11 July, 2012 Clippings

Want to live longer? Sit less!

Being seated for long hours may be directly linked to your life expectancy. An analytic study has found that if you sit less than 3 hours a day, it can boost your life expectancy. Similarly, cutting down TV time to less than two 2 hours daily might extend life by almost 1.4 years. Several previous studies have linked extended periods spent sitting down and/or watching TV to poor health, such as diabetes and death from heart disease/stroke.

The researchers used data collected for the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) for 2005/6 and 2009/10, to calculate the amount of time US adults spent watching TV and sitting down on a daily basis. They trawled the research database MEDLINE, looking for published studies on sitting time and deaths from all causes, and pooled the different relative risk data from the five relevant studies, involving almost 167,000 adults. The database was then re-analysed, taking account of age and sex. The population attributable fraction (PAFs) for deaths from all causes linked to sitting time and TV viewing were 27 percent and 19 percent, respectively. The results of life table analyses indicates that cutting the amount of time spent sitting down every day to under three hours would add an extra two years to life expectancy. Similarly, restricting time spent watching TV to under two hours daily would extend life expectancy by an extra 1.38 years.

“The results of this study indicate that extended sitting time and TV viewing may have the potential to reduce life expectancy in the US,” write study authors.

Source: http://health.india.com

11.07.2012

Cranberry products cut urinary infection risk

Use of cranberry-containing products appears to be associated with prevention of urinary tract infections in some individuals, a new study has revealed.

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) are common bacterial infections and adult women are particularly at risk.

According to the study background, cranberry-containing products have long been used as a "folk remedy" to prevent the condition.

Chih-Hung Wang, M.D., of National Taiwan University Hospital and National Taiwan University College of Medicine, and colleagues reviewed the available medical literature to revaluate cranberry-containing products for the prevention of UTI.

"Cranberry-containing products tend to be more effective in women with recurrent UTIs, female populations, children, cranberry juice drinkers, and people using cranberry-containing products more than twice daily," the authors note.

The authors identified 13 trials, including 1,616 individuals, for qualitative analysis and 10 of these trials, including 1,494 individuals, were included in quantitative analysis. The random-effects pooled risk ratio for cranberry users vs. nonusers was 0.62, according to the study results.

"In conclusion, the results of the present meta-analysis support that consumption of cranberry-containing products may protect against UTIs in certain populations. However, because of the substantial heterogeneity across trials, this conclusion should be interpreted with great caution," the authors concluded.

The study was recently published by Archives of Internal Medicine, a JAMA Network publication.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

11.07.2012

Strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle

Napoleon Hill