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Exercise Now, Weigh Less Later

People know it’s important to avoid excessive weight gain as they get older, and that exercise is a key to success in this regard. But until recently, scientists had published surprisingly few studies purporting to quantify the impact of habitual exercise on weight gain over the long haul.

Dr. Arlene Hankinson and her colleagues at Northwestern University set out to do just that. Using data from a prospective follow-up study, Hankinson’s group showed that men who were able to maintain high activity levels over an extended period gained six fewer pounds, and five fewer centimeters of waist circumference than those in the lowest activity group. Women in the highest activity group gained 13 fewer pounds and nearly seven centimeters less around their waists.

To reach these conclusions, the scientists examined data from the Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults (CARDIA) study, which is a 20-year longitudinal study that began in 1985. CARDIA included complete historical data for 3,554 men and women from Chicago, Birmingham, Minneapolis, and Oakland. Enrollees were 18 to 30 years old at study onset. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Pizaazz*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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