New study explains why "exercise is good for the heart"
Gene regulator
CLAREMONT, Calif.—A team of Brazilian scientists pursuing a study that began at the Keck Graduate Institute discovered a gene regulator that keeps hearts healthy even under intense exercise, providing a medical explanation for why exercise is good for the heart.
“Now, we’re beginning to get to the molecular basis of why exercise is good for you,” said Dr. Ian Phillips, KGI’s Norris Professor of Applied Life Sciences, in whose lab the research on the gene regulator called MicroRNA 29 began.
“It’s well known that athletes get large hearts and they remain healthy while people with large hearts, who are not athletes, are in big trouble,” Phillips said. “But we’ve never known before why they were different.”
Edilamar de Oliveira, a biochemistry professor in the Physical Education School at the University of Sao Paulo, worked with Phillips while doing postdoctoral studies at KGI from 2007-09.
Applying what she learned about MicroRNAs to her research on physical training and cardiac hypertrophy after returning to Brazil, she found MicroRNAs act as brakes on specific genes, inhibiting what proteins those genes produce.
De Oliveira and her team found that rats that trained like athletes, two and three times a day on a 10-week regimen involving swimming, showed much higher levels of MicroRNA 29 than sedentary rats.
Even though the athletic rats’ hearts were enlarged, they did not develop an excess of collagen fibers, which interferes with the heart’s ability to pump effectively, according to Phillips, adding that bad hearts are full of collagen while healthy hearts have very little.
According to KGI, one of the Claremont Colleges, the discovery has broad implications for individuals with heart disease and congestive heart failure.
The findings appear in the latest issue of the journal Physiological Genomics.
Black Women for Wellness (BWW), in partnership with the California Family Health Council and L.A. Care Health Plan recently held Respect Conference: Integrity and Inclusion of African Americans in Health Care, a policy briefing and publication release at the California African American Museum.
The conference provided a space to address the historical and contemporary affects of health care systems and laws on African American women.
You walk into a fast food restaurant and examine the menu. You could get a salad with grilled chicken and dressing on the side. Or you could get a double cheeseburger.
Seeing the calories listed next to each item isn’t likely to affect your decision, according to a new study being presented at the Experimental Biology 2013 meeting this week. But seeing the amount of time it would take you to work those calories off at the gym just might.
The study
About 250 youths, adults and officials gathered at St. Andrews Recreation Center on Tuesday to celebrate the opening of the third Clippers FIT Campus Playground. The center, at 8701 St. Andrews Place in Los Angeles, was refurbished in conjunction with the Clippers NBA Basketball team, the California Endowment and Kia Motors, the Seoul, Korea-based automotive company. Three Clippers players—Eric Bledsoe, Willie Green and Ronny Turiaf—plus four members of the Clippers Spirit Dance team attended the ceremony. St.
Feeling and looking good has become one of the fitness focal points of the modern era. As a result, billions of dollars are poured into chic megagyms that offer everything from yoga classes to freshly squeezed juice after a workout.
The 2013 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony just added a slew of big names to its attendees list for the evening.
Joining previously announced presenters and performers will be Carole King, Usher, Alice in Chains’ Jerry Cantrell, Harry Belafonte, Spike Lee, Cheech & Chong, John Fogerty, Pearl Jam’s Mike McCready, Jackson Browne and Soundgarden’s Chris Cornell.
The 28th annual event counts Heart, Randy Newman, Public Enemy, Rush, Albert King and Donna Summer in its new class of inductees.
