There’s growing evidence that physical activity improves quality of life and eases some cancer-related fatigue. More, it can help fend off a serious decline in physical function that can last long after therapy is finished.

Consider: In one year, women who needed chemotherapy for their breast cancer can see a swapping of muscle for fat that’s equivalent to 10 years of normal aging, says Dr. Wendy Demark-Wahnefried of the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

In other words, a 45-year-old may find herself with the fatter, weaker body type of a 55-year-old.

Scientists have long advised that being overweight and sedentary increases the risk for various cancers. Among the nation’s nearly 12 million cancer survivors, there are hints — although not yet proof — that people who are more active may lower risk of a recurrence. And like everyone who ages, the longer cancer survivors live, the higher their risk for heart disease that exercise definitely fights.

The American College of Sports Medicine convened a panel of cancer and exercise specialists to evaluate the evidence. Guidelines issued this month advise cancer survivors to aim for the same amount of exercise as recommended for the average person: about 2½ hours a week.

Patients still in treatment may not feel up to that much, the guidelines acknowledge, but should avoid inactivity on their good days.

“You don’t have to be Lance Armstrong,” stresses Dr. Julia Rowland of the National Cancer Institute, speaking from a survivorship meeting this month that highlighted exercise research. “Walk the dog, play a little golf.”

But how much exercise is needed? And what kind? Innovative new studies are under way to start answering those questions, including:

—Oregon Health and Science University is training prostate cancer survivors to exercise with their wives. The study will enroll 66 couples, comparing those given twice-a-week muscle-strengthening exercises with pairs who don’t get active.

Researchers think exercising together may help both partners stick with it. They’re also testing if the shared activity improves both physical functioning and eases the strain that cancer puts on the caregiver and the marriage.

“It has the potential to have not just physical benefits but emotional benefits, too,” says lead researcher Dr. Kerri Winters-Stone.

—Demark-Wahnefried led a recent study of 641 overweight breast cancer survivors that found at-home exercises with some muscle-strengthening, plus a better diet, could slow physical decline.

—Duke University is recruiting 160 lung cancer patients to test if three-times-a-week aerobic exercise, strength training or both could improve their fitness after surgery. Lung cancer has long been thought beyond the reach of exercise benefits because it’s so often diagnosed at late stages. But Duke’s Dr. Lee Jones notes that thousands who are caught in time to remove the lung tumor do survive about five years, and he suspects that fitness — measured by how well their bodies use oxygen — plays a role.

People with cancer usually get less active as symptoms or treatments make them feel lousy. Plus, certain therapies can weaken muscles, bones, even the heart. Not that long ago, doctors advised taking it easy.

Not anymore: Be as active as you’re able, says Dr. Kathryn Schmitz of the University of Pennsylvania, lead author of the new guidelines.

“Absolutely it’s as simple as getting up off the couch and walking,” she says.

Exercise programs are beginning to target cancer survivors, like Livestrong at the YMCA, a partnership with cycling great and cancer survivor Lance Armstrong’s foundation. The American College of Sports Medicine now certifies fitness trainers who specialize in cancer survivors.

But anyone starting more vigorous activity for the first time or who has particular risks — like the painful arm swelling called lymphedema that some breast cancer survivors experience — may need more specialized exercise advice, Schmitz says. They should discuss physical therapy with their oncologist, she advises.

For example, Schmitz led a major study that found careful weight training can protect against lymphedema, reversing years of advice to coddle the at-risk arm. But the average fitness trainer doesn’t know how to safely offer that special training, she cautions.

Mary Lou Galantino of Wilmington, Del., is a physical therapist who specializes in cancer care — and kept exercising when her own breast cancer was diagnosed at Penn in 2003. Then 42, she says she was on the treadmill within 24 hours of each chemo session, to stay fit enough to care for her two preschoolers.

“You can feel more energy” with the right exercise, says Galantino, a physical therapy professor at the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. “I was giving my body up to the surgeons and chemo, but I could take my body back through yoga and aerobic exercise.”  By Lauran Neergaard, The Guardian

Obese men with ED have low levels of testosterone, and lower still if their girth is greater. Excess abdominal fat, cardiovascular disease, high blood lipids and type-2 diabetes have been associated with ED.

“This is a landmark study that shows sexual health is clearly linked to overall health,” said Irwin Goldstein, who directs the sexual medicine programme at San Diego’s Alvarado Hospital .

However, similar benefits are not as clear for women. Obese women do report more sexual impairment than obese men. Published studies indicate this may be more related to low self-esteem, unsatisfactory relationships, social stigma, and other psychological issues.

“A woman’s libido can be affected by many factors, such as the stress of caring for a sick relative,” Goldstein said. “There is no evidence yet to indicate that weight-loss surgery automatically makes sex better.”

He said when it comes to sexual activity, body size doesn’t always matter. Thin, healthy people may be perceived as having the best body image and sexual function, but that is not always the case.

“There are plenty of sexually active heavy people and sexually inactive thin people,” Goldstein said. “I see them everyday in my practice.”

Then there’s the new reflection in the mirror. A weight loss of 100 pounds or more may leave folds of excess skin. Plastic surgery is effective, but it is costly and not always covered by health insurance.

Psychologist Lisa Steres, who provides counselling for bariatric (removal of fat) surgery patients at Alvarado Hospital, says it can take years for a patient’s brain to catch up with the new body, said an Alvarado Hospital release.

“Body image greatly impacts libido, particularly in women,” Steres said. “Young women typically have better body image, and some women are sexually confident at any size.” The Times of India

Women who said they walked briskly had a 37 per cent lower risk of stroke than those who didn’t walk. Women who reported walking at least two hours a week at any pace had a 30 per cent lower risk, according to a study published online yesterday in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.

While previous studies have shown that physical activity decreases the chances of having a stroke, the new study focused on what kind of exercise might be most beneficial for women.

“This certainly speaks to walking for a certain amount of time and walking briskly as well,” said Jacob Sattelmair, lead author of the study and a doctoral student at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

Those walking at a brisk pace should be able to talk but not sing, he said.

The research involved about 39,000 female health workers 45 or older enrolled in the Women’s Health Study. The women were periodically asked about their physical activity. During 12 years of follow-up, 579 had strokes.

Besides walking, the study looked at vigorous activities like running, swimming and biking, but researchers didn’t find a link between those vigorous activities and a reduced stroke risk. The Times of India

Besides his busy medical practice, Nandkarni exercises four times a week, is an avid golfer and pursues writing and music with equal passion. “Wellness is also about synthesising the left and right side of the brain. Stress comes from the left brain, while the right side tells you how to tackle it. For a healthy body and mind, you need to practise visiting the latter more often,” he says.

As he prepares to launch Knee Problem, No Problem, his third book after Real Fitness and Calm Sutra, Nandkarni gives some sutras from what he calls “the dictionary of good health”:

Awareness

Means being in sync with the present moment. Start with the tangible stuff. Say, if you are eating, then enjoy your food and be fully in tune with the texture and taste. Similarly each time you sit, be aware of your posture and correct it. Gradually it will spread to other aspects in life too.

Breathing

Breath awareness is the best exercise to remain in the present. Breathe through the nose, pause, become aware of your lungs filling in and then start exhaling slowly. Do this at least five times in a day.

Cardio-exercise

The best cardio exercise you can give your body is morning walk. Cardio makes your fat disappear, heart healthier and puts you in another training zone. Feel too lazy to join a gym? Just invest in a good pair of walking shoes. You will feel inspired to take a walk.

Dance

Though we belong to an inhibited culture, dancing with all your heart can be therapeutic. If you are shy, start off by dancing with close friends. Else join an organised workshop with your partner – it helps both, your health and relationship.

Esteem

If you don’t know your worth, you are not worth knowing. One of the best ways to improve self-esteem is through positive affirmations. Constantly remind yourself you are good, it will provide impetus to get rid of bad habits.

Fun

Find out what is it that you enjoy the most – sports, music, reading… And devote at least a few hours every week to it. Your happiness quotient will rise dramatically.

Golf

Golf is green meditation. The walk on the grounds in the morning air, the water and the sounds of birds is calming. Forget golf, just take up any physical activity that gives you a kick.

Hydration

Lack of hydration adds to our stress levels and makes us irritable. Don’t wait for thirst to strike you. Keep sipping water throughout the day.

Introspection

It’s best to look inward the first day of the week. Make it a Monday morning exercise to check the balance sheet of life, make small targets for the week on each front – career, relationships etc – and work towards completing them.

Job-elation

Make your job a cause for celebration. If you aren’t lucky enough to do what you love, list the few things you enjoy in your job. Focus on those features alone to motivate yourself.

Karaoke

Music is hugely therapeutic. Karaoke can help discover your inner musician.

Laughter

Keep your eyes open to any chance of laughter. Take a cartoonist’s approach to minor irritants, especially when you can’t change the situation. Say if you are stuck in traffic, instead of feeling abusive, view some fellow commuter or cop’s expressions and try to seek some humour in it.

Meditation

If you find it difficult to sit still for a long time or meditate to music, just try feeling your breath. Shut your eyes for 5-6 minutes once in a day and listen to some melody. Store some soothing music in your cell and hear it on your way to work.

Nutrition

Go the basics. Stop fad diet. Have more vegetables. And try less-cooked or raw substances as far as possible.

Optimum weight

Reach your optimum weight with a combination of exercise and good food habits. Prevents a host of medical problems and perks performance, improves self-image and self-esteem.

Posture

Body posture has tremendous impact on health. Apart from indicating good body language, correct posture is important in preventing degenerative diseases. Be more aware of the way you sit and walk. And  invest in a good chair at work.

Quest

Learn new things. Get out of your comfort zone to activate the right side of the brain!

Relaxation

Practise progressive muscle relaxation techniques. Clench your body tightly for a few seconds and gradually let go.

Stretching

Stretch as and when you can. Wall pusher  or the Titanic pose are quick, easy examples.

Time management

There are four quadrants: urgent, non-urgent, important and non-important. Finish important things before they turn  urgent.

Understand

Listen carefully, without jumping into conclusions.  Understand before being understood.

Visualisation

Everything happens first in the mind and then in reality. Visualisation helps in goal setting.

Weight training

Weight training gives strength to your muscles, helps you keep joint problems at bay.

X-cursions

Try getting away. Else go on a ‘virtual vacation’ by reliving your holidays in your mind.

Yoga

It’s the most complete wellness form, but be careful of practising any new forms.

Zzzz, sleep and rest

Good sleep is a combination of  exercise, hydration and avoiding stimulants like coffee. Mumbai Mirror

But belly fat does more than spoil everyone’s day at the beach. It’s also associated with a variety of adverse health issues and can be a precursor to other problems — elevated blood glucose values, Type 2 diabetes, elevated blood pressure and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, for example.

“There’s an increased risk of heart disease with increasing waist circumference or abdominal fat, and increased risk of overall mortality,” warned Dr. Donald Hensrud, the chair of the division of preventive medicine at the Mayo Clinic and the medical editor-in-chief of the Mayo Clinic diet.

In other words: Lose the paunch, and you’ll be healthier.

TWO KINDS OF FAT

Hensrud explained that there are two types of abdominal fat involved, subcutaneous fat and visceral fat.

“Visceral fat is inside the abdominal wall; subcutaneous fan is outside the abdominal wall, the stuff you can grab. It’s commonly believed that visceral fat is more harmful, associated with more health risks than subcutaneous fat,” he said. “While that’s generally true, it’s not 100 percent the case. There’s some evidence subcutaneous fat isn’t as benign as some people think.”

CAUSES OF BELLY FAT

There are several causes of belly fat.

Genetics can play a role. Being sedentary also contributes. Aging is another factor.

“As people age they tend to accumulate fat around the abdomen,” Hensrud said, pointing to a decline in hormone levels (testosterone in men, estrogen in women) that results in the added weight.

Smoking, interestingly, can also be blamed.

“In general, smoking is associated with a lower body weight,” he said. “But like alcohol, smokers also tend to carry their weight more in an abdominal distribution. So they might lose weight overall, but — this is generalizing — a smoker might be more likely to be thinner and have a little pot belly.”

Genetics, inactivity, age, smoking … and, of course, alcohol. Yes, we mean beer, and its high calorie content.

“Alcohol prevents the breakdown of fat to some extent, particularly around the abdomen,” Hensrud explained. “There seems to be more of an effect from beer rather than wine.”

WAYS TO LOSE BELLY FAT

There are three ways to combat the beer gut, none of which is a particular revelation. It comes down to the same-old/same-old: diet and exercise.

Cut down on your drinking

Especially the beer. If you’re really serious about losing the beer gut, eliminate it altogether and watch your weight slowly drop. If you’re not quite that motivated, maybe limit your drinking to weekends. It also would help to switch to light beer, which has around two-thirds the calories of regular beer.

Want to really go wild? If you must have a drink in your hand, try bottled water. Or fruit juice, but watch the caloric intake. Juice or water will keep you sober too.

“When people hold weight, whether it’s in their bellies or legs or wherever, it’s because of excess calories,” said Dawn Jackson Blatner, a registered dietitian and a spokeswoman for the American Dietetic Association. “And one of the key places people get excess calories is alcohol.”

Drinking can take you back to that other evil, eating. The two go hand-in-hand.

“Beer’s making people eat supersized pieces of pizza or burritos as big as your head,” she said.

A light beer can help.

“The average beer is probably 150 (calories) or more, and a light beer is 100 or less. If you figure somebody is drinking more than the two drinks a man is supposed to have in a night, that’s over 100 calories plus they’ll save.”

EAT SMARTER

Nothing goes with beer like greasy, fatty bar food. If you’re scrapping the beer, you might as well do it right and eliminate those deep-fried Twinkies and beer nuts from your diet as well. But go beyond skipping the mozzarella sticks. Eat sensibly.

“At least one paper showed that not eating breakfast was associated with visceral fat accumulation,” Hensrud says. “And other dietary patterns may affect fat distribution. One paper showed that a diet of 25 percent of total calories composed of fructose — high-fructose corn syrup, things like that — was associated with increased visceral weight gain.”

Eliminate the high-calorie junk food, and your body will burn fat. And you’ll lose weight. Eating more meals but with smaller portions — five a day instead of three, for example — can also help.

START EXERCISING

You can do 500 sit-ups a day, and your stomach muscles will get wonderfully strong. The problem is, they’ll be hidden under your beer gut. Sit-ups won’t make the fat disappear.

“You can’t spot reduce,” Hensrud said. “Either doing specific exercise, crunches, or wearing one of these belts around the middle things, it doesn’t work.”

On the other hand, when you do start to lose weight, you may notice it first in your tummy. Hensrud said that visceral fat seems to be more metabolically active, so it’s deposited and broken down more readily than fat in other places.

“So if people lose weight, they tend to lose it a little bit more readily around the middle,” he explained.

He also pointed out two studies that showed people who didn’t lose weight during an exercise program still lost visceral fat in the abdomen.

“Perhaps they added a little muscle elsewhere and broke down a little abdomen fat, but the bottom line was they didn’t lose weight.”

The best exercises are those that reduce total body fat, cardiovascular and aerobic programs. Running, swimming, cycling and tennis are all for burning off the fat. And it doesn’t have to be every day; 30 minutes a day, three or four times a week will result in noticeable weight loss. Exercise also improves your metabolism.

As for those expensive gut-busting machines sold on late-night infomercials, they’re a waste of time and money. Forget about them.

And if running and cycling are too strenuous, take an easier route: Go for a long, brisk walk. To the store. To buy some fruit and vegetables. Houston Chronicle

For 12 weeks a group of just over 260 patients swapped their normal food for a very-low-energy diet in the form of soups and milkshakes. 169 of the patients lost a lot of weight, averaging 16 per cent of their body weight. They were then divided into two groups so that they could switch back at different rates from the very-low-energy diet to energy reduced portions of normal food. One group completed the refeeding in a week, while the other took six weeks.

“After ten months the patients with the six-week refeeding period had gained 4 per cent in weight from their minimum weight, while the patients with the one-week refeeding period had gained eight per cent,” says Lena Gripeteg, researcher at the Sahlgrenska Academy.

Very-low-energy diets have been used for many years in the health service to achieve rapid and safe weight loss in obese patients. While this treatment method is well-studied, there is a risk that patients will gain weight when they start to eat normal food again.

“We therefore want to look at the importance of different treatment advice on the transition from the very-low-energy diet back to normal food, and assess what actually works,” says Gripeteg. “A simple tip that seems to work for patients is to revert slowly to normal food after losing weight on a very-low-energy diet.”

Her dissertation also includes research results from the current national SOS (Swedish Obese Subjects) study, which has followed 2,010 patients who have undergone surgical treatment for obesity and 2,037 matched control patients for up to 20 years. It shows that men who have undergone obesity surgery are less likely to need a disability pension, while obese women are just as likely to need a disability pension whether they lose weight or not.

“On the basis of this study, we can’t explain why there is a difference in the sexes,” says Gripeteg. “It may well be that the underlying health problems differ between women and men, which could explain why there is a significant improvement in the ability to work in men, but no effect in women after surgical obesity treatment.” PhysOrg

As such, all can pose dangers of little fingers getting trapped and pinched, weights falling on children, and slips, falls and entrapment. Secure your home gym equipment from curious children.  When you are working out, ensure that children are kept from within five feet of the equipment.  Keep the power cord unplugged so they can’t play with it when you are not watching.  If there is a chance of entanglement or entrapment in the cords, pulley ropes or other equipment parts, keep the room locked and off limits to children.