Fascinating Studies!

MORE VALIDATION FOR SHORT AND INTENSE EXERCISE:
British researchers have shown that rigorous workouts lasting as little as three minutes may help prevent diabetes by helping control blood sugar.

"You can make just as big as an effect doing this as you can by doing hours and hours of endurance training each week" said James Timmons, an exercise biologist at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, who led the study.

Timmons and his team showed that just seven minutes of exercise each week helped a group of 16 men in their early twenties control their insulin.

The volunteers, who were relatively out of shape but otherwise healthy, rode an exercise bike four times daily in 30 second spurts two days a week.

After two weeks, the young men had a 23 percent improvement in how effectively their body used insulin to clear glucose, or blood sugar, from the blood stream, Timmons said.

"The simple idea is if you are doing tense muscle contractions during sprints or exercise on a bike you really enhance insulin's ability to clear glucose out of the bloodstream," Timmons said.

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL PRINCIPAL PROVES THE EVILS OF SUGAR
For the past ten years, Principal Yvonne Sanders-Butler, has required students at Browns Mill Elementary in Lithonia to participate in daily physical exercise and eat healthy foods. Her school enforces a strict ban on sugar.

According to Butler, standardized test scores increased 15 percent at the school within the first year of the program. She said discipline problems decreased by 23 percent. Student health has improved and obesity at the school has been virtually eliminated.

BPA STAYS IN THE BODY LONGER THAN PREVIOUSLY THOUGHT
Dr. Richard Stahlhut of the University of Rochester and colleagues looked at levels of BPA (the chemical found in many plastic products) in over 1,000 U.S. adults who took part in a government health survey.

While the belief had been BPA was quickly and completely eliminated from the body through urine, this study found people who had fasted for even a whole day still retained significant levels of the chemical.

Stahlhut said this suggested BPA may hang around in the body longer than previously known or that it may get into the body through sources other than just food, perhaps including tap water or house dust. Stahlhut added that BPA may get into fat tissue, from where it might be released more slowly.

FAST FOOD NEGATES SOME IMPORTANT BENEFITS OF BREAST FEEDING
While breastfeeding seems to reduce the risk of a child developing asthma, eating fast food once or twice a week reverses the gains, according to a study of 700 Canadian children by the University of Alberta, published in Clinical and Experimental Allergy.

GINGER SHOW TO REDUCE KNEE PAIN FROM ARTHRITIS
Along with its inflammation-cooling properties to reduce arthritis pain, ginger may have anticancer powers, too. And the ginger ale your grandma served you when your stomach was upset? There’s science behind that as well. Ginger is a well-known nausea reliever. [Effects of a ginger extract on knee pain in patients with osteoarthritis. Altman, R. D., Marcussen K. C., Arthritis and Rheumatism 2001 Nov;44(11):2531-2538]