April is the month when people from all walks of life in NSW get together for a ‘Great Australian Bite,’ helping to raise money to find a cure for the 740,000 Australians who live with diabetes.
To host a ‘bite’, all you need to do is;
Australian Fitness Network’s own Project Manager, Analee Matthews, has traded in her locks to raise money for the World’s Greatest Shave event.
As part of this annual fundraising event for The Leukaemia Foundation, Analee is encouraging everybody who has ever been affected by cancer or its impact on a loved one, to donate to the cause.
A thousand adventure-hungry participants are expected to take part in the 2008 Volvo City Chase when it hits Sydney CBD on Saturday 29 March.
City Chase, the World’s Largest Urban Adventure Series, will run across 25 international cities in 2008, with Sydney partaking for the third consecutive year. From Singapore to Boston to Calgary, competitors will complete the part obstacle course, part scavenger hunt, in the fastest possible time.
Research in rats has found that artificial sweeteners may contribute to weight gain by confusing the body’s ability to control appetite and recognise when it will soon be full.
Study author, Susan Swithers, an associate professor of psychological sciences at the Ingestive Behaviour Research Institute at Purdue University, said, ‘We found that the rats that were getting artificially sweetened yogurt gained more weight and ate more food. The take-home message is that consumption of artificially sweetened products may interfere with an automatic process. We often will stop eating before we’ve been able to absorb all of the calories that come from a meal. One of the reasons we might stop eating is that our experience has taught in the past that, ‘After I eat this food, I’ll feel this full for this long’.
After you’ve spent the day expending energy with your clients and participants on Saturday 29 March, head home and start saving some.
To raise awareness of the climate change issue and send a powerful message that it’s possible for individuals to take action and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, WWF-Australia has again planned Earth Hour to take place between 8 and 9pm.
A new British study has found that soaking potatoes prior to frying them reduces the formation of the suspected carcinogen acrylamide.
Previous research has indicated that acrylamide, which is present in many foods, may harm health and cause cancer in animals. It is created when foods rich in starch are cooked at a high temperature (i.e., when they are fried, baked, grilled or roasted).
A new US study of over 4,000 women aged 25 to 84 has found that one in three American females suffers a pelvic floor disorder.
The symptoms of pelvic floor disorders include a frequent urge to urinate, incontinence and dropped pelvic organs.
Of the 4,000 women studied (80 per cent of whom had given birth), 25 per cent reported suffering anal incontinence, 15 per cent stress urinary incontinence, 13 per cent from overactive bladder and six per cent from pelvic organ prolapse. Previous research by the same team found that women who had given birth vaginally had double the rate of pelvic floor disorders compared to those who had had caesareans or who had not yet given birth.
Another American study has supported previous findings which suggest that teenagers who eat a filling, healthy breakfast are less likely to be overweight or obese.
Study co-author and associate professor of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, Mark Pereira, said, ‘There’s a pretty significant inverse association between how frequently kids report eating breakfast and how much weight they gain over time, and we took into account other dietary factors and physical activity. It’s interesting to note that the kids who eat breakfast on a daily basis overall have a much better diet and are more physically active’.
New research from Spain and Portugal has indicated that regular physical activity in a heated swimming pool can help people suffering from the painful condition fibromyalgia.
The symptoms of fibromyalgia, which has no known cause, range from chronic pain and muscle, ligament and tendon tenderness to sleeping disorders, neck and shoulder pain, anxiety and depression.
Treatment for the condition, which affects women far more than it does men, currently involves the use of painkillers, antidepressants, relaxation therapy and exercise.
Data analysis has revealed that moderate aerobic activity can considerably reduce the risk of stroke.
The large-scale study, carried out by the Prevention Research Centre at the University of South Carolina Arnold School of Public Health, showed that the risk of stroke, for both men and women, could b lowered by up to 40 per cent if thirty minutes or more moderate aerobic activity, such as a brisk walk, were undertaken five days a week.
Study author, and director of the research centre, Steven Hooker said that the study was the first to suggest a significant independent link between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and fatal and nonfatal stroke in men and nonfatal stroke in women.
