A clinical study showed the effect of practicing Tai Chi for a better quality of life in people with heart diseases.

With the varying types of diseases and conditions that occur all over the world, the best way to prevent the acquiring of such is to live healthy – eating right, exercise and maintaining an active lifestyle. A well-balanced diet is not merely enough as our body also needs to keep moving to ensure healthy blood flow. The body needs regular exercise to work out the muscles and joints, improve endurance and prevent numerous diseases as well. However, not everyone will benefit equally from exercise. We should always be aware of one’s fitness level in order to identify the correct degree of exercise to be performed without straining the muscles.

When talking about exercise, the thing that first pops in our mind are weight training, cycling, running, hiking, swimming, gym trainings or vigorous exercises that produce a lot of sweat and energy. However, there is one specific exercise that won’t stress you out, but instead give you a relaxing feeling while absorbing the benefits it can give.

What is Tai Chi?

Tai Chi Chuan, can be translated to “Supreme Ultimate Force”, where ‘supreme ultimate’ is associated with the Chinese concept of yin-yang, a balance or dynamic duality in everything and ‘force’ is the way in achieving such yin-yang.  Tai Chi Chuan, or simply Tai Chi, is a slow, meditative exercise for health, relaxation and self-defense which originated from China, but is known all throughout America and all over the world for its health benefits.

To the Chinese, illnesses and sickness are all results of imbalances in the flow of chi or “life energy” in the body. This imbalance, as they say, is because of too much yin or yang therefore causing turbulence or delayed flow of blood and chi.

Many practitioners of Tai Chi do not only treat it as a meditative exercise for the body, but also puts importance on its combat aspects. It was treated as a potent art and was used by a few families for self defense. The proper positions for the transmission of energy or “chi” and the methods of single-weightiness, relaxation techniques and control of breath were formed for the purpose of succeeding in combat in a capable and scientific manner. A Tai Chi student must be able to appreciate this martial context because the four major Tai Chi Styles: Chen, Yang, Wu and Sun, places great emphasis in grasping the meaning of Tai Chi and its purposes being for meditative wellbeing and physical health as Tai Chi is also considered an exercise and sports regimen.

Tai Chi aims in developing a calm and tranquil mind, keeping focus in performing precise execution of these exercises. Learning Tai Chi in such a way would help one develop alignment, balance, fine-scale motor control, movement rhythm and many more.

Tai Chi has its origin from martial arts, therefore, it does have some martial arts applications. “Push Hands”, a two person exercise develops the principles of Tai Chi by being sensitive of another person’s “chi” or vital energy. With this, Tai Chi’s martial arts concepts are developed in a slow-tempo combat. However, long-time practitioners could become very skillful in martial arts. What Tai chi puts emphasis on is channeling potentially destructive energy away, in the form of kick or punch, in a way that would drive off the destructive energy in a direction with no danger.

Benefits of Tai Chi

Tai Chi is known to be a slow and gentle exercise unlike any other, but nonetheless, it gives one numerous health benefits for the body. First of all, it addresses the key components of fitness namely muscle strength, flexibility, balance, and aerobic conditioning. Some studies have also shown the possibility of practicing Tai Chi in reducing the fear of falling.

A good number of studies have proven that Tai Chi also benefits many health conditions when combined with standard treatment for medical problems such as arthritis, low bone density, breast cancer, heart diseases, heart failure, hypertension, Parkinson’s disease, sleep problems and stroke.

The Study

Benefits of exercising, as most people see it, can only be acquired through vigorous workouts like weight lifting and the like. However, a clinical study from the April issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine in association with the Journal of the American Medical Association, showed that Tai Chi, a Chinese practice, improves systolic heart rate, patient’s mood, quality of life, and self-efficacy.

In the United States, people who are not playing sports, weight lifting, and the like are acquiring a lot of health benefits from practicing Tai Chi, and they are often seen to be moving in a slow flowing motion, transitioning into different poses.

The study published reported the result of the clinical study at the Harvard Medical School in Boston and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. This study observed patients with heart failure taking a Tai Chi class twice a week.

This was done for three months. Later on, it was observed that the patients practicing Tai Chi increased in confidence in performing their everyday tasks and were also able to live their lifestyles more actively than those who took classes in health education. Results can also be compared to the benefits of Tai Chi for stroke.

Results from those who engaged in Tai Chi in previous studies were found to have lowered their blood pressure, improved bone density and immune system, even though these effects might also be acquired from performing thorough aerobic exercises.

This study is only limited to a lesser active form of Tai Chi, therefore not finding improvement in aerobic fitness, but a significant improvement in attitude and health of heart disease patients.

Dr. Gloria Y. Yeh, the study’s lead author, said that the real aim of this activity is to get patients to actively continue exercising.  She also said that adherence is one of the biggest advantages of any exercise regimen and with this, accessibility becomes Tai Chi’s most important component. For 12 weeks, more than three-fourths of the participants of the study continued practicing Tai Chi, and six months later, many were still practicing it.

Ways to promote a Healthy Heart

There are many ways to promote a healthy heart. First off is to follow a heart healthy diet by limiting intake of fats and hydrogenated oils, refined sugar intake from cakes and cookies, using extra virgin olive oil and garlic in cooking to lower cholesterol and adding omega 3 fatty acids in the diet. Regular exercise must also be followed by exercising 3-4 times a week, stretching before training and keeping one hydrated and resting between sets.

Leading a healthy lifestyle is also important by avoiding smoking and second hand smoke which are causes of heart disease, limiting alcohol intake, reducing stress and anxiety and keeping weight within limits.

Blood indicators in the development of heart disease must also be given attention. Watching out for high levels of cholesterol, triglyceride levels, homocysteine levels, and C-reactive Protein levels must be done for these are all potential risk factors in the development of heart diseases.

Sources
naturalnews.com
health.harvard.edu
patiencetaichi.com
chebucto.ns.ca
healthy-heart-guide.com

Chili peppers, one of the world's most beloved spices, is showing much promise in terms of reducing fat percentage when introduced to one's daily diet.

In a recent report from Science Daily, a new study suggests that chili peppers may just be the missing key to increased weight loss.  The new study shows that  a compound in chilies called capsaicin, which also makes a chili hot to the taste, is responsible for initiating specific changes in protein.

According to lead researcher Jong Won Yun, this could very well be the good news the world has been waiting for.  If chili peppers can be used on a particular scale for lowering body weight, then chilies can be utilized to combat obesity.

Chili vs. obesity

Obesity is one of the world’s leading causes of chronic, degenerative diseases like adult-onset diabetes, hypertension and other cardiovascular maladies.  Being overweight has also been linked to cancer in the prostate and even the development of asthma.

Yun’s study made laboratory rats confirm their initial hypothesis that capsaicin can help burn off the calories.  Two groups of test animals were both given diets in high in fat. The control group was given a capsaicin supplementation, while the other group of rat were not given the chili compound.

After the study, the control group had lost an average of 8 percent of body weight compared to the group that did not receive capsaicin.  It was also discovered that capsaicin can produce changes in up twenty types of protein found in fat.

While the study did not provide a conclusive explanation that capsaicin actually reduces body weight, it can be viewed as a pioneering study that explores the anti-obesity effects of the chili compound on the molecular level. The study was published in the Journal of Preteome Research.

Fight visceral fat!

There are two main types of fat that people have to deal with: regular fat, which is found above the muscle tissues and visceral fat, which lies underneath the muscles of the abdominal region.  So what is the big difference?  Visceral fat actually surrounds many vital organs, including the liver and intestines.  According to recent studies, visceral fat may also contribute to the development of adult-onset diabetes and other diseases.

In a study published in the medical journal Obesity, lead researcher  Dr. Gary Hunter states that just eighty minutes of exercise every week can help fight off the formation of deadly visceral fat.  Initially, the 97 respondents (composed of European-American & African-American individuals) were given a calorie-restricted diet plus a regular exercise regimen.

After the study, the respondents were asked to continue exercising at least eighty minutes a week.  A year later, the researchers measured the amount of visceral fat the respondents had and found out that the ones who continued exercising regardless of the exercise model did not regain harmful visceral fat. The study concluded that this type of exercise was effective in reducing visceral in both the European-American respondents and African-American respondents.

Vinegar vs. fat

Vinegar, a natural byproduct of bacterial action, fruit/vegetable and water, is now being studied for its potential benefit as a fat fighter.  According to Japanese researcher Tomoo Kondo, vinegar showed great promise as a fat fighter when an animal test showed that acetic acid can reduce up to ten percent body fat in test animals.

How does it work?  Well, the established belief was that acetic acid activates a particular gene in the body responsible for breaking down fat.  When the gene is activated, the body starts producing proteins that help break down the stubborn stores of fat.  When this happens, accumulation of fat is greatly reduced.

Low carbs diet for lower blood pressure

For many years now, proponents of weight loss diets and regular practitioners of medicine have associated too much carbohydrates in one’s diet with higher risk of developing high blood pressure and uncontrollable weight gain.  According to Dr. William Yancy, the lead author of the study, a low-carbohydrate diet might be a better choice than investing in weight loss medication like orlistat.

The study indicated that while weight loss medication like orlistat can reduce weight, it did not produce identical beneficial effects on the respondents’ blood pressure.  This was not the same for the low-carbohydrate group.  Nearly fifty percent of the respondents in the low carbohydrate group were able to reduce their blood pressure.  Some of them had such an improvement that they were able to discontinue medication.  Only twenty-one percent in the weight loss medication group experienced a reduction of their blood pressure.

Sources:
aolhealth.com
sciencedaily.com
sciencedaily.com
sciencedaily.com
sciencedaily.com

Exercise doesn't just benefit people by reducing weight and making muscles stronger – it can also help cancer patients by reducing the side effects of cancer treatment.

According to Eleanor Walker, a division director from the Henry Ford Hospital, exercise may well be the missing ingredient in cancer care for the longest time.

According to Dr. Walker, introducing exercise alongside the usual cancer care offered to patients offers both physical and psychological advantages.  It appears that exercise also reduces the side effects commonly associated with cancer treatment.

ExCITE-ing

In addition to reducing the side effects of the various treatments for cancer, exercise is also a great energizer and is also capable of combating nausea – an all too common problem for cancer patients undergoing treatment.  The testing was done using an program called ExCITE, which was designed by researchers from the Cancer Center at the Henry Ford Hospital.

The patients were given the usual tests and specific diets and exercise programs were recommended to them, based on the initial test results.  One of the respondents, a breast cancer patient, reported that the usual side effects of treatment like nausea and even vomiting were eliminated after she joined the ExCITE program.

According to the patient, Cheryl Fallen, the ExCITE program is a very holistic approach to mitigating problems associated with cancer treatment because the exercise routines are able to strengthen the immune system and also improves the blood circulation of the patients.  Fallen also views the program as a positive aid for cancer patients; and it makes her feel good, too.

…And even more reasons to exercise

1. Exercise lowers your blood sugar levels, energizes you and improves your physical and psychological condition.  It’s all a matter of investing time and energy into it; the rewards of finally becoming physically fit are endless.

2. Exercises increases the capacity of cells to utilize sugar.  During exercise, the muscles in the body are forced to pump out energy and utilize the raw substrate used for work – glucose.  If you exercise on a daily basis, the cells in the body use sugar more efficiently, effectively lowering insulin resistance.

3. Exercising is a great way to deal with stress. Stress isn’t just a frame of mind. It’s the body’s reaction to worries and anxieties. Resting is not the best solution to stress- exercise is.  The more you exercise, the more the body heals and recovers from the physical and mental burdens of stress.  With less stress, you will be able to perform better at work or school and you will instantly feel better. After a workout (like walking or running), the body releases endorphins, the body’s natural painkillers. Endorphins allow the body to cool down and relax – naturally.

Sources
rd.com
exercise.about.com
sciencedaily.com

A new report from the Mayo Clinic points out that your cholesterol levels can reflect details about your overall health including the quality of your diet and exercise plan.

Your cholesterol levels can tell you more than just your levels of triglycerides!  Researchers have now determined that cholesterol levels can now also report on a person’s lifestyle choices.  The Mayo Clinic Health Letter recently released their findings that a person’s level of overall health is reflected in their good and bad cholesterol levels.

While cholesterol is normal for our bodies and is found in all of our cells, too much cholesterol can put your blood vessels at risk.  Bad cholesterol can cause our blood vessels to narrow and blood flow to be restricted.  Obviously this is a problem that can lead to health problems like heart attack and stroke.

If you are looking to reduce your LDL levels, be sure to eat less saturated fats, trans fats and increase your intake of healthy fats like extra virgin olive oil and flax seed oil.  Also foods high in soluble fiber, such as oatmeal,  are recommended to reduce the LDL.

HDL levels reflect good cholesterol. If you have low HDL, this fact means that you may very well have a sedentary lifestyle.  Also, more than likely, you don’t exercise enough.  Exercising, of course, has a number of health benefits including raising your levels of good cholesterol.

According to P.K. Shah, MD, director of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, “Boosting HDL is the next frontier in heart disease prevention.”  Reducing your calories, sugar, and alcohol consumption can also improve your HDL levels.

Fish oil can also go a long way in helping people with low HDL.  Other suggestions include red yeast rice supplementation, taking a niacin supplement, and eating foods that have lower glycemic levels.

Sources:
medicalnewstoday.com
webmd.com

Fibromyalgia remains a health problem that is surrounded by a great deal of mystery. However, researchers have proved that those people who exercise and are at a healthy weight are less likely to develop the problem.

A new study from Norwegian University of Science and Technology has shown that overweight and obese women are more likely to develop fibromyalgia.  This study was published in the May issue of Arthritis Care and Research.

Fibromyalgia includes long-lasting pain in points including the neck, shoulder, back, hips, arms and legs.  People with this issue commonly have fatigue, headaches, and trouble with their moods.  Sleep can also be disrupted. The cause of this problem is unknown, though genetics are believed to be a factor.

Some experts believe that fibromyalgia is caused from a dysfunctional nervous system.  Fibromyalgia impacts over 2% of the population of the United States.  Women are more likely than men to develop this problem. The likelihood of fibromyalgia also increases with age.

In this Norwegian study, 16.000 people were surveyed over a period of years.  As it turned out, of the group 380 people developed fibromyalgia. The patient’s exercise habits and BMI were examined over the years.  The results showed that people who exercised and were at a healthy weight were far less likely to have fibromyalgia.

Lead researcher Paul Mork said, “Women who reported exercising four times per week [or more] had a 29 percent lower risk of fibromyalgia compared with inactive women.”  Additionally, women who were heavier had a 60-70% higher change of getting fibromyalgia.  However, the overweight women who exercised were less likely to develop the problem.

As fibromyalgia does seem to run in families, this news is especially relevant for those with a family history.  Those who already have the condition can reduce pain if they reduce their weight and incorporate exercise into their routine.

Sources:
news.health.com
mayoclinic.com

Are you looking for another reason to exercise? Exercise can improve your life by increasing creativity, focus and intelligence.

Many people look at exercise as a requirement.  They know they are supposed to exercise, but they don’t necessarily enjoy it.  As a result, many dieters find that they are forcing themselves to exercise.  On the other hand, often people who aren’t trying to lose weight skip exercising altogether.  As you know, everyone should exercise because there are countless health benefits to exercising, which include fighting diseases like stroke, osteoporosis, diabetes and high blood pressure.

However, it is important to realize that exercise can improve your life in ways that are not necessarily even fitness related.  Exercise can allow you to find solutions, boost creativity and improve your focus.

A recent study at the National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan showed that the brainpower of mice improves when they are allowed to exercise. When mice are forced to exercise more than they normally would, the mice’s thinking power improves yet further.  Scientists noted major developments in the brain when the mice were pushed beyond their natural exercise inclinations.

So does the brainpower improve because of increased blood flow to the brain?  Interestingly, a recent study out of Columbia University and the Salk Institute showed that exercise’s improvements in focus and thinking result from more than just blood flow.  Scott Small and Fred Gage conducted this experiment.  They found that during exercise, muscles contract and chemicals and proteins are released.  One protein called IGF-1 releases chemicals in the brain that stimulate neurons to branch out in new directions. The end result is new connections between our brain cells.  These new connections are responsible for making us smarter!

As you boost your focus and mental ability, you also boost your creativity when you exercise.  Keith Sawyer, PhD the author of the book Group Genius: The Creative Power of Collaboration stated “Physical activity gets your mind into the bodily experience, so that subconscious connections can pop up.”  Exercise also releases cortisol from your body.  If there is too much cortisol in your system caused by stress, your ability to be creative shuts down.

Make sure that you do not force too much exercise on yourself.  After all, overtraining can lead to injuries and can be counterproductive to improving your life.  Exercise for at least 30 minutes at a time.  If you are looking to find creative ideas, consider exercising alone as an exercise companion may distract you.  Bring a small notepad and jot down ideas.

Once you understand these benefits of exercising, you will be more likely to want to integrate exercise in your daily routine.  If you are having difficulty focusing or being creative, you will quickly find that exercise can be the solution to your problems.

Sources:
living.health.com
smallbusiness.yahoo.com

Listening to music while exercising can increase performance, study shows.

There are necessities to every workout.  Willpower?  Check.  Quality sneakers?  Absolutely.  Shirt and shorts?  Most definitely.

There’s one more thing, though, that I’m convinced is a necessity:  Music.

Now, this may sound absurd, the notion that you need music to exercise.  But when I say “need,” I mean it in the sense that if you want to get the most out of your workout, you need music as much as you need sneakers.

The science behind music’s motivating effect is well-established.  I wrote about some of those studies in the past, but a fairly recent one found that people who listened to upbeat music and cycled to its beat used almost 10 percent less oxygen than the controls that cycled without music. In an even more recent study, published in the Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, people who listened to upbeat music had a 15 percent higher endurance level than the controls that were music-less.

Normally, it’d be right about now that I’d tell you to choose any music that motivates you, from Beck to Bach, Elton John to John Denver, Rise Against to Against Me.

But according to a 20 year study by Costas Karageorghis, selecting music for exercise should be based on four criteria:  rhythm response, musicality, cultural impact and association.

Choosing a song based on rhythm response is another way of saying a song with a rhythm you respond best to, or the song that best matches the cadence with which you run, walk or pedal a bicycle.

Musicality is any song you consider to be musical, something with a mellifluous chorus line or a righteous bass line.

The final two criteria—cultural impact and association—is what we bring to music based on past experiences.  Perhaps there’s a song that reminds you of a pleasant past experience, or a band you saw that you really enjoyed.  Find a genre of music that best matches that band, or a genre of music that stimulates an emotional, motivated response.

Now, using these criteria doesn’t necessarily preclude your selecting slow songs, if slow songs are the ones that motivate you most.  But there’s something to be said for choosing an upbeat brand of music even if it’s not necessarily the kind of music that gets you motivated.  And by “upbeat,” I mean music that’s between 90 and 150 beats per minute (i.e., if you were to match a song’s beat with the beating of your heart when you’re exercising).

I say this because when some British researchers asked cyclists to listen to the same song three separate times while they exercised, the participants increased or decreased their distance in conjunction with how fast or slow the song was being played.  For example, when the researchers increased the tempo by 10 percent—which was so small an increase that none of the participants noticed the uptick in tempo—they increased their distance traveled by two percent and pedal cadence by nearly four percent.  The change in performance was even more pronounced when the tempo was slowed (10 percent below the normal speed), cutting back on their traveling distance by about four percent, their cadence dropping by nearly 10 percent.

The study was conducted by researchers from Liverpool John Moores University and published in the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports.

These may not sound like huge swings in performance, but Olympic athletes devote hours of training time to trimming back their timed races by tenths and hundredths of a second.  Hundredths of a second can be the difference between silver and gold.

The same standard applies to your exercise, as every tenth of a mile and hundredth of a second is an improvement.   And there are few more effective ways of expediting improvement than with music.  Now that’s music to my ears.

Source:
msnbc.msn.com

Study shows those who exercised were more likely to be eventually discharged from the hospital than those who didn't.

“Is it all worth it?”

An older gentleman friend of mine said this to me at the gym today, wondering whether all the effort he’s put in at the gym over the years will amount to anything.

Joe is a bit overweight, so this is no doubt the reason why he left the gym sounding defeated with his exercise excursion.  It’s too bad he can’t see the big picture, as he doesn’t have any diseases or illnesses to speak of, and he’s well into his 70s!

But even if he were bedridden or had to be admitted to a hospital for some serious condition, the effects of exercising while there would increase his chances of improving tremendously.  You don’t have to take my word for it, though; a recent study published online says so as well.

The study was conducted by doctors from the University of Chicago, and it involved patients who were bedridden, or more specifically, critically ill to the point of needing sedation in the Intensive Care Unit.

While the 104 people’s conditions involved in the study was serious enough that they required ventilators, they were healthy enough to be taken off the ventilators for limited amounts of time.

It was under these conditions that doctors had some of the patients participate in light physical therapy, where 49 of them were able to get up and move around.  The others remain lying in bed, receiving the standard treatment for their condition.

After several weeks of this, the researchers came away with some amazing findings that would send shivers down the spine of my good friend Joe.  They found that approximately 60 percent of those who participated in the physical therapy aspect of rehabilitation achieved what the researchers refer to as “independent functional status.”  They defined this as the ability to walk without any need of assistance and able to perform six different tasks of daily living.

Further, those who exercised were more likely to be eventually discharged from the hospital, had more days in which they were off their ventilators entirely, and more likely to have days without any confusion or delirium-related issues (neurological episodes are common among people sedated for long period of time in Intensive Care Units, according to the study).

Comparatively, 35 percent of those who received the standard care without the physical therapy eventually achieved “independent functional status.”  A fair number of people, sure, but clearly not as high as those who were given exercise daily.

The results were compelling and robust enough for researchers from Switzerland to chime in with their own commentary on the subject in the journal where the study was published, The Lancet , saying that physical therapy ought to be a prescribed treatment for all people submitted to an ICU.

Heaven forbid my friend Joe needs to be admitted to an ICU, but I’m hoping he gets a chance to read this study.  Perhaps then he’ll realize the exercise he’s doing is keeping him out of the ICU…and can help get him out of the ICU should he ever be admitted.

Source:
health.msn.com

There’s no news like bad news, and once again, the media have illustrated this axiomatic truth.

For years, I and others in the natural health world have written about the array of benefits antioxidants provide the body.  How antioxidants neutralize free radicals, how they diminish the risk of an assortment of diseases and how they slow the aging process.

These positive benefits haven’t been hid by the media, but they’re rarely afforded the headline status they deserve.  This is mostly because it’s not perceived as news – people just seem to take the benefits of antioxidants for granted whenever a new study comes out on just how effective they are in contributing to overall well-being.

But if a study comes out slamming antioxidants as phony and destructive to health?  Now that’s a story.  It’s the classic journalism credo of “’Dog bites man’ isn’t news, but ‘Man Bites Dog’ is.”

Well ladies and gentlemen, that’s just what we have today, as a study’s been released that actually pooh-poohs the benefits of antioxidants. The researchers say that antioxidants actually “block the positive benefits of exercise on metabolism.”

Now that’s chutzpah!

German researchers came to this conclusion after recruiting approximately 40 men to participate in a four-week study that tested their athletic ability (85 minutes of cardio).  The recruits were both trained and untrained as far as overall fitness goes, and approximately half were assigned to take vitamin C and E supplements following exercise.  The other half took a placebo.

At the end of the study, the researchers came to some surprising – and in my and others’ opinions, flawed – conclusions.  The group that took the placebo showed some improvements in their metabolism, in that their bodies were better able to control and regulate blood sugar (one of the many benefits reaped from regular exercise).  But this wasn’t the case for those who took the vitamin E and C supplements.  They showed no improvements in insulin resistance.

The researchers chalk it up to antioxidants’ blocking reactive oxygen, and because of this, antioxidants might, get this, increase the risk of type II diabetes!

Again, that’s chutzpah!

The sensationally specious study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

I could go into great depth as to why this study should be taken with a grain of salt, and it starts with the fact that it was so small and only involved men.  But thankfully, there’s been a lot of reaction within the scientific community that epitomize my line of thinking in a more reasonably argued way, so I’ll let one of them speak on my behalf.

One of whom is Dr. Alexander Schauss. Speaking to NutraIngredients.com, Dr. Schauss of the AIBMR Life Sciences Center, an organization dedicated to natural products research, said that the study is flawed on its face because the German researchers asked trained and untrained athletes to perform the same amount of aerobic activity.  Naturally, the lab tests of an untrained person’s body will react differently than those of a trained athlete.

Secondly, much of the German researchers’ data was incomplete.  For instance, they collected muscle biopsies from some of the recruits, yet not for others.

Another one of his criticisms hearkens back to my media criticism, in that while the researchers pooh-pooh antioxidants benefit to exercise, they don’t say there’s any negative effects associated with vitamin E and vitamin C.  Yet the headlines around the world imply this untruth all day long (e.g. “Do Antioxidants Curb an Exercise Benefit,” “Antioxidants Blunt Exercise Benefit,” “Vitamins Undo Exercise Efforts”).

I’m hoping we’ve all reached the point where we can’t judge a book by its cover. You have to really read a study or article before coming to any conclusions.

This is a classic case of why you shouldn’t always take studies as gospel.  Because sometimes, they’re written just to get attention.

And all too often, the media are happy to oblige.

Sources:
nutraingredients.com
nutraingredients.com
webmd.com