healthbriefs
National Start! Walking Day I
mproving overall health can be as simple as putting one foot in front of the other—and April 6, National Start! Walking Day, is the ideal opportunity to begin a regular walking routine. Ameri- can Heart Association (AHA) research shows that individuals can gain about two hours of life for every hour engaged in regular, vigorous exercise—a two- for-one deal that’s hard to beat. Walk- ing just 30 minutes per day, five days a week, can also help reduce the risk of
cardiovascular disease and stroke, promote better sleep and assist in maintaining healthy body weight. Visit
StartWalkingNow.org for resources to kick-start a heart-friendly regimen. The site offers links to local walking paths, heart-healthy recipes, an online prog- ress tracker and an app that helps walkers find and create paths while traveling. To find walking buddies or start a walking club, visit AHA’s
MyWalkingClub.org.
C
QIGONG: A BOON FOR CANCER PATIENTS
ancer patients that regularly practiced qigong, a 5,000-year- old combination of gentle exercise and meditation, for al- most three months experienced signifi- cantly higher levels of well-being, improved cognitive functioning and less inflammation, compared to a control group. Dr. Byeong- sang Oh, a clinical senior lecturer at the University of Sydney
Medical School, in Australia, who led the study, says the reduced inflamma- tion in patients that practiced medical qigong, a form of Traditional Chinese Medicine, was particularly significant. The project involved 162 patients, aged 31 to 86; those assigned to the medical qigong group undertook a 10-week program of two supervised, 90-minute sessions per week. They were also asked to practice an addi- tional 30 minutes at home each day. When the study began, there were no significant differences in measurements of quality of life, fatigue, mood status and inflamma- tion between the intervention and control groups. However, “Patients that practiced medical qigong expe- rienced significant improvements in quality of life, including greater physi- cal, functional, social and emotional well-being, while the control group deteriorated in all of these areas,” reports Oh.
He remarks that the study is the first such trial to measure the impact of medical qigong in patients with cancer. “Several studies have indi- cated that chronic inflammation is associated with cancer incidence, progression and even survival,” Oh explains. He presented the findings at a recent American Society of Clinical Oncology conference.
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