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Moderate Physical Activity Can Boost the Immune System and Protect Against Chronic Diseases

As millions of Americans flock to the gym armed with New Year's resolutions to get in shape, medical experts are offering an additional reason to exercise: Regular workouts may help fight off colds and flu, reduce the risk of certain cancers and chronic diseases and slow the process of aging.

Physical activity has long been known to bestow such benefits as helping to maintain a healthy weight and reduce stress, not to mention tightening those abs. Now, a growing body of research is showing that regular exercise—as simple as a brisk 30- to 45-minute walk five times a week—can boost the

body's immune system, increasing the circulation of natural killer cells that fight off viruses and bacteria. And exercise has been shown to improve the body's response to the influenza vaccine, making it more effective at keeping the virus at bay.

"No pill or nutritional supplement has the power of near-daily moderate activity in lowering the number of sick days people take," says David Nieman, director of Appalachian State University's Human Performance Lab in Kannapolis, N.C. Dr. Nieman has conducted several randomized controlled studies showing that people who walked briskly for 45 minutes, five days a week over 12 to 15 weeks had fewer and less severe upper respiratory tract infections, such as colds and flu. These subjects reduced their number of sick days 25% to 50% compared with sedentary control subjects, he says.

Medical experts say inactivity poses as great a health risk as smoking, contributing to heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, depression, arthritis and osteoporosis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 36% of U.S. adults didn't engage in any leisure-time physical activity in 2008.

Even lean men and women who are inactive are at higher risk of death and disease. So while reducing obesity is an important goal, "the better message would be to get everyone to walk 30 minutes a day" says Robert Sallis, co-director of sports medicine at Fontana Medical Center, a Southern California facility owned by managed-care giant Kaiser Permanente. "We need to refocus the national message on physical activity, which can have a bigger impact on health than losing weight.

"Regular exercise has been shown to combat the ongoing damage done to cells, tissues and organs that underlies many chronic conditions. Indeed, studies have found exercise can lower blood pressure, reduce bad cholesterol, and cut the incidence of Type 2 diabetes.

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal, Jan. 5, 2010

Study Indicates Childhood Soy Diet Reduces Breast Cancer Risk

Reported March 30, 2009 (Ivanhoe Newswire)

Asian-American women who ate a lot of soy during their childhood are significantly less likely to develop breast cancer than other women, even those who consume a lot of soy in adolescence and adulthood, according to a new study.

Historically, breast cancer rates are four- to seven-times higher among white American women than women in China or Japan, researchers said. But when Asian women migrate to the United States, their breast cancer risk rises over several generations and eventually reaches that of white women, leading scientists to suspect that lifestyle factors rather than genetics are responsible for the international differences.

For this study, researchers interviewed 597 women with breast cancer and 966 healthy women. All of the women were of Chinese, Japanese and Filipino descent living in the U.S. If the women had mothers living in the U.S., the mothers were also interviewed to determine the frequency of their soy consumption in childhood.

High soy intake during childhood was associated with a 58 percent reduction in breast cancer, but a high level of soy intake during adolescence and adulthood was only associated with a 20 to 25 percent reduction.

"Since the effects of childhood soy intake could not be explained by measures other than Asian lifestyle during childhood or adult life, early soy intake might itself be protective," the study's lead investigator Larissa Korde, M.D., M.P.H., of the National Cancer Institute's Clinical Genetics Branch was quoted as saying.

The researchers cautioned that even though these findings are potentially life changing, additional studies need to be done before doctors start recommending changes to children's diets. But, why wait to start a good thing?

SOURCE: Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, March 2009

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