Research: Benefits of moving for women

Health-related links for the ladies:

• Washington Post | Women paying price for physical inactivity - Clip: "The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington recently released data showing that, in a major reversal of public health progress, women's life expectancy is shrinking in 313 U.S. counties. Other public health statistics show that more than 60 percent of women are overweight, about 35 percent are obese, and fewer than half of all women 25 and older meet the federal physical activity guidelines for aerobic exercise compared to 51 percent of men."
  
  
• The Independent | Yoga can reduce chronic pain, study finds - Clip: "A small Canadian study announced July 27 found that practicing yoga twice weekly for eight weeks reduced the symptoms of chronic pain and mental stress in women with fibromyalgia. The study is the first to look at the effects of yoga on levels of the hormone cortisol in women suffering with fibromyalgia. The condition, which predominantly affects women, is associated with chronic pain and fatigue, and symptoms such as muscle stiffness, sleep disturbances, and depression."
  
  
• New York Times | How Exercise Can Keep the Brain Fit - Clip: "For those among us, and they are many, who can’t get excited about going for walks or brisk gardening, scientists from the Aging, Mobility and Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of British Columbia and other institutions have shown, for the first time, that light-duty weight training changes how well older women think and how blood flows within their brains. After 12 months of lifting weights twice a week, the women performed significantly better on tests of mental processing ability than a control group of women who completed a balance and toning program, while functional M.R.I. scans showed that portions of the brain that control such thinking were considerably more active in the weight trainers."

Get going, girls!

Discover: Healthy trends + topics - Feb11

First up, from Dakshana Bascaramurty, Globe and Mail:

Tabata, a type of high-intensity interval training that was originally developed for Japan's Olympic speed-skating team, is fast gaining popularity...Named after Izumi Tabata, a former researcher at Japan's National Institute of Fitness and Sports, the compressed workout has a simple format: Do an exercise (such as push-ups or jumping rope) for 20 seconds at full intensity, and then take a 10-second break. Repeat seven times, varying exercises, for a total workout of four minutes. ...

Tabata training is effective, despite its brevity, because the body continues to burn calories at a high rate during the recovery period, says Martin Gibala, chair of the department of kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton.

In a study published last year in the Journal of Physiology, Prof. Gibala and his research team found that participants who did high-intensity interval training for just 1½ hours total each week enjoyed the same physical benefits as those who did 4½ hours of endurance training on a stationary bike. Both groups had similar levels of muscle development and lipid oxidation (which improves endurance and reduces the risk of developing obesity and diabetes).