Posted on Fibromyalgia, Pain Management

How to tell if your pain is from Fibro – and how to talk to you doctor about it.

Are you or a loved one living with unexplained pain? In this enlightening episode, Dr. Elizabeth Ortiz breaks down the science behind Nociplastic pain and offers valuable insights to start the Fibro conversation with your doctor! Video Key Takeaways Fibromyalgia is a clinical syndrome characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain, along with associated symptoms like fatigue, sleep disturbances, mood disorders, and brain fog. Fibromyalgia is a real condition with genuine pain.

The pain of fibromyalgia is termed “Nociplastic pain,” which results from a dysregulated nervous system, leading to hypersensitivity to pain signals. Fibromyalgia pain can manifest as deep, aching pain that is not logically connected to a specific injury, and it can occur on both sides of the body and above and below the waist. It’s essential to discuss the possibility of fibromyalgia with a doctor, explore medication options, and consider lifestyle changes such as diet, sleep, movement, and community support to manage fibromyalgia pain effectively.

Posted on Exercise, Mental health

Weight training improves symptoms of anxiety and depression in old people, study confirms

Brazilian researchers analyzed more than 200 articles on the subject and identified the types of training most indicated for these cases.

Weight training can help reduce body fat and increase muscle strength and mass in older people, contributing to functional autonomy and avoiding falls and injury. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that it can also benefit the mental health of older people, especially those who suffer from anxiety and depression.

These benefits were confirmed by a study reported in the journal Psychiatry Research. The study involved a systematic review and meta-analysis of more than 200 articles. The analysis was conducted by Paolo Cunha, a postdoctoral fellow with a scholarship from FAPESP at the Albert Einstein Jewish-Brazilian Institute of Education and Research (IIEPAE) in São Paulo, Brazil. 

“Resistance training has been shown to be one of the most effective non-pharmacological strategies for healthy aging. It promotes countless health benefits, including improvements to mental health,” Cunha said.

The findings of the study are highly promising, he continued. Besides improvements to symptoms of anxiety and depression in the general population, weight training appears to have a more significant effect on people with a confirmed diagnosis of anxiety or depression disorder.

“Epidemiological studies have shown that the decrease in muscle strength and mass that occurs naturally as we age may be associated with an increase in mental health problems, given the existence of various physiological mechanisms that bring about functional and structural changes and that are controlled by the brain,” Cunha said.

Another important mental health benefit, he added, is that when weight training is done in a group, it contributes to more social interaction among those involved.

Recommended exercises

The investigation also pointed to the best ways of structuring one’s training to improve mental health. “How the training is done appears to influence the results achieved. The information obtained so far suggests that older people should ideally do weight training exercises three times a week, with three sets of each exercise and sessions that are not too long – six exercises would seem to be sufficient. Do less, but do it well: a short set produces better results. This is meaningful information, as we lack guidelines with specific recommendations for resistance training that focuses on mental health parameters,” Cunha said.

While there are many possible ways to prescribe resistance training programs designed to improve the health, autonomy and quality of life for older people, most result directly or indirectly in improvements to symptoms of anxiety and depression, regardless of the intensity and volume of the exercises involved, according to Edilson Cyrino, last author of the article and principal investigator for the study. He is a professor at the State University of Londrina (UEL) and coordinates the Active Aging Longitudinal Study, a project begun in 2012 to analyze the impact of resistance training on parameters relating to the health of older women.

Another point observed by the researchers was that the use of training machines and free weights appears to be more beneficial for mental health than exercises that involve elastic bands or calisthenics (using the weight of the person’s body), for example. 

“We don’t have statistics comparing the two kinds of training, but the analysis showed that resistance training with weights and other gear is more effective in terms of improving the mental health of older people, largely because the intensity and volume of the exercises can be more precisely controlled,” Cunha explained.

Posted on Exercise

Does the time of day you move your body make a difference to your health?

Physical activity in the evening linked to greater health benefits for people with obesity

Undertaking the majority of daily physical activity in the evening is linked to the greatest health benefits for people living with obesity, according to researchers from the University of Sydney, Australia who followed the trajectory of 30,000 people over almost 8 years.

Using wearable device data to categorise participant’s physical activity by morning, afternoon or evening, the researchers uncovered that those who did the majority of their aerobic moderate to vigorous physical activity– the kind that raises our heartrate and gets us out of breath– between 6pm and midnight had the lowest risk of premature death and death from cardiovascular disease.

The frequency with which people undertook moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) in the evening, measured in short bouts up to or exceeding three minutes, also appeared to be more important than their total daily physical activity.

The study, led by researchers from the University’s Charles Perkins Centre is published in the journal Diabetes Care today.

“Due to a number of complex societal factors, around two in three Australians have excess weight or obesity which puts them at a much greater risk of major cardiovascular conditions such as heart attacks and stroke, and premature death,” said Dr Angelo Sabag, Lecturer in Exercise Physiology at the University of Sydney.

“Exercise is by no means the only solution to the obesity crisis, but this research does suggest that people who can plan their activity into certain times of the day may best offset some of these health risks.”

Smaller clinical trials have shown similar results, however the large scale of participant data in this study, the use of objective measures of physical activity and hard outcomes, such as premature death, makes these findings significant.

Joint first author Dr Matthew Ahmadi also stressed that the study did not just track structured exercise. Rather researchers focused on tracking continuous aerobic MVPA in bouts of 3 minutes or more as previous research shows a strong association between this type of activity, glucose control and lowered cardiovascular disease risk compared with shorter (non-aerobic) bouts.

“We didn’t discriminate on the kind of activity we tracked, it could be anything from power walking to climbing the stairs, but could also include structured exercise such as running, occupational labour or even vigorously cleaning the house,” said Dr Ahmadi, National Heart Foundation postdoctoral research fellow at the Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney.

While observational, the findings of the study support the authors original hypothesis, which is the idea – based on previous research – that people living with diabetes or obesity, who are already glucose intolerant in the late evening, may be able to offset some of that intolerance and associated complications, by doing physical activity in the evening.

How was the study conducted?

The researchers used data from UK Biobank and included 29,836 adults aged over 40 years of age living with obesity, of whom 2,995 participants were also diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes.

Participants were categorised into morning, afternoon of evening MVPA based on when they undertook the majority of their aerobic MVPA as measured by a wrist accelerometer worn continuously for 24 hours a day over 7 days at study onset.

The team then linked health data (from the National Health Services and National Records of Scotland) to follow participants health trajectory for 7.9 years. Over this period they recorded 1,425 deaths, 3,980 cardiovascular events and 2,162 microvascular disfunction events.

To limit bias, the researchers accounted for differences such as age, sex, smoking, alcohol intake, fruit and vegetable consumption, sedentary time, total MVPA, education, medication use and sleep duration. They also excluded participants with pre-existing cardiovascular disease and cancer.

The researchers say the length of the study follow-up and additional sensitivity analysis bolster the strength of their findings however, due to the observational design, they cannot completely rule out potential reverse causation. This is the possibility that some participants had lower aerobic MVPA levels due to underlying or undiagnosed disease.

Posted on Diet

Swapping red meat for herring/sardines could save up to 750,000 lives/year in 2050

Adopting forage fish diet would be especially helpful in the Global South, say researchers
Adopting a forage fish diet would be especially helpful in the Global South, say researchers

Swapping red meat for ‘forage fish’, such as herring, sardines, and anchovies, could save up to 750,000 lives a year in 2050 and significantly reduce the prevalence of disability due to diet-related disease, suggests a data analysis published in the open-access journal BMJ Global Health. 

Adopting this type of diet would be especially helpful for low—and middle-income countries, where these fish are cheap and plentiful and where the toll taken by heart disease, in particular, is high, say the researchers.

Mounting evidence links red and processed meat consumption with heightened risks of non-communicable disease, which accounted for around 70% of all deaths globally in 2019, explain the researchers.

Of these, coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and bowel cancer made up nearly half (44%) of this toll, with coronary artery disease taking the lion’s share.

Marine forage fish, which are predated by larger fish, are rich in omega-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (DHA and EPA), the intake of which may prevent coronary heart disease, as well as being abundant in calcium and vitamin B12. The researchers note that they also have the lowest carbon footprint of any animal food source.

But currently, three-quarters of the forage fish catch, including a significant amount caught off the coasts of countries enduring food insecurity and malnutrition in the Global South, is ground into fishmeal and fish oil—products that are mostly used for fish farming, destined for high-income consumers, the researchers add.

While several studies have revealed the potential nutritional and environmental benefits of forage fish, it’s unclear to what extent they might cut the global burden of disease if substituted for red meat. 

To address this knowledge gap, the researchers created four different scenarios, each representing a different pattern of forage fish allocation globally. They used data on projected red meat consumption in 2050 for 137 countries and historical data on the forage fish catch from marine habitats.

The 4 scenarios comprised: domestic supply prioritised, with forage fish caught for national consumption or red meat substitution (I); minimised meat intake, with substitution prioritised in countries with meat consumption from sheep and cattle above the recommended level of 15 kcal (II); adequate fish intake, prioritising countries with fish consumption below the recommended level of 40 kcal (III); and equal percentage of red meat replaced in all countries (IV), determined by the availability of forage fish.

Their analysis shows that if widely adopted for direct human consumption, forage fish would potentially provide substantial public health benefits, particularly in terms of reducing the occurrence of coronary heart disease.

Globally, this approach could prevent half a million to 750,000 deaths from diet-related disease in 2050—and deaths from coronary heart disease in particular—and it could avert 8–15 million years of life lived with a disability, most of which are concentrated in low and middle-income countries. 

The limited supply of forage fish isn’t sufficient to replace all red meat, acknowledge the researchers. However, it could potentially increase the daily per capita consumption of fish to close to the recommended level of 40 kcal in most countries and reduce deaths from coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and bowel cancer by 2% in 2050.

Of the four scenarios, scenario I averted the fewest deaths. The analysis suggests that allocating all forage fish to regions with the lowest fish intake—mainly in lower and middle-income countries (scenario III)—would more effectively reduce the global disease burden.

The researchers point out that global marketing and trade in forage fish would need to be expanded for landlocked countries without direct access to seafood, such as Mongolia, Turkmenistan, and other African countries.

They acknowledge that “despite the theoretical potential of forage fish, several barriers, such as fish meal and oil processing, overfishing, climate change, and cultural acceptance, may prevent the health benefits of forage fish from being realised.” 

“Multi-sectoral policy coordination and action (e.g., prioritising access to affordable fish, such as forage fish, for the poor and promoting the use of nutrient-rich microalgae as fish feed) could help to address some of these barriers,” they suggest.

They say culturally tailored interventions that promote healthy lifestyles, increase family and community support, and raise awareness of the relationship between disease and diet could all enhance the chances of successful behaviour and diet change.

They suggest that other strategies, such as climate change-impact menu labels on food items and consumer education on the high nutritional value and lower chemical levels in forage fish, could also help promote the switch away from red meat to forage fish.