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Volume 4, Issue 9
Office workers ease neck and shoulder pain with simple exercises
Every day, all across the country, millions of workers spend 8 hours a day sitting at a desk in front of a computer. Sitting in the same position with little or no exercise throughout the day can cause headaches, pain and muscle cramping, not to mention a variety of other more severe ailments such as arthritis and carpel tunnel syndrome. Researchers in Italy recently conducted a study on a group of government workers and found that a simple series of exercises and stretches can help ease this pain.
For the study researchers followed a group of 192 office workers for eight months. Throughout the study participants performed a series of neck and shoulder exercises every few hours while at the office. In addition, they performed basic relaxation exercises at home daily for 10 to 15 minutes. At the end of the study headache frequency fell by 41 percent and daily aches and pains fell by 43 percent.
1
Lifestyle changes can help prevent type II diabetes
According to the American Diabetes Association, an estimated 54 million Americans have pre-diabetes, the stage in which individuals have higher than normal blood glucose levels that are not yet high enough to be considered diabetes. While being classified as pre-diabetic is worrisome, it does not mean that the individual will become diabetic. Recent research out of China indicates that adopting healthy lifestyle behaviors can help keep diabetes at bay.
Researchers in China studied a group of 577 pre-diabetic adults and divided these participants into four groups: exercise, diet, diet plus exercise and a control group. After a period of 14 years researchers found that the combined intervention group reduced the occurrence of diabetes by 43 percent as compared with the control group. In addition, those in the combination group delayed the onset of diabetes by 3 to 6 years.
2
Childhood obesity may be leveling off
From 1984 to 2004, childhood overweight and obesity rates in the United States increased dramatically. Among 6 to 11-year olds rates doubled, increasing from 7 percent to 14 percent and rates among 12 to 19 year olds more than tripled, increasing from 5 percent to 17 percent. Given these seemingly ever growing rates, researchers predicted that for the first time in history, children's life expectancies will be shorter than that of their parents. This said, after years of frightening statistics, researchers now report that these rates appear to be leveling off.
In order to determine this, researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention examined data from a group of 8165 children and teens who are part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). After analyzing the children's BMI, researchers determined that as opposed to earlier years there has been no significant change in overweight and obesity over the past several years.
3
Physical activity's effect on breast cancer varies depending on population
Over the years there has been a wide variety of research conducted on physical activity and breast cancer. A team of researchers recently conducted a literature review in an effort to sort through this research and determine how exercise affects different segments of the population. This study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that while all women can reduce their breast cancer risk with exercise, certain subgroups benefit from exercise more than others.
Researchers looked at a total of 62 studies; of those studies 47, or 76 percent, showed significant evidence that exercise helps prevent breast cancer. Analysis indicated that physical activity helps reduce breast cancer by an average of 25 to 30 percent. Post menopausal women, women with a healthy BMI, non-white women and women who have given birth benefited the most from physical activity.
4
Stretching may reduce risk of pre-eclampsia more effectively than walking
Pre-eclampsia, or pregnancy induced hypertension, is one of the most common complications that can arise during pregnancy. This condition, which affects both mother and baby, occurs in approximately 5 to 8 percent of pregnancies and can be fatal if left untreated. This said, a new study conducted at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has found that stretching exercises may help to reduce the risk of pre-eclempsia.
Over a three-year period researchers studied a group of 79 women with previous diagnoses of pre-eclempsia. Participants were assigned to either a walking group or stretching group during their 18th week of pregnancy. Women in both groups either walked or stretched for forty minutes, five times a week. By the end of their pregnancies nearly 15 percent of the walking group had developed pre-eclempsia while only 5 percent of the stretching group developed the condition.
5
Sources
1Mongini F, at al. (2008). Effectiveness of an educational and physical programme in reducing headache, neck and shoulder pain: A workplace controlled trial. Cephalalgia, 28, 541-52.
2Li G, et al. (2008). The long-term effect of lifestyle interventions to prevent diabetes in the China Da Qing Diabetes Prevention Study: A 20-year follow-up study. Lancet, 371, 1783-9.
3Ogden CL, Carroll MD, and Flegal KM. (2008). High body mass index for age among US children and adolescents, 2003-2006. JAMA, 299, 2401-5.
4Friedenreich CM and Cust AE. (2008). Physical Activity and Breast Cancer Risk: Impact of Timing, Type and Dose of Activity and Population Sub-group Effects. British Journal of Sports Medicine, epub.
5Yeo S, et al. (2008). A comparison of walking versus stretching exercises to reduce the incidence of preeclampsia: A randomized clinical trial. Hypertension in Pregnancy, 27, 113-30.
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