Shark Dive
Posted by: jvellul on: July 30, 2009
Now what’s a random shark dive doing on a health and fitness blog I hear you ask? Fitness is all about challenges and extremes. It’s about how far you can push yourself and what you can achieve. Bootcamp. Circus fitness. Marathons. Triathlons. What’s your extreme challenge? Here’s mine. Diving with Sharks. I’ve always wanted to do it. I’m pretty sure I won’t have the balls to, but that’s what life is about. Always outdoing yourself and believing that if you try hard enough you can achieve your goals.
Cervical cancer screening for under 25s has little impact
Posted by: jvellul on: July 29, 2009
- In: cancer | Health News
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New research has found that cervical screening in women aged 20-24 doesn’t cut the risk of cervical cancer over the next five years.
This reassures me that the government’s decision to keep the screening age at 25 was the right one. I had to write about this new study, because cervical cancer screening been the subject of previous posts where I considered the downsides of the screening mania since Jade Goody.
The study, led by Peter Sasieni and his colleagues at Queen Mary University, University of London (kudos to my old university) found that screening between the ages of 30 and 37 was associated with a reduction in cancer risk over the next five years of between 43-60%.
Nevertheless, I am still convinced that it should be our right to get a smear test if we want it. I have heard of women requesting smear tests and being refused. Lowering the cervical screening age may waste tight NHS budgets, but I’m certain that denying our right to healthcare is not fair either.
Cervical smear surgery ‘given needlessly’ to women with borderline results
Smear tests prevent cervical cancer, but under 25s are unlikely to benefit
Measuring fitness
Posted by: jvellul on: July 28, 2009
My Aim- I want to back fly
Just a quick one, as it’s already quite late. I was thinking today when I managed to stretch further than I did before about how we measure our fitness. What gives us that sense of achievement? Is it weight loss, a toned body, the endorphin-induced feel-good factor, managing to go further each time that we did before or just the muscle-ache reassurance that we’re doing something to make us healthier? In a class today when I wasn’t doing my normal spout of fun fitness and instead doing a lunge that practically involves going into the splits, I couldn’t help but wonder what factors dominate in people’s motivation to exercise. Are the consistent gym-goers really dominated by an urge to lose weight? Or are the ones who keep going really concerned about their health? I might do a poll tomorrow.
Jukari
Posted by: jvellul on: July 24, 2009
It involves swinging around the gym studio on a trapeze. Jukari (which means “play” in Sicilian) was developed by Reebok in conjunction with the creative directors of Cirque du Soleil. Jukari came into the Reebok gym in Canary Wharf in May and will be rolled out to other gyms across the UK.
In an hour-long workout an instructor guides a maximum of 12 people per class through moves using a specially designed trapeze called a FlySet attached to the gym ceiling.
Swinging through 360 degrees will definitely strengthen your arm, legs
and core muscles more effectively by targeting muscles that often
remain unused. The 12 signature moves include the beginner’s straddle
jump, with your legs bent outwards as you swing through the air, and
the woodpecker, a push-up performed while leaning into the bar.
Find classes at the Reebok Gym. Far as I can see you have to be a member though. Boo.
Saturated fats are not so bad!
Posted by: jvellul on: July 24, 2009
Fats can't be so bad, can they!
I think the message in the new book by Jennifer McLagan that fat has a undeserved bad reputation is particularly worrying. Every now and then, we have these new studies, books or other authorities that refute what we know so far and claim that their evidence proves otherwise.
McLagan claims that fat’s bad reputation comes from flawed studies that were carried out between the 1950s and 1970s, mostly by the American physiologist Ancel Keys. The data wasn’t rock solid and in three of the countries studied there was no clear link.
Hooray for the fun fitness workouts
Posted by: jvellul on: July 22, 2009
Me before the people piled in for Sequins and the City 2009
After trying AcroYoga and Kangoo, my love for fun fitness workouts grew! I’ve just finished a 12 week course in belly dance hip hop and as faddy as it sounds it was fantastic. The course reached a climax with a performance, Sequins and the City, in Great Portland street. Doing hip drops and shimmies across the stage was more exhilirating than the usual dose of endorphins during a session in the gym. With the bright light blinding me and making me sweat, I tried to remember the steps to the medley of Ciara, Work, Enrique, Taking Back my Love, a drum song and lastly some random salsa.
Stem Cell research must not get ahead of itself
Posted by: jvellul on: July 17, 2009
Scientists must develop new ways of harvesting and identifying a type of stem cell before they use them in clinical trials, according to research published today in the journal Blood.
The research was led by Senior Research Fellow Dr Manuel Mayr and his team at the British Heart Foundation Centre of Research Excellence at King’s College London. From blood samples collected from human volunteers, the King’s team isolated mononuclear cells, in order to grow endothelial progenitor cells. These can develop into endothelial cells, which form the lining of our blood vessels.
Screening mania
Posted by: jvellul on: April 29, 2009
Frightened of cancer everyone is keen to screen themselves as much as possible to catch any beginning of the disease. The Jade Goody case has opened up the possibility of lowering the cervical cancer screening age. Young girls and women are going to their doctors requesting smear tests because they are terrified they will meet the same tragic fate.
However, there has been less focus on the main areas that damage the possibility of surviving cancer. That is treatment, investigation and care. An article in The Independent reads:
“Improvements in care have had much greater impact on the death rate for most cancers than advances in treatment. A cancer caught early is easier to treat, and having a cancer specialist administer the treatment is more effective than a general surgeon.”
Light bulb. ‘I have to be screened regularly to catch it early.’ However, excessive screening is not necessarily the holy grail, as Michael Fitzpatrick, a GP in Hackney London, points out: “As a GP, I encounter delays in investigation and treatment.” For cancer to be caught early there needs to be the resources for fast investigation. Investment into investigation, care and treatment is likely to make more of an impact than screening.
Cancer Research UK warn “One 20-year-old a day is diagnosed with dangerous skin cancer”
Posted by: jvellul on: April 9, 2009
Browsing Cancer Research UK’s website I am hit with the following statements:
1. “Using a sunbed once a month or more, can increase your risk of skin cancer by more than half.”
2. “Another study estimated that sunbeds cause 100 deaths from melanomas every year in the UK.”
3. “UVA can also damage the skin and the levels of UV-A from sunbeds can be over 10 times higher than that of the midday sun.”
Obesity linked to ADHD
Posted by: jvellul on: April 8, 2009
- In: Health News
- 1 Comment
A drug “used to treat hyperactive children” could help to “solve Britain’s obesity crisis,” The Daily Telegraph claims.
The newspaper says that a new study has shown that one in three severely obese adults who fail to lose weight have undiagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
The researchers behind this study suggest that untreated ADHD stops the severely obese “from having the willpower to lose weight” and that ADHD drug treatment ‘dramatically’ improves their ability to lose weight.
However, drugs used to treat ADHD are also stimulants and known to induce weight loss, even in people without ADHD. Therefore, these drugs may be inducing weight loss not through specifically treating ADHD but by some other mechanism, such as increasing alertness and activity. These drugs can have side effects and are not licensed for use to aid weight loss.
Source- NHS Choices- Obesity ‘linked to ADHD’
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