Fitness & Nutrition News Briefs: Arterial Aging; Exercise for Inpatient Psychiatric Care
Train for a Marathon to Reverse Arterial Aging
New runners who completed their first marathon experienced a drop in both blood pressure and arterial age in a study presented at EuroCMR 2019, a scientific congress of the European Society of Cardiology. The study included 139 healthy people ages 21 to 69 years who ran six to 13 miles a week for six months, then completed the 2016 or 2017 London Marathon. Before they started training and two weeks after the marathon, participants had magnetic resonance imaging and ultrasound scans of the heart and blood vessels, a fitness test, and measurements of blood pressure and heart rate.
After completing the marathon, the participants’ aortic stiffness, a normal part of aging, was reduced, particularly in older participants and those with longer marathon finish times, and blood pressure dropped by 4 millimeters of mercury. The health benefits were comparable to the effect of medication, the study authors noted, and could translate to a 10 percent lower risk of stroke.
Exercise Recommended for Inpatient Psychiatric Care
Exercise so effectively improves serious psychiatric disorders, such as depression, schizophrenia, suicidality, and acute psychotic episodes, that it could reduce the length of hospital stays and the use of psychotropic medications, according to a study published in May in Global Advances in Health and Medicine.
Investigators at the University of Vermont and the University of Vermont Medical Center built a gym in the medical center’s inpatient psychiatry unit. They led 60-minute structured exercise and nutrition education programs for about 100 patients. After exercising, most patients reported higher self-esteem and lower anger, anxiety, and depression. An average of 95 percent of patients reported that their moods improved after exercising, and 63 percent reported being happy or very happy.
“If you’re in a psychotic state, you’re sort of limited with what you can do in terms of talk therapy or psychotherapy,” said lead researcher David Tomasi, PhD. “It’s hard to receive a message through talk therapy in that state, whereas with exercise, you can use your body and not rely on emotional intelligence alone.”
Dr. Tomasi hopes to see exercise become as common in psychiatric facilities as pharmacological intervention.
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