Fitness Rocks

Yoga for Depression

This week on Fitness Rocks I have an interview with Dr. David Shapiro of UCLA about his research on using Yoga as a complementary treatment for depression.

References:

Yoga as a Complementary Treatment for Depression

Big Money, Bad Science - What's the Best Way to Prevent Heart Disease?

This week the JUPITER study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.  It is being haled in the lay press as a study that may fundamentally change how we approach the prevention of heart disease.  It could result in millions of additional people being prescribed cholesterol-lowering drugs.  Is it good science or good marketing?

References:

The Mediterranean Diet and Type 2 Diabetes

This week we take a look at two recent articles about type 2 diabetes.  The first is from the New York Times and the second is an article from the British Medical Journal about how eating a Mediterranean-style diet affects the risk of type 2 diabetes.

Healthy Lifestyle Characteristics - A Conversation with Dr. Mathew Reeves

This week on Fitness Rocks we talk with Dr. Mathew Reeves, an associate professor of epidemiology at Michigan State University.  Dr. Reeves is the lead author on a paper published in the April 25, 2005 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine entitled Healthy Lifestyle Characteristics among Adults in the United States.

Ending the Food Fight - an Interview with David Ludwig, M.D., Ph.D.

This week on Fitness Rocks I talk with Dr. David Ludwig, a Pediatric Endocrinologist at Children's Hospital Boston, and the author of Ending the Food Fight.  Dr. Ludwig created the Optimal Weight for Life program at Children's Hospital Boston and in this podcast he shares his expertise with us about some of the factors involved with achieving and maintaining a healthy weight.

Why Fitness Matters (Part 2)

This week on Fitness Rocks I continue the review I began on Fitness Rocks Podcast 100 about Why Fitness Matters.  Today I will focus on diet.

Why Fitness Matters

For the 100th episode of Fitness Rocks I have put together a two-part series  reviewing the argument in favor of fitness.  I've used several references and a few excerpts from previous podcasts.

Secrets of a Long and Healthy Life - an Interview with Author Dan Buettner

This week on Fitness Rocks I talk to Dan Buettner, author of the best-selling book The Blue Zones.  Dan has spent the past several years traveling the world with a team of researchers studying the habits of people who live extraordinarily long and robust lives.  In his book, and in our interview, Dan shares what he learned about the secrets of a long and healthy life from the world's longest lived people.

Fitness is an Independent Predictor for Risk of Chronic Illnesses - an Interview with Dr. Steven Blair

This week on Fitness Rocks I talk with Dr. Steven Blair from the department of Exercise Science and the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina about his research work in the area of measured fitness level and health outcomes.

DASH Diet and the Risk of Heart Disease and Stroke

This week on Fitness Rocks I have a conversation with Dr. Teresa Fung of Simmons University in Boston, Massachusetts.  Dr. Fung and her colleagues recently published a paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine on how the DASH diet affects the risk of heart disease and stroke.  DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension.  The DASH diet emphasizes increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, lower consumption of red meat and processed meat, lower consumption of sodium, and moderate consumption of low-fat dairy products.

Spark: An Interview with John Ratey, M.D.

This week on Fitness Rocks we have an interview with Dr. John Ratey, author of the best-selling book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain.

Brain Rules

This week on Fitness Rocks I interview Dr. John Medina, author of the excellent new book Brain Rules.  Dr. Medina shares his insights into how we can achieve optimal brain health and function.

Anxiety and Heart Disease

This week on Fitness Rocks we continue on the theme of Fitness and the Brain in an interview with medical researcher Dr. Yinong Young-Xu.  Dr. Young-Xu recently presented a paper at the annual meeting of the American College of Cardiology on his research into the relationship between anxiety and the progression of Coronary Heart Disease.

Abdominal Obesity and the Risk of Dementia

Can that weight around your middle increase your risk of dementia as you get older?  Find out by listening to Fitness Rocks Podcast 092.


Music:

Charlie Crowe - Crowe Jam

Jon Schmidt - All of Me

Combating Childhood Obesity - an Interview with Dr. Steven Kelder

This week on Fitness Rocks I talk to Dr. Steven Kelder, a medical researcher at the University of Texas Medical School in Houston's School of Public Health.  He has worked extensively with a program called CATCH - Coordinated Approach to Child Health.  Dr. Kelder talks about the issues and problems of childhood obesity and the different ways researchers are trying to employ to reverse the trend toward higher rates of childhood obesity.  We also discuss some of the obstacles to success in reversing this very serious and expensive public health dilemma.

Moderate Alcohol Consumption and Your Health

This week on Fitness Rocks we have an interview with Dr. Dana King who has published his research on the health effects of adopting moderate wine drinking in middle age.  The study was published in the March 2008 issue of the American Journal of Medicine.

Trends In Coronary Heart Disease

Coronary Heart Disease has been the number one killer of Americans for decades.  There has been a trend toward lower death rates from coronary heart disease for the past few decades.  There has also been a trend toward higher rates of obesity and type 2 diabetes.  Will the trend toward lower rates of coronary heart disease continue - or not?

Secrets of an Exceptionally Long Life

This week on Fitness Rocks I review an article from the Archives of Internal Medicine that looked at the modifiable factors involved with living a long and robust life.  I think you will find the study very interesting and encouraging.

Skinny Songs - an Interview with Heidi Roizen

This week I have an interview with technology entrepreneur and songwriter Heidi Roizen about her new CD called Skinny Songs.  Heidi has a great story of turning her life around as she approached age 50 and recognized that she needed to lose a lot of weight. 

She'd used music throughout her life to motivate herself for business meetings and public speaking so it was natural that when she decided to get serious about a fitness program she wanted music that would help her stay with the program.  She quickly discovered there wasn't any music that spoke directly about the struggles she knew she would face in trying to change her lifestyle - so, being the good entrepreneur, she wrote her own songs and had professional musicians and music producers turn them into a fantastic CD.

Check out Fitness Rocks Podcast 087 to hear how Heidi used her skills as an successful business woman to adopt a healthy lifestyle, lose a  lot of weight, and create a fabulous CD.

Does Attitude about Exercise Affect the Health Benefits of Exercise?

This week on Fitness Rocks we review a paper that investigated the relationship between how people think about exercise and the health benefits derived from exercise.  Can your attitude about exercise affect the way your body responds to exercise?  The answer will definitely be interesting to you. 

The podcast begins with an article summary by me and closes with an interview with the article author, Dr. Ellen Langer of Harvard University.

Timing your eating and drinking for optimal weight loss and athletic performance

This week on Fitness Rocks we talk with Dr. Dan Benardot about the physiology behind timing our food intake and the best way to use sports drinks while exercising.  The information Dr. Benardot reviews applies to people who are engaged in weight loss efforts as well as people who are interested in maximizing athletic performance.

Anti-aging, Exercise, and Science

This week on Fitness Rocks I review a study from the Archives of Internal Medicine about the genetic effects of exercise that seem to indicate an anti-aging benefit.  I was also lucky enough to get an eight-minute interview with the lead author of the paper.

What does exercise do to your DNA?  Check out Fitness Rocks podcast 084 to find out.


References:

The Association Between Leisure Time Physical Activity and Leukocyte Telomere Length

Music:

Charlie Crowe - Crowe Jam

Jon Schmidt - All of Me

Managing Type 2 Diabetes - Video Interview with Michael Bihari, M.D.

This is a "pilot" video.  It is possibly the first in a series of discussions with Dr. Michael Bihari about type 2 diabetes.  Dr. Bihari is a physician who has had the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes for the past six years.  In this initial Fitness Rocks video he shares some of his thoughts and experiences in confronting the diagnosis of type 2 diabetes.

Lifestyle factors like diet and exercise play a pivotal role in either the development of type 2 diabetes, or its prevention. 


References:

The Diabetes Prevention Program - a major study on the role of lifestyle in preventing type 2 diabetes published in the New England Journal of Medicine

Exercise is Medicine - A New Initiative From The American College of Sports Medicine

This week on Fitness Rocks we talk with Dr. Robert Sallis, President of the American College of Sports Medicine, about the new Exercise is Medicine Initiative being cosponsored by the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Medical Association.  Dr. Sallis shares his insights into the health benefits of exercise and tells us why he believes that exercise should be considered a genuine medical therapeutic intervention.

Trusting the Data on Drugs

In this week's podcast I talk with Dr. Erick Turner who published a paper in this week's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reviewing how negative data on drug benefits may not be getting published in the medical literature. Selectively publishing only positive data on drug responses gives practicing doctors and the general public a perspective on the benefit of a particular drug that is artificially enhanced.

Whether you currently take prescription drugs or not, you should listen to this podcast to gain some insight into how things work in the world of medical research on the drugs people are prescribed.

Beans and Your Health

This week on Fitness Rocks we look at a recent study from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition about beans and the risk of type 2 diabetes.  Seventy-five million Americans have either type 2 diabetes or a condition called pre-diabetes.  The World Health Organization estimates that up to ninety percent of cases of type 2 diabetes can be avoided by a healthy diet, regular exercise, maintaining a healthy weight, and not smoking.

Check out Fitness Rocks podcast 081 to hear some good news about things you can do and eat to lower your risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

Exercise Related Sudden Cardiac Death

This week we review an article from the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that looks at possible diagnostic clues to some of the causes of exercise related sudden cardiac death.

Making New Year's Resolutions Work

This week on Fitness Rocks we talk to Dr. Kirsten Harrel, a specialist in Positive Psychology, about how to stick with your New Year's resolutions.

You should also check out the Fitness Rocks forum where you can write a post to support Ricky and Sue, as well as other people, in their effort to quit smoking.

Fitness, Fatness, and Health

It's time for those New Year's resolutions.  For many people that means another attempt at weight loss.  This week on Fitness Rocks I thought it would be appropriate to review another recent study looking at the relationship between fitness, fatness, and the overall risk of poor health and  premature death from all causes. 

A study from the December 5, 2007 issue of JAMA looked at the impact on our health status of fitness as measured during exercise testing and fatness as assessed by BMI, waist circumference, and percent body fat.  Understanding the data from this study will help you shape better, more achievable goals for the New Year, and the rest of your life.

Exercise Fat Burning Zone: An Interview with Dr. Len Kravitz

What sort of exercise routine will burn the most fat calories?  Does it matter if exercise is low intensity or high intensity?  What about type of exercise and duration of exercise?

The fitness world is filled with "gurus" who have strong opinions about these and other questions regarding the type of exercise that is best suited for losing weight and being fit.

In this episode of Fitness Rocks we will get answers to these questions and clear up a lot of confusion by going directly to a genuine expert, Dr. Len Kravitz.  Dr. Kravitz is a professor of exercise physiology and a researcher at the University of New Mexico.  He has recently published an article on the topic of "exercise fat-burning zones" in the IDEA Fitness Journal.

Cross Training with Coach Adam

This week on Fitness Rocks Podcast 076 we talk to Adam Krajchir, the founder of Race With Purpose, about cross-training.  Adam is an exercise physiologist with a great deal of experience training elite athletes and ordinary athletes like the rest of us.

We also have a special short story submission from Mike Ormsby, a listener from Romania.  Mike writes about his recent experience running a marathon.

Vegetarian Diets: Myths and Misconceptions - an Interview with David Nieman, Dr.P.H.

This week on Fitness Rocks we are talking with Dr. David Nieman about vegetarian diets and health.  Dr. Nieman is an active researcher and a prolific author on topics of health and nutrition.  Listen to Fitness Rocks podcast 075 to learn whether you can get enough protein from a vegetarian diet as well as other essential nutrients.  I know you'll find this interview enlightening and useful.

Interview with Tory Klemensten - Triathlete and Marathon Runner

Tory Klementsen is an accomplished endurance athlete - but she wasn't always such a fitness enthusiast.  In fact, Tory is a woman who successfully lost 100 pounds five years ago and changed from couch potato to marathoner.  Her story is compelling and inspirational.  Check it out in podcast 074.