TAC Blog

It’s time to conquer the fear and enjoy your life.

Timberhill Athletic Club will be holding a come-one-come-all book release party for Cindy Killip’s new book, Living the BONES Lifestyle: A Practical Guide to Conquering the Fear of Osteoporosis on Wednesday, May 2nd from 5:30pm to 7:30pm. Refreshments will be served and Cindy will be available for book signings.

          It has been estimated that osteoporosis is associated with at least 1.5 million fractures per year. This awareness has led to improved research and screening, as well as medications and supplements that can help slow bone loss. Unfortunately the messages that are sent to encourage consumers to take action are usually fear-driven. Living the BONES Lifestyle is the culmination of six years of reviewing, compiling and applying the labyrinth of international research and information about osteoporosis in an effort to diminish the fear associated with it. Cindy’s goal with this book is to help you understand this thing called osteoporosis and teach you simple lifestyle changes that help build stronger bones, so fear will no longer drive you but knowledge and courage will inspire you to take action.

          The book was published through the publishing company, Level Head Wellness and is distributed through Amazon and Barnes and Noble to bookstores, online retailers, libraries, and academic institutions. It covers balance training, osteoporosis tests and how to read them, nutritional strategies, exercises for building strong bones, and supplements and medication. A key element that sets this book apart from other books about osteoporosis is its focus on exercises proven to increase bone mineral density. Cindy explains the “whys” and “hows” of bone-building exercises, including detailed illustrations and modifications for severe osteoporosis.

          Cindy is an Advanced Health and Fitness Specialist who has been teaching and writing about the power of positive movement for over 22 years. Known as “The Balance Coach,” she is a personal trainer, fitness instructor, author and public speaker. She draws from a strong knowledge of anatomy and exercise science as well as social psychology and communications. She has training in a multitude of movement disciplines including somatics, pilates, yoga, martial arts, sports, and dance. Her background in competitive sports including NCAA collegiate soccer and softball started her on the path to becoming a fitness expert and her passion to help people enjoy their lives throughout their lifespan has guided her to her current area of expertise.

 www.boneslifestyle.com

Experts agree that group exercise can be beneficial.  Working out in a group provides support, accountability, and structure.  People don't want to let their buddy or group down, which is terrific in terms of adherence to an exercise outline.
     Patient information published in 2005 in the Journal of American Academy of Physician Assistants also recommends that people exercise with a partner or group because they are more likely to stay on track.
     Other benefits of group fitness: You're more likely to complete a well-rounded exercise routine and get a potentially tougher workout.  In a class, the instructor can say, 'let's pick up the pace,’ A class can help you move past a plateau — if you want to push yourself a little bit and improve.
     We encourage new exercisers to introduce themselves to the instructor when they join a group. Tell him or her that you're new and declare your goals, and say that you want to stick with the program. In response, an instructor can offer exercises for your skill level.
     If you are looking for that support system to keep you on track and motivated, TAC has more than 80 group exercise classes a week to choose from.  Come in and introduce yourself, instructors are always glad to see you.  If you are feeling overwhelmed, contact one of our friendly staff members they will help make the transition smoother.

Dealing with Chronic Pain

Chronic pain is a huge problem. Over 115 million people nationwide—about 1 in 3 Americans—suffer from some kind of long-term pain. It’s the leading reason that people miss work.

NIH-funded scientists are working to better understand and treat chronic pain. They’re uncovering the intricate pathways that lead to long-term pain. And they’re looking for approaches beyond medication that might help you control your pain.

Chronic pain differs in many ways from acute pain. Acute pain is part of the body’s response to an injury or short-term illness. Acute pain can help prevent more serious injury. For instance, it can make you quickly pull your finger away from a hot stove or keep your weight off a broken ankle. The causes of acute pain can usually be diagnosed and treated, and the pain eventually ends.

But the causes of chronic pain aren’t always clear. “It’s a complex problem that involves more than just the physical aspects of where the hurt seems to be,” says Dr. John Killen, deputy director of NIH’s National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. “There’s a lot of accumulating scientific evidence that chronic pain is partly a problem of how the brain processes pain.”

Chronic pain can come in many forms, and it accompanies several conditions including low-back pain, arthritis, cancer, migraine, fibromyalgia, endometriosis and inflammatory bowel disease. These persistent pains can severely limit your ability to move around and perform day-to-day tasks. Chronic pain can lead to depression and anxiety. It’s hard to look on the bright side when pain just won’t go away. Some experts say that chronic pain is a disease itself.

The complexities of chronic pain can make it difficult to treat. Many of today’s medications for chronic pain target inflammation. These drugs include aspirin, ibuprofen and COX-2 inhibitors. But if taken at high doses for a long time, these drugs can irritate your stomach and digestive system and possibly harm your kidneys. And they don’t work for everyone.

“With hard-to-treat pain, the opioids are also used, sometimes in combination with the other drugs,” says Dr. Raymond Dionne, who oversees some of NIH’s clinical pain research. Opioids include prescription painkillers such as codeine and morphine and brand-name drugs such as Vicodin, Oxycontin and Percocet. Opioids affect the processes by which the brain perceives pain. If used improperly, though, opioids can be addictive, and increasingly high doses may be needed to keep pain in check.

“As with all drugs, you have to find a balance between effectiveness and side effects,” says Dionne. He and other researchers have studied potential new pain medications to learn more about how they work in the body. But for the most part, pain medications are similar to those used 5 or more decades ago. That’s why some researchers are looking for approaches beyond medications.

“One thing we know is that currently available drug therapies don’t provide all the answers. Many people find that medications don’t fully relieve their chronic pain, and they can experience unpleasant side effects,” Killen says. “Evidence on a number of fronts, for several conditions, suggests that mind and body approaches can be helpful additions to conventional medicine for managing chronic pain.”

Research has shown that patients with chronic low-back pain might benefit from acupuncture, massage therapy, yoga or cognitive-behavioral therapy (a type of talk therapy).

NIH-funded scientists have also found that people with fibromyalgia pain might find relief through tai chi. This mind-body technique combines meditation, slow movements, deep breathing and relaxation.

But how much these approaches truly help is still an open question. Studies of pain relief can be difficult to interpret. Researchers must rely on patients to complete questionnaires and rate their own levels of pain.

One puzzler is that the exposure to the exact same pain-causing thing, or stimulus, can lead to completely different responses in different people. For example, when an identical heat stimulus is applied to different people’s arms, one may report feeling uncomfortable, while another might say that the pain is extreme.

“How do we account for these differences? We’ve now learned that genes play a role,” says Dr. Sean Mackey, who heads Stanford University’s neuroscience and pain lab. “Some differences involve our personality and mood states, including anxiety.”

Mackey and his team are using brain scans to gain insights into how we process and feel pain. One study found that a painful stimulus can activate different brain regions in people who are anxious than in those who are fearful of pain.

In another study, volunteers were taught strategies that could turn on specific brain regions. One technique involved mentally changing the meaning of the pain and thinking about it in a non-threatening way.

“We found that with repeated training, people can learn how to build up this brain area, almost like a muscle, and make its activity much stronger,” says Mackey. “That led to a significant improvement overall in their pain perception.” The researchers also found that different types of mental strategies, such as distraction, engaged different brain regions.

Another study found that intense feelings of passionate love can provide surprisingly effective pain relief. “It turns out that the areas of the brain activated by intense love are the same areas that drugs use to reduce pain,” says Mackay.

“We can’t write a prescription for patients to go home and have a passionate love affair,” says Mackey. “But we can suggest that you go out and do things that are rewarding, that are emotionally meaningful. Go for a walk on a moonlit beach. Go listen to some music you never listened to before. Do something that’s novel and exciting.”

That’s a prescription that should be painless to try.

Running, and participation in races, has really picked up here in Linn/Benton County.   Each weekend through the summer will be packed with races from a 5k to the half marathon.    I have the privilege of helping to put on the Corvallis half marathon, and work with the HOTV (Heart of the Valley) running club in helping people train, and meet nutrition needs for the Corvallis half.   

It’s really fun to work with a new, highly motivated group.  Running is different from any other fitness type sport; there are some basic fundamental physiological rules that must be followed to be successful in this sport, especially in the nutrition hydration area.  Runners need to properly fuel their bodies both at rest and while training or racing.     Enclosed are a few of the main topic areas I think are important for new runners.

Let’s start with basic diet, and calorie intake. As this article talks about, you have to take in enough calories to meet your training needs and know what types of foods are right for endurance sports: http://www.realbuzz.com/articles/a-balanced-diet-for-runners/ 

More specific diet composition info for people who are training for longer distances more frequently http://www.realbuzz.com/articles/what-should-runners-eat-and-drink-during-training/

Fluid intake for runners:  http://www.realbuzz.com/articles/the-importance-of-fluids-to-runners/

Can we drink too much?  This is a national issue. Particularly in populations running marathon distances:   http://www.realbuzz.com/articles/is-it-possible-for-runners-to-drink-too-much-water/ 

Keep in mind total calories and diet composition (% of carbs, protein, fats) guidelines are based on one’s level of fitness, and years of training in the sport.    Know your level of fitness (or basic pace per mile when you run or walk) and the months/years of continuous or periodic training to make your diet and hydration choices.

Mike Waters, Director of Health Promotion for TAC has been helping runners of all distances for over 30 years with their nutrition and training needs.     If you’d like him to help you with yours, you may contact him at timberhill.mike@comcast.net  or 541-207-4368 

NIH news

Take Steps To Reduce Heart Risks

February is American Heart Month—a time to reflect on the sobering fact that heart disease remains the number one killer of both women and men in the United States. The good news is you have the power to protect and improve your heart health. 

NIH and other government agencies have been working to advance our understanding of heart disease so that people can live longer, healthier lives. Research has found that you can lower your risk for heart disease simply by adopting sensible health habits.

To protect your heart, the first step is to learn your own personal risk factors for heart disease. Risk factors are conditions or habits that make you more likely to develop a disease. Risk factors can also increase the chances that an existing disease will get worse.

Certain risk factors—like getting older or having a family history of heart disease—can’t be changed. But you do have control over some important risk factors such as high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, excess weight, diabetes and physical inactivity. Many people have more than one risk factor. To safeguard your heart, it’s best to lower or eliminate as many as you can because they tend to “gang up” and worsen each other’s effects.

A large NIH-supported study published last month underscores the importance of managing your risk factors. Scientists found that middle-aged adults with one or more elevated risk factors, such as high blood pressure, were much more likely to have a heart attack or other major heart-related event during their remaining lifetime than people with optimal levels of risk factors.

“For example, women with at least 2 major risk factors were 3 times as likely to die from cardiovasculardisease as women with none or 1 risk factor,” says Dr. Susan B. Shurin, acting director of NIH’s National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. “You can and should make a difference in your heart health by understanding and addressing your personal risk.”

To tackle your heart risk factors, it helps to know your numbers. Ask your health care provider to measure your blood cholesterol and blood pressure. Then determine if your weight is in the healthy range.

The higher your cholesterol level, the greater your risk for heart disease or heart attack. High blood cholesterol itself doesn’t cause symptoms, so you can’t know if your cholesterol is too high unless you have it tested. Routine blood tests can show your overall cholesterol level and separate levels of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, HDL (“good”) cholesterol and triglycerides. All of these blood measurements are linked to your heart health.

High blood pressure (hypertension) is another major risk factor for heart disease, as well as for stroke. High blood pressure is often called the “silent killer” because, like high cholesterol, it usually has no symptoms. Blood pressure is always reported as 2 numbers, and any numbers above 120/80 mmHg raise your risk of heart disease and stroke.

“Scientific evidence is strong that controlling high blood cholesterol and high blood pressure prevents cardiac events such as heart attacks,” says Dr. Michael Lauer, a heart disease specialist at NIH. 

Your weight is another important number to know. To find out if you need to lose weight to reduce your risk of heart disease, you’ll need to calculate your body mass index (BMI, a ratio of weight to height). This NIH web page can help: www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/bmicalc.htm. A BMI between 25 and 29.9 means that you’re overweight, while a BMI of 30 or higher means obesity.

Next, take out a tape measure. A waist measurement of more than 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men raises the risk of heart disease and other serious health conditions. Fortunately, even a small weight loss (between 5% and 10% of your current weight) can help lower your risk.

NIH has many tools available to help you aim for a healthy weight, including physical activity tips and a menu planner. To learn more, visit http://healthyweight.nhlbi.nih.gov/.

A heart-healthy diet includes a variety of fruits, vegetables and whole grains, as well as lean meats, poultry, fish, beans and fat-free or low-fat dairy products. Try to avoid saturated fat, trans fat, cholesterol, sodium (salt) and added sugar.

NIH's Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes (TLC) and Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diets both promote healthy eating. U.S. News & World Report named TLC and DASH the top 2 overall diets for 2012.

Regular physical activity is another powerful way to reduce your risk of heart-related problems and enjoy a host of other health benefits. To make physical activity a pleasure rather than a chore, choose activities you enjoy. Take a brisk walk, play ball, lift light weights, dance or garden. Even taking the stairs instead of an elevator can make a difference.

“At least 2 and a half hours a week of moderate-intensity physical activity can lower your risk of heart disease, stroke, hypertension and diabetes—a winner on multiple counts,” says Dr. Diane Bild, a cardiovascular epidemiologist at NIH.

If you have diabetes, it’s important to keep your blood sugar, or glucose, under control. About two-thirds of people with diabetes die of heart or blood vessel disease. If you’re at risk for diabetes, modest changes in diet and level of physical activity can often prevent or delay its development.

If you happen to be a smoker, the best thing you can do for your heart is stop. People who smoke are up to 6 times more likely to suffer a heart attack than nonsmokers. The risk of heart attack increases with the number of cigarettes smoked each day.

The good news is that quitting smoking will immediately begin to reduce your risk, and the benefit in reduced risk will continue to increase over time. Just one year after you stop smoking, your risk will have dropped by more than half.

Beyond controlling your risk factors, you should be alert to certain symptoms and get checked by a doctor. Common signals that something‘s wrong with your heart include angina—pain in the chest, shoulders, arms, neck, jaw or back—as well as shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat or palpitations (arrhythmia) 
and fatigue.

Be aware that the symptoms of a heart attack can vary from person to person. If you’ve already had a heart attack, your symptoms may not be the same if you have another one.

Finally, don’t forget that you can influence your loved ones’ heart health by setting an example. Do you have children, grandchildren or other young people who look up to you? If you follow a heart-healthy lifestyle, it’s more likely that they will, too.  Because heart disease begins in childhood, one of the best things you can do for those you love is to help children build strong bodies and healthy habits. 

The bottom line is, it’s never too late to take steps to protect your heart. It’s also never too early. Start today to keep your heart strong. Talk to your doctor about your risk and to create an action plan. Love your heart.