Living Life blog

The Importance Of Health Screening For Top Athletes

The issue of screening professional and amateur athletes for heart defects that could lead to sudden cardiac arrest and result in the death of the athlete was highlighted in 2012 by the horrifying and quite frankly frightening live television coverage of the Fabrice Muamba incident in March of 2012.

Whilst playing in a football match live on national TV, Muamba collapsed and his heart stopped beating for a reported two hours. Screening procedures in the UK are completed voluntarily with the governing bodies and player unions of sports organising and funding screening procedures, unlike other European countries such as Italy where screening is government funded and is carried out on a more regular basis.

Such screenings aim to identify top athletes who appear to be healthy, but are more susceptible to heart problems through an undiagnosed medical condition and these screenings can prove vital in identifying issues that could save a sportspersons life. The New Scientist reports the most common form of cardiac abnormality to affect both professional and amateur athletes is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Around 35 per cent of those suffering exercise related cardiac problems are diagnosed with this problem, which can begin in the womb and sees abnormally large cells create an irregular heartbeat. Other problems that can often be identified by screening include Brugada Syndrome, which can limit the amount of blood supplied to the heart and result in cardiac arrest.

The UK's attitude to health screening differs from that taken by many other countries around the world. The most stringent rules surrounding screenings are found in Italy, where each professional or amateur athlete must be screened twice each year to ensure their health won’t be compromised while taking part in sporting activity.

In the UK, most sports people taking part in a sporting activity are screened for heart problems when they join a club as a young person, but then only required to be screened at the discretion of their club or association, according to the BBC. In Italy, the introduction of the cardiac screening laws in 1982 led to a reported 89 per cent drop in the death rate associated with exercise related cardiac problems from 1979 to 2004, The New Scientist reports, a statisic which cannot be ignored by UK sporting associations.

In the UK, the low numbers of people affected by a cardiac defect have often led to screening being described as not required, with only one in fifty-thousand affected the expense is often seen as too much for the numbers identified.

Screening is not always a perfect science, with many of those identified as having a cardiac problem diagnosed incorrectly, the NHS reports. In the case of Fabrice Muamba, the Professional Footballers Association reported the athlete was screened four times by them with a negative result each time before his collapse at the age of 23. The raising of awareness of screening has led to many professional sporting clubs and bodies reviewing their health screening procedures to ensure they are completed regularly to protect top athletes in the UK.

Summer health ideas

When the summer really takes hold and the weather starts to get properly warm - well, hopefully anyway - it's good to incorporate some healthy habits into summer living. So here are a few of my summer health ideas:

Summer hydration - we're more likely to lose body fluid through perspiration during the hotter days,  so why not stay cool as well as hydrated by taking a flask of iced water or fruit juice to work? That way you can cool down and hydrate at the same time!

Summer exercise - if it's really hot, then going for your usual run or brisk walk may not quite have the same appeal, especially if the sun is beating down and the air is humid, as it often is during the UK summer. So what to do? One option is to go swimming - it's great for exercising different muscle groups, and it's also an aerobic activity that counts towards your recommended physical exercise as suggested by the health agencies such as the NHS.

Summer food. One of the great things about summer is the food. And there's something about the hotter weather that just makes stodge unappealing. This may be some kind of evolutionary or atavistic thing - being drawn more to high energy comfort food in cold weather may have made sense in terms of enerhgy preservation in the days of prehistory. But luckily summer is a time of fruits, vegetables, salads and lovely lower fat meat such as chicken. get creative and enjoy the summer health foods - for recipe ideas there's loads on the BBC's food section as well as on sites likethe Guardian, who also seem to specialise in a lot of the more vegetable-based type of recipes, which isn't just healthy as it helps avoid consuming too much red meat, it also means (generally) lower calories too.

The January health kick - holding up?

Just a quick update on my January health kick.

This will be the first January in two years that I've decided to really make a big effort and 'do health'. Okay, so we're only a third of the way through the month, but so far, it's all been good.

I've been going out running quite a lot. Not for any great length of time or distance - but I fugure that getting out there and exerting myself for an hour and a half over the course of each week should be good for my fitness levels - not to mention get me feeling good bout myself. For sure, I've been enjoying the running so far and have suffered no low- or zero-motivation days. Well, not yet, anyway...

Foodwise I am not a calorie counter since my weight never really gets too heavy. That's not to say there aren't occasions when a few pounds need shifted. This January is one of those times. So I have cut out a few of the treats that had become a bit too regular in my diet - you know, the sugary drink/ bag of sweets type treats. So far, so good. In fact I am convinced that once you're in the habit of drinking water, that to have anything soft drink-y would be less preferable and too sugary.

All in all, a healthy January so far - and enjoying it, too. I even bought a green cabbage yesterday. 

Winter exercise and activity: the snowboard

Winter's most definitely here. Well, it is here anyway. If you live in the Southern Hemisphere it's obviously summer. But here? Hiver is most certainly arivee. We've had snow, ice clear blue skies so wide and pure they look almost hyperboreal, for sure. 

So to celebrate the cold times, let's look at one of the most groovy winter activities known to humankind: snowboarding. This video shows just how much fun is out there on the slopes!

 

Fitness motivation for Autumn

Now that autumn is more or less here - although there are the odd afternoons of summery warmth every so often - it's time to get your Autumn fitness motivationin check.

All too often it's easy to become a little bit demotivated when the colder weather kicks in, but Autumn's actually an ideal time to re-energise your fitness routine. Or if you're currently between fitness regimes - a good time to kick start a new one.

So. where to start?

The first thing to do is to get a plan together. it doesn't need to be anything detailed or anything too ambitious. Just list a few of your objectives such as getting your fitness level up to strandard by running or swimming done however many times a week, or maybe an achievable weight loss target.

The beginning of September is a good time to look ahead - December's only 3 months away now, and what better time to be a healthy eating, exercised and stress free individual at the start of the festive season? Also, if you're truly in momentum by then, there will be less chance of your healthy habits being derailed by all the festivities that start around then.

Here are some Autumn motivational fitness and general health tips

• some great healthy food is in season right now. Seek out some lovely vegetables and cereals and have an Autumn healthy eating season!
• As the light begins to fade and we approach the inevitable turning back of the clocks by one hour, it pays to start getting active now, and hopefully help avoid some of the glomy feelings many of us experience with the reduced daylight. Exercise gets those endorphins flowing and can have a positive effect on our moods.
• Mix it up! If you've been following a set pattern of healhy eating and exercise over the summer, look for some new stuff to do. You could surprise yourself with some new activities and untried workouts.

Autumn is also a very good month to eb out and about, what with all those autumn colours and lovely sunsets - make the most of it!

 

Summer fitness and exercise

Well, after a lot of what's technically known as, err, "humming and hawing", it looks like summer is finally here!

And could there be a better time in the calendar to start thinking about new and exciting ways to stay fit and healthy? All those summer salads being served up and all that tennis on the television - it's like a health utopia.

So why not make some summer health promises - a bit like a new year's resolution except for health and fitness in the summertime? Here are a couple of ideas to get you going...

Summer 5 a day. This involves your usual 5 a day except - you guessed it - adding in some groovy summer stuff like strawberries, mango, cucumber - anything fresh and summery and (if it's not an import) in season!

Summer walks. Why not set your television hard drive to record that favourite show while instead you venture out into the mild summer evenings for a leisurely walk. This will help you unwind, de-stress, and may even help you burn off a few calories too. Quicken the pace a little and it could even count as exercise!

Take up a new sport. It doesn't have to be anything requiring massive skill - get together with friends for an evening of frisbee throwing (actually, just the dog would do for that one!) or volleyball in the park. 

Cut down on fatty foods - now is the perfect time to eat leaner cuts of meat and shy away from fried foods. maybe they make sense in the winter as comfort food, but now summer's here you can eat healthier and maybe even lose a few pounds in weight.

Make a healthy choices list. This could be a minimum amount of walking or exercise your going to do in a week, or maybe a plan of action for losing weight. Whatever your healthy choice is, write down your objectives and use the natural summer positivity and motivation to help you achieve it!

Fitness: gym tips

Staying active is something that most of us aspire to, but whether we're able to keep up the momentum can often be another question entirely. And if you work in a largely sedentary environment - getting away from your desk sporadically to get a cup of coffee or retrieve a document from the printer - then the question of staying active becomes all  the more pressing.

In the last decade or so, the UK has seen pretty much what you'd call a profusion of chain gyms popping up in towns and cities: Virgin Active, Fitness First, LA Fitness and so on. And with this massive explosion of growth in the fitness industry there's also been - no surprises here - an attendant rise in people with gym memberships.

But the number of people with a direct debit and a contract with the local gym doesn't necessarily equate to any kind of realistic number of the people who are using the gym on a daily or even weekly basis. How often have we heard the story from a colleague that they bought a gym membership with great plans to go on and reach a peak of physical fitness, only for the membership card to languish seldom- or unused on the dressing table or at the back of a wallet?

We though it might be instructive to see what info we could find on the internet for people suffering from gym-lag. It seems that the problem is actually quite widespread - so to help you get back on track, back in the gym, and on the road to fitness, here are the tips we found:

1. Repetition could be the key to gym fatigue. According to Maxim Online, it's a good idea to change your workout every 4 to 6 weeks - and mix things up with some other activities such as circuit training.

2. Unless you can see yourself doing something, you're unlikely to find yourself doing it. So try and tap into the power of visualisation: imagine yourself at the gym, excelling at your workout, getting fit.

3. Have a goal. maybe 'being fit' is too general. Self improvement literature nearly always has a line in it somewhere about how we're 'goal-oriented creatures' or something like that. I think this is probably true. A big wide unspecific 'goal' can be burdensome, whereas a smallish, precisely defined, achieveable one looks all the more tempting. 

4. Schedule your gym time and stick to it. A lot of what we do in life is simply down to habit. If you exercise at regular times rather than doing it ad-hoc as and when you 'feel like it' you'll be far mre likely just to let it slide at some point. Whereas if you stick tenaciously to a schedule, then you may well magically find that when yoou can't make it to a session, you'll actually miss it!

5. Be flexible. You're only human, so if you have let tthings stray or not lived up to your own high standards, it doesn't mean that all is lost. Persistence is the key here - there may be times when you're as active as you'd like to be, but don't compound that small (and let's face it, insignificant in the scheme of things) fact with guilt or negative thoughts. accept that like all journeys, the journey to fitness will have its ups and downs.

 

Health and fitness: safety and sport

We're often encouraged - rightly,of course - to stay active and enjoy physical activity. It's good for us in many ways - burning calories, exercising your lungs, and then there's the psychological aspect. We feel better having gone for a swim than sat in a chair.

But one thing you don't hear so much about is safety and exercise. So if you're a sports participator or gym fanatic it's a good idea to build safety into you fitness programme. It won't require too much effort and could help you avert injury in the long term.

Of course it depends on what physical activities you do - if you're going running, then joining an athletics club means you'll be able to share safety tips and experiences with other runners. Specialist running advice can also help you with the actual way that you run, helping you avoid such things as overpronation - essentially this is your foot making contact with the ground in the wrong way.

While there's plenty of info on the interenet, it's also essential to contact a health professional if you have any concerns. Self-diagnosis over the internet may be tempting - but a professional's opinion is essential!

 

Can too much TV shorten our lifespan?

Too much television is has long been accused of being bad for us, but while most of us now know that it's unlikely to make our eyes turn square - new research now claims it could shorten our lifespan.

According to a report in the Independant, our lives could be shortened by up to 22 minutes for every hour we spend in front of the television. Austrailian researchers found that while many people are watching more TV than ever, and this shift to sedentary lifestyles can have a dramatic effect on our lifespan.

The study also found that watching 6 hours of TV a day could take 5 years off of our overall  life expectancy - and it was suggested that each hour of TV could statisically be considered to be more harmful than a single cigarette. 

What do you think about this research? Have you ever watched 6 hours of television in one day?

 

British & US Health Care

Why do so many people over there in the states get so het up about reforms to their business health insurance coverage that the president is trying to implement. I just don't get it, the vast majority of the population in the US only has the most basic access to healthcare and this it seems to me is shocking in the twenty first century.

I know that we come from completely different cultures abd that the US distrust of governments getting too involved in their everyday life, but sometimes private companies just cannot do what is needed and that is when you must rely on huge organizations like governments.

If I lived in a country where such basic necessities were not available to most of the public I would want something done about it, or would probably want to go somewhere else [guess Canada might be a bit cold] but as I said I was brought up in a whole different society.