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“Exercise training can help support management of overweight and obesity in adults, and can contribute to health benefits beyond "scale victories” found a July 2021 review by the European Association for the Study of Obesity (EASO) which provides scientific evidence on health and wellbeing benefits of exercise training for people living with overweight and obesity.
An August 2021 study by Sticht Center for Healthy Aging and Alzheimer’s Prevention at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, North Carolina found that
"Cutting 200 (not 250) calories daily and exercising may improve heart health in obese older adults"
“This is the first study to assess the effects of aerobic exercise training with and without reducing calories on aortic stiffness, which was measured via cardiovascular magnetic resonance imaging (CMR) to obtain detailed images of the aorta,”
“We sought to determine whether adding caloric restriction for weight loss would lead to greater improvements in vascular health compared to aerobic exercise alone in older adults with obesity.”
“Our findings indicate that lifestyle changes designed to increase aerobic activity and moderately decrease daily calorie intake may help to reduce aortic stiffness and improve overall vascular health,”
“However, we were surprised to find that the group that reduced their calorie intake the most did not have any improvements in aortic stiffness, even though they had similar decreases in body weight and blood pressure as the participants with moderate calorie restriction.”
“These results suggest that combining exercise with modest calorie restriction — as opposed to more intensive calorie restriction or no-calorie restriction — likely maximizes the benefits on vascular health, while also optimizing weight loss and improvements in body composition and body fat distribution. The finding that higher-intensity calorie restriction may not be necessary or advised has important implications for weight loss recommendations to improve cardiovascular disease risk in older adults with obesity.”
An April 2021 study by Cardiac Exercise Research Group (CERG) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) said,
"Previously, we found that 100 PAI (Personal Activity Intelligence, tracking heart rate) a week can give us a longer and healthier life without cardiovascular disease. Our new study shows that PAI can also help people maintain a healthy body weight,"
"We already know that physical activity is an effective strategy to minimize or prevent weight gain in adults. The new study, and previous PAI studies, indicate that PAI can guide people so that they get enough physical activity each week to avoid the health hazards of excessive weight gain,"
An April 2021 study by the University of South Australia said,
"There are many competing time demands in modern families ¬- whether it's after school soccer, music lessons, or simply walking the family dog, finding the time to fit everything into a single day, can be a challenge,"
"International guidelines suggest that children need 9-11 hours' sleep, 60 minutes of physical exercise, and no more than two hours of recreational screen time per day, yet only seven percent of children are regularly meeting these goals.”
"With so many competing priorities and commitments, it's helpful to know which activities deliver the greatest 'bang for your buck’."
"In this research we calculated how much sleep, sedentary time, light exercise, and moderate-to-vigorous exercise was associated with the same improvements in mental health, physical health and academic achievement.”
"For families with very little available time, small increases in moderate-to-vigorous exercise could be an option to improve children's health and wellbeing; alternatively an earlier night could equally deliver the same health benefits - importantly, it's the flexibility that these findings offer that make them so valuable.”
"Exploring trade-offs between children's activities is a promising way for families to make healthy choices that suit their regular family schedule."
The Heart Foundation's Director of Physical Activity said
"This study confirms that physical activity is the quickest and most effective way to deliver benefits for children's physical health and mental wellbeing. But the findings also offer some flexibility for families,"
"Helping young people make healthy choices and helping families create an environment that supports them in these choices can improve their quality of life in the future, as well as reducing their risk of chronic diseases, such as heart disease."
“…who yields, wins. The French express the same tactical paradox in a saying, ‘reculer pour mieux sauter’ - draw back, the better to leap forwards. In a strong wind, the unbending oak is uprooted, while the flexible reed springs back.”
Roger Neighbour
An April 2021 study by Kanazawa University found "no difference was found in the changes in muscle pump action with age", and that "elderly people may be able to maintain their muscle pump action when they have exercise habits".
An April 2021 study by Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands said,
"Previous research showed that improvements in physical activity are beneficial to health. However, those studies were performed in the general population. In our study, we were interested to see if there were similar effects in individuals with cardiovascular risk factors such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.”
"Our study suggests that to prevent heart attacks and strokes and boost longevity, healthy individuals should maintain their physical activity levels, while those with risk factors need to become more active. The associations we found were even more pronounced in people who were relatively sedentary at the start of the study, indicating that inactive people have the most to gain.”
"If you are currently sedentary, walking is a good activity to start with. If you are already hitting the recommended amount, try doing 10 minutes more each day or increasing the intensity."
An April 2021 study by Baycrest's Rotman Research Institute said,
"Scientists already know that exercise has a positive impact on the brain, but our study is the first to show that the same may be true for household chores,"
"Understanding how different forms of physical activity contribute to brain health is crucial for developing strategies to reduce the risk of cognitive decline and dementia in older adults."
"Besides helping to guide physical activity recommendations for older adults, these findings may also motivate them to be more active, since household chores are a natural and often necessary aspect of many people's daily lives, and therefore appear more attainable,"
An April 2021 study by UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals said,
"Results from randomized controlled trials and observational studies have shown that exercise lowers blood pressure, suggesting that it may be important to focus on exercise as a way to lower blood pressure in all adults as they approach middle age,"
"Teenagers and those in their early twenties may be physically active but these patterns change with age. Our study suggests that maintaining physical activity during young adulthood - at higher levels than previously recommended - may be particularly important."
"Nearly half of our participants in young adulthood had suboptimal levels of physical activity, which was significantly associated with the onset of hypertension, indicating that we need to raise the minimum standard for physical activity,”
"This might be especially the case after high school when opportunities for physical activity diminish as young adults transition to college, the workforce and parenthood, and leisure time is eroded."
A March 2021 study using data from the Framingham Heart Study said,
"Health care professionals could use these findings to further promote and emphasize to their patients the benefits of a healthy diet and a regular exercise schedule to avoid the development of numerous chronic health conditions in the present and in later life,"
"The earlier people make these lifestyle changes, the more likely they will be to lower their risk of cardiovascular-associated diseases later in life."
"It is noteworthy that we observed a dose-response association of adherence to diet and physical activity guidelines with risk of cardiometabolic disease later in life,”
"Participants who met the physical activity guidelines had progressively lower risk of cardiometabolic disease as they increased adherence to the dietary guidelines."
An April 2021 study by Purdue University said,
"In our study, we focused on couples because partners in committed relationships often provide essential support to promote one another's healthy lifestyle behaviors, including exercise,"
"We were hoping that there would not be a reduction in speed where partners walked together. We hoped that slower partners would speed up to match the faster partner, but that was not the case. However, it's important to note that any physical activity or walking - regardless of speed - is better than none."
"If someone substantially slows down when they are walking with someone else, that could negate some of the health benefits recognized if they walked alone at a faster pace,”
"Gait speed is important to measure because it is related to overall health. Typical gait speed is predictive of fall risk, functional ability, disability recovery and mortality,”
"Common exercise interventions, including strength, coordination and multimodal training, are all effective in increasing gait speed. These interventions can also delay the onset of slower gait speed and help slow the loss of gait speed. No one type of training is better than the other, so do the activity you are most likely to stick with."
"Older adults who are more active tend to maintain their gait speed,"
"In other words, slower gait speed is not an inevitable aspect of ageing. Older adults who walk slower tend to have poorer health and lower functional status."
An April 2021 study by the National Research Centre for the Working Environment, Copenhagen, Denmark.
"We adjusted for multiple factors in our analysis, indicating that the relationships were not explained by lifestyle, health conditions or socioeconomic status,”
"Many people with manual jobs believe they get fit and healthy by their physical activity at work and therefore can relax when they get home. Unfortunately, our results suggest that this is not the case. And while these workers could benefit from leisure physical activity, after walking 10,000 steps while cleaning or standing seven hours in a production line, people
"A brisk 30-minute walk will benefit your health by raising your heart rate and improving your cardiorespiratory fitness, while work activity often does not sufficiently increase heart rate to improve fitness. In addition, work involving lifting for several hours a day increases blood pressure for many hours, which is linked with heart disease risk, while short bursts of intense physical activity during leisure raises blood pressure only briefly."
"We are trying to vary the tasks, give recovery time, or raise heart rate so there is a fitness and health benefit,"
An April 2021 study by the Technical University, Munich and the University of Nebraska found,
"In the sports context, we have the phenomenon of people overeating after physical activity,"
"People want to reward themselves and their bodies for being active. So we use a hypothetical experiment to find out why people eat more after exercise compared to when they don't exercise."
"Based on this study, we were able to show for the first time that certain characteristics, such as the amount and 'urgency' with which a person wants to eat, change over the course of physical exertion,"
“These findings help us develop new interventions to optimize weight loss through exercise."
"The actual results suggest that physical exertion can entice those who do sport to eat larger amounts of food more quickly after the training session,"
"Since weight loss is a main motivation for exercising for many, and failure to achieve the desired weight loss makes it likely to quit exercising, it could be a good strategy to think about what you want to eat afterwards before you start to exercise."
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/uob-aig032921.php
Variety in Activities Better
A March 2021 study by the University of Basel suggest that,
"activity alone is not enough to reduce symptoms of mental disorders, but can at least improve subjective well-being,” and that a variety of activities is better.
"Although the data were collected before the pandemic, the results are also relevant in light of the limitations during the coronavirus crisis,"
A March 2021 study by Edith Cowan University found that,
“… diets high in nitrate-rich vegetables may bolster your muscle strength independently of any physical activity,"
"Nevertheless, to optimise muscle function we propose that a balanced diet rich in green leafy vegetables in combination with regular exercise, including weight training, is ideal."
"We should be eating a variety of vegetables every day, with at least one of those serves being leafy greens to gain a range of positive health benefits for the musculoskeletal and cardiovascular system."
"It's also better to eat nitrate-rich vegetables as part of a healthy diet rather than taking supplements. Green leafy vegetables provide a whole range of essential vitamins and minerals critical for health."
A May 2021 study by University of Copenhagen and Hvidovre Hospital said,
A combination of moderate to vigorous-intensive exercise and appetite-inhibiting obesity medication is a useful way forward.
"This is new knowledge for doctors, dietitians and physical therapists to use in practice. This is evidence that we have been missing,"
"The problem is that people are fighting against strong biological forces when losing weight. The appetite increases simultaneously with decreased energy consumption, and this counteracts weight loss maintenance. We have an appetite-stimulating hormone, which increases dramatically when we lose weight, and simultaneously the level of appetite-suppressing hormones drops dramatically. In addition, a weight loss can provoke loss of muscle mass, while the body reduces the energy consumption. Thus, when the focus in obesity treatment has been on how to obtain a weight loss - rather than how to maintain a weight loss - it is really difficult to do something about your situation,"
"It is an important aspect to highlight, as you do not necessarily get a healthier body from losing weight if, at the same time, you lose a lot of muscle mass,”
"It is great news for public health that a significant weight loss can be maintained with exercise for approximately 115 minute per week performed mostly at vigorous-intensity, such as cycling. And that by combining exercise with obesity medication, the effect is twice as good as each of the individual treatments"
"Without a follow-up on whether people actually have support to perform exercise, the treatment will not be enough. Therefore, we also followed up with the participants on an ongoing basis to ensure that they received the support they needed in order to exercise. That is necessary, because maintaining weight loss is extremely hard. People need to understand this. Once you have lost weight, you are not "cured".
"The ongoing exercise and effort will likely need to continue for many years,”
"Our study also demonstrates that without a structured treatment plan, there is a high risk of gaining the weight back. There were 12 individual consultations over the course of a year, including weighing and diet advice from Danish authorities according to guidelines for healthy weight maintenance. This was just not enough for the placebo group without exercise program, in this group all health benefits gained by weight loss during the eight week program were gone after one year, despite frequent weighing and diet and nutritional counseling based on official guidelines”.
"Therefore, it is important that there is a system for supporting people with obesity in maintaining the lifestyle change. Our study can help with this, because we can say this actually works to doctors, dietitians and municipalities, if they create a structured, joint treatment plan with the individual using ongoing follow-ups,"
A March 2021 study by the University of Basel said,
"The goal of the recommendations … is primarily to lower blood pressure,"
"Ultimately, through blood pressure reduction, we can reduce the risk of heart attack, stroke and death from cardiovascular disease - thereby spending more years of life in good health."
"In people with hypertension, the blood pressure reduction that can be achieved with aerobic exercise is the same, or even slightly more, than taking a single antihypertensive medication,"
"People with normal blood pressure, but who are at raised risk of developing hypertension, may be particularly motivated to keep their levels down,"
"Obese individuals are very likely to develop high blood pressure if obesity persists over the years. Healthy individuals with a hypertensive parent are also at risk of developing high blood pressure, as are women who had high blood pressure during pregnancy (gestational hypertension). People in these groups can postpone or even prevent hypertension by exercising."
"For most exercises, the blood pressure lowering effect lasts for about 24 hours, similar to medication, so it's best to be active every day if possible."
A March 2021 study by the University of Texas Southwestern reports,
"This is part of a growing body of evidence linking exercise with brain health,"
"We've shown for the first time in a randomized trial in these older adults that exercise gets more blood flowing to your brain."
"There is still a lot we don't know about the effects of exercise on cognitive decline later in life,"
“[mild cognitive impairment] and dementia are likely to be influenced by a complex interplay of many factors, and we think that, at least for some people, exercise is one of those factors."
"There are likely some people who benefit more from exercise than others,"
"But with the sample size in this study, it was hard to analyze subgroups of people to make those conclusions."
"Having physiological findings like this can also be useful for physicians when they talk to their patients about the benefits of exercise,”
"We now know, based on a randomized, controlled trial, that exercise can increase blood flow to the brain, which is a good thing."
A March 2021 study by the University of Granada found,
“… acute caffeine ingestion 30 minutes before performing an aerobic exercise test increased maximum fat oxidation during exercise regardless of the time of day,"
A May 2021 study by the University of Westminster said that you may be able to run better with a pink drink.
"The influence of colour on athletic performance has received interest previously, from its effect on a sportsperson's kit to its impact on testosterone and muscular power. Similarly, the role of colour in gastronomy has received widespread interest, with research published on how visual cues or colour can affect subsequent flavour perception when eating and drinking.
"The findings from our study combine the art of gastronomy with performance nutrition, as adding a pink colourant to an artificially sweetened solution not only enhanced the perception of sweetness, but also enhanced feelings of pleasure, self-selected running speed and distance covered during a run."
