MONDAY, May 20 (HealthDay News) -- Although people with implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) are often advised to avoid activities more strenuous than golf or bowling, new research suggests that many people with these heart devices can participate in more vigorous sports.

But, the decision to participate in sports should be made on an individual basis following a discussion between patients who have the defibrillators and their doctor, the researchers from Yale University School of Medicine concluded.

The defibrillators are placed inside the chest to deliver electrical shocks if a dangerous heart rhythm is detected, to restore a normal heartbeat.

The study, published May 20 in the journal Circulation, involved 372 people with implantable defibrillators ranging from 10 to 60 years old. Participants included competitive high school and college athletes as well as others who engaged in vigorous sports, such as running, basketball, tennis and snowboarding. The researchers followed the participants for an average of two and a half years.

Over the course of the study, 77 people received 121 shocks. Ten percent received shocks during a competition or practice, 8 percent were shocked during other activities and 6 percent were shocked while resting.

Although some athletes received shocks for serious and non-life-threatening heart rhythms during sports, none of the participants was hurt or died from the shocks or underlying abnormal rhythms, the study found.

The rate of shocks among the athletes was similar to the shocks reported in previous studies of less-active people with implantable defibrillators, the study's authors said.

Older guidelines on the activities of patients with defibrillators were based on doctors' judgment and not data compiled on strenuous sports, study author Dr. Rachel Lampert, an associate professor of medicine at Yale, said in a journal news release.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute provides more information on implantable cardioverter defibrillators.

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THURSDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- The tainted steroid injections linked to 55 recent U.S. deaths also caused many less lethal infections, more than half of them concentrated in Michigan, federal health officials reported Thursday.

Spinal meningitis deaths caused by contaminated back-pain treatments made the news for weeks last fall. But less attention was paid to a host of spinal or near-spinal infections without meningitis that were reported later in the outbreak. As of the first week of May, they had affected 320 people nationwide, with 52 percent of those cases in Michigan.

"Michigan has reported the highest percentage of cases even though we received only 13 percent of the contaminated drug that was shipped nationally," the report's co-author, Mawuli Nyaku, epidemic intelligence service officer at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Thursday.

The reasons for that disproportionate rate aren't clear, Nyaku said. Nor is it known if more cases will surface.

"We are not out of the woods yet," Nyaku said. "We have never seen anything like this before."

Because the time from injection to symptoms of illness isn't really known, more people who received the tainted drug may develop infections, Nyaku said. "Physicians are seeing patients who have developed infections 200 days after receipt of injection," he said. He urged doctors to consider the possibility of infection in anyone who received the epidural injections.

The infections -- whether leading to meningitis or not -- are caused by a fungus called Exserohilum rostratum (basically a common black mold) that contaminated vials of steroids produced by the now-shuttered New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts.

Since first reported last September, the outbreak has sickened 741 people in 20 states and killed 55. In Michigan, 261 people developed infections and 16 died, according to the report, which was published in the May 17 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

The localized infections, concentrated at or near the injection site, have led to abscesses, pain and some joint infections that necessitated joint replacement, Nyaku said.

These infections caught experts by surprise.

"We have known that the predominating organism was Exserohilum rostratum, which is a fungus," said Dr. Marc Siegel, an associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. "What we didn't know was that there were a series of spinal infections without meningitis."

Nyaku said one reason for the high number of cases in Michigan is that St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor saw the most patients with the infection in the country. To help identify new cases, the hospital offered MRIs to anybody who had been exposed to the contaminated steroids. "In doing so they identified additional cases, which contributed to the high number," Nyaku said.

Another possible explanation, Nyaku said, is that more than 2,000 of the 17,000 vials of tainted drugs were shipped to Michigan. And one of the lots shipped to the state appeared to cause more infections than the other two contaminated lots, he said.

The black mold infections continue to bedevil investigators. No foolproof cure exists, and the drugs used to treat the infection are very expensive and can be toxic, he said. "When you put a patient on therapy, there isn't a guarantee that he is going to get better," Nyaku said.

Some patients who stopped therapy also have seen their illness return, he said.

More information

For more information on fungal infections, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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THURSDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- There are few things more inviting than a cool, clear pool on a hot summer day. But a new federal report will have you thinking twice before dipping a toe in the water.

Fifty-eight percent of pool filter samples taken from Atlanta area pools last summer contained E. coli, a bacteria found in human feces.

The report is a sign that swimmers often contaminate pool water when they have a "fecal incident" in the water, or when human waste washes off their bodies because they don't shower thoroughly before hitting the water, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

And while the study only focused on pools in the Atlanta region, the researchers said it's likely that fecal contamination from swimmers is a problem in public pools throughout the country. The study did not look at water parks, residential pools or other types of recreational water.

"Swimming is an excellent way to get the physical activity needed to stay healthy," Michele Hlavsa, chief of the CDC's Healthy Swimming Program, said in an agency news release. "However, pool users should be aware of how to prevent infections while swimming.

"Remember," she added, "chlorine and other disinfectants don't kill germs instantly. That's why it's important for swimmers to protect themselves by not swallowing the water they swim in and to protect others by keeping feces and germs out of the pool by taking a pre-swim shower and not swimming when ill with diarrhea.

The CDC says all swimmers should take the following steps to keep feces out of pools and to prevent infections:

• Don't swim if you have diarrhea.
• Shower with soap before swimming.
• Take a rinse shower before getting back in the water.
• Go to the bathroom every 60 minutes.
• Wash your hands with soap after using the toilet or changing diapers.
• Don't swallow the water you swim in.

Parents of young children should take the following steps:

• Take children on bathroom breaks every 60 minutes or check diapers every 30 to 60 minutes.
• Change diapers in the bathroom or diaper-changing area and not at poolside where germs can rinse into the water.

Dr. Robert Glatter, an emergency medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, said the new study "highlights the importance of practicing good hygiene anytime we swim in a pool, since the potential for contamination with fecal organisms, which could lead to severe diarrheal illnesses, remains an ever present concern.

"From a public health standpoint," he added, "it is especially important for people to avoid swimming when they have diarrhea, as other swimmers could swallow germ-laden water and potentially become ill.

The study reveals a "true public health concern, and reinforces the need to practice safe and effective swim hygiene as the summer approaches," Glatter said.

The study appears in the May 17 issue of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Its release is timed in advance of Recreational Water Illness and Injury Prevention Week, May 20-26. The goal of the prevention week is to "raise awareness about healthy swimming, including ways to prevent recreational water illnesses (RWIs). Germs that cause RWIs are spread by swallowing, breathing in the mists or aerosols from, or having contact with contaminated water in swimming pools, water parks, hot tubs, interactive fountains, water play areas, lakes, rivers, or oceans," according to the CDC.

More information

For more on healthy swimming visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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THURSDAY, May 16 (HealthDay News) -- Men who are physically fit in middle age have a lower risk of developing and dying from certain cancers, new research indicates.

"Fitness is a huge predictor of [cancer] risk," said Dr. Susan Lakoski, an assistant professor of internal medicine at the University of Vermont, in Burlington. "You need to be fit to protect yourself against a cancer diagnosis in older age."

Men who were fit in their 40s, 50s and 60s were less likely decades later to get lung or colorectal cancer, she found. Those who were fit were also less likely to die from prostate, lung or colorectal cancers.

She is scheduled to present her research, supported by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, on June 2 at the American Society of Clinical Oncology annual meeting in Chicago.

While other studies have found physical activity protects against certain cancers, Lakoski said fewer studies have looked at the importance of fitness to predict whether men would develop or die from cancers.

For the study, Lakoski and her colleagues evaluated more than 17,000 men who had a single cardiovascular fitness assessment as part of a preventive health checkup at the Cooper Clinic, in Dallas, when they were 50, on average.

The men walked on a treadmill under a regimen of changing speed and incline. Their results were categorized into five groups, from lowest fitness level to highest.

Later on, the researchers analyzed Medicare claims data to identify the participants who had developed three common cancers among U.S. men -- lung, colorectal or prostate.

The average follow-up period was 20 to 25 years. During that time, 2,332 men developed prostate cancer, 276 developed colorectal cancer and 277 developed lung cancer.

During the follow up, 769 men died -- 347 of cancer, 159 of heart disease and 263 of other causes.

The men who were most fit on the treadmill test, when compared to the least, had a 68 percent lower risk of lung cancer and a 38 percent lower risk of colorectal cancer. Their prostate cancer risk didn't decline with increasing fitness, but the risk of death from it did.

Even a small improvement in fitness helped, the researchers found. For instance, a 50-year-old man who increased fitness so he could last three more minutes on the treadmill, Lakoski said, could reduce cancer death risk by 14 percent and heart disease death risk by 23 percent.

Low fitness levels increased the risk of cancer and heart disease even in men who weren't obese, the researchers found.

They also took into account other factors that could increase risk, such as age and smoking habits.

The good news, Lakoski said, is that, "You don't have to be highly fit to get protection." The most protection against cancer and heart disease was found in moving out of the least fit group.

And how unfit were those men? The men in the least fit group who were 40 to 49 when they took the test could walk on the treadmill less than 13.5 minutes. Those who were 50 to 59 lasted less than 11 minutes. Those 60 and older in the least fit group only lasted less than 7.5 minutes.

The findings make sense, said Colleen Doyle, director of nutrition and physical activity for the American Cancer Society.

"While you can't tell just how much activity these guys were doing over time, it makes sense that the most fit would have better cancer-related outcomes -- because they are likely the most active." While the new research did not find a link between fitness levels and a diagnosis of prostate cancer, a recent review of other published studies did show a modest reduction in that risk, Doyle said.

Lakoski can't explain the protective effects of fitness for sure, but can speculate. "We know that fitness modulates several important pathways also related to cancer risk," she said. These include, among other pathways, reducing inflammation and oxidative damage in the cells, she said.

Doyle agreed that many mechanisms are probably at work. Activity can improve immune function, for instance, and help control weight, and that in turn can decrease inflammation, she said.

To achieve cardiovascular fitness and reduce cancer risk, be moderately active 150 minutes a week or vigorously active for 75 minutes, or some combination, Doyle advised.

Because this study is being presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Lakoski found a link between fitness and cancer protection, not cause and effect. She also can't say whether the findings would apply to women. She hopes to study that next.

More information

To learn more about physical activity guidelines and cancer prevention, see the American Cancer Society.

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WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- People who are obese or out of shape in their 40s or 50s might think it's too late to start getting fit, but new research finds that shaping up in middle age lowers the odds for heart failure later in life.

What's more, the reduction in risk is independent of other modifiable risk factors, such as smoking, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, the researchers said.

"It's never too late to get fit," said lead researcher Dr. Ambarish Pandey, an internal medicine resident at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

"Fitness is a significant risk factor for heart failure," Pandey said. "But if someone who is not fit in middle age improves his fitness over the years and gets in better shape, the risk of heart failure decreases."

The results of the study are scheduled for presentation May 15 at an American Heart Association scientific meeting in Baltimore.

Heart failure -- when the heart can't pump enough blood to the rest of the body -- is increasing as more people survive heart attacks and live longer with heart disease. More than 5 million Americans have the condition, and that number could increase 25 percent by 2030, according to the American Heart Association.

Heart failure is the most common reason older adults are hospitalized and rehospitalized, said American Heart Association spokesman Dr. Gregg Fonarow.

"One in five adults will develop heart failure in their lifetime, and 670,000 men and women in the United States will develop heart failure this year," said Fonarow, director of the Cardiomyopathy Center at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

About half of people who develop heart failure die within five years of diagnosis, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"Yet in many cases, heart failure is preventable by maintaining cardiovascular health and control of heart failure risk factors," Fonarow said. "These new findings suggest that improving cardiovascular fitness levels may be an effective way of lowering heart failure."

For the study, Pandey's team assessed fitness levels of more than 9,000 middle-aged men and women with an average age of 48 who were tested twice, eight years apart.

After 18 years of follow-up, the researchers matched the results with Medicare claims for heart failure hospitalizations.

They found that people who weren't physically fit at the start of the study had a higher risk of heart failure after age 65. But those whose fitness improved on the tests had a lower risk of heart failure later on than those whose fitness remained poor.

Using a treadmill test to measure what are called "metabolic equivalents," the researchers found the risk for heart failure dropped 20 percent for each improvement in metabolic equivalents.

If a 40-year-old improved from jogging a 12-minute mile to a 10-minute mile, an increase of two metabolic equivalents, the risk for heart failure would have dropped 40 percent, Pandey said.

Data and conclusions presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

For more information on heart failure, visit the American Heart Association.

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WEDNESDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- People who follow the ancient practice of yoga may be getting an added health boost, with a new study suggesting it can fight high blood pressure -- also known as hypertension.

"This study confirms many people's feelings that exercise may be useful in the control of hypertension," said Dr. Howard Weintraub, a cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City. Weintraub was not connected to the new study.

Based on the new findings, "yoga would be a useful adjunct in the lowering of blood pressure in certain populations," he said.

In the study, researchers led by Dr. Debbie Cohen of the University of Pennsylvania tracked 58 women and men, aged 38 to 62, for six months.

Although the study couldn't prove a cause-and-effect relationship, doing yoga two to three times a week was associated with an average drop in blood pressure readings from 133/80 to 130/77, the researchers said.

In comparison, the average decrease in blood pressure was smaller (134/83 to 132/82) among people who ate a special diet but did not do yoga.

In a bit of a surprise, doing yoga in tandem with a special diet did not outperform doing yoga alone -- blood pressure numbers fell only slightly (135/83 to 134/81) among people who ate a special diet and also did yoga, the researchers said.

The small decline in blood pressure among people who ate a special diet and did yoga may be because doing both required a greater amount of time, making it more difficult for participants to stick with their regimens, the authors said.

Weintraub said the study shows that "yoga can have a favorable effect" on hypertension. Although the amount of change was small, he said, "some large population studies have suggested that changes of this magnitude could have very significant long-term benefits."

The study did have some limitations, including its relatively short length and the fact that most participants were young and had milder forms of high blood pressure, Weintraub said.

Another expert agreed that the ancient Indian practice of yoga might ease hypertension.

"Yoga, along with deep breathing exercises, meditation and inner reflection, is a good adjunctive and integrative cardiovascular approach to better health, including lowering blood pressure, as this data suggests," said Dr. David Friedman, chief of Heart Failure Services at the North Shore-LIJ Plainview Hospital, in Plainview, N.Y.

"In addition to proper diet and aerobic physical fitness most days of the week, I recommend that my patients take time each day for the above measures of finding disciplined inner peace, for improved health and well-being," he said.

The findings were presented Wednesday at the annual scientific meeting of the American Society of Hypertension, in San Francisco. Findings presented at medical meetings typically are considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about high blood pressure.

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The American College of Sports Medicine offers these suggestions:

• Talk to an allergist before starting an exercise program.
• Take all medications for allergies and asthma as prescribed by your doctor.
• Breathe through the nose while you exercise.
• Exercise indoors when outdoor pollen counts are high. Keep windows and doors closed, and exercise on a mat instead of on carpeting.
• Keep rescue medications on hand, don't exercise if symptoms are flaring, and take extra time to warm up and cool down.

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SATURDAY, May 11 (HealthDay News) -- Spending more time in physical education classes helps students develop muscle strength and doesn't increase their risk of broken bones, a new study finds.

The study included more than 900 girls and boys at a school in Sweden who had up to 200 minutes of physical education a week for two years. A control group of students continued with the standard amount of 60 minutes of physical education each week.

The children who had more physical education time developed greater muscle mass and strength than those in the control group, according to the study, published in the May issue of the journal Medicine & Science in Sports and Exercise.

The findings "could have important implications on public health guidelines and recommendations for school-based physical activity," study author Dr. Bjarne Lofgren, of Lund University in Sweden, said in a journal news release.

"Regular weight-bearing exercise has been shown to consistently improve bone mass, structure and strength during childhood and adolescence," Lofgren said. "It can also help reduce the risk of musculoskeletal diseases later on in adult years."

Previous research has shown that students who get more exercise do better in the classroom.

More information

The Nemours Foundation has more about children and exercise.

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THURSDAY, May 9 (HealthDay News) -- With summer approaching, researchers caution that swimming pools may pose a risk to patients with irregular heartbeats who've received implantable defibrillators.

The issue: a danger that electrical currents linked to standard pool utilities such as lighting may "leak," causing a defibrillator to misread the status of a patient's heart.

Implanted cardioverter defibrillators continuously monitor and control a patient's heart rhythm.

"How common this is, we don't know," said Dr. John Day, second vice president of the Heart Rhythm Society, a group representing arrhythmia specialists. "It's quite possible that there's underreporting going on, because when we see patients and we see noise recorded on their device we can't account for where it's coming from."

The concern stems from a few recent incidents that have been documented. In two cases, people with defibrillators experienced device misreadings while in a private family or hotel pool, and in another two cases, people experienced unwarranted shocks from their defibrillators while in public pools.

The cases all involved younger arrhythmia patients between the ages of 8 and 23. However, the investigators said there's no reason to believe that patients of all ages would not face a similar risk if they had such devices.

"I don't want to be an alarmist, because I do think we would have heard about this sort of thing happening much more often than we have if it were a really widespread problem," said study lead author Dr. Daniel Shmorhun, a pediatric cardiologist-electrophysiologist with Children's Cardiology Associates, an affiliate of the Dell Children's Medical Center of Central Texas in Austin.

"The nice thing about defibrillators is that they put a time-stamp on all activity," he noted. "So we were able to ask questions and delve into this after two patients came in with interference noise on their devices. And we found that both had been in pools at the time their defibrillators read the interference."

Shmorhun and co-author Dr. Arnold Fenrich are slated to present their findings at the Heart Rhythm Society meeting taking place this week in Denver. Findings presented at medical meetings are typically considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Arrhythmia is a chronic condition in which the heart's electrical system has the potential to go awry -- on occasion beating too fast, too slow, or irregularly. While many instances of arrhythmia pose little harm, severe cases can be life-threatening.

For such patients, implanted defibrillators can be life-savers, continuously surveying a patient's heartbeat for signs of trouble and instantaneously correcting for problems as they arise by sending out a corrective electrical pulse.

In the new study, Shmorhun and Fenrich reviewed the cases of two female patients (one aged 8 years and one aged 23 years), in which their defibrillators registered so-called "noise reversions" directly linked to time spent in swimming pools.

In each case their devices picked up the reversion, classified it as an outside interference, reverted to a mode that actively ignored noise, and thereby prevented any accidental shock.

After the lighting system was repaired in the family pool in which the 8-year-old had swam, the girl did not experience any further defibrillator trouble, the researchers said. The older patient, however, simply decided to no longer use public pools, and has experienced no further problems.

Others were not so lucky. For example, in the past year a 21-year-old male -- a competitive college swimmer and lifeguard -- experienced not one but two shocks while swimming in a public pool. "He remembers that he had his back against the pool wall, quite close to lights in water," said Shmorhun. "And as he was moving away from the light he got shocked."

Shmorhun and Fenrich believe that low-level electrical current leaking from swimming pool wiring might be an "underappreciated cause" of unwarranted defibrillator shocks.

"Water is an attractive source for electrical activity," Shmorhun explained. "We don't think there would be an issue at all in, say, the ocean or bay. But in a pool, where you have wires coming into the water from the outside, from the house, from an aging utility system, or an improperly grounded system, there is a potential for this kind of problem. Or if a pool is not properly bonded -- meaning the pool circumference is not intact -- there could be a problem," he noted.

"I'm not sure anybody can really predict up front what pools are an issue, and there's no practical means by which to easily test pools for this," Shmorhun added. "At the same time, we don't know the overall incidence, although three cases in the Austin area in one year seems like a lot to me. But at minimum, [defibrillator] patients need to be counseled about the risk."

For his part, Heart Rhythm Society vice president Day said the finding should not deter patients from swimming.

"We want our cardiac patients to be physically active. We don't want to restrain them and we don't want to create alarm," Day said.

"But in each of these cases we had these underwater pool lights that had an alternating current pool leak that could trigger a shock," noted Day, who is also director of Heart Rhythm Services at Intermountain Medical Center in Murray, Utah. "So, I think we certainly need pool safety. And clinically this is just one more thing that should be considered as a potential source of a problem for any patient with an implantable defibrillator."

More information

Find out more about heart arrhythmias at the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.

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WEDNESDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- A baseball pitched at more than 90 miles per hour or a tennis ball swatted at even greater speeds leaves opponents mere split-seconds to ready themselves for a savvy return. So how can the human brain track such small objects traveling at such high speeds?

New research suggests that the brain can predict and map the path of an oncoming object faster than it processes incoming visual information.

"For the first time, we can see this sophisticated prediction mechanism at work in the human brain," study lead author Gerrit Maus, a postdoctoral fellow in psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, said in a university news release.

The researchers said it can take one-tenth of a second for the brain to process what the eye sees. That means, for example, that by the time the brain "catches up" with incoming visual information, a tennis ball moving toward a person at 120 miles per hour would already have moved 15 feet closer. If people couldn't compensate for this, they'd be hit by oncoming objects much more frequently than they are, the researchers said.

To make up for this delay, the brain appears to engage a "prediction mechanism" that pushes oncoming objects a bit forward in their expected trajectory, according to the new study.

"The image that hits the eye and then is processed by the brain is not in sync with the real world, but the brain is clever enough to compensate for that," Maus said. "What we perceive doesn't necessarily have that much to do with the real world, but it is what we need to know to interact with the real world."

Maus's team said the findings provide deeper understanding of how people anticipate the trajectory of moving objects. Besides giving us a better understanding of how top athletes perform so well, the new insight could help doctors diagnose and treat many disorders, including those that impair motion perception.

The study involved six people who underwent functional MRI scans, in which brain activity is tracked in real time. During the scans, they viewed a two-part visual illusion in which they saw brief flashes shifting in the direction of motion, called the "flash-drag effect."

Using this technology, the researchers were able to pinpoint a region of the brain, called V5, that makes calculations to compensate for people's delayed visual-processing abilities.

"[The brain] engages its prediction mechanism to compensate for processing delays," Maus said. "Now, not only can we see the outcome of prediction in area V5, but we can also show that it is causally involved in enabling us to see objects accurately in predicted positions."

The study's authors said their findings coincide with the Obama Administration's push to create a Brain Activity Map Initiative, which will further advance the creation of a roadmap of human brain circuits.

The study was published May 8 in the journal Neuron.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke provides more information on the human brain.

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WEDNESDAY, May 8 (HealthDay News) -- Exercise appears to change the way women's bodies metabolize the hormone estrogen, and this could help explain how aerobic activity reduces a woman's breast cancer risk, a new study suggests.

Previous research has suggested that exercise lowers breast cancer risk, but there haven't been any clinical studies that explain the mechanism behind this, said Mindy Kurzer, a professor in the department of food science and nutrition at the University of Minnesota in Saint Paul.

"Ours is the first study to show that aerobic exercise influences the way our bodies break down estrogens to produce more of the 'good' metabolites that lower breast cancer risk," she said.

The study included nearly 400 healthy, but inactive young women who were divided into two groups. All were premenopausal, meaning their bodies still produced the hormone estrogen.

One group remained inactive while the other group did 30 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous aerobic exercise five times a week for 16 weeks. For their workouts, they used equipment such as treadmills, stair steppers and elliptical machines.

Before and after those 16 weeks, the researchers collected urine samples from women in both groups. At the end of the study, the women in the exercise group had higher levels of the estrogen metabolites that reduce breast cancer risk.

The study was published May 7 in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

"Exercise, known to favor fitness and improve heart health, is also likely to help prevent breast cancer by altering estrogen metabolism," Kurzer said in a news release from the American Association for Cancer Research. "It is very important, however, to decipher the biological mechanisms behind this phenomenon."

She is currently conducting similar studies in women at high risk for breast cancer.

More information

The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about breast cancer prevention.

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MONDAY, May 6 (HealthDay News) -- Many U.S. high school football players say they would keep playing after experiencing a concussion, even though they know it would put them at risk for serious harm, a new study reveals.

The findings suggest that educating players about concussion may not be enough to keep them safe after they suffer this type of brain injury, according to the researchers.

The study authors surveyed 120 high school football players in the Cincinnati area and found that one-quarter of them had suffered a concussion, and that more than half said they would continue to play even if they had concussion symptoms.

Seventy percent of the players had been educated about concussion and most of them could identify common signs and symptoms, such as: headache (93 percent); dizziness (89 percent); difficulty remembering and sensitivity to light (78 percent); difficulty concentrating (76 percent); and feeling like they were in a fog (53 percent).

The study also found that 91 percent of the players understood that there was a risk of serious injury if they returned to play too quickly after a concussion, but only half said they would always or sometimes report their concussion symptoms to their coach. Some even said that athletes with a concussion have a responsibility to play in important games.

There was no association between players' level of knowledge about concussion symptoms and their attitudes about the injury, according to the study to be presented Monday at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

"In other words, athletes who had more knowledge about concussions were not more likely to report symptoms," study co-author Dr. Brit Anderson, a pediatric emergency medicine fellow at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, said in an American Academy of Pediatrics news release.

"These attitudes could leave young athletes vulnerable to injury from sports-related concussions," Anderson said.

"Although further study needs to be done, it is possible that concussion education alone may not be enough to promote safe concussion behaviors in high school football players," she concluded.

The data and conclusions of research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about concussion in high school sports.

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SUNDAY, May 5 (HealthDay News) -- Playing school sports is known to have many benefits for teens, but researchers have found a new reason to encourage kids to take up a sport: It may reduce teen girls' likelihood of being involved in violence and some teen boys' risk of being bullied.

In the study, researchers examined data from about 1,800 high school students, aged 14 to 18, who took part in the 2011 North Carolina Youth Risk Behavior Survey, and found that 25 percent played team sports, 9 percent took part in an individual sport, and 17 percent played both team and individual sports.

Girls involved in individual or team sports were less likely to have been in a fight in the past year than girls who didn't play sports (14 percent versus 22 percent, respectively). Girls who played sports were also less likely than nonathletes to have carried a weapon in the past 30 days (6 percent versus 11 percent, respectively).

However, boys who played individual or team sports were no less likely than boys who did not play sports to fight or carry a weapon. About 32 percent of boys in the study reported fighting and 36 percent reported carrying weapons in the past 30 days, according to the study presented Sunday at the Pediatric Academic Societies' annual meeting in Washington, D.C.

"Athletic participation may prevent involvement in violence-related activities among girls but not among boys because aggression and violence generally might be more accepted in boys' high school sports," senior author Dr. Tamera Coyne-Beasley, a professor of pediatrics and internal medicine at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said in an American Academy of Pediatrics news release.

The researchers did find that boys who played team sports were less likely to be bullied than boys who played individual sports.

"Though we don't know if boys who play team sports are less likely to be the perpetrators of bullying, we know that they are less likely to be bullied," Coyne-Beasley noted. "Perhaps creating team-like environments among students such that they may feel part of a group or community could lead to less bullying."

The data and conclusions of research presented at medical meetings should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

More information

The Nemours Foundation explains how parents can teach kids not to bully.

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FRIDAY, May 3 (HealthDay News) -- Anybody who's ever had kidney stones knows how painful they can be.

Now, a new study suggests that getting more exercise may reduce older women's risk for kidney stones.

Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center, Georgetown University and University of Washington School of Medicine analyzed data from more than 85,000 postmenopausal women in the United States and found that higher levels of physical activity seemed to lower the risk of kidney stones by as much as 31 percent.

The amount of exercise -- not the intensity -- is the key factor in reducing kidney stone risk, according to the study scheduled for Saturday presentation at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association, in San Diego.

The researchers also said that reducing the amount of high-calorie foods they consume could cut postmenopausal women's risk of kidney stones by more than 40 percent.

"Kidney stones are a very common health condition, and as with most health conditions, prevention is key," AUA spokesman Dr. Kevin McVary said in an association news release.

"While we know diet is one of several factors that can promote or inhibit kidney stone development, this study shows lifestyle changes such as exercise can also help prevent stones from forming in postmenopausal women. Further research is needed to understand if this observation is accurate for other demographics," he noted.

Because this study was presented at a medical meeting, the data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Each year, kidney stones send more than 3 million Americans to a health care provider and more than half a million to an emergency department, according to the news release. Obesity is known to be a strong risk factor for kidney stones.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about kidney stones.

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The American College of Sports Medicine suggests how to help reduce the risk of an EIA attack:

• During exercise, breathe through your nose to help warm the air before it reaches your bronchial tubes.
• Avoid exercising in air that is cold and dry. Wear a face mask or scarf to help warm the air if you are exercising outdoors.
• Exercise indoors as much as possible.
• Avoid exercising outdoors when pollen and other irritants are present.
• Exercise regularly to improve fitness and lower your breathing rate.

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THURSDAY, May 2 (HealthDay News) -- You can reduce your risk of potentially deadly blood clots by following seven simple lifestyle steps, a new study suggests.

The study included more than 30,000 people, aged 45 and older, who were followed for nearly five years. The participants' heart health was rated based on how closely they followed the American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7 measures, which are: being physically active, avoiding smoking, eating a healthy diet, watching your weight, and controlling blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol levels.

The participants' heart health was classified as inadequate, average or optimum, and the researchers compared the incidence of blood clots in the three groups.

Compared to people with inadequate heart health, those with optimum heart health had a 44 percent lower risk of blood clots and those with average heart health had a 38 percent lower risk, according to an American Heart Association news release.

The researchers also found that maintaining ideal levels of physical activity and body-mass index -- a measure of body fat based on height and weight -- were the two most important factors in lowering the risk of blood clots.

The study was presented Wednesday at an American Heart Association meeting in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. The data and conclusions should be viewed as preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Every five minutes, someone in the United States dies of a blood clot in the legs (deep vein thrombosis) or lungs (pulmonary embolism), according to the American Heart Association.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about deep vein thrombosis.

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THURSDAY, May 2 (HealthDay News) -- Most Americans are falling short when it comes to exercise, a new government report shows.

Overall, only 20 percent of U.S. adults get the recommended amounts of both of aerobic and muscle-strengthening exercise, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The news was less disappointing for aerobic exercise, with 51.6 percent of adults getting the recommended amount, than it was for muscle-strengthening activities, with only 29.3 percent getting the recommended amount.

The overall exercise rates also varied widely by state, ranging from 13 percent in Tennessee and West Virginia to 27 percent in Colorado.

The researchers put a positive spin on the results.

"While only about 30 percent of adults meet the muscle-strengthening guidelines, we find it very encouraging that half of U.S. adults are meeting the aerobic guidelines," said report author Carmen Harris, a CDC epidemiologist.

The report was published in the May 3 issue of the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a CDC publication.

One expert also thinks the findings are good news.

"It is great that more people are participating in regular exercise," said exercise physiologist Samantha Heller.

"Exercise not only helps with weight management, it helps reduce anxiety and depression; boosts energy, immunity and brain power; and significantly lowers the risk for chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease," she said.

According to the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, adults should get at least two and a half hours a week of moderate-intensity aerobic activity such as walking, or an hour and 15 minutes a week of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity, such as jogging.

In addition, adults should do muscle-strengthening activities, such as push-ups, sit-ups or activities using resistance bands or weights. These exercises should be done two or more days a week and work all major muscle groups, the guidelines suggested.

The highest proportion of adults meeting those guidelines were in the West (24 percent) and the Northeast (21 percent).

Women, Hispanics and older and obese adults were less likely to meet the guidelines, they added.

"Exercise is essential for the aging population to maintain their independence and quality of life," Heller said. "The results of this report indicate that certain states and populations need to be targeted with programs that encourage regular physical activity while taking into account their cultural and economic needs. Local YMCAs, senior centers and other organizations often offer low-cost or free fitness classes."

"Simple steps to start moving include: enlisting a friend or family member to join you; taking a walk every evening after dinner; getting up and marching in place at every TV commercial; limiting TV and computer time; [and] scheduling your time to exercise in your daily calendar," Heller said.

These data are based on information from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, which is a yearly phone survey of adults aged 18 and over.

More information

For more recommendations on physical activity, visit the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

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The Shapeup.org website offers these suggestions for family-fitness activities:

• Start a regular family tennis match.
• Head out with the family pet for a jog or a walk.
• Go to the park and rent a paddleboat, or hit the trails for a walk or run.
• Take a yoga class together.
• Play a family game of whiffleball or volleyball.
• Dance to your favorite music, or use steps or a solid bench to do some step-aerobics together.
• Challenge your clan to walk as many city blocks as you can.

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MONDAY, April 29 (HealthDay News) -- More women are getting arm lifts, according to newly released statistics, with the number growing from about 300 procedures in 2000 to about 15,000 in 2012.

This type of cosmetic procedure can include removal of fat by liposuction or surgery called brachioplasty, in which loose skin is removed from the back of the arms.

The rise is being driven by sleeveless fashions and celebrities -- including first lady Michelle Obama -- who have ultra-toned arms, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

There were nearly 15,500 arm-lift procedures done in the United States last year, an increase of 3 percent from 2011. Women accounted for 98 percent of the arm lifts in 2012.

Arm lifts are most popular among people over age 40. Last year, 43 percent of patients were aged 40 to 54, while 33 percent were over age 55. The average cost is nearly $4,000 and the total spent on arm lifts in 2012 was $61 million, according to the ASPS.

"Women are paying more attention to their arms in general and are becoming more aware of options to treat this area," ASPS president Dr. Gregory Evans said in a society news release. "For some women, the arms have always been a troublesome area and, along with proper diet and exercise, liposuction can help refine them. Others may opt for a brachioplasty when there is a fair amount of loose skin present with minimal elasticity."

People need to carefully consider the pros and cons of having an arm lift, particularly a brachioplasty, said Dr. David Reath, chairman of the ASPS public education committee.

"It's a trade-off. We get rid of the skin, but we leave a scar," Reath said in the news release. "As long as there's enough improvement to be made in the shape of the arm to justify the scar, then it's a great procedure."

Another expert offered an explanation for the trend.

"I'm not surprised by these numbers, given that I work in a bariatric practice (where we perform over 450 weight-loss surgery cases per year)," said Sharon Zarabi, a nutritionist and fitness trainer at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. "Many patients lose over 100 pounds, resulting in excess skin around their arms, waist and thighs. As the number of [bariatric] surgeries increase, so will the number of brachioplasties and reconstructive surgery."

Zarabi added that women should think carefully before choosing arm lifts.

"Surgery should be [the] last resort, only after coupling an exercise program with proper diet limiting salt, carbohydrates and eating high protein and nutrient-dense foods," she stressed.

More information

The American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery has more about arm lifts.

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FRIDAY, April 26 (HealthDay News) -- Analyzing Facebook users' interests could help public health researchers predict, track and map obesity rates in specific cities, towns and neighborhoods across the United States, a new study says.

This type of information could be used to design targeted online programs meant to reduce obesity rates in specific locations, the researchers said.

They analyzed data about the interests of Facebook users nationally and in New York City and compared that with data from a national health survey and another survey conducted in New York City.

Areas with higher percentages of people with interests linked to a healthy, active lifestyle tend to have lower obesity rates, while areas with greater percentages of people with TV-related interests tend to have higher rates of obesity, according to the study, which was published April 24 in the journal PLoS ONE.

Among the specific findings were the following:

• Nationally, the obesity rate was 12 percent lower in the location with the highest percentage of Facebook users with activity-related interests (Coeur d'Alene, Idaho) than in the location with the lowest percentage (Kansas City, in both Missouri and Kansas).
• The obesity rate was nearly 4 percent higher in the location with the highest percentage of Facebook users with TV-related interests (the Myrtle Beach/Conway/North Myrtle Beach area of South Carolina) than in the location with the lowest percentage (Eugene/Springfield, Oregon).
• In New York City, the obesity rate was about 7 percent lower in the neighborhood with the highest percentage of Facebook users with activity-related interests (Coney Island, in Brooklyn) than the one with the lowest percentage (southwest Queens).
• The obesity rate in the New York City neighborhood with the highest percentage of Facebook users with TV-related interests (northeast Bronx) was 28 percent higher than in the neighborhood with the lowest percentage (Greenpoint, in Brooklyn).

"Online social networks like Facebook represent a new high-value, low-cost data stream for looking at health at a population level," study co-leader John Brownstein, who runs the computational epidemiology group at Boston Children's Hospital's informatics program, said in a hospital news release.

"The tight correlation between Facebook users' interests and obesity data suggest that this kind of social-network analysis could help generate real-time estimates of obesity levels in an area, help target public health campaigns that would promote healthy behavior change and assess the success of those campaigns," he said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explains how to achieve and maintain a healthy weight.

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