What You Should Know

How 10 Minute Solution – Blast Off Belly Fat Compares with Leading Weight-Loss Products 

For dieters who want to reduce belly fat, the 10 Minute Solution – Blast Off Belly Fat combines five fat burning workouts on one DVD. Each workout is 10 minutes in length and works a different part of the abdominals. The segments included are Flat Belly Fast, Pilates Perfect Abs, Belly Fat Blaster, Ab Ripper and Six Pack Abs. This DVD is not created to boost weight loss and the abdominal muscles are not typically part of an aerobic or cardio workout program. However, 10 Minute Solution may increase abdominal strength and tone when used regularly.

The 10 Minute Solution DVD series is available from Amazon.com. Ther

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Short bursts of exercise could be just as good at helping prevent heart disease as longer endurance sessions, research suggests.

Fast but intense sprints could help limit the risks linked to heart disease just as effectively as longer, 20-minute runs, according to a study on teenagers.

Some 57 boys and girls were split into three groups for the research, published in the American Journal of Human Biology.

All children performed three weekly-exercise sessions over a period of seven weeks.

The first group worked at moderate intensity (MOD), with 20 minutes of continuous running within a 20-metre area at 70pc maximum oxygen uptake.

The second high intensity group (HIT) repeated sprints as fast as they could within a 20-metre area, with 20 to 30 seconds recovery in between, while the third group acted as a control.

The total time spent exercising was 420 minutes for the MOD group and 63 minutes for the HIT group.

Those in the MOD group burned more than four times as many calories but both groups saw improvements in factors that could lead to heart disease.

In the HIT group there were significant improvements in blood pressure, aerobic fitness and body mass index.

In the MOD group, there were significant improvements in aerobic fitness, percentage body fat, body mass index and levels of insulin.

Overall, traditional endurance exercise appeared to have had the greatest effect on heart disease risk over the seven weeks.

“However, it is important to note that the HIT group experienced improvements despite a substantially lower exercise time commitment,” the authors said.

The researchers, from the University of the West of Scotland, concluded: “These findings demonstrate that brief, intense exercise is a time-efficient means for improving cardiovascular disease risk factors in adolescents.

“Overall, results of the study indicated that the two exercise programmes had distinct cardioprotective effects on adolescent youth.”

Cathy Ross, senior cardiac nurse at the British Heart Foundation, said: “This study confirms that both interval and endurance training have significant benefits in reducing the risk of heart and circulatory disease.

“However, it highlighted that interval training achieved similar results in less time, and had a greater positive effect on reducing blood pressure in the short term.

“The results are another reminder that any type of physical activity, performed at the right level, is essential for long-term health and need not take over our lives.

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There’s a must-read article over at the New York Times today, though honestly the comments make for more engrossing reading than the article itself.

The subject is dialysis, the treatment that people with end-stage kidney disease need to stay alive (I’m sure you know this, but it involves going to a dialysis center three times per week to have your blood cycled out of your body and cleansed), and the fact that for 39 years the US government has made it free for anybody who needs it. 

When the law was initially passed it was designed to benefit otherwise-healthy people at midlife and younger, who would have died without dialysis.  But due to the aging of our population and the increase in diseases such as diabetes and hypertension, a big chunk of the people who receive dialysis now are very elderly patients who suffer from other medical conditions. T

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Don’t take breathing for granted – harness the power of oxygen to improve health and wellbeing

On average we take around 20,000 breaths a day but generally it’s only when we’re short of breath, such as during exercise, that we notice our breathing.

But while we’re all familiar with the advice to ‘take a deep breath’ before tackling a tricky task, did you know that unleashing the hidden power of breath can improve your health and wellbeing?

“Breathing is key to maintaining a relaxed and tranquil approach to life, helps reduce stress levels and can boost exercise performance,” says Dr Sarah Brewer, award-winning medical author.

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