Need help getting moving? Try using the 3Cs
Michael Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet Oz, M.D.
Every year in more than 300 cities, over a million people participate in the American Heart Association’s Heart Walk to raise money and awareness about heart disease. And you can reduce your risk of heart disease by participating!
Walking is great for heart health (and everything else!), but you need to keep it up. Well, a new review reveals how you can do just that. It looked at evidence from 18 studies that followed healthy adults, tracking whether they walked in groups, alone or not at all. The researchers found that those who participated in group walking were most likely to stick with it (the researchers checked in at six months). That’s because a buddy system builds the 3Cs: commitment, community and continuity.
So if you and your friends have been talking about starting a walking routine:
■ Make a plan with a pal (or two or three or more) and sign a Buddy Exercise Agreement. Google “Making a Buddy Exercise Agreement” for tips and a form.
■ For your walks, try different neighborhoods, local trails or parks.
■ Check in regularly with anyone who misses a session to help them get back on track (you’ll benefit too).
And don’t put it off: Getting outside in the sunshine can raise your spirits, boost your vitamin D and help strengthen your bones. Plus, exercise helps make you less vulnerable to this winter’s colds and flu.
It’s risky mixing herbal supplements with OTC or Rx meds
Amazon offers 38 types of herbal supplements and each one, from aloe to yohimbe, comes in a multitude of brands and formulations. Americans spend $2.1 billion a year on herbals, but no herbal or weight-loss supplements are preapproved for sale! All the Food and Drug Administration can do is pull a dangerous or deceitful offering off the shelf — once it has harmed or cheated people! And they do that frequently: Just Google “tainted weight loss products FDA” and “fraudulent dietary supplements FDA” for indepth info.
A new study in The British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology looked at risks that herbal supplements pose to anyone taking meds for cardiovascular diseases (warfarin), cancer (chemo) and kidney transplants (immune suppressants). Sage, flaxseed, St. John’s wort, cranberry, goji juice, green tea and chamonilla (chamomile) caused or were associated with the most significant reactions. For example, “cases of acute rejection episodes have been reported in heart, renal or liver transplant patients stabilized on immunosuppressives, including cyclosporine and tacrolimus due to concomitant intake of St John’s wort.”
Weight-loss supplements are not proven to be effective and also pose risks: The Office of Dietary Supplements cautions “weight-loss products marketed as dietary supplements are sometimes adulterated or tainted with … pharmaceutically active ingredients that could be harmful.”
Be smart, be safe: Don’t combine herbal supplements with Rx or OTC meds! Don’t depend on magic pills for weight loss. Get a well-balanced nutritious diet, walk 10,000 steps daily and use reliable supplements responsibly (vitamin D-3, DHA omega-3s, low-dose multivitamins) after you talk to your doc!
Question: I’m an enthusiastic bike rider, but I can’t ride now because I have IT band syndrome. My doctor has given me a physical therapy prescription. Will that work to ease the pain and get me back on my bike? — Jerome K., Kansas City, Missouri
Answer: Problems related to the IT (iliotibial) band are pretty common and can affect anyone who exercises regularly. This noncontractile, fibrous/ fascia band stretches down the outside of your leg from your buttocks (“ilio,” or “flank”), over your knee and attaches to your tibia; its job is to stabilize your leg and knee. But it’s not a muscle, so it’s hard to get it to relax once it becomes irritated or inflamed.
Rest, ice, compression and elevation (RICE) are your first line of defense. It’ll take anywhere from three to six weeks to clear it up as long as you get physical therapy and do your exercises/stretches.
Talk with your physical therapist about the most helpful stretches and using a foam roller:
■ Sitting on the floor, put the foam roller under your glutes (buttocks) and hamstrings (back of your legs) and roll back and forth.
■ Then flip over so that you’re lying stomachdown, and roll your quadriceps muscles (front of the thighs). The goal is to roll all the areas around your IT band, not the IT band itself.
A hand-held roller that looks like a skinny, segmented rolling pin is also helpful; use it to roll around the injured site to relieve pain.
Then before you get back on the bike, go to a reputable bicycle store and have someone check your positioning. If your toe is turned in on the pedal (clipless or caged) or your seat is out of position, that can affect how your IT band crosses over your knee and can cause painful inflammation every time you ride.
Q: With all the talk about government shutdowns and de-funding of health initiatives and agencies, does the government still have the ability to protect us from a flu epidemic and potential pandemics like Zika and Ebola? — Mika
Z., Orlando, Florida
A: That’s an important question. Unfortunately, time is running out for a major partner of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (in conjunction with countries from around the world) — namely, the Global Health Security Agenda. Funding for the initiative will run dry in 2019, and the CDC is concerned about its renewal.
This $5.4 billion program was set up in 2014 to stop the Ebola virus in its tracks, which it did in Africa, before it spread globally. The whole idea behind America’s support of such a major global initiative is to fight dangerous infectious diseases at their source so that we remain safe in the USA. These days, distance is not a deterrent to disease spread; any infection may be only one plane ride away.
This initiative trains doctors and medical assistants, and helps underfunded medical institutions upgrade their labs with new equipment. Without funding, the Wall Street Journal reports, the CDC will have to downsize its work in 39 countries; 35 countries will have to cut staff by around 80 percent.
This severe downsizing could have profound repercussions on the
CDC’s ability to protect you, because, as a study in PLOS Pathogens points out, there are “layers of complexity to containing these infectious diseases that affect not only the health but the economic stability of societies.”
And then there’s the 2017-2018 flu season! At last count, more than 55 U.S. children have died, and there’s a record number of hospitalizations. Plus, a bird flu (H7N9) in China has jumped from chickens to humans for the first time; it’s killed a quarter of those infected.
Clearly, this would be a good time to guarantee long-term funding. If not, the people who find ways to prevent and contain potential epidemics and pandemics will be out seeking other jobs — and YOU and yours will be far more at risk than necessary.