Type-A Men Exaggerate Exercise
Exercisers with Type-A personalities tend to overestimate their physical activity, says a USC physician who studied 81 men after hospitalization for heart attacks or bypass surgery.
Dr. Allan Abbott, an associate professor of clinical family medicine, compared self-reports of exercise with his detailed analysis of the men’s activity and found that the Type-A men reported higher activity levels than more relaxed Type-B’s, even when actual activity levels were equal.
Abbott speculates that the overestimation is typical of hard-driving, competitive Type-A behavior, which may increase risk of heart disease. Type-A’s “go out and work hard and are liable to tell you about it,” he said. “They overestimate all of their activities.”
Abbott’s advice to Type-A’s: Don’t approach exercise like the rest of life. “Type-A’s may be trying to get a lot of intense exercise in a short period of time and it may not be achieving what they want--stress reduction.”
Manganese, Strong Bones
Calcium’s role in maintaining strong bones has been well established. But now a University of Texas researcher suggests consumers should pay attention to manganese intake for the same reason.
In a study of five healthy men, reported in the current issue of the Journal of Nutrition, Jeanne H. Freeland-Graves, a professor of nutrition at the University of Texas, Austin, and her co-researchers found that three subjects were excreting more manganese than they were consuming on a diet that included 2.9 milligrams per day.
Government guidelines currently recommend daily manganese intakes of 2.5 to 5.0 milligrams a day, but Freeland-Graves and her co-researchers believe a range of 3.5 to 7.0 milligrams is more realistic.
To achieve that, eat whole wheat products, vegetables, nuts and seeds as often as you can, said Freeland-Graves, who is now studying manganese intake in women.
“I would not imply at all that people should take a manganese supplement,” added Connie Bales, a Duke University researcher who also participated in the study. Better, she said, to increase manganese-containing foods.
Low-Tar Cigarettes
Blocking the filter vents of low-tar cigarettes to obtain more satisfaction is a common practice, according to a Toronto study published in this month’s American Journal of Public Health.
In the study, researchers retrieved low-tar cigarette butts from ashtrays in public shopping areas and analyzed the stain pattern to determine if the filters had been partially or fully blocked. They found that 58% of the filters showed some evidence of blockage.
By blocking the barely visible vents with fingers, lips or tape, smokers increase tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide. Blocking holes on a 1-milligram tar cigarette, for example, can increase tar “yields” to 16 to 29 milligrams, depending on the brand, said the researchers.
“Some smokers believe they have responded to health concerns about smoking by selecting the lowest-tar cigarettes available,” write the researchers. “These are unrealistic beliefs. Hole-blocking is a major mode of compensatory smoking in smokers of these cigarettes.” If low-tar smokers don’t miss their “high-yield cigarette smoke,” added the authors, “it may not really have gone away.”
Fat in Cake
If you’re eating cake to satisfy a sweet tooth, count on getting an unhealthy dose of fat along with all that sugar, says a report in the current Nutrition Action Healthletter, a publication of the Washington-based Center for Science in the Public Interest.
“Our findings confirm that the cake aisles of the supermarket are mine-fields of hidden fat,” notes Bonnie Liebman, the center’s director of nutrition. If you must have cake, look for ones that get no more than 30% of their calories from fat and that don’t list sugar as the first, second or third ingredient, Liebman suggested.
As an alternative, consider muffins and quick breads, which are usually lower in fat, she advised. And check the ingredient list, she added, to avoid muffins and quick breads that contain beef tallow, lard or palm oil or artificial fruit made of sugar and oil.
