The Magnificence of Exercise: Choose Movement Over Medication

Psychotherapist Bob Livingstone writes about the benefits of exercise in his new book "The Body Mind Soul Solution: Healing Emotional Pain through Exercise" (Pegasus Books). He feels that the program in his book that combines exercise, self-questioning, journaling and listening to music is a healthy alternative to medication.

There is increasing evidence that exercise is just as effective as or more beneficial than medication for the depressed. One Duke University study titled "Effects of exercise training on older patients with major depression" determined that exercise was just as effective as medication in reducing Major Depressive Disorder in older patients without the adverse side effects of the drugs.

Another Duke University study found that continued exercise greatly reduces the possibility that depression will return, and a study that took place at The University of University of Texas Southwest Medical Center at Dallas also indicates that exercise alone would greatly reduce the symptoms of depression.

In celebration of the book selling out its first printing, a special EBook giveaway is being offered: Purchase "The Body Mind Soul Solution: Healing Emotional Pain through Exercise" on Amazon.com and then send the Amazon receipt to bobl@boblivingstone.com. You will then be sent a new EBook titled "The Miracle of Exercise: Letting Go of Anger, Hurt and Loss," which will be priced at $10.99. And if you act right now, you will also obtain another EBook titled "From Marriage to Mortality: How to Face Life's Challenges," which will be priced at $8.99. Right now they both are FREE!

Both EBooks contain a collection of articles that teach strategies on how to identify, face and resolve emotional pain.

Check out the rave reviews for "The Body Mind Soul Solution":
New York Times bestselling author of "The Fat Flush Diet," Ann Louise Gittleman, calls the book "Ground Breaking."

The prestigious Library Journal Review says that the book is "Highly Recommended."

The Miami Herald states, "Run through your anger and bike through your anguish with 'The Body Mind Soul Solution: Healing Emotional Pain through Exercise.' It explores different kinds of emotional pain and helps you search for the source so your mind and body can work in concert to resolve painful emotional issues."
Click on the book cover on http://www.boblivingstone.com to order from Amazon and then submit your receipt to bobl@boblivingstone.com to obtain his two new EBooks at no charge! This promotion is for a limited time only, so why not buy the book today?

Bob Livingstone has been featured in The San Francisco Chronicle, The Miami Herald, The Dallas Morning News, The Hartford Courant, Natural Health Magazine, The Library Journal, Grand Magazine, and Lee's Summit Journal.

He is a featured contributor to DrLaura.com, Beliefnet.com, Ediets.com, Selfgrowth.com and SheKnows.com. He is the author of the critically acclaimed book "The Body Mind Soul Solution: Healing Emotional Pain through Exercise" (Pegasus Books, Sept. 2007). For more emotional healing visit http://www.boblivingstone.com.

More Women Choosing Dermal Fillers as a Nonsurgical Alternative to Facelifts

Though not as durable as a facelift, dermal fillers have become popular among women seeking a younger look and offer yet another alternative to cosmetic surgery, reports the April 2008 issue of Harvard Women’s Health Watch.

Dermal fillers are substances injected into the skin of the face to fill in deep folds and wrinkles. They are used mainly for “static” facial lines and folds, the ones that don’t come and go as you change your expression. They work chiefly as a substitute for lost collagen and fat under the skin. Their results may vary in different areas of the face, as does the duration of their effect.

The dermal filler field is booming because the effects are immediate, the procedure doesn’t involve real surgery, and costs are reasonable with very few side effects, says Harvard Women’s Health Watch.

Fillers are used mainly in the lower two-thirds of the face. Vertical frown lines between the eyes and “tear troughs” below the eyes can also be treated, but complications are more common in these areas. The greatest danger is inadvertently injecting a filler into a blood vessel near an eye, causing a lack of circulation that results in blindness in that eye.

Harvard Women’s Health Watch suggests that before you decide to use a dermal filler, you should schedule a consultation with a practitioner you trust. Success depends greatly on the skill of the practitioner, so look for someone who has plenty of experience with different fillers. She or he should be very familiar with the anatomy of the area, adept at choosing and applying the filler, and able to manage any complications that may arise.

Also in this issue:
• The controversy over bio-identical hormones
• Exercises for neck pain
• Cranberries for urinary tract infections
• By the way, doctor: Should I get Life Line Screening?

Harvard Women’s Health Watch is available from Harvard Health Publications, the publishing division of Harvard Medical School, for $24 per year. Subscribe at www.health.harvard.edu/women or by calling 877-649-9457 (toll-free).

Red Wine, Tea, May Help Regulate Blood Sugar in Type 2 Diabetics

Red wine has been shown to protect people from heart disease, even when they follow a diet high in saturated fat, and the healing powers of tea are becoming the stuff of legend. Now, researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have shown that these beverages may hold promise for regulating the blood sugar of people with type 2 diabetes.

Results have been published in the Journal of Food Biochemistry. Researchers include food scientists Kalidas Shetty, Young-In Kwon and Emmanouil Apostolidis.

“Levels of blood sugar, or blood glucose, rise sharply in patients with type 2 diabetes immediately following a meal,” says Shetty. “Red wine and tea contain natural antioxidants that may slow the passage of glucose through the small intestine and eventually into the bloodstream and prevent this spike, which is an important step in managing this disease.”

One of the main challenges in managing diabetes is keeping blood sugar levels as normal as possible with few major fluctuations, which can prevent the disease from contributing to heart disease and high blood pressure as well as damaging the eyes, kidneys, nerves and blood vessels.

Both red and white wines were tested in the laboratory using in vitro enzyme studies to determine how well they could inhibit the activity of a target enzyme called alpha-glucosidase, responsible for triggering the absorption of glucose by the small intestine. Red wine was the winner, able to inhibit the enzyme by nearly 100 percent. Values for white wine hovered around 20 percent.

This was clearly related to the amount of a specific type of antioxidants, called polyphenolics, found in the wines. “Our testing showed that red wine contains roughly ten times more polyphenolics than white wine,” says Shetty. “Laboratory results suggest that these compounds, found in many plant-based foods, may play a role in inhibiting alpha-glucosidase and slowing the passage of carbohydrates into the bloodstream.”

Alpha-glucosidase is the target for current drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes and the development of new drugs.

The team also tested four kinds of tea, including black, oolong, white and green teas. Water extracts of black tea had the highest effect on inhibiting the activity of
alpha-glucosidase, followed by white tea and oolong tea.

Wine and tea had no effect on a pancreatic enzyme called alpha-amylase that breaks down starch, which could help patients avoid the side effects of medications used to control blood sugar.

“A major drawback of medications that control both enzymes is the bacterial fermentation of undigested carbohydrates, especially starch, in the colon, which can lead to side effects such as flatulence, bloating and diarrhea,” says Shetty. “Tea and wine had no effect on the breakdown of starch by alpha-amylase, which could potentially help patients avoid these side effects.”

Another benefit is that the polyphenolics in wine and tea could also help in protecting the rest of the body from the additional complications of diabetes such as high blood pressure and heart disease. Diabetes places a stress on the entire body by increasing the production of free radicals, including molecules that react with oxygen, which degrade cellular function. Both red wine and tea contain antioxidants with proven health benefits, and have the potential to manage heart disease, high blood pressure and perhaps contribute to the prevention of cancer, which are all linked to free radicals.

“These results provide strong evidence for further studying the use of wine and tea to manage some stages of type 2 diabetes using animal models and clinical studies, and point to the importance of an antioxidant-rich diet as part of an overall management strategy,” says Shetty. “This concept is not new, but we are finding clear cellular targets for the functions of dietary polyphenolics. Using specific beverage combinations could generate a whole food profile that has the potential to manage type 2 diabetes and its complications, especially in the early stages.”

(NewsWise)

Proper Seatbelt Use by Pregnant Women Would Save 200 Fetuses/Year

A new study could have a profound effect on fetal deaths and injuries caused by car accidents.

The study, by researchers at the University of Michigan, found that about 200 fetuses each year would not be lost if pregnant women properly buckled their seatbelts every time they were in an automobile.

“It’s very clear, based on this study, that pregnant women should buckle up every single time they’re in a vehicle,” says senior author Mark D. Pearlman, M.D., vice-chair in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the U-M Health System. “Our study strongly suggests that about 200 fetuses each year would not lose their lives if women simply buckled up each time.” An estimated 370 fetuses die as a result of car crashes each year in the United States.

The research debunks a long-standing myth that wearing a seatbelt is not safe for pregnant women, says Pearlman, the S. Jan Behrman Professor of Reproductive Medicine.

“Some women are very concerned because the lap belt overlies their fetus. This study shows that the opposite is true, that seatbelts clearly protect the fetus,” he notes. The study appears in the new issue of the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology.

The study results have led Pearlman to initiate a campaign called Safe Babi (Seatbelts Are For Everyone – Buckle All Babies In).

Pearlman teamed up with researchers from the U-M Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), the Department of Emergency Medicine and the College of Engineering to study data from 57 severe automobile crashes involving pregnant women. The study, the first of its kind, performed detailed crash analysis, including accurate estimates of the crash severity, restraint usage and pregnancy outcome. Among the six improperly restrained women, three (50 percent) resulted in fetal death or major fetal complications. Among the 10 unbelted women, eight (80 percent) of the instances resulted in fetal death or major complications. Among the properly restrained women, 29 percent of instances resulted in death or complications.

“Given that there are seatbelts in virtually every car in America, the cost effectiveness of a project like this is truly extraordinary,” says lead author Kathleen DeSantis Klinich, Ph.D., assistant research scientist with UMTRI.

The study states that:

• The routine use of seatbelts by pregnant women will prevent 84 percent of serious fetal adverse outcomes (injuries and deaths) due to car accidents.
• If all women simply wore their seatbelts during pregnancy, approximately 200 fetal lives would be saved. (The 200 lives saved don't include the number of prevented extreme preterm births, placental abruptions that result in brain injury, etc.)
• There are more fetal deaths due to car impacts than there are deaths of children due to bicycle accidents, or deaths of children due to car accidents in the first year of life.
• Women who are in car crashes resulting in serious fetal adverse outcomes are unbelted 62 percent of the time.
• About 6 percent to 7 percent of women who are pregnant are involved in a car crash during their pregnancy. That translates to about 170,000 car crashes a year involving pregnant women.

Other published research by Pearlman shows that women whose prenatal care provider says anything at all about seatbelt use during prenatal visits are much more likely to wear their seatbelts (92 percent if the physician or nurse mentioned it versus 71 percent if they didn't), according to Pearlman. He encourages health care providers to remind all of their pregnant patients about the importance of using seatbelts.

In addition to Pearlman and Klinich, authors of the study were Carol A.C. Flannagan, Ph.D., and Jonathan D. Rupp, Ph.D., both of UMTRI; Mark Sochor, M.D., of UMTRI and the U-M Department of Emergency Medicine; and Lawrence W. Schneider, Ph.D., of UMTRI and the U-M College of Engineering’s Department of Biomedical Engineering.

Financial support for the initial research described in the paper was provided by General Motors, pursuant to an agreement between GM and the U.S. Department of Transportation. The UMTRI crash database is sponsored by the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. Additional data collection by the Crash Injury Research and Engineering Network program was sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.