Photo: Mike Baird, Flickr

Obviously, exercise is good for you, but just how much it benefits you depends on many factors, including your gender and your race, according to a long-term study led by the University of Northern Carolina.

Researchers have been tracking exercise and cholesterol levels in 15,000 African American and Caucasian men and women since the late 1980s. In all groups, adding an hour of mild exercise or a half an hour of moderate exercise a week increased levels of 'good' cholesterol, the heart-healthy HDL kind. However, the increased activity lead to lower levels of LDL ('bad') cholesterol only in women, not men. Additionally, the only group to exhibit improvement in all cholesterol levels were African American women. Caucasians who exercised more saw a decrease in harmful triglycerides, but African Americans didn't show the same result.

The reason for the differences? Researchers aren't sure, but they suspect it has something to do with hormonal differences between the sexes and genetic difference between races. Furthermore, the method of research -- questionnaires -- means the results might not be entirely accurate.

If you're a woman, this is even more motivation to step it up, because it's evidence that even a small change can make a big difference. But regardless of your race or gender, regular exercise is vital to your heart health and overall well-being -- so get moving!

Need more motivation? Find out how Michelle Obama sculpts those smokin' arms.

Kids in predominantly Caucasian countries get pretty good sleep, says a new study. Better than kids in Asian countries, anyway.

This study, led by researcher Jodi Mindell of Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, is the first ever to look at sleep patterns in infants and toddlers cross-culturally. The results, says Mindell, are astonishing. Here are two of them.

• Mindell found significant variability in bedtimes and total sleep time. For example, 15.1 percent of children in Canada shared a room, compared to 94.5 percent in Thailand, and the percentage of parents who believed their child had a minor or severe sleep problem ranged from 11 percent in Thailand to 76 percent in China.
  
  

• Kids in Asian countries were more likely to have later bedtimes, shorter total sleep times, increased parental perception of sleep problems, and were more likely to share a room than children in Caucasian countries. But there were no significant differences in night wakings and naps.
  
  

Mindell says her findings present more questions than they do answers, like: Why the differences? Could it be different cultural practices? And what is the impact of these differences? Seems it's time for another study.

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The results of a 25-year study show alarming racial difference between children with diabetes -- in fact, twice as many black children with diabetes died than white children throughout the last two and a half decades. And with diabetes on the rise, particularly type 2, researchers are hoping that the gap doesn't increase.

It's thought that these differences are a result of access to healthcare and health information; More specifically, black communities tend to have more limited healthcare and educational resources. And resources are the key -- without treatment, diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney failure and death.

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Previously studies have shown that when African Americans and Latinos get diabetes they tend to have it more severely than Caucasians, but there was very little understanding why. Recently new studies have shed some light on the situation, although new questions are also part of the mix. According to research by the University of Michigan the following is true, even when issues like income and access to health care are equal:

• African American diabetes patients are less likely than white ones to take their diabetes medication as prescribed.
• Latino diabetes patients are more likely than white ones to suffer from emotional distress related to the diagnosis.

But these findings still leave almost 80% of the racial differences in diabetes management unaccounted for, so unfortunately the mystery remains. But, on the bright side, every little bit helps -- if even just to give more focus to the researching!

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Do you buy a lot of the same foods week after week at the grocery store? Sure, we switch it up a little, but most of us have quite a few brands and foods that we're faithful to. Researchers are currently working on something I think would be really interesting: they're studying why we choose the foods we do when making selections at the grocery store.

Not only do we buy foods based on our income levels and what we know and/or believe about nutrition and health, but our ethnicity and gender also play a role. This is a pretty interesting article covering everything from how lower incomes mean higher sodium intake, to how men generally eat more fruits and vegetables than women.

Really? That last one surprises me.

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