That's Fit

Eating healthy costs money. Getting into better shape can also cost a good deal of coin (gym memberships, new running sneakers, etc.). But sleep? That's a freebee, yet of these three primary paths to health and wellness, this is the area where most people carry the most debt.

Not good, say researchers from Stanford University, not good at all. Not if you want to be at your best during workouts ... and just about everything else you do during your hours spent awake. Support for this assertion comes from the University of Lubeck in Germany, where researchers discovered that getting the recommended 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night can help improve creativity and memory.

With the weekend here, do yourself the favor of sleeping in -- providing you have the luxury to do so. Not only will help your performance in the gym and help you unleash your inner Picasso, but a failure to catch enough Z's can also decrease your libido, says a recent Men's Health article.

Have fitness questions? Fitz has your answer. Our ThatsFit.com fitness expert -- and now your own virtual personal trainer -- will help you get fit, increase your overall health and do it in a fun way. Drop your questions here in the Comments section below and we'll choose two per week to publish on That's Fit! Learn more about Fitz here.

Q. Dear Fitz, I know that most people are trying to lose weight, but I am trying to gain. Gain muscle, that is. I am going to the gym three to four times per week. I'm using the weight machines there, but It doesn't seem like I am gaining any muscle. Could you give me some advice? What types of healthy food should I eat? Should I be doing more reps with less weight or fewer reps with more weight? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks, Lea Rettig

A. Hey Lea, your question is superb, and the answer thank goodness is quite simple. Strength training should be challenging. Funny enough, my clients always seemed shocked and follow up that feeling of shock by giving me dirty looks when I pass them the dumbbell I'd like them to lift. Along with that dirty look, I receive chronic cries of, "Fitz! That's heavy!" Well, yes. Yes it is. The purpose of strength training is to get stronger, and yes ... build muscle. If I were to give them weights they could already lift comfortably ... they wouldn't be getting any stronger!

"No longer easy on the eyes, 'cause these wrinkles masterfully disguise the youthful boy below," croons Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard in a song off their 2005 album Plans. If you were to ask a scientist from the Corporate Research and Statistics Group to evaluate these lyrics, they'd tell you Mr. Gibbard probably needs more vitamin C in his diet.

That's because research into the effects of vitamin C on skin revealed that of 4,000 people examined for a 2007 study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, those who consumed the highest amounts of this vitamin in their diets had significantly fewer wrinkles than people with the lowest levels. Researchers posit that the antioxidants found in vitamin C help increase collagen production and regeneration, thereby keeping skin looking younger.

However, not everyone subscribes to this 'An orange a day keeps the wrinkle away' construct. Many experts believe that it's too difficult, if impossible, to ascertain which specific foods actually contributes to wrinkles, or the lack thereof.

Oh man. This is one of those statistics that makes you either swear off eating all together or throw your hands up in the air in disgust. I mean seriously. Who is the guy with the weird job which allows him to research these odd little details? I'd hate to be his wife, as he comes home each night with all the yucky tidbits in life that I really never want to know.

I learned about my bug consumption while flipping through the June 2008 edition of Women's Health magazine. Seems more the type of scoop you'd find in Maxim, but no ... it was my beloved Women's Health that broke the news.

Peanut allergies have become pretty popular. And what causes them remains a bit confusing.

When my now almost three-year-old daughter was a baby, our pediatrician told us the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended peanut consumption be delayed until age three because the allergy was believed to be developed due to repeated exposure at a very young age. But new studies suggest no relation between allergies to peanuts and when a child began eating them. This is what AAP had to say. Since the cause is still clear as mud, study authors recommend more research on the cause of early allergic reactions to peanuts, as well as successful prevention efforts.

Meanwhile, we're still eating sunflower seed butter in our house. This web page touts its similarity to peanut butter in consistency, taste and price and offers a nutritional breakdown (it does contain a bit more sugar than some peanut butters). We started when the pediatrician gave us the nitty gritty on nut allergies and we have no plans to stop. It's really tasty. I like it better than peanut butter. We pick up a couple jars every time we go to Trader Joe's. But it's also available in other local markets.

So until researchers come up with some more news on peanuts, consider sunflower seed butter as a tasty alternative that you don't have to worry about.

A recent Japanese study, published in the Kobe Journal Medical Sciences and most recently highlighted in Fitness Rx magazine, confirms what we've known for quite some time: eating foods high in simple, fast-digesting carbs can cause you to pack on more fat. The difference this time around, however, is that this study provides an additional explanation for why this happens.

When you drink copious amounts of regular soda and chomp on white bread, you spike your blood glucose levels (also known as blood sugar). You may be familiar with this concept from your own knowledge base or from hearing of this process from someone who has diabetes. In response, your body produces a large amount of insulin in efforts to bring your blood glucose back down from orbit by moving the glucose out of the blood and into the cells (whereas a person with diabetes may have to use synthetic insulin -- administered either by shot or pump -- to make up for what their pancreas is not able to sufficiently do on its own in this regard). After this occurs, all excess glucose is stored for later use as fat in white adipose tissue.

This month, the American Diabetes Association invites anyone willing to make a few phone calls between today and May 2 to call on Congress to do more to fight diabetes.

Calls will be made to congressional Representatives and Senators during the ADA's 2008 Call to Congress Call-In. Also, hundreds of diabetes advocates will be on Capitol Hill visiting with their Members of Congress and asking them to increase funding for diabetes research and prevention.

Talking points and the call-in flyer (for printing and distributing) can be found online.

Source: American Diabetes Association

In a surprising bit of news, researchers from Copenhagen University recently asserted that antioxidant supplements do nothing to extend life and, perhaps even more shocking, that "beta-carotene and vitamins A and E seem to increase mortality."

Even after various outside factors were taken into account, the researchers linked vitamin A supplements to a 16-percent increased risk of dying, beta-carotene to a 7-percent increased risk and vitamin E to a 4-percent increased risk, reported the BBC news in a recent release.

Researchers speculate that taking these supplements may somehow interfere with the body's utilization of vitamins and minerals derived from food sources. Beta-carotene, for instance, is thought to change the way a body utilizes fats. As such, the researchers -- as well as the Department of Health in the U.K. -- urge people to exercise caution when using supplements and, if possible, to get the vitamins and minerals they need from their diet.

Looking for a fun way to support your favorite cause? FiveHumans makes fashionable t-shirts with hip designs, all based on common diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, asthma, and even autism.

Their goal is to raise awareness about these conditions and to also raise a little cash for research. For instance, if you buy one of their asthma tees, 10% of the purchase price is donated to the American Lung Association.

The company hopes to expand their designs to include Alzheimer's, and then branch out into other causes such as hunger, global warming, and homelessness. Read more about FiveHumans and the humans behind the scenes here.

What do you do when your car starts to fall apart on you? Many people will trade it in for a new and better running car. Now, wouldn't it be incredible if we could do the same thing with any bad genes we may have? Believe it or not, that exact scenario is not that far off from happening.

In a breakthrough discovery, researchers from Kentucky University were able to manipulate what's known as the Par-4 gene in mice, and in doing so made the furry little creatures completely resistant to cancer. Yes, you read that correctly: these mice were rendered completely resistant to cancers of all kind, including highly aggressive types.

This study was funded by the National Institute of Health. Next on the agenda for researchers is to find a way to utilize the manipulation of the Par-4 gene in humans to produce similar cancer resistance effects.

If running long distances, biking for miles and miles, or swimming vast expanses of water is what you're into, you may want to consider not eating that extra orange.

A recent examination of vitamin C's role in the production of ATP (a cell's primary energy source) led to the discovery that it may actually interfere. According to the study, vitamin C prevented increases in cell mitochondria and the enzymes that produce energy.

Spanish researchers published their findings in a recent issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, where they asserted that endurance athletes should make efforts to avoid eating too much vitamin C, as it may impede their fitness progress and performance.

Alright, guys, stay with me on this one ...

If you father one child, you raise your risk of developing prostate cancer over men who don't have any kids. Paradoxically, if you father more than one child, you reduce your risk of developing the disease. And, if your child turns out to be a girl, your risk of prostate cancer again rises somewhat. These somewhat convoluted findings come from a study published in the January 2007 issue of the peer-reviewed journal Cancer.

A study of 3,400 men helped Danish researchers arrive at these findings. While they were not able to find any environmental factors that may be causing this risk fluctuation, more investigation into the child number/gender theory still needs to be done before it can be considered conclusive.

For years, the prevailing belief about stretching was that it was an integral part of warming up for training and playing sports. However, recent studies have shown that all this prolonged reaching, twisting, and bending may actually be doing more harm than good.

Greek researchers published their findings, from a study they conducted on the effects stretching has on performance and strength, in a 2007 issue of the journal Experimental Physiology. The gist of what they discovered is that static stretching lasting longer than 30 seconds decreased strength by 8.5 percent and stretches lasting 60 seconds or more decreased strength by 16 percent.

It is important to note that the researchers also found that holding a stretch for less than 30 seconds did not have any effect on strength or performance. Therefore, you may not want to rule out your limbering up routine just yet. You just might want to consider only holding a stretch for a little less time.

For several days now, I've been writing an ongoing series of diet and fitness posts titled "Why the Pounds Are Sticking Around," which are a collection of tips sourced from the health magazine Self. Since the response has been so positive, I decided to forge ahead with an idea I had for a series of healthy living posts. Since exercise and training are more my forte, I sought out information from an outside source -- Men's Health magazine. To that end, I found ten great health and wellness tips that I thought would be perfect for pieces on healthy living.

So, just as I have been doing with the diet and fitness posts, I will also be posting one healthy living tip per day as part of a series I think I'm going to call "Living Well." I think you'll find these tips to be as interesting and as helpful as I did.

Healthy Tip #10 - Do away with the spray

Do you, or someone in your household, suffer from asthma? If so, you probably take steps to avoid an attack. Well, here's one more you can take: Stop using household spray cleaners.

An international longitudinal study has revealed a link between common household cleaning sprays to an increased risk of asthma attack in adults. The researchers found that using household spray cleaners as infrequently as once a week is enough to raise the risk of an asthma attack by 76 percent. What's more, the risk became even greater if cleaning sprays were used more than that.

I'm not all that thrilled to say that I share my living space with a cat. Oh, who am I kidding, I like the stupid, little thing. Still, there are plenty of points throughout the night when I second-guess my decision to have rescued it from the pound. It's usually around 3am or so, when the four-legged menace decides my fiance and I have slept enough and it wants to play. Or eat. Or do just about anything cats generally do at that hour. Closing the bedroom door isn't an option because the cat claws at the door all night, making it even more difficult to get some rest. All these sleep disturbances ... they have to be doing a number on my health. Unfortunately, they are; it seems they may actually be increasing my risk of type 2 diabetes.

I suppose I could have left out that entire cutesy, little story about my cat and just got right to the point, but I felt the need to share (wow, I'm emasculating myself more and more by the sentence, aren't I?). Anyway, it turns out that even slight disturbances while sleeping -- including barely audible sounds, such as ... oh, I don't know ... a cat scratching a bedroom door -- can have an affect on blood sugar.

Researchers from the University of Chicago found that after three nights of playing barely audible sounds as study volunteers slept, these individuals experienced a 25 percent change in their blood glucose levels.

As for what to do about an annoying cat, the researchers had no suggestions.