September 2023 Too Sweet or Not To Sweet, Part I Rarely does the same topic make one side of the STEPS REAL News newsletter, but this is too sweet a topic to be ignored. According to the June 2023 Nutrition Action newsletter, a March 2023 article in Natural Medicine reported that the artificial sweetener (AS),Read More
Heart Health
REAL News – February 2023
February 2023 Don’t Sit While Reading This! The science of sedentariness marches on. For the past 20 years, it’s become more evident that sitting, except on an exercise machine, is dangerous to your heart and health. In light of this information, a broader health concern is how physical activity (PA) impacts the older population. TheRead More
REAL News – July 2022
July 2022 How much do YOU know about Nutrition and Health? The following questions were asked of physicians in the January 2022 edition of Medscape, an online reference for healthcare providers. See how much YOU know: 1. Which most accurately expresses the results of a study on the risk for stroke and dementia in peopleRead More
REAL News – December 2021
December 2021 Resistance Training That’s Good for the Heart Resistance training (RT: weightlifting) has been recognized as an important component of a general exercise and wellness program for over 30 years now. The current federal guidelines for physical activity (Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans) recommend 2-3 days/wk of muscle-strengthening exercise for nearly everybody. Long recognized for itsRead More
REAL News – March 2019
March 2019 Old Folks’ Drop-Out Rates & Predictors Matter A multi-national study followed 1514 male and female Norwegians (avg. age 72) participating in a structured exercise program for 3 years. All subjects were tested for cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, body mass index (BMI), and mental and physical health, including medications. One half was offered 2Read More
REAL News November 2017
November 2017 Little Blue Pill Helps Some Swimmers, Too A rare swimming disorder that affects only some open-water distance swimmers (military recruits, triathletes) may benefit from the same drug many middle aged men use medicinally and recreationally. SIPE – swimming-induced pulmonary edema – presents as shortness of breath, a cough that has bloody secretions,Read More
King of Hearts: The One Bet That’s Well Worth It
Last summer I went to the American College of Sports Medicine (www.acsm.org) Annual Meeting in Denver where I sat in on a lecture about the dangers of overexercise. The doctor who presented it was from a Midwestern City University where he’d seen many patients come in with cardiac troubles from shoveling snow. His basic thesisRead More
REAL News October 2017
October 2017 The ‘Obesity Paradox’ Paradox What if a paradox is demonstrated to not be so paradoxical after all? Can a paradox be a double negative? The “obesity paradox”, developed in 1999 from observations that patients undergoing dialysis for end-stage kidney disease had lesser mortality if overweight or obese (BMI of 25-29.9 and 30-34.9, respectively)Read More