Adventure Racing is one of Australia’s fastest growing and most exciting sports, and one of Australia’s premier adventure race events climaxed at the Teva Adventure Series Championships, on 28 October in the Shoalhaven area.

The Teva Event is one of Australia’s only National Adventure Race Series with events in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide, and culminates in the championship event. Teams of three take on a day of adventure which includes mountain biking, kayaking and trekking and in a unique twist teams are faced with a series of surprise team adventure challenges which test their ability to work together, think outside the box, and have loads of fun along the way. All kayak equipment is supplied -all you need is a mountain bike and some great team mates.

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Fitness professionals and their clients in Victoria can celebrate their own lives or the strength and courage of Australians with blood cancer by joining the Leukaemia Foundation for a gentle celebratory 4.7km walk, jog or run around Albert Park Lake on Sunday 18 November, from 10:45am to 1pm.

Whether you ‘Leg it’ in celebration of your own health or for loved ones, survivors, carers or even medical staff - it’s a chance to acknowledge all the important people in the cancer journey. By joining the ‘Leg it’ event you will be showing your support for patients who have fought or are fighting leukaemia, lymphoma, myeloma or other blood cancers.

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A new study published in the Journal of Diabetes Care suggests that hamburgers, fries and other foods fried at high temperatures can negatively impact blood vessels, leading to heart disease.

Fatty foods cooked at high temperatures are high in compounds called advanced glycation end products (AGEs), which previous research has found may cause a short-lived but marked dysfunction in blood vessel dilation which can in turn lead to heart disease.

Lead researcher Dr Jaime Uribarri, from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said, ‘Although the effect was temporary, it suggests that AGEs could, over time, pose a significant risk to the vascular integrity of both diabetic and healthy persons’.

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Although it has the obvious negative nutritional qualities of being high in fat and sugar, research has indicated that chocolate does have the positive quality of being an antidepressant capable of relieving anxiety and irritability.

Australia’s Black Dog Institute, the educational, research and clinical facility that offers specialist expertise in mood disorders, studied 3,000 people and found that 45 per cent of individuals with depression craved chocolate. And according to study co-author, Joanne Crawford, ‘Of those 45 per cent, 60 per cent found that the chocolate improved their mood when they were depressed’.

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New research from Japan appears to indicate that not all fats are necessarily bad for the liver.

The Japanese researchers changed the fat composition in the livers of mutant mice and proceeded to feed them the same highly fatty diet as they did a group of regular mice.

Both groups of mice became obese, with the regular mice developing resistance to insulin and becoming prone to diabetes, while the mutant mice remained free from these conditions.

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Australian research has found that drinking tea may help older females to strengthen their hips.

Lead study researcher Amanda Devine, a senior lecturer in nutrition at Edith Cowan University, WA, said ‘This study suggests that drinking tea in moderation can actually benefit your bones. Those who drank tea in the study had a higher bone density over the four years that they were studied. These women lost less bone than those who did not drink tea. More than three-quarters of the women drank tea daily, and they consumed on average about three cups per day’.

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The first ever Australian Yoga Week, which ran from 8 to 14 October, was a great success in terms of both participation and charity fundraising. The initiative built on last year’s Yoga Expo and incorporated a number of activities throughout the week, culminating in the 2007 Yoga Expo on Sunday 14 October.

As part of Yoga Week, the Yoga Aid Challenge took place in studios and at locations across Australia with the main event occurring at Sydney’s Botanical Gardens from sunrise until 9am on 10 October. Over 300 yoga practitioners took part in a challenge which saw them performing 108 sun salutations to raise money for two Australian children’s charities, Barnardos and Save the Children.

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Upon his return from a trip to China, Australian Traditional-Medicine Society President, Bill Pearson set about replicating the Chinese practice of Tai Chi in public places.

‘Wherever you are in China, you will see them in the parks and public places: thousands of citizens doing their daily Tai Chi class’ Pearson said, ‘I tried it in my local park and nearly caused accidents because drivers on the way home turned their concentration away from the roads to see who the man dancing in the park was. It wasn’t quite the same’.

‘When I led the first ATMS delegation of practitioners to China earlier this year I used to join the masses every morning at 6.30am. Indeed I was given a Tai Chi Master every morning to watch my progress and teach me more’. Click to continue »

As China’s economic dragon continues roaring, standards of living are improving and people are spending more time and money on their fitness and wellbeing. The increasingly affluent Chinese middle class in particular appears to be drawn to yoga, and classes in the mind body practice are springing up throughout China’s cities and more developed regions.

Beijing yoga teacher Mimi said, ‘Yoga is getting more and more popular among rich young professionals. Five years ago when I started to teach yoga, my students were mostly coaches at gyms or sports schools, but now white-collar workers dominate’.

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For sun-loving Aussies, the outdoors is a way of life. But with melanoma skin cancer being one of the most diagnosed cancers among people aged 15 to 44 years (according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and Australasian Association of Cancer Registries), sun protection should be an integral part of everyone’s daily skin care routine.

The Cancer Council Australia’s National Sun Survey found almost one in five Australian adults are sunburned on summer weekends, with most sunburn occurring when the temperature is between 18 and 27 degrees. This is due to the common misunderstanding that UV radiation isn’t as strong on cooler days - when in fact it is not related to temperature. UV radiation cannot be seen or felt.

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