Money does make the mare go whether it has legs or no
A study has suggested that financial incentives – as modest as 5-dollars-per-week – can boost the amount of exercise people do.
Lead author Marc Mitchell, University of Toronto PhD candidate and Cardiac Rehabilitation Supervisor at Toronto Rehab and University of Toronto exercise psychologist Guy Faulkner and exercise physiologist Jack Goodman studied 1,500 patients for their study.
Dr. Paul Oh, Medical Director, Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation Program, Toronto Rehab, said that their research shows that people who participate in cardiac rehab programs after experiencing a major heart event cut their risk of dying from another cardiac event by as a much as 50 per cent.
He said that one of their concerns is there are people who need cardiac rehab, but are not receiving it or sticking with the program over the long term.
The study has been published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. (ANI)
Our bodies produce natural painkillers
Researchers have uncovered groundbreaking new information about how the body responds to traumatic injury. Remarkably, the body develops both physical and physiological dependence on this opioid – compounds that mitigate acute pain- system, just as it does to opiate narcotic drugs.
The scientists examined opioid function at sites of pain modulation in the spinal cord. When the opioids act at opioid receptor proteins, they ‘put the brakes’ on the transmission of pain signals to the brain.
Researchers have known for a while that blocking opioid receptors can increase the intensity of acute pain — the pain occurring immediately after injury.
To simulate human injury, the researchers produced inflammation, or skin incision, in a mouse model, then waited several weeks for signs of pain-like behaviors to subside.
They then administered opioid receptor blockers, effectively halting the pain-relieving actions of the opioid system. When the opioid system (which the authors use the term MORCA, for mu opioid receptor constitutive activity) was blocked, the mice reverted to a set of behaviors associated with the experience of pain. Surprisingly, they also experienced symptoms similar to the known effects of opioid withdrawal in the drug addict: tremor, jumping and shakiness. These results were observed even up to six and a half months after pain had seemingly resolved. The long-lasting nature of the phenomenon suggests that endogenous opioid analgesia silently continues long after an injury has healed. The research has been published in prestigious journal Science. (ANI)
Biomarker for smoking-related lung cancers identified
Researchers have revealed that that a specific protein pair has shown promise to become a successful prognostic biomarker for identifying smoking-related lung cancers. The protein – ASCL1 – is associated with increased expression of the RET oncogene, a particular cancer-causing gene called RET. Senior author George Vasmatzis, Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic molecular medicine researcher, said that it’s a clear biomarker for aggressive adenocarcinomas and that these are the fast-growing cancer cells that are found in smokers’ lungs. ASCL1 is known to control neuroendocrine cell development and was previously linked to regulation of thyroid and small cell lung cancer development, but not smoking-related lung cancer.
The research also showed that patients with ASCL1 tumors with high levels of the RET oncogene protein did not survive as long as ASCL1 patients with low levels of RET.
When researchers blocked the ASCL1 protein in lung cancer cell lines expressing both genes, the level of RET decreased and tumor growth slowed. This leads researchers to believe this mechanism will be a promising target for potential drugs and a strong candidate for clinical trials.
The findings have been published in the online issue of the journal Oncogene. (ANI)
30 minutes workout to stay healthy
Exercising for 30 minutes on a daily basis boosts energy and encourages people to maintain a healthy lifestyle, says a recent study.
Interdisciplinary research at the University of Copenhagen explains why moderate exercising is more motivating than hard training. The findings have been published in Scandinavian Journal of Public Health.
The obesity epidemic has massive socio-economic consequences, and decades of health campaigns have not made significant headway, reports Science Daily.
Researchers at the University of Copenhagen are pursuing the development of a new integrative methods for preventing and treating this widespread problem.
“Obesity is a complex social problem requiring a multidisciplinary approach. In a new scientific article we combine data from biomedical studies of the subjects’ bodies with ethnological data on their experiences during the 13-week trial period.
“This enables us to explain the background for the surprising fact that 30 minutes of daily exercise is just as beneficial as a full hour of hard fitness training,” says Professor Bente Stallknecht from the Department of Biomedical Sciences at University of Copenhagen.
“The ‘lightweight’ group of exercisers appear to get more energy and be more motivated in relation to pursuing a healthy lifestyle.” (IANS)