How Not to Catch a Cold

Meditation Works

If there were a way to avoid getting colds and the flu, would you do it?  There is some compelling evidence that there may be just such an antidote!  Meditation and exercise both appear to reduce the frequency of acute respiratory infections—colds and flu.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin assigned 149 participants, mostly women and all over 50 years old, to one of three groups.  One group took an 8-week training program in mindfulness meditation, the second an 8-week training in moderate intensity sustained exercise and the third served as an observational control group.  They studied the participants for the duration of one cold and flu season.  These results were pretty remarkable.

Acute Respiratory Infections by Group
Meditation - 27   
Exercise - 26   
Control - 40   

Total Days of Illness by Group   
Meditation - 257   
Exercise - 241   
Control - 453   

Days of Work Missed by Group
Meditation - 16
Exercise - 32
Control - 67

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and reported in the Annals of Family Medicine in July, 2012.

In addition to washing your hands and getting your flu shot, this cold and flu season you may also want to engage in some mindful meditation techniques or sustained exercise!

This article was originally published in Pathways Residential Care Journal - Issue 5.  To download this issue in PDF format, or past issues, visit our newsletter archives online at www.pathwayshealth.org/publications.

Reasons to Get Online & On Your Feet

Agile Minds

We have known that mental activity staves off cognitive impairment, and the same is known about exercise.  But is it even more effective if seniors do both?  It looks like the answer is yes.

Research involving seniors ages 70 to 93 demonstrated that any amount of moderate exercise in conjunction with using a computer during the previous year resulted in a 64% less likelihood of mild cognitive impairment compared with those who reported neither activity.

According to lead researcher, Yonas Ged, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale, AZ, there was a significant additive effect when both exercise and the computer were employed.  Geda and colleagues examined data from the Mayo Clinic Study of Aging, an ongoing population-based study of individuals living in Olmsted County, Minn. The analysis included 926 men and women who did not have dementia.  The researchers controlled for age, sex, education, medical co-morbidity, and depression.

Among seniors who had normal cognition, 36% reported getting any moderate exercise and using a computer in the previous year.  Among those with mild cognitive impairment, only 18.3% reported both exercise and computer use.

The study was reported in the May, 2012 issue of Mayo Clinic Proceedings and was supported by grants from the NIH and numerous foundations.

This article was originally published in Pathways Physician & Health Professional Bulletin - Issue 24.  To download this issue in PDF format, or past issues, visit our newsletter archives online at www.pathwayshealth.org/publications.

Sitting is a Risk Factor for Death

Spending Leisure Time

If you get home from work and want to plop down in a chair for the evening—think again.  You may want to take a break, but get moving again.  A study of more than 120,000 people found that those who spend at least 6 hours of their leisure time sitting died sooner than those who sat less than 3 hours.

People who sit a lot and exercise little are at even higher risk of death, and the effect is stronger for women than men.  The death rate was about 40% higher in women, and 20% higher in men.  The least active women were 94% more likely to die and the least active men were 48% more likely to die.  (100% would mean you were twice as likely to die.)

The study was conducted by the American Cancer Society over 14 years and looked at people 50-74 years old when the study began in 1992.  The main risk linked to sitting was heart disease.

“It is beneficial to encourage sedentary individuals to stand up and walk around as well as to reach optimal levels of physical activity,” according to the study’s authors.  The findings appear in the July 2010 issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology.