more general exercise regimen in patients with recurrent LBP, all at work.
Methods. Seventy-one patients recruited consecutively (36 men, 35 women) with recurrent nonspecific LBP seeking care at an outpatient physiotherapy clinic were randomized into 2 treatment groups; graded exercise intervention or daily walks. The primary outcome was perceived disability and pain at 12-month follow-up. Secondary outcomes included physical health, fear-avoidance, and self-efficacy beliefs.
Results. Of the participants, 83% provided data at the 12-month follow-up and 79% at 36 months. At 12 months, between-group comparison showed a reduction in perceived disability in favor of the exercise group, whereas such an effect for pain emerged only immediately postintervention. Ratings of physical health and self-efficacy beliefs also improved in the exercise group over the long term, though no changes were observed for fear-avoidance beliefs.
Conclusion. A graded exercise intervention, emphasizing stabilizing exercises, for patients with recurrent LBP still at work seems more effective in improving disability and health parameters than daily walks do. However, no such positive results emerged for improvement regarding pain over a longer term, or for fear-avoidance beliefs.
"Walkable" Environment Lower Blood Pressure →
Dec 23 09 (NaturalNews) The neighborhood that a person lives in has a significant effect on their risk of high blood pressure, regardless of income or education, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and published in the journal Epidemiology.
Researchers surveyed 2,612 adults between the ages of 45 and 85 who were involved in a cardiovascular health study. All the participants lived in Forsyth County, N.C., or in Baltimore or New York City. They were interviewed about conditions within a one mile radius of their homes, including how easy was to walk in the neighborhood, the fruit and vegetable selections of nearby markets, how safe they felt, and how friendly and willing to help each other they and their neighbors were.
The researchers found that those living in the most walkable neighborhoods had a roughly 25 percent lower risk of high blood pressure than those in the least walkable neighborhoods. The effects of healthy food availability, safety and social cohesion were similar. These factors were not affected by the education or income of the participants.
For full medical article, see link above.
Walking in Flip-Flops Causes Long-Term Joint Pain →
Oct 24 08 (NaturalNews) Walking in flip-flops can cause long-term health problems of the joints and muscles in the legs and back, according to a study conducted by researchers from Auburn University in Alabama, and published in the American College of Sports Medicine.
Researcher Wendi Weimer and colleagues studied the strides of graduate student volunteers who were wearing either sneakers or flip-flops. They found that the way the foot hit the ground changed in those who wore flip-flops, who were trying to protect their toes and keep the shoe on their feet.
For full article, see link above.
