Another good reason to exercise girls – It can be more pleasurable than you think

Exercise can lead to female orgasm and sexual pleasure!

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Findings from a first-of-its-kind study by Indiana University researchers confirm anecdotal evidence that exercise — absent of sex or fantasies — can lead to female orgasm.

While the findings are new, reports of this phenomenon, sometimes called “coregasm” because of its association with exercises for core abdominal muscles, have circulated in the media for years, said Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion in IU’s School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. In addition to being a researcher, Herbenick is a widely read advice columnist and book author.

“The most common exercises associated with exercise-induced orgasm were abdominal exercises, climbing poles or ropes, biking/spinning and weight lifting,” Herbenick said. “These data are interesting because they suggest that orgasm is not necessarily a sexual event, and they may also teach us more about the bodily processes underlying women’s experiences of orgasm.”

The findings are published in a special issue of Sexual and Relationship Therapy, a leading peer-reviewed journal in the area of sex therapy and sexual health. Co-author is J. Dennis Fortenberry, M.D., professor at the IU School of Medicine and Center for Sexual Health Promotion affiliate.

The results are based on surveys administered online to 124 women who reported experiencing exercise-induced orgasms (EIO) and 246 women who experienced exercise-induced sexual pleasure (EISP). The women ranged in age from 18 to 63. Most were in a relationship or married, and about 69 percent identified themselves as heterosexual.

Here are some key findings:

• About 40 percent of women who had experienced EIO and EISP had done so on more than 10 occasions.
• Most of the women in the EIO group reported feeling some degree of self-consciousness when exercising in public places, with about 20 percent reporting they could not control their experience.
• Most women reporting EIO said they were not fantasizing sexually or thinking about anyone they were attracted to during their experiences.
• Diverse types of physical exercise were associated with EIO and EISP. Of the EIO group, 51.4 percent reported experiencing an orgasm in connection with abdominal exercises within the previous 90 days. Others reported experiencing orgasm in connection to such exercises as weight lifting (26.5 percent), yoga (20 percent), bicycling (15.8), running (13.2 percent) and walking/hiking (9.6 percent).
• In open-ended responses, ab exercises were particularly associated with the “captain’s chair,” which consists of a rack with padded arm rests and back support that allows the legs to hang free. The goal is to repeatedly lift the knees toward the chest or toward a 90-degree angle with the body.

Herbenick said that the mechanisms behind exercise-induced orgasm and exercise-induced sexual pleasure remain unclear and, in future research, they hope to learn more about triggers for both. She also said that study findings may help women who experience EIO/EISP feel more normal about their experiences or put them into context.

Herbenick cautioned that it is not yet known whether such exercises can improve women’s sexual experiences.

“It may be that exercise — which is already known to have significant benefits to health and well-being — has the potential to enhance women’s sexual lives as well.”

The study did not determine how common it is for women to experience exercise-induced orgasm or exercise-induced sexual pleasure. But the authors note that it took only five weeks to recruit the 370 women who experienced the phenomenon, suggesting it is not rare.

“Magazines and blogs have long highlighted cases of what they sometimes call ‘coregasms,’” Herbenick said. “But aside from early reports by Kinsey and colleagues, this is an area of women’s sexual health research that has been largely ignored over the past six decades.”

Click here for information source.

 

Building muscle without lifting heavy weights

So you fancy bigger muscles without having to lift heavy weights – then lift lighter for longer:

Weight training at a lower intensity but with more repetitions may be as effective for building muscle as lifting heavy weights  says a new opinion piece in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism.

“The perspective provided in this review highlights that other resistance protocols, beyond the often discussed high-intensity training, can be effective in stimulating a muscle-building response that may translate into bigger muscles after resistance training,” says lead author Nicholas Burd. “These findings have important implications from a public health standpoint because skeletal muscle mass is a large contributor to daily energy expenditure and it assists in weight management. Additionally, skeletal muscle mass, because of its overall size, is the primary site of blood sugar disposal and thus will likely play a role in reducing the risk for development of type II diabetes.”

The authors from McMaster University conducted a series of experiments that manipulated various resistance exercise variables (e.g., intensity, volume, and muscle time under tension). They found that high-intensity muscle contractions derived from lifting heavy loads were not the only drivers of exercise-induced muscle development. In resistance-trained young men a lower workout intensity and a higher volume of repetitions of resistance exercise, performed until failure, was equally effective in stimulating muscle proteins as a heavy workout intensity at lower repetition rates. An additional benefit of the low-intensity workout is that the higher repetitions required to achieve fatigue will also be beneficial for sustaining the muscle building response for days.

In my (Helen’s) opinion, the evidence for this is all around us: heavy manual labourers the world over tend to have physiques commensurate with high repetition, low load weight training – go check out your nearest building site to see for yourself!

The perspective “Bigger weights may not beget bigger muscles: evidence from acute muscle protein synthetic responses after resistance exercise” appears in the June issue of Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism.
Source: NRC Research Press – Canadian Science Publishing.

Use it or lose it! Being mentally active leads to better cognitive health in old age

The current (2012) population of over 65′s in Scotland is about 880,000 and estimated to be over 9,000,000 in England. One in three of these people are likely to develop dementia

The benefits of regular physical activity on cognitive function are well-known, but in this week’s online edition of Neurology, researchers from Rush University Medical Center, Chicago reported that being mentally active leads to better cognitive health in old age.

The first study concluded that a person’s memory declines at a faster rate in the last two-and-a-half years of life than at any other time after memory problems first begin, and the second study, that keeping mentally fit through board games or reading may be the best way to preserve memory during late life.

For the first study, 174 Catholic priests, nuns and monks without memory problems had their memory tested yearly for six to 15 years before death. After death, scientists examined their brains for hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease called plaques and tangles.

At an average of about two-and-a-half years before death, different memory and thinking abilities tended to decline together at rates that were 8 to 17 times faster than before this terminal period. Higher levels of plaques and tangles were linked to an earlier onset of this terminal period but not to rate of memory decline during it.

The second study of 1,076 people with an average age of 80 who were free of dementia, focused on mental activities. Participants underwent yearly memory exams for about five years. They reported how often they read the newspaper, wrote letters, visited a library and played board games such as chess or checkers.

“The results suggest a cause and effect relationship: that being mentally active leads to better cognitive health in old age,” said Wilson.

The results showed that people’s participation in mentally stimulating activities and their mental functioning declined at similar rates over the years.

What better time than now to start training your brain and body together! Follow the embedded link to the MEMORYfit page and register your interest in my exciting new brain and body fitness program.

Study info sourced from Newswise

Love, chocolate and red wine good for the heart, enjoy a healthy Valentine’s day!

According to Julie Damp, M.D., a Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute cardiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, being part of a healthy loving relationship is good for the heart.  “There is a theory that people who are in loving relationships may experience neuro-hormonal changes that have positive effects on the body, including the cardiovascular system,” Damp said, explaining that there are certain hormone levels in the body that vary depending on the level of an individual’s stress and anxiety.

Great, so far so good – but what will you be giving your loved one for Valentine’s day?  A box of dark chocolates?  A bottle of red wine?

Go ahead, give both and give your heart a romantic and an antioxidant health boost:  According to Susan Ofria, clinical nutrition manager at Gottlieb Memorial Hospital, the real food of love is dark chocolate and red wine:

Red wine and dark chocolate with a cocoa content of 70 percent or higher contain resveratrol, which has been found to lower blood sugar. Red wine is also a source of catechins, which could help improve “good” HDL cholesterol.

“Dark chocolate has been shown to be associated with lower blood pressure, lower blood sugar levels and improvement in the way your blood vessels dilate and relax,” Damp said.

It’s good to know that you can enjoy a glass of red wine and some good quality chocolate with your loved one, relaxed in the knowledge that it’s helping both your hearts!

“A good message is that these things should be done in moderation and in conjunction with your physician’s plan for you to lower your cardiovascular risk,” Damp added.

Love, Chocolate Good for the Heart, Says Vanderbilt Cardiologist.

Have your cake and eat it …for weight loss?

Yes!  but only if you have it at breakfast time and as part of a calorie controlled diet.

New diet: Top off breakfast with — chocolate cake?.

Researchers at Tel Aviv University have found that dessert, as part of a balanced 600-calorie breakfast that also includes proteins and carbohydrates, can help dieters to lose more weight — and keep it off in the long run.

One hundred and ninety three clinically obese, non-diabetic adults were randomly assigned to one of two diet groups with identical caloric intake: the men consumed 1600 calories per day and the women 1400.

The first group was given a low carbohydrate diet including a small 300 calorie breakfast, and the second was given a 600 calorie breakfast high in protein and carbohydrates, always including a dessert item.

Over 32 weeks, the dieters who added dessert to their breakfast (cookies, cake, or chocolate) lost an average of 40 lbs more than the group that avoided such foods. What’s more, they kept off the pounds longer.

How?  They key is to indulge in the morning, when the body’s metabolism is at its most active and we are better able to work off the extra calories throughout the day.   A meal in the morning provides energy for the day’s tasks, aids in brain functioning, and kick-starts the body’s metabolism, making it crucial for weight loss and maintenance.

Breakfast is the meal that most successfully regulates ghrelin, the hormone that increases hunger, explains Prof. Jakubowicz of Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Diabetes Unit at Wolfson Medical Center.  The level of ghrelin rises before every meal, but it is suppressed most effectively at breakfast time.

Though they consumed the same daily amount of calories, “the participants in the low carbohydrate diet group had less satisfaction, and felt that they were not full,” she says, noting that their cravings for sugars and carbohydrates were more intense and eventually caused them to cheat on the diet plan. “But the group that consumed a bigger breakfast, including dessert, experienced few if any cravings for these foods later in the day.”

Call me a kill joy here, but it may just be the difference in percentage carbohydrate to protein in each diet over all that affected the outcome here. Still, any excuse for a bar of chocolate at breakfast is welcome!

 

42 degrees North and beyond? Summer sunlight prescription for winter Vitamin D

According to Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, UVB sunlight radiation at latitudes above 42 degrees north or south of the equator, is not sufficient to allow your skin to produce your daily requirement of Vitamin D between mid October and mid March.

Vitamin D is vital for calcium balance and bone health, it plays an important role in immune function, insulin control, blood pressure control and protection against cancer.  Vitamin D deficiency has serious consequences for bone health and can cause rickets or lead to osteoporosis and cause muscle weakness and pain.  In older adults, vitamin D deficiency has been associated with neuromuscular disorders, dementia, and Parkinson’s disease. It has also recently been found to be associated with sudden infant cot death.

All is not lost!  You could increase your daily intake of salmon, sardines and mackerel to about 250 g (340 g if you’re over 71 yrs old! ) or, if you couldn’t stomach that amount of fish,  take a Vitamin D3 supplement tablet (adults 600 IU, over 71, 800 IU).

Alternatively, just 5-10 min of sun exposure between 11am and 2pm, 3 times per week from March to October is all that is needed to allow your skin to produce adequate vitamin D and allow for storage of any excess for use during the darker months with minimal skin damage.  Wearing sunscreen with an SPF factor of 8 reduces production of vitamin D by 95%, so wait until you’ve had your dose of sun before applying.

Yet another reason to exercise outdoors!

Don’t sit down to breast cancer

Doctors traditionally advised their cancer patients to rest and avoid activity. However, preliminary findings from a recently completed trial suggest that exercise during pre-operative chemotherapy helps breast cancer patients avoid a decline in fitness.

In the randomized controlled trial, 20 patients with breast cancer were treated with either chemotherapy (control group) or chemotherapy plus exercise for 12 weeks.

Patients’ tumors were all larger than 1.5 cm. Those in the exercise group participated in moderate to vigorous interval training on a bike 3 times a week.

In the control group there was a 10% reduction in fitness over 12 weeks of treatment. If you don’t exercise during chemotherapy, you’re going to get a hit.

The effects of cancer therapy and deconditioning decrease the ability to deliver oxygen from the environment to muscles. Less exercise tolerance can lead to cardiovascular disease and to premature death in survivors.

The study found that if you exercise during cancer treatment, not only can you completely mitigate that effect, you can improve fitness by about 12%.

Exercise reduces adverse effects, improves energy level, helps with mood, and can ameliorate some of the cardiac effects that patients experience with some chemotherapy agents.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/753100

Lose weight, get moving and reduce arthritic knee pain

Intensive diet and exercise can slash the amount of pain in older adults with osteoarthritis of the knees and improve function and walking speed, according to a study from researchers at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

The 18-month trial studied the impact of intensive weight loss with or without exercise on disease progression.

Investigators randomly allocated 454 overweight and obese individuals (72% women, BMI of 33.6, age 65.6 years) to 1 of 3 groups: intensive diet designed to achieve weight loss of 10% or more; moderate exercise only (two 15-minute walks and 20 minutes of weight training 3 times a week); or both. Eighty-eight percent of participants completed the 18-month study.

At the end of the study, participants in the diet-only group lost an average of 9.5% of their baseline weight, and those in the exercise-only group lost an average of 2.2%. The combined diet/exercise group, however, lost an average of 11.4%. None of the participants regressed to baseline levels, even after 18 months.

Although all groups reported less pain at 6 months, the difference between groups was not significant. However, at 18 months, the combined diet/exercise group experienced a 51% reduction in pain, compared with 27% and 28% in the diet-only and exercise-only groups, respectively.

Forty percent of those in the combined group rated their pain at 0 or 1 at 18 months, he said, compared with 20% in the exercise-only and diet-only groups.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/753014?sssdmh=dm1.732087&src=nldne

A 45-Minute Vigorous Exercise Bout Increases Metabolic Rate For 14 hours

Click here for original article.

It’s been known for some time that exercise elevates your resting metabolic rate (calorie burn) in the hours that follow.  The magnitude and duration of this depends on the intensity and duration of the exercise bout.  This can only be good for weight management, but just how many extra calories could we expect to burn after a bout of vigorous exercise?

A recent study of 10 young male subjects (22-33yrs), found that 45 min of vigorous exercise (cycling at about 73% of maximum aerobic capacity)  at 11:00 a.m expended an average of 519 ± 60.9 kcal.   Post-exercise energy expenditure was significantly elevated for 14.2 h compared with the rest day and this corresponded to an additional calorie burn of 190 ± 71.4 kcal.  This included 3.5 h of early sleep period, during which time 32.0 ± 39.3 kcal were burned over an above the normal rate.

Cycling at this intensity (a burn of about 10kcal per kilo per hour) is equivalent to running at 6 mph, or vigorous freestyle swimming.  If these findings can be extrapolated to the general population, then this is important and encouraging news for those embarking on a weight-loss and fitness-improvement program.  As you lose weight towards your goal, and get fitter, you will be able to exercise at an intensity and duration that should keep your metabolism fired-up, even as you sleep, and help you to keep the weight off.  And of course, keep your heart and lungs in tip top condition!

Up your liver and fish consumption to protect your ageing brain and avoid cognitive problems

Low vitamin B12 levels may lead to brain shrinkage, cognitive problems.

A recent study of 121 older residents from the south side of Chicago who are a part of the Chicago Health and Aging Project (CHAP) revealed that older people with low blood levels of vitamin B12 markers may be more likely to have lower brain volumes and have problems with their thinking skills.

The 121 participants had blood drawn to measure levels of vitamin B12 and B12-related markers that can indicate a B12 deficiency. The same subjects took tests measuring their memory and other cognitive skills.

An average of four-and-a-half years later, MRI scans of the participants’ brains were taken to measure total brain volume and look for other signs of brain damage.

Having high levels of four of five markers for vitamin B12 deficiency was associated with having lower scores on the cognitive tests and smaller total brain volume.

Don’t waste any more time worrying, just increase your consumption of vitamin 12 rich foods (see table below)  and keep up with your 40 min of exercise 3 times per week!

Vitamin B12, cognition, and brain MRI measures. (original article)

The best food sources of vitamin 12 are given below:

Food	Micrograms (mcg) per serving	Percent DV*
Liver, beef, braised, 1 slice	48.0	800
Clams, cooked, breaded and fried, 3 ounces	34.2	570
Breakfast cereals, fortified with 100% of the DV for vitamin B12, 1 serving	6.0	100
Trout, rainbow, wild, cooked, 3 ounces	5.4	90
Salmon, sockeye, cooked, 3 ounces	4.8	80
Trout, rainbow, farmed, cooked, 3 ounces	3.5	58
Cheeseburger, double patty and bun, 1 sandwich	2.1	35
Haddock, cooked, 3 ounces	1.8	30
Breakfast cereals, fortified with 25% of the DV for vitamin B12, 1 serving	1.5	25
Yogurt, plain, 1 cup	1.4	23
Beef, top sirloin, broiled, 3 ounces	1.4	23
Tuna, white, 3 ounces	1.0	17
Milk, 1 cup	0.9	15
Cheese, Swiss, 1 ounce	0.9	15
Beef taco, 1 taco	0.8	13
Ham, cured, roasted, 3 ounces	0.6	10
Egg, large, 1 whole	0.6	10
Chicken, roasted, ½ breast	0.3

*DV = Daily Value. DVs were developed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to help consumers determine the level of various nutrients in a standard serving of food in relation to their approximate requirement for it. The DV for vitamin B12 is 6.0 mcg. However, the FDA does not require food labels to list vitamin B12 content unless a food has been fortified with this nutrient. Foods providing 20% or more of the DV are considered to be high sources of a nutrient, but foods providing lower percentages of the DV also contribute to a healthful diet. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Nutrient Database Web site lists the nutrient content of many foods and provides a comprehensive list of foods containing vitamin B12.