Social Workout

Scientific

On Sweat, Ladies, and the Myth of Misting

The Journal of Experimental Physiology publishes a new Japanese study on the pressing physiological question of sweat, which The Times' Gretchen Reynold's notes has received "surprisingly little scientific scrutiny" — all those anti-perspirant ads notwithstanding. Apparently, what's long been known is that fitter people, male and female, sweat more than unfit people; but the new study gets at the specific differences between men and women. Here's the short take:

• Fit men sweat the most. They start sweating early, and dump buckets. This allows them to maintain high levels of exertion without overheating. 
• Fit women activate just as many sweat glands as fit men, BUT they generate less sweat from each gland.
• Unfit men are (seemingly) of no interest. Ha ha ha!
• Unfit WOMEN, however, "by a wide margin, perspired the least." Thus, they "became physiologically hotter — their core temperatures rising notably — before they began to sweat at full capacity." 

What's it all mean, and why did evolution leave the ladies drier and hotter? “Prehistoric men followed the herds, whatever the temperature, while the women, cleverly, sought out the shade," says one of expert to The Times. “It’s not a bad survival strategy."

Live from Wall Street

Yoga is the "Fastest Growing Sport" in America

Bloomberg news visits I.AM.YOU yoga and files an in depth report on the yoga economy. Salient facts: 16 million Americans now do yoga, and the "sport" is "gaining practitioners more quickly than golf, tennis, and mountaineering." Watch video for disorienting feeling of yoga discussed by financial analysts.... (Via mizzFit.)

Scientific

Acupuncture and the Super Placebo

Some people swear by acupuncture, others are skeptical. Score one for the skeptics. A new study run by the M. D. Anderson Cancer Center administered real and "fake" acupuncture to 455 patients with arthritic knees, and found that the sham treatment produced exactly the same, small, positive results as the real thing. Tara Parker Pope reports for The Times:

In the real treatment group, needles were inserted at specific points on the body and manipulated in accordance with traditional Chinese acupuncture techniques. In the sham treatment group, needles also were inserted, but not at the locations traditionally used for acupuncture. Electrical stimulation was also used, although those in the sham group received lower voltage and far shorter treatments....

Scientific

Training Bras in Second Grade?

Here's a red flag for modernity: Pediatrics magazine is reporting this week that girls are hitting puberty earlier. Earlier, like age seven. A study run by the Cincinniti Children's Hospital suggests that the number of seven year old white girls developing breasts doubled from 1997 to 2004. (Black girls were already there.) What's going on? Researchers suspect obesity.

Better than Prozac

Curing Depression the Old Fashioned Way

This afternoon I give you two dope hormone stories: First, Time magazine reports that some doctors (as in stuffy establishment M.D.s) are beginning to treat depression with exercise. This sounds like common sense, but is apparently considered unorthodox. What little research there is on the subject, however, is promising. Like a 1999 Duke study that showed a regular routine of aerobic exercise helped depressed patients as much as a regular regime of sertraline, a.k.a. Zoloft. Seems that exercise and anti-depressents alter brain chemistry in similar ways, i.e. by boosting your levels of seratonin and norepinephrine. The belated "ah ha" moment for the medical establishment?

It occurs to us that exercise is the more normal or natural condition, and that being sedentary is really the abnormal situation," [said one researcher.] Humans (and lab rats) never evolved to be cooped up, still, all day long. Our brains simply may not be built for an environment without physical activity.

Research

Sonic Boom in Your Love Handles

Say hello to Ultrashape, a new "body-contouring" technology. Simply point the "wand-like transducer" at your love handles and blammo, "high-intensity ultrasound waves guided by a sophisticated tracking and delivery system...explode unwanted fat cells — much the way heat-seeking missiles destroy enemy objects." Yowza. You're thinking this is some late-night Ronco infomercial? Wrong! That description is straight out of Time magazine which reports that the Ultrashape is not quite a joke. "We know the...technology works," says one unaffiliated doctor interviewee to Time. "It really does 'melt' fat as a walk-in/walk-out procedure." Well, so, 200,000 people have used it, with mixed-but-not laughable results. Available now in Europe, Israel, and Canada, and pending FDA approval in the U.S.A. Whatever, but here's the truly crazy part: Time explains that Ultrashape was born in Yokneam, a tiny Israeli town in the bucolic hills of Galilee, 20 or so miles from Nazareth. Yokneam, it turns out, is the Silicon Valley of "beauty technology," churning out new gizmos and treatments based on scientific breakthroughs made possible by Israel's bottomless military R&D budget. Let's break it down: Spend billions in the Holy Land on weapons which, if nothing else, demonstrate our profound internal imperfections; get magic wands which make us appear "perfect" on the outside. Reality is stranger than fiction.

Other Places

Research

Social Pressure Turns Couch Potato to Gym Rat

When it comes to exercise, people thrive with a little push, but not enough of us ask for it, or get it. This is the upshot of a massive feature in today's Wall Street Journal which rounds up the latest research on social interaction and exercise. In one Stanford University study, test subjects set exercise goals and were then divided into three groups. One group received a "check in" call every three weeks from a human being, another got a call from a "robot" voice, and a third group got no call at all. Turns out just getting that call, even from the robot, produced an 80% increase in physical activity, while the no call control group saw a  28% increase (despite knowing that they were a part of a study). And, surprisingy, the positive effects of those check in calls lasted long after the study ended. Other interesting stats?

Sexy is Healthy

Brazilian Cure for High Blood Pressure: Sex

This may or may not come as a surprise, but Brazil has high blood pressure. The solution? More cardiovascular exercise, advises Jose Temprano, the country's health minister, AND more sex,"with protection obviously." The HuffPo has the story of Mr. Temprano's pronouncements, noting that the incidence of high blood pressure in Brazil jumped to 24.4 percent in 2009. Where to go with this one? Well, how about simply noting that the incidence of high blood pressure in the U.S. actually hit 30.6% in 2009. Maybe if Americans had as much sex as Brazilians (and also learned the samba) our rate would drop six points? Don't expect to get the sex-as-cardio counsel from Kathleen Sebelius, current U.S. Secretary of Health, any time soon, however.

Scientific

The Cheese Trap

This just in: Eating cheese may slighly reduce your risk of cancer. Why? It has to do with the consumption of "menaquinones," otherwise known as Vitamin K, and specifically Vitamin K delivered by cheese. The hardcore research blogs are twittering (metaphorically) about the new European study, which involved 24,340 subjects and took ten years. What's the big deal? Well, anything cancer-fighting is news, but the Heretic blog points out that this finding seems to fly in the face of earlier, well known findings suggesting that cheese consumption might increase the risk of cancer....

Rural Fitness

Country Mouse Fatter than City Mouse

If you lived in the country, you'd be in better shape, right? No need for lame parks or crowded gyms. You'd just step into your backyard, and go. Not. Counterintuitive research finding of the day: By some measures, like obesity, rural people are in worse shape than urbanites. Yes, this is somewhat the tale of different demographics: Affluent outdoors enthusiasts who move to the country tend to be healthy, but poor people born in the country, less so. Even still, holding all other variables constant, city folks are in better shape, and this is causing real concern among citizens of states like Maine. What's the problem? Ironically, city folks have easier access to gyms and running paths — and they might even walk to get around during the day. It's hard to step into your backyard and go for a run or walk when it's dark outside, and the roads aren't lit, or there's snow on the ground, or the State Park with the great trails is 50 miles away. Moral? Urban folks should appreciate their convenient, crowded, sweaty gym; and country folks should perhaps stock up on P90X DVDs.