Health and Fitness Tips

Exercising improves body image, even if it hasn’t shifted the pounds

The simple act of doing some exercise convinces people they look better – even if it has actually made no difference. Researchers discovered we believe we look healthier after working out despite the fact it may not have been enough to make us any fitter. And we don’t necessarily feel any better about ourselves when we do more exercise and do look fitter, say psychologists. Even doing a small amount of exercise has psychological benefits according to new research

Professor Heather Hausenblas, who carried out the research, reveals that ‘the simple act of exercise and not fitness itself can convince you that you look better’. She said: ‘You would think that if you become more fit you would experience greater improvements in terms of body image, but that’s not what we found. ‘It may be that the requirements to receive the psychological benefits of exercise, including those relating to body image, differ substantially from the physical benefits.’ [Read more →]

Researchers have identified a cellular pathway that may explain the link between alcohol consumption and cancer.

Alcohol consumption has long been linked to cancer and its spread, but the underlying mechanism has never been clear. Now, researchers at Rush University Medical Center have identified a cellular pathway that may explain the link.

In a study published in a recent issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, the researchers found that alcohol stimulates what is called the epithelial-to-mesenchymal transition, in which run-of-the-mill cancer cells morph into a more aggressive form and begin to spread throughout the body.

“Our data are the first to show that alcohol turns on certain signals inside a cell that are involved in this critical transition,” said Christopher Forsyth, PhD, assistant professor of medicine and biochemistry at RushUniversity Medical Center and lead author of the study. [Read more →]

Frozen food has long had a reputation for being inferior to fresh, on a par with canned. But this is now largely undeserved. Frozen fish is a good example of how freezing has come a long way.

Back in the Seventies and early Eighties, when we weren’t so picky or knowledgeable, frozen fish consisted mainly of fish fingers made from the tail ends of poor quality fish, and freezing techniques meant they were often mushy when defrosted.

But freezing technology has improved vastly since then – today fish is frozen within minutes of being caught out at sea.

It’s cleaned and popped into the freezer and transported in this frozen state, so that when you defrost it, it is almost as good as it would have been had you eaten it straight from the net. [Read more →]

A high-fat, high-sugar diet could have the same effect on brain chemistry as mood-altering drugs, giving scientific support to the craving for “comfort food”, Australian researchers said on Tuesday.

A controlled study of rats that were traumatised in early life and went on to exhibit depressed or anxious behaviours found those that were fed lard-laced foods such as cake or pie reversed their stress levels.

“We asked the question, if you’re stressed early in life and then you’re given yummy food to eat does that reduce your behavioural deficit, and basically that’s what we found,” lead researcher Margaret Morris told AFP.

“The animals who’d been exposed to stress who were then given palatable food, junk food if you will, no longer looked anxious.” [Read more →]