THEY'RE KIDS, NOT EXCUSES

We don't need a scientific study to tell us it's not easy to work out when you have small children, but the University of Minnesota recently gave us one anyway.

The study, published April 11 in the journal "Pediatrics," found that parents with young children were less active than their childless peers.

But just because it's harder to workout doesn't mean it should be sacrificed. MultiCare dietitian Claire Kjeld and wellness coordinator Taryn West recent offered six tips for eating right and staying active even if kids are dominating your time.

--Go for a power walk. Grab the stroller and take a walk around the neighborhood, a park or, if the weather is poor, the mall.

--Plan your meals. This is hard with children, so West and Kjeld suggest making this a priority and cook more on weekends or after kids are in bed so you'll have healthier leftovers on days when you can't cook. They say you should base meals and snacks around whole foods (foods that can be easily categorized into one of the food groups -- grains, fruit, vegetables, milk and meat/beans). At least three food groups should be represented at each meal.

--Move with your kids. Instead of sitting on the bench watching your child play at the park, get up and get moving. Running around with your child can help get some extra activity.

--Create a home gym. Invest in some dumbbells and exercise DVDs and work out when your child is napping or playing. Even if you can't devote 30 minutes to exercise then, break your activity into 10-minute increments throughout the day.

--Find other parents to exercise with. An exercise partner keeps you motivated and stay-at-home parent friends are likely looking for an exercise boost, too.

--Minimize your "sometimes foods" such as crackers, cookies, desserts and sugary cereals. Instead, stock your home with fruits, vegetables, yogurt, whole grains, lean meats, beans and low-fat milk.

Craig Hill's fitness column runs Sundays in The News Tribune and The Olympian. Please submit questions and comments via This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , facebook.com/adventureguys or twitter.com/adventureguys. Get more fitness coverage at blog.thenewstribune.com/adventure, thenewstribune.com/fitness and theolympian.com/getfit.

 

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By MARILYNN MARCHIONE (AP Medical Writer)
 

The nighttime twitching of restless legs syndrome may be more than an annoyance: New research suggests that in some people, it could be a sign of hidden heart problems.

People with very frequent leg movements during sleep were more likely to have thick hearts - a condition that makes them more prone to cardiac problems, stroke and death, the study by Mayo Clinic doctors found.

"We are not saying there is a cause-and-effect relationship," just that restless legs might be a sign of heart trouble that doctors and patients should consider, said Dr. Arshad Jahangir, a heart rhythm specialist at the Mayo Clinic Arizona in Scottsdale.

He led the study and gave results Sunday at an American College of Cardiology conference in New Orleans.

Restless legs syndrome is thought to afflict millions, though there's argument about just how many. Some doctors think its seriousness has been exaggerated, possibly to help sell treatments.

The syndrome gained more scientific respect several years ago, when several genes were linked to it. And doctors have long known that other types of sleep disturbances such as sleep apnea raise the risk of heart problems.

The new research suggests the same may be true of the syndrome, famously referred to as "the jimmy legs" in an old "Seinfeld" episode.

The study is one of the first to look at how the syndrome affects health "other than the nuisance that it is," said the cardiology college's president, Dr. Ralph Brindis of the University of California, San Francisco.

It involved 584 people diagnosed with the syndrome by a neurologist based on four widely used criteria. Participants were given an imaging test that allowed heart thickness to be measured three ways, and were kept overnight so their sleep could be monitored.

Afterward, researchers divided them into two groups based on the frequency of leg twitches. The 45 percent who twitched at least 35 times per hour were more likely to have the thick-heart condition than the other 55 percent of study participants who kicked less often.

Looking at all study participants about three years later, researchers saw that those with severely thick hearts - about a quarter of the total group - were more than twice as likely to have suffered a heart problem or to have died.

The study was funded by the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and a private grant.

People with restless legs shouldn't panic, but it's worth talking with doctors about whether more tests are needed to look for an enlarged heart, Jahangir said.

"Don't ignore it. Discuss it with your physician," he said.

Online:

Heart meeting: http://www.acc.org

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Jim Borg, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Levels of mercury in an endangered Pacific seabird species have increased substantially in recent decades largely due to industrial emissions from Asia, Harvard University researchers have found.

The novel study examined breast feathers from 54 black-footed albatrosses collected at U.S. natural history museums from 1880 to 2002.

The results, published online Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, show an alarming rise in methylmercury, a neurotoxin that accumulates in the birds' bodies from a diet of fish.

There are implications for human health, too. Consumption of mercury-tainted fish from the Pacific is an important source of human exposure to methylmercury in the United States and could harm neurodevelopment in children, warned study co-author Michael Bank, an environmental research associate at the Harvard School of Public Health.

"Methylmercury has no benefit to animal life and we are starting to find high levels in endangered and sensitive species across marine, freshwater and terrestrial ecosystems," Bank said in a statement. "Mercury pollution and its subsequent chemical reactions in the environment may be important factors in species population declines."

Lead author Anh-Thu Vo, who did her research while an undergraduate at Harvard, warned that mercury poisoning could undermine the reproductive capabilities of albatross and other long-lived seabirds.

"The Pacific in particular warrants high conservation concern, as more threatened seabird species inhabit this region than any other ocean," said Vo, now a graduate student at UC-Berkeley.

The researchers collected feathers from albatross specimens in the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology and the University of Washington Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and analyzed methylmercury in samples over a 122-year period.

They found increasing levels of the toxin generally consistent with human-generated mercury emissions.

The research paper notes that mercury emissions have declined over the last two decades on every continent except Asia, where they nearly doubled from 1990 to 2005. Asia now produces two-thirds of the world's airborne mercury pollution, with half of that coming from China.

To see more of The Star-Advertiser, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.staradvertiser.com/.

Copyright © 2011, The Honolulu Star-Advertiser
 

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By MARY CLARE JALONICK (Associated Press)

The United States Food and Drug Administration is examining the link between dyes found in everyday foods and hyperactivity in children.

At a two-day meeting starting Wednesday, an FDA advisory committee will decide whether available data links the dyes and the disorder. The panel will recommend whether the agency should further study the issue or require better labeling.

The FDA has so far said there is no proven relationship between food dyes and hyperactivity in most children. But the agency said that for "certain susceptible children," hyperactivity and other behavioral problems may be exacerbated by food dyes and other substances in food.

The meeting is in response to a 2008 petition filed by the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest to ban Yellow 5, Red 40 and six other dyes.

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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