Free Republic

Adults with diabetes can begin to realize many of these health benefits with even modest reductions in body weight and modest increases in physical activity. People undergoing weight management and increased physical activity have no difference in heart attacks and strokes, a new study has suggested. The landmark study investigating the long-term effects of weight loss on the risks of cardiovascular disease among patients with Type 2 diabetes, which was conducted at the University of Pittsburgh and at clinical facilities throughout the United States, the multicenter clinical trial investigated the effects of an intensive lifestyle intervention program, intended to achieve...

First Lady Michelle Obama has expanded her anti-obesity campaign to museums, enlisting them to offer “healthy food options,” and change their menus. Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative is now calling for museums, zoos, gardens, science and technology centers to “join the call to action,” to decrease obesity among children. The first lady is recruiting these institutions to join the “Let’s Move! Museums and Gardens” project because of their power to “influence real and sustained behavior change” on the eating habits of kids. “With their impressive reach and great potential for impact, museums and gardens can launch community efforts to create...

For a long time conservatives have warned that the heavy propaganda and regulatory hands of the Obama administration were not going to change the exercise or eating habits of 315 million Americans... Now comes early statistical proof that after reelecting Obama with fewer votes the second time and 1,567 days of his reign of government intervention and stimulation, many Americans are deciding that maybe the Obamas' plans for their lives do not fit their plans for their own lives.

Most of us grew up hearing that we should warm up with a stretch. Strike and hold a pose, such as touching your toes, for 30 seconds or more, we were told, and you’ll be looser, stronger and injury-proof. But anyone who follows fitness science — or this column — knows that in recent years a variety of experiments have undermined that idea. Instead, researchers have discovered, this so-called static stretching can lessen jumpers’ heights and sprinters’ speeds, without substantially reducing people’s chances of hurting themselves. Now, two new studies are giving us additional reasons not to stretch. One, a...

(CNSNews.com) – The municipal government of Washington, D.C. received a $1.8 million federal Community Transformation Grant in 2012 to promote healthy lifestyles in the city.Among the things the city would do with the money, as listed on its application, was increasing the "availability of fruit and vegetables to employees in their workplaces."Administered through the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the grant was awarded in September 2011, which is the beginning of fiscal year 2012.According to the CDC, the grant is intended to target “approximately 445,000 residents living in the District of Columbia, focusing on racial/ethnic minority, low-income, medically underserved, and...

A major element of surviving and thriving for an American Rhodie is identifying: in what ways and how strongly can the Regime exercise leverage over me and my Tribe? If the Regime can hurt you, that’s leverage. If you need the Regime, that’s also leverage. To that end, briefly consider the following facts: 1. In ObamaCare, the Regime created impossible-to-refuse incentives for all health care providers to acquire and deploy electronic health care record-keeping systems. 2. The Regime has built and deployed a gigantic server farm for the NSA in Utah capable of storing and searching virtually infinite quantities of...

The haredi Netzach Yehuda battalion in the Kfir Brigade held an intensive training exercise in the Golan Heights during the Hanukkah holiday – its first ever in the Golan. video ......

<p>While the pull-up has been used by everyone from middle-school gym teachers to Marine drill instructors to measure fitness, the fact is that many fit people, particularly women, can't do even one. To perform a pull-up, you place your hands on a raised bar using an overhand grip, arms fully extended and feet off the floor. (The same exercise, performed with an underhand grip, is often called a chin-up.) Using the muscles in your arms and back, you pull yourself up until your chin passes the bar. Then the body is lowered until the arms are straight, and the exercise is repeated. The Marines say a male recruit should be able to do at least 3 pull-ups or chin-ups, but women are not required to do them. In school, 14-year-old boys can earn the highest...</p>

A large federal study of whether diet and weight loss can prevent heart attacks and strokes in overweight and obese people with Type 2 diabetes has ended two years ahead of schedule because the intensive program did not help. About 25 million Americans have Type 2 diabetes. Many are overweight or obese. On average, the disease increases heart disease risk by 2 to 2 1/2 times, said Dr. Ronald Kahn, chief academic officer at the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston. Dr. Nathan, though, said the results meant that people with diabetes might have a choice. The group assigned to diet...

DENVER—The rigors of the campaign trail have not kept Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan from his intense workout regimen, a daily tradition he observes religiously in the wee hours of the morning. Ryan was spotted Tuesday in the gym of the Renaissance Denver Hotel working out to a P90X video on his iPad.

The fifth and final paper in The Lancet Series on physical inactivity explained that because of the global reach, high prevalence, and colossal harms of inactivity, it should be considered pandemic. Harold W. Kohl, III, leading author and from the University of Texas Health School of Public Health, said:

People across the world are falling so far short on exercise that the problem has become a global pandemic, causing nearly a tenth of deaths worldwide and killing roughly as many people as smoking, researchers warned this week as an alarming series of studies was published in the Lancet. Eight out of 10 youngsters age 13 to 15 don't get enough exercise, according to one of the Lancet studies released Tuesday, and nearly a third of adults fall short. The problem is even worse for girls and women, who are less active than boys and men, researchers found. The results...

North Korea vowed to step up its nuclear arms program in an angry response to the use of its flag during a live-fire exercise Friday by the South Korean and U.S. militaries.

Runners, you no longer have to convince your reluctant partner to put on sneaks and hit the streets with you, thanks to my new favorite drone: the Joggobot, a companion robot for runners. Using a built-in camera, the autonomous drone hones in on sensors in a custom shirt and exhorts you to keep up with it. “People might feel chased if the Joggobot was behind them,” says researcher Eberhard Grather in a video. So instead your little drone friend flies in front of you. Floyd Mueller and Grather, researchers at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia, tricked out...

In a new study of U.S. preteen and teen girls, daily exercise was strongly linked to weight and obesity in white girls but not black girls. Although it's still important to promote physical activity in all young people, according to the researchers that may not be enough to prevent black girls -- who have a higher rate of obesity to begin with -- from gaining weight.

Extreme exercise such as marathons may permanently damage the heart and trigger rhythm abnormalities, warn researchers. They say the safe ‘upper limit’ for heart health is a maximum of an hour a day - after which there is little benefit to the individual. A review of research evidence by US physicians says intensive training schedules and extreme endurance competitions can cause long-term harm to people’s hearts.

According to reports, the U.S. and Russian military will be engaging in an anti-terrorism exercise that will involve Russian paratroopers using U.S. weapons to “take and hold” the main facilities of the CIA and Denver International Airport in Colorado and the National Security Agency in Utah. (Related: Learn about the hypothetical ‘war games’ the U.S. and China have been playing) The European Union Times has more on the report announcing this exercise from the Russian Federal Service for Military-Technical Cooperation: Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Colonel Alexander Kucherenko publically announced this 24-21 May “anti-terror drill” this Friday past noting that this...

The value of mental-training games may be speculative, as Dan Hurley writes in his article on the quest to make ourselves smarter, but there is another, easy-to-achieve, scientifically proven way to make yourself smarter. Go for a walk or a swim. For more than a decade, neuroscientists and physiologists have been gathering evidence of the beneficial relationship between exercise and brainpower. But the newest findings make it clear that this isn't just a relationship; it is the relationship. Using sophisticated technologies to examine the workings of individual neurons - and the makeup of brain matter itself - scientists in just...

The representative for a district with higher-than-average rates of obesity-related conditions will return from recess a week from Monday to reintroduce her Lifelong Improvements in Food and Exercise (LIFE) Act. D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) will say on the House floor, according to prepared remarks, that her bill is intended to tackle a health problem “that cannot be remedied through the health care system alone.” The LIFE Act would give the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention $25 million “for a coordinated national effort to reverse increasingly sedentary lifestyles and diets that are high in fat and sugar.” That...

I used to run a lot...in my younger years. In the mid 90s I was running 20-25 miles every sunday afternoon, and around 10 miles the other days of the week. It all ended in '96 when I developed knee problems and iliotibial band friction syndrome, snapping hip syndrome, and chronic tendonitis of the iliotibial band, and also serious problems with the muscle attached to the iliotibial band...and a few other things like ganglion cysts in my feet and meniscus issues with the knees, and some other stuff. I went to doctors. I took pills, took supplements, did strengthening excercizes,...