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Sometimes Speed Does Not Kill

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 14, 2007

How fast an older person walks may predict long-term survival, report researchers at the University of Pittsburgh who found that faster walkers were substantially more likely to outlive the slowest.

The report, presented recently at the annual meeting of the Gerontological Society of America, is based on an analysis of data involving 492 adults. Research data analyst Yazan F. Roumani and geriatrician Stephanie Studenski, a professor of medicine at Pitt, tracked the group of Kansas City, Mo., residents for a decade.

After nine years, 27 percent of the fastest walkers — those who covered the equivalent of 2 1/2miles per hour on a treadmill — had died, compared with 77 percent of the slowest walkers, who were able to walk less than a mile and a half in an hour.

Researchers adjusted for sex, race, age, chronic illness and hospitalization, and found that walking speed appeared to be an independent predictor of longevity.

"The reality of this pervades popular knowledge," Studenski said, citing the familiar sayings that an older person is "slowing down" or "still has a spring in their step."

"This is a very simple analysis," she said. "What was astonishing to me was how powerful that simple information was" and how it might serve as an early warning for physicians.

Walking speed can mirror the health of many body parts — heart, lungs, limbs, circulatory system — and a decline, especially in the absence of a specific diagnosis that would explain it, such as heart failure, might prompt doctors to investigate further.

The Washington Post

Work Muscles At The Mall

Are you worried that you'll miss your workout if you spend too much time at holiday shopping? Here are five tips for muscle up at the mall:

1. Testing one, two, three.

Not in the market for fitness equipment? Don't let that keep you from testing it. Glare at the kid playing on the display treadmill or elliptical machine until he gets off. Then slip off your pumps and step on — until somebody glares you off.

2. Remember the tightens.

As you stand in line, or wait for a parking space at the far end of the lot (that's where all the exercise gurus tell you to park, right?), tighten your abs or glutes. Nobody's watching.

3. Save calories for dinner, Pumpkin.

Mmm. Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Creme smells yummy. Only catch: A 16-ounce grande made with 2 percent milk and whipped cream can set you back 400 calories. Cut it down by half: Skip the whip, sub skim milk and shrink the size to a 12-ounce tall.

4. Armed and dangerous.

Shopping online? While you're waiting for the "order complete" to pop up, put your hands on the seat of your chair. Scoot your fanny off the edge; bend your elbows to lower and raise it. Voila!

Taut triceps.

5. Bottoms up.

Buy only products on the bottom shelf; do squats to retrieve them. So what if your gifts are covered with spider webs and the milkman gets a Cabbage Patch doll? Your thighs are tight; what else could possibly matter?

The Dallas Morning News.

5 Things You Didn't Know About Walking

1. Caught up in the roll-out-of-bed, drive-to-work, sit-at-the-computer lifestyle? Join the slug club. Over the past 20 years, the frequency with which people walk for exercise has dropped by 42 percent, according to the Cleveland Clinic. Over that same period, the number of overweight Americans has increased by 40 percent.

2. Reversing the trend isn't so hard. The U.S. Surgeon General suggests 30 minutes of daily moderate activity (above and beyond standard activity). That translates roughly into 3,000 to 4,000 extra steps a day, according to the Walking Research Laboratory at Arizona State University. We normally walk about 5,000 to 6,000 steps in a day, so if you add 3,000 to 4,000 steps to that, you're at 10,000 steps a day.

3. Proven results: 30 minutes per day of walking — the equivalent of walking 10 to 12 miles per week — can prevent weight gain in most people who are physically inactive, according to a Duke University study. Even with no change in diet, participants lost weight, decreased waist sizes and increased lean body mass.

4. Other good news: The recommended 30 minutes of purposeful walking a day doesn't have to be achieved at once. The same benefit is derived in 10-minute increments, say researchers at Arizona's Walking Research Lab.

5. The latest benefit: People with type 2 diabetes may lower their risk of heart disease by committing to a daily walk, according to a study in Japan published in the October issue of the International Journal of Sports Medicine.

The Miami Herald.

Playgrounds for Elderly Catching On

Playgrounds for the elderly are catching on in Europe, where the population is aging. After watching 40 people ages 65 to 81 use swings, seesaws and jungle gyms over a three-month period, researchers at Finland's University of Lapland found that such play improved balance, speed and coordination.

Senior playgrounds also create a sense of fun and increase social interaction, says Fabio Comana, an exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise. And, he says, they're accessible even to people who might be intimidated or embarrassed about going to a gym.

But Comana warns older exercisers: "As kids, we're light, we're still developing, we're flexible; as we fall, we can get back up," but that may not be so easy as we age.

The Washington Post

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