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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*

Physical Activity Versus Physical Fitness: It Could Mean The Difference Between Life And Death

My neighbor Ed was a thin man all his life. He maintained an ideal body weight by combining regular physical activity with a modest intake of calories. He was a “young” seventy year-old who looked the picture of heart health.

Ed regularly read the newspaper while walking on his treadmill, he hit a golf ball straighter and longer than his peers, and he wore the same size jeans now than he did in college 50 years ago. What’s more, he bragged about his low blood pressure, normal cholesterol level and perfect blood chemistries. He took no pills. I think he went to his primary care doctor each year just to show off his health.

The morning he woke with crushing chest pressure and shortness of air stunned him. “This couldn’t be a heart attack?” he thought. An hour later, minutes after his urgent heart catheterization showed severe blockages in all three of the main coronary arteries, a sternal saw provided a heart surgeon access to his dying heart.

Ed did well. The story had a happy ending. He still looks the picture of health, but now there’s a scar on his chest and a few pill bottles in his medicine cabinet.

How can a human who exudes heart health go to bed well and wake up with severe heart disease? What’s missing? What could Ed have done differently? Could his doctors have measured anything—over and above the traditional risk measures—that might have suggested his obviously higher cardiac risk? Read more »

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

Gender Differences In Exercise

Obesity levels are at an all-time high among men, women, and children in the United States. The need for good nutrition and regular exercise is paramount for maintaining proper health and for keeping those extra pounds at bay, especially for women.

Beginning in her late 20s and 30s, a woman’s average body weight climbs steadily each year. This increase usually continues into her 60s. For many women, the weight gain is between one to two pounds per year with some women gaining more, and others less.

Aside from weight loss, women who incorporate regular exercise into their daily schedules may lower the risks of certain diseases and conditions. A recent study presented at the Ninth Annual AACR Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research Conference revealed that women who exercised for at least 150 minutes a week significantly reduced their risk of endometrial cancer, regardless of their body size.

The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) revealed that in order to prevent weight gain, an average woman who eats a normal diet needs 60 minutes of moderate exercise per day. If a woman is overweight or obese, 60 minutes of exercise is inadequate to keep off the weight, according to the study. In many cases she will have to modify her diet, including cutting down on overall daily caloric intake.

For older women, a dose of regular moderate exercise may slow the progression of age-related memory loss. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences revealed that exercise may even reverse changes in the brain due to the aging process. Other recent studies prove a positive correlation between exercise and a lower risk of colon cancer. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Society for Women's Health Research (SWHR)*

A Simplified Formula For Good Health

You can’t do anything about your genes, but here’s a formula for good health — simplified:

0          Cigarettes
5          Servings of fruits and vegetables a day
10        Minutes of silence or relaxation a day
30        Body mass index (BMI) below
150      Minutes of exercise a week    

You knew this already, but are you really doing it?

*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*

Toxins: Can You Sweat Them Out?

Can you sweat out toxins?

The guy next to me on the bike yesterday morning was working like Lance Armstrong in training: He had laid towels on the floor to absorb the impressive perspiration he was generating.

He shouted over to me: “I’m hitting it hard to cleanse out the toxins from last night. Too much Captain Morgan and buffalo wings, ya know?”

“Really,” I said.

“Actually, I’m a dermatologist, and sweat does not contain any toxins,” I said to myself so that he could not hear. (Gym decorum dictates men do not correct men in the middle of a workout — especially if prefaced by “Actually, I’m a dermatologist.”) I left him to his aerobics and wrote this post in my head while I finished mine. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Dermatology Blog*

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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