Can Starting Exercise in Middle Age Help Fight Heart Disease?
Are you middle aged, worried about heart disease and wondering if it’s too late to begin exercising to help protect your heart?
If you’re of middle age and have always been sedentary, it is nowhere near too late for an exercise program to help prevent, or slow down the progression of, heart disease.
This is the conclusion of a study from Heidelberg University.
Though the study conclusion was that the study subjects who’d exercised all their lives were 60 percent less prone to heart disease, the report also states that individuals who started an exercise program in middle age cut their heart disease risk by 55 percent.
If you’re 50, get going. Start working out. The study says that a “more active physical activity pattern” is definitely associated with a lower risk of heart disease.
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve noticed an “elderly” (face appearing over 65) individual at the gym with a remarkable physique and physical abilities — who then tells me he or she didn’t begin working out until they were over 50!
Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images
And yes, they WERE over 65! So don’t ever assume that once you hit 50, taking up exercise is pointless.
Perhaps you know someone over 65 who began developing cardiac symptoms, and was subsequently diagnosed with coronary artery disease severe enough to require surgery.
Suppose that individual was never into exercise. Now imagine going back in time when that person was middle aged, perhaps 52, and they began an exercise program of both aerobic activity and strength training.
Now fast forward 15 years. Can you imagine that they’d have the same level of heart disease?
Exercise is a powerful weapon against heart disease.
How to Get Started with Exercise for Heart Disease Prevention if You’re Middle Aged
Shutterstock/Monkey Business Images
#1) Embrace the concept of doing two forms of exercise: cardio and strength training, even if you’re “weak.”
There is no such thing as being “too weak” to lift weights or do aerobic activity. Start with a pair of three-pound dumbbells or a tension band. Start with a brisk walk down the street.
And there is no such thing as being “too fat” or “clumsy” to exercise.
#2) Alternate cardio days with weight days.
#3) Start out slowly and lightly. Do not rush. You have plenty of time.
#4) If a personal trainer approaches you in the gym and points out that you’re doing something incorrectly, then listen, apply the new information and be grateful someone caught your mistake.
#5) Write out major goals and break them into small goals. Of course, one of your major goals will be to fight or prevent heart disease.
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Source: naturalnews.com/019682_disease_heart_exercise.html#ixzz2Lr9FffnA
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Do Intense Gym Workouts Undo the Effects of Sitting Excessively?
If you get in a hardcore workout every day but then sit for many hours at work or home, you’re still prone to the harm of excessive sitting — “the sitting disease.”
Exercise, even if strenuous, does not cancel out the adverse effects of all the sitting you may be doing at work or at home.
Those negative effects include a higher risk of heart disease, blood clots, high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes.
First author of Northwestern Medicine study, Lynette L. Craft, urges even those who exercise like warriors to take lots of mini breaks when sitting before the computer.
Prolonged sitting, even in people who meet recommended exercise quotas, also raises the risk of congestive heart failure and some cancers.
In the Northwestern study, women spent an average of nine hours a day sitting, even though many were physically active at least 150 minutes per week.
Just like smoking is harmful even if you run five miles a day and do your kettlebell swings and dumbbell lunges, sitting many hours a day, just as well, is harmful to your health.
Though working out provides numerous health benefits, the reversal of the sitting disease is not one of them.
That’s because excessive time in a chair is an independent risk factor for various health ailments.
Gym Tips to Reduce Sitting Time
See if you can get through an entire gym workout without sitting, with the exception of maybe changing shoes and of course, doing seated exercises.
Freepik.com
But do NOT plop down after a crushing set of deadlifts, squats or weighted walking lunges.
If you have a sit-down job, your goal should be to avoid sitting as much as possible. That includes between weightlifting sets.
In fact, if a strength training exercise involves sitting, you may want to exit the equipment between sets.
Another way to reduce sitting time at the gym is to stand between bench press sets. Many people sit on the bench.
Stand while drinking water and using your phone.
At home stand as much as possible while watching TV and using your phone.
At work get up every 45 minutes and walk about.
Lorra Garrick is a former personal trainer certified through the American Council on Exercise. At Bally Total Fitness she trained women and men of all ages for fat loss, muscle building, fitness and improved health.
Top image: Freepik.com/ pressfoto
Source: sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121031111616.htm
Your Child with ADHD Might Really Have Sleep Apnea
Did you know that the symptoms of ADHD greatly overlap the symptoms of sleep apnea?
It’s possible your child was misdiagnosed. “Possible” doesn’t necessarily mean “likely.”
It simply means that untreated obstructive sleep apnea in kids can cause a symptom set that’s strikingly similar to that of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
ADHD and obstructive sleep apnea (which children can certainly have, even if they’re thin) share numerous symptoms.
Parents need to be familiar with these.
Symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and sleep apnea overlap quite a bit.
• Poor concentration
• Irritability
• Impulsivity
• Problems organizing
• Difficulty keeping focused, which can lead to poor school performance
However, there are features of untreated obstructive sleep apnea that cannot possibly also be features of ADHD.
They are “muscle-leg cramps, fatigue, dull headache, bed wetting (enuresis), excessive daytime sleepiness, passing out for no reason, sleep walking, unexplained stomach pain or vomiting,” says Dr. Frank Barnhill, MD, board certified family physician practicing child and adult preventative care/ADHD-behavior medicine in upstate South Carolina.
Clue that Your Child Has Sleep Apnea and not ADHD
What would be a tip-off to a parent other than the obvious (excessive sleepiness, morning headaches)?
Dr. Barnhill says, “Most parents bring their child in for one of the more obvious physical symptoms – – usually bed wetting, abdominal pain or restless sleep.”
Why so much misdiagnosis?
Since sleep apnea presents with physical symptoms like morning headaches and dozing off during the daytime, how is it that the misdiagnosis of this as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder occurs much more commonly than what one would assume?
Don’t parents report to their doctors that Johnny keeps falling asleep in class; Johnny snores; he complains of waking up with headaches, etc.?
“No… they don’t,” says Dr. Barnhill. “Most of the time parents don’t know whether or not their child snores, or since the father does it, they just chalk it up to ‘it runs in the family.’
“Sometimes the same occurs with bed wetting, as many fathers of bed wetting kids also wet the bed until age 15-16.
“Also, teachers tend to overlook sleepiness or misinterpret it as the inattentive part of ADHD.
“That’s one of the reasons I wrote the book, Mistaken for ADHD, to educate teachers and other educators to look for all of these other things that are not indicative of ADHD.”
There is no current data regarding just how prevalent the misdiagnosis of childhood ADHD for untreated sleep apnea really is.
And the symptoms of untreated OSA will follow a child into adulthood until it’s diagnosed and treated.
Treatment will vary, depending on the cause, such as surplus pharyngeal tissue, large adenoids, large tonsils or obesity.
Sleep apnea in children is easily diagnosed with a sleep study.
Sleep study
A sleep study is also called a polysomnography, which monitors a child’s sleep patterns to identify sleep disorders.
During the study, sensors are attached to the child’s body to track brain waves, heart rate, breathing, oxygen levels and muscle activity during sleep.
The study is usually conducted overnight in a sleep center, where the young patient can be observed in a controlled environment.
Sleep apnea cannot be ruled out without a sleep study. Never.
Though the symptoms of ADHD and sleep apnea overlap considerably, the treatment modalities for these conditions vary significantly.
Here is more information on obstructive sleep apnea in children.
In practice for 30+ years, Dr. Barnhill is the author of “Mistaken for ADHD.” He has additional training in Infant, child and adolescent medicine, urgent and emergent medicine, and gerontology. Selfgrowth.com/experts/frank_barnhill
Lorra Garrick has been covering medical, fitness and cybersecurity topics for many years, having written thousands of articles for print magazines and websites, including as a ghostwriter. She’s also a former ACE-certified personal trainer.
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Top image: ©Lorra Garrick
Source: Maryse F. Bouchard, David C. Bellinger, Robert O. Wright, and Marc G. Weisskopf. Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and Urinary Metabolites of Organophosphate Pesticides. Pediatrics, 2010; DOI: 10.1542/peds.2009-3058
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