June 22nd, 2009 05:38pm
Mike DeDoncker
To paraphrase from the ads for EAS Myoplex, I know when I’m not done yet in my workouts.
I’m not done — no matter how soon I’m supposed to be at work, or home from it – if I haven’t done at least 20 minutes of some kind of weight training. Aging, and I’m getting up there, is associated with the loss of muscle mass and strength which, in even later years, can mean loss of mobility, balance and independence.
Studies have shown that even the very old and frail can benefit from resistance training — that can be training with free weights, resistance bands or machines. The idea doesn’t have to be a big increase in muscle mass because even light weights can be effective.
The idea is improvement in muscle strength and, assuming your doctor clears you for such exercise, that can be a very good idea.
An easy way for an older person — yes, women receive great benefits too — to get started is to choose a light weight that you can easily lift 12 times for whichever exercise you choose, say something simple like a dumbbell curl. After performing the 12 repetitions, rest for a minute or so and then try the next weight up (if your first lift was with a 5-pounder, the next weight up is usually an 8-pounder).
Try to do the same exercise with that weight 8 times. Whether you succeed on the second set of lifts or not, that’s it for the first try.
Take a day off and then come back and try the same lifting routine again. In a few weeks, when both sets become easy to achieve, challenge yourself with the next higher weight (first set with the eight, second set with the next weight up which in most gyms is probably going to be a 10-pounder).
Use the same gradual increase for any exercise you want to try and you can keep your strength for a long, long time.
June 12th, 2009 05:22pm
Mike DeDoncker
I first ran across this exercise five or six years ago during a National Exercise Trainers Association workshop on core strength.
It must be good, because I’ve seen it recommended in literally scores of exercise programs since then. When I’ve used it with my clients, I just call it hand and knee balance, but it also goes by several fancier names. It works for the shoulders, back, abs, obliques and a little muscle under your glutes called the piriformis, no matter what you call it.
 The beginner’s form of the exercise is to start on the floor on your hands and knees, with your abs tight and neck and back in neutral spine (flat). Lift the right hand off the floor and extend it above your head while also lifting the left knee and extending it back with toes pointed. While balancing on left hand and right knee, bring the lifted hand and knee in toward your midsection at the same time. Then return to extended position. Do 12 repetitions, then switch to left hand and right leg up and extended and do 12 more repetitions.
Don’t worry if you wobble a bit. Tighten your abs, glutes and obliques to help keep yourself on balance.
Another note: When you’re starting out, especially, one side is always quite a bit better than the other. You’ll improve.
To increase the intensity of the exercise as you get better, you can hold a weight or weighted ball in the extended hand, put the hand that is on the floor on a ball to de-stabilize yourself, or do both at the same time. You can be even tougher on yourself by trying it while balancing on an exercise bench, but make sure you’re really good before you do.
And, by all means, have fun.
June 1st, 2009 03:57pm
Mike DeDoncker
Several studies have shown that patients with gum disease, known as periodontitis, are also candidates for heart disease.
That has cardiologists and dentists ready to copy parts of each other’s role in health care. For instance,  a cardiologist may examine a patient’s mouth for signs of significant tooth loss, oral inflammation or receding gums and a periodontist might begin asking questions about heart health and family history of heart disease.
The connection between the two is that both are inflammatory diseases, and experts believe managing one disease may reduce the risk for the other.
A paper on the relationship between gum disease and heart disease was recently published in the online versions of the American Journal of Cardiology and the Journal of Periodontology http://www.joponline.org/toc/jop/0/0 . Dr. Kenneth Kornman, editor of the Journal of Periodontology and a co-author of the report, called inflammation a major risk factor for heart disease and said periodontal disease may increase the inflammation level throughout the body.
“Therefore, you will now see cardiologists and periodontists joing forces to help our patients,” he said.
Source: American Academy of Periodontology and PRNewswire-USNewswire                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Â
June 1st, 2009 06:00am
Mike DeDoncker
The problem with heart problems is that the first sign of trouble is often death. So, before you give yourself a clean bill of heart health, make sure you aren’t operating under misinformation about your chances for a heart attack.
The cardiovascular medicine faculty at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health recently offered up a list of the most common myths they hear from patients.
MYTH: “Nobody in my family has heart disease, so I’m not going to get it.”
Dr. James Stein, director of the Preventive Cardiology Program at the UW Hospital and Clinics in Madison, said only 47 percent of people with heart disease have a family history of the disease. That means the other 53 percent develop it in the absence of an obvious genetic component.
“Risk factors like unhealthy eating habits and a sedentary lifestyle predict heart disease. The presence of any risk factors increases your risk of developing heart disease,” Stein said, “but not having a family history does not protect you.”
MYTH: “I don’t have high blood pressure. My bottom number has always been normal.”
When you’re young, the bottom number of a blood pressure reading is a marker of heart disease and stroke risk. After age 35 or 40, though, the top number of the reading is the one that should have your attention.
“As you age, your arteries get stiffer, and as a result, the top number goes up and the bottom number goes down,” Stein said. “Actually, a low bottom number is very dangerous.”
MYTH: “My angiography showed that I have an artery with 50 percent blockage. We just have to take care of that one spot, right?”
No. Atherosclerosis — maybe better known as hardening of the arteries — isn’t confined to one spot.
“Chances are, if you have blockage that is easy to see, you almost assuredly have blockages elsewhere that are harder to see, said Dr. Jon Keevil, a preventive cardiologist at UW Hospital and Clinics. “Unfortunately, even those can be risky for heart attacks.”
MYTH: “I’m thin and I’m in shape. I don’t have to worry about bad cholesterol.”
Wrong again. Dr. Mary Zasadil, a preventive cardiologist with UW Hospital and Clinics, said obese patients may be more likely to have cholesterol issues but, like heart disease, cholesterol is largely genetic. If your parents or relatives struggled with cholesterol you and your doctor need to play close attention to yours.
MYTH: “I stopped taking my cholesterol medication because my cholesterol improved. I didn’t think I needed it any more.”
Cholesterol medicines, including statins, aren’t like antibiotics, which can be stopped once the infection is resolved and you’ve completed your course. The protective benefits of cholesterol medicines disappear when a patient stops taking them and what went down can quickly shoot back up again.
Source: University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics
May 29th, 2009 11:29am
Mike DeDoncker
I used to joke that if I wanted to kill off Americans, I could do it without firing a single shot or detonating a single car bomb.
I’d just open one fast-food restaurant after another and let them eat themselves to death.
That’s probably oversimplification, but word this week about a study by the Medical University of South Carolina can only be considered bad news for those in the business of keeping people healthy — that is, in the business of keeping them healthy before they need a doctor, anyway.
Maybe somebody beat me to the fast-food idea because the study found the percentage of people ages 40 through 74 with a body mass index of more than 30 (that’s obese in body mass index language) increased from 28 percent to 36 percent between 1994 and 2006. That was aided by a 10 percent decrease in those who are getting some type of physical activity at least three times a week.
I’m not saying it’s all the fault of fast-food restaurants, but I am concerned that, despite all the publicity given to the benefits of healthy lifestyles, Americans still appear to be too unconcerned about their health to take even the smallest steps to take care of themselves.
To borrow a line from the local CHIPÂ program, they’re literally killing themselves with a knife and fork.
If somebody did invade the country with the intent to do harm, we might be too fat to resist.
April 6th, 2009 04:18pm
Mike DeDoncker
I was in Arizona playing really bad golf when I heard about the pistachio recall, but I want to pass on this information I received in an e-mail about a new Web site created to help those who may be concerned about it seek safe sources for the little green nut.
The new site is http://www.pistachiorecall.org/, and is the result of a collaboration between the FDA and California growers/processors.
The site lists specific safe pistachio products and brands not affected by the recall. For additional information or to see the FDA announcement, click on this link http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-04-2009/0005000912&EDATE= or go to www.fda.gov/pistachios.
March 23rd, 2009 03:36pm
Mike DeDoncker
We pretty much know the conventional healthy eating advice — cut down on the fatty meats and cheeses, consume more fruits and vegetables, switch to whole-grain breads and pastas and be mindful of realistic portion sizes.
The main idea is to take in high-grade fuel and leave out the excess calories that will weigh down performance.
Well, don’t forget to count the calories in what you drink. While it probably doesn’t make a significant difference that you order the diet soda to go along with your double cheeseburger with bacon and extra sauce, it is a saving of 140 to 150 calories.
In fact, sugared soda is the number one source of refined sugar in the American diet at 10 to 12 teaspoons in a 12-ounce can. That’s enough to earn it the nickname of liquid candy.
Here, according to a chart I found in ”Take Charge of Your Health” by Aileen Ludington and Hans Diehl, are some other drinks and their calorie counts:
1 cup of coffee with cream and sugar — 75, 1 cup of orange juice — 110, 12 ounces of diet soft drink — 0, 12 ounces of fruit punch — 140, 1 cup of nonfat milk — 90, 1 cup of whole milk — 160, 12-ounce milk shake — 425, 12-ounce beer — 150, 1 cocktail — 150, 12 ounces of mineral water — 0.
Plain water also has no calories and doesn’t irritate your system — but it is PLAIN.
So, if you can’t stick to water, drink what you want but remember to count your liquid calories in the total.Â
March 16th, 2009 03:47pm
Mike DeDoncker
Unless we have some decidedly un-springlike weather, I’ll be somewhere on the Sinnissippi Bike Path when spring officially arrives at 6:44 a.m. Friday.
I’ve been getting outside to run in a — mostly — straight line now for a couple of weeks after spending the winter going around in ovals and abusing my hips on the YMCA’s indoor track. When I gave up racing — not like I was a threat to beat anyone in my age group — a little over five years ago I also gave up running outdoors in anything colder than 20 degrees above zero.
I’ve read several articles about how exercising outdoors in cold weather helps build your resistance to wintertime ailments — and when I ran outside in winter, I rarely had a cold or the flu — but just couldn’t continue to push myself out the door when I knew I wasn’t training for anything specific.
Now, instead of just feeling the moderating temperatures, spring running is kind of a jailbreak for me and that makes it all the more fun. My hips sure appreciate it, anyway.
So let me encourage you to take your workout outside. It’s getting to be that time.
February 18th, 2009 06:13pm
Mike DeDoncker
In a few months short of 40 years at the Register Star, I’ve listened to a lot of stories because I had to.
This Sunday, I’m going to listen to one because I want to. The Coronary Health Improvement Project (CHIP) is bringing Appleton, Wis., florist Verna Van Nuland to the YMCA of Rock River Valley’s Northest Branch at 8451 Orth Road from 4:30 to 6 p.m., and I want to hear her story.
The local CHIP organization, of course, has been advertising the appearance so I already know part of it. She was on the express route to inspecting daisy roots and had already made her funeral arrangements and written a goodbye letter to family and friends when a doctor suggested the CHIP eating program to her.
She’s lost 75 pounds, bicycled over 1,300 miles and gotten rid of a boatload of medications since then. In short, she got her life back.
There’s no getting around it that CHIP, when adhered to completely, is a vegan eating plan. It’s tough. I know, because I tried it. But no one says you have to do it all the time every day. I still try to have totally vegetarian days every week and most of the time I make it.
The point is that the evidence that CHIP is definitely onto something good is growing all the time.
Hey, there’s no football on this Sunday and I don’t think they’re televising spring training yet, so why not give CHIP a looksee.
January 20th, 2009 06:00pm
Mike DeDoncker
Last month, when we were preparing to make a HealthyRockford.com year-end video for 2008, I looked online for the top quotations ever made on the subject of health for help in writing the introduction.
I was just rifling my desk for something else and found the printout I made of the quotes. Upon reading them again, I thought “Gee, some of these are actually pretty good advice.” Here’s a sample of their wisdom:
“As I see it, every day you do one of two things: build health or produce disease in yourself,” — Adelle Davis.
“What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease,” — George Dennison Prentice.
 ”Health is not valued till sickness comes,” — Dr. Thomas Fuller.
“Health is not simply the absence of sickness,” — Hannah Green.
“To insure good health: eat lightly, breathe deeply, live moderately, cultivate cheerfulness, and maintain an interest in life,” — William Londen.
Even some that were meant to be funny are worth thinking about.
“There’s lots of people who spend so much time watching their health, they haven’t got the time to enjoy it,” — Josh Billings.
“It’s no longer a question of staying healthy. It’s a question of finding a sickness you like,” –Jackie Mason.
And, of course, “Take care of your body. It’s the only place you have to live.”Â
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