How Exercise Impacts Menopausal Women

Penn State researchers have suggested that attitude may play an important role in how exercise affects menopausal women.
They came to the conclusion after they identified two types of women -- one experiences more hot flashes after physical activity, while the other experiences fewer.

"The most consistent factor that seemed to differentiate the two groups was perceived control over hot flashes," said Steriani Elavsky, assistant professor of kinesiology.

"These women have ways of dealing with (hot flashes) and they believe they can control or cope with them in an effective way on a daily basis," she stated.

Women who experienced fewer hot flashes the day after participating in vigorous to moderate physical activity were more likely to be part of the group that felt they had control over their hot flashes.

Women who had more hot flashes following exercise were likely to be those who felt they had very few ways of coping with their hot flashes, Elavsky and her colleagues said.

Elavsky suggested that cognitive behavioral therapy may help some women feel they have more control over their bodies and reactions to hot flashes.

The participants with fewer hot flashes the day after vigorous exercising were also less likely to experience anxiety and depression. However, women who had fewer hot flashes the day after only light or moderate physical activity had higher levels of pessimism and depression than others.

"The bottom line for research is that people need to look at individual differences. It`s not enough anymore to do a study and look at overall impact of an exercise program on symptoms. It`s very clear that we need to look at the different responses that women might have, and try to understand these individual differences more," said Elavsky.

Elavsky and her colleagues followed 24 menopausal women for the length of one menstrual cycle, or for 30 days if they were no longer menstruating. Each woman used a personal digital assistant to record hot flashes and wore an accelerometer at the hip to track physical activity. The women in the study regularly had hot flashes before the start of the study, experiencing from five to 20 a day.

"The real-time reporting of symptoms and the objective measurement is a strength of the study. There aren`t any studies out there that use both of these approaches. ... To ask a woman to report a symptom when she`s experiencing it is the most valid assessment," said Elavsky.

At the beginning of the study, the participants completed evaluations that looked at their depressive symptoms, chronic stress, perceived control over hot flashes, and personality.

They had a physical exam where researchers measured levels of reproductive hormones and body composition. Each woman served as her own control, therefore the data was analysed for each separately.

If a woman experienced a hot flash during the observation period, she entered the event on the PDA, along with the severity and length of the event, where she was, if she had recently consumed a trigger, such as coffee, and included other situational information.

At four random times throughout the day, the PDA prompted the woman to assess and record daily stressors and mood. At the end of the day, each completed a fifth assessment and looked retrospectively at how her day went and how well she coped with her hot flashes that day.

"I was surprised by how large the individual differences were," said Elavsky.

"I was also surprised that the association was present in terms of statistically significant association only in a handful of women -- and among those, there were two whose physical activity led to more hot flashes the next day and one that had the opposite. Maybe the reason why we don``t see the associations in larger studies is because they cancel each other out," she added.

The finding was reported in a recent issue of Maturitas.

Exercise ‘Helps Smokers Kick The Butt`

Exercise can help you stop smoking and remain smoke-free, the new data has revealed.According to the data, increased exercise, life expectancy among smokers and nonsmokers alike.
The study of the 434.190 people who went through the program at a private medical examination fee payment by the company 1996-2008 in Taiwan showed that current smokers (who participated in at least moderate activity), 55 were per percent more likely than those who inactive were to leave.

In addition, these smokers were 43 percent less likely to relapse than smokers who were inactive.

Physical activity in these questions have also been shown to increase life expectancy, even among smokers.

Smokers who had participated in physical activity for a longer life expectancy of 3.7 years and a reduction in mortality from all causes by 23 percent - equivalent to the level of ex-smokers with a low level of activity achieved.

The results also showed that ex-smokers increased their life expectancy by 5.6 years and reduced the overall mortality by 43 percent - corresponding to the observed level of inactive non-smokers.

"Physical activity can help smokers quit smoking and smoking cessation has been shown to significantly reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease and should be the goal of all smokers", CP Wen, National Institutes of Health Research Taiwan, he said.

"If smokers can continue to pursue, not only can increase the dropout rate, but may also mortality from all causes and consequences of heart attack, reduce the long term," said Wen.

A prospective study of 434.190 people in Taiwan, was conducted over a period of 12 years. Leisure physical activity of each individual are grouped into: 1) idle, 2) low active (15 minutes per day), and 3) active (30 minutes per day).

The study was organized at the World Congress of Cardiology of the World Heart Federation, presented.

Physical Activities May Help Keep Alzheimer’s At Bay

Daily physical activity can reduce the risk of Alzheimer's disease and cognitive impairment, even in people over 80 years, a new study has suggested. Neurological researchers at Rush University Medical Center were behind the study.
"The results of our study indicate that all physical activities, including exercise and other associated activities such as cooking, washing dishes and cleaning with a reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease `` s," said Dr. Aron S. Buchman, lead author of the study and associate professor of neuroscience at Rush.
"These results support efforts to encourage all kinds of physical activity, even in the very old may not be able to participate in formal exercise, but still enjoy an active lifestyle"
"This is the first study, the objective measures of physical activity, in addition to self-reporting use," said Dr. Aron S. Buchman, Principal Investigator and Associate Professor of Neurological Sciences at Rush. "This is important because people are not able to remember the details correctly." Said Dr. Frank Buchman.
For the measurement of daily exercise and lack of exercise, physical activity, the researchers asked 716 seniors without dementia at Rush, with a mean age of 82 to a device called accelerometry using the monitors activity in the non-dominant wrist continuously for 10 days .The whole movement and lack of exercise, physical activity was recorded. Study participants were also given cognitive tests annually over this ongoing study to measure the memory and cognitive abilities. The participants presented their physical and social activities.
The study participants were people from the hustle and memory Aging Project, an ongoing study, the association of local longitudinal chronic diseases of aging.
During a mean 3.5 years follow-up, 71 participants developed Alzheimer's disease.
The study found that people in the lower 10 percent of physical activity every day, more than twice as likely (2.3 times) of developing Alzheimer's disease than people were in 10 percent of daily activity.
The study also showed that these people in the lower 10 percent of the intensity of physical activity almost three times (2.8 times) more likely to develop Alzheimer's than people were in the larger percentage of physical activity.
"From the actigraph was attached to the wrist, activities such as cooking, washing dishes, playing cards, and even to move a wheelchair with a person's arm was an advantage," said Buchman.
"These are low cost, easy access and side effects free people can do things at any age, to avoid including a very advanced age, possibly Alzheimer's disease," he said.
The study was published in the online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.