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Is The Ironman Triathlon Safe For The Middle-Aged Heart?

Before I even start, let me say this to my triathlete friends…

I really like you all. And…I am sorry for how I feel about your sport’s pinnacle, the Ironman triathlon. But I was poked into writing this post. When asked the question of whether the Ironman is safe for the middle-aged heart, what was I to do? Lie?

Each August, my hometown, Louisville, KY, gets overrun, over-swum and over-ridden with “Iron people.” No, these humans aren’t rust colored, or all that hardened, but they are indeed a determined lot. Triathletes, or iron people if you will, wake up before sunrise to swim, bike or run. Then they eat; some go to work (barely), and then they do the training thing again in the evening. Calling these athletes focused would surely be an understatement.

So it is each summer that I endure the same question: “Dr. Mandrola, did you do the Ironman?”

“No…I just ride bikes.”

But this year was different. Before I could launch into my usual dissertation on how training for Ironman-length triathlons causes excess inflammation, coronary calcium, atrial fibrillation, divorce, etc., etc., another question quickly popped up.

“What did you think of that guy who died during this year’s race?” Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*

Weight Gain Associated With Years Following Marriage And Divorce

Women gain weight after marriage and men after divorce, especially among those over 30, likely the result of “weight shock” to people’s routines in physical activity and diet, sociologists reported.

The research, led by a sociology doctoral student at The Ohio State University, was presented at a roundtable on Marriage and Family at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. They used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth ’79, a nationally representative sample of men and women ages 14 to 22 in 1979. The same people were surveyed every year up to 1994 and every other year since then, reported a press release.

Data on more than 10,000 people surveyed from 1986 to 2008 was used to determine Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*

Divorce Doesn’t Change Parenting Behavior

Research reported in Family Relations by Lisa Strohschien (University of Alberta) challenges the notion that parenting practices diminish after divorce. In a large longitudinal study Dr. Strohschien found that divorce did not change parenting behavior for most parents.

The study used data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NSLCY) to compare the 208 families that divorced between data collection points to the 4,796 households that remained intact. The study compared nurturing, consistent and punitive parenting between the households.

The findings suggested that most parents maintained very stable parenting practices, and it was only a few parents who were overwhelmed, unable to cope, and became less nurturing, inconsistent, and punitive.

These results are extremely important because for years family courts have poured money into mandatory parenting classes for divorcing parents (called things like “putting children first”), when in fact, most parents do not need the classes. The parents that may be unable to parent consistently are the parents who need the support, but these results suggest they are the minority.

I would suggest that a post-divorce interview with the children would help identify the parents who need the support, as children are very capable of reporting what they need after divorce, and are conscious of when a parent is punitive and no longer invested in their well-being.

This post, Divorce Doesn’t Change Parenting Behavior, was originally published on Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..

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