Vigorous Exercise: More Real-Life Examples

Andy Ness from the University of Bristol in England has pointed me to some more real-world examples of vigorous, as opposed to mild or moderate, exercise: hiking, rowing, dancing, bicycling 10 to 16 mph.You can find more examples of vigorous exercise at the Healthful Life website, published by the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey.Ness recently co-authored a scientific paper that

Businessman Arrested in Pet Food Scandal

With the arrest by the Chinese government of a local businessman for allegedly contaminating pet food ingredients with the industrial chemical melamine, the current food safety scandal has taken another turn--from the assumption of accidental contamination to growing evidence of deliberate behavior, from contamination of pet food to possible contamination of human food.Ever notice how a

How To Think About Hormones and Dementia

How old a woman is when she takes supplemental hormones may determine whether it helps to protect her against developing dementia later in life, according to a new analysis of data from the Women's Health Initiative that was presented at the American Academy of Neurology annual meeting in Boston.Readers of this blog will immediately note the "Mighty May" and will mentally rewrite the news as "

Is Sleeping in Bed Harzardous? Not!

Most people die in bed, the NIH's Dr. Jacques Rossouw said yesterday while the two of us were waiting to participate in a media panel on communicating complicated nutrition science. That doesn't mean that beds are hazardous to your health.We were talking about how easy it is to draw the wrong conclusion from studies that detect a link or association between two different--and yet objectively

Seminar: How the Press Covers Nutrition

Interested in how the media covers nutritional issues? I'll be one of the panelists this Sunday afternoon at a session of the big Experimental Biology annual meeting in Washington, D.C.Not sure if any of it will be available on the Web, but I'll be sure to summarize the experience in a future post. Later Sunday evening, I'll be accepting an award from the American Society for Nutrition for my

Connecting the Dots on Food Safety

The best health articles, like the one Ariana Eunjung Cha wrote in the Washington Post Wednesday on the ongoing pet-food crisis, typically touch on the theme that you can't be healthy in isolation. What others do affects how healthy you are, just as what you do affects others.Eunjung Cha connects the dots that link "food safety in China" to "food safety in the U.S." through the story of the

Just What is Vigorous Exercise or Play?

Ever since a March study highlighted the importance of moderate-to-vigorous play in keeping children from becoming overweight or obese, several readers have wondered how to decide what exactly is moderate or vigorous exercise.The simplest method, if you don’t have an actigraph or access to a physiology lab, is the talk test.If you can easily sing while exercising, that’s a light level of