Staying competitive is an uphill battle

Mapquest executive's favorite exercise is ice hockey, followed closely by 'meditative' cycling

By JEN MURPHY (The Wall Street Journal)

"I still get the same butterflies in my stomach, when I'm lacing up my skates, as I did when I was a kid," says Christian Dwyer. "I love the excitement of playing a fast-paced competitive game."

Mr. Dwyer, general manager and senior vice president of MapQuest in Denver, has been playing ice hockey since he was 5 years old. Now 44, he has played consistently in recreational leagues since his 20s, sometimes in three to four games a week. More than an outlet for his competitive energy, hockey is the cornerstone of Mr. Dwyer's fitness. "When time allows, I like hockey to be my primary form of exercise," he says.

When Mr. Dwyer first moved to Denver in 1993, he made friends by showing up at the ice rink for drop-in games. Mr. Dwyer, who stands 1.7 meters and weighs about 80 kilograms, plays right wing, an offensive position. He estimates he's been playing with the same group of guys since 1993. "We're all from places like Boston or Minnesota," says the native of Syracuse, N.Y., "places where hockey was a part of growing up."

Over the years, Mr. Dwyer has sustained his share of injuries while on the ice, including a shattered front tooth, a broken nose, a spider fracture across his ankle and a scar across his eyebrow from a stick hitting just above his right eye.

Last year Mr. Dwyer's hockey workouts were limited, partly because he had his hands full with big changes at MapQuest, including launching a new website and logo. "I probably worked out less last year than I had in previous years because of my demanding work schedule," he says, "but it made exercise and diet become a more conscious effort."

Mr. Dwyer believes the best way to condition for ice hockey is to actually be out on the ice. "Hockey is all about maintaining your skills by actually playing the game," he says. "To me, it's the most fun form of exercise I can think of."

When he isn't on the ice, Mr. Dwyer maintains his fitness level with a mix of running, weights and his other passion—cycling. "My nickname growing up was 'Billy Goat' because I liked to climb." He says he enjoys the work of climbing to the top of a hill on a bike even more than the downhill. "It's that feeling of achievement you get from a workout that makes me push harder," he says. "It's pretty addictive."

The workout

Mr. Dwyer plays hockey two nights a week. He plays a drop-in game every Sunday night at 7 p.m., which he says is fairly selective. "You need to be a decent skater to come. If you get out onto the ice and you're not that good, you get ruled out and are asked not to come back," he says.

He is also on a men's recreational league that plays organized games Wednesday nights. Seasons run from October through April and then May through September. Both drop-in and league games are 90 minutes with three periods and about a two-minute break per period. "They don't clean the ice like in professional hockey so the breaks are shorter," Mr. Dwyer says.

All of the ice time means that Mr. Dwyer needs to keep his cardiovascular fitness up. He lives in a neighborhood set at a 1,890-meter altitude where "there's not an ounce of flat land." Running at that altitude with hills takes some serious conditioning, he says. "When I go to New York City for business I feel like I can run forever." Mr. Dwyer tries to get in two 6.5-kilometer runs a week outdoors.

While hockey is his first love, cycling is a close second, Mr. Dwyer says. "Biking for me is very meditative. I can get lost in my thoughts. It's good therapy." He used to ride between 200 to 320 kilometers a week. "Now that I have kids it's a little more challenging," he says. But he still tries to ride 40 to 80 kilometers, or about two to four hours, on the weekends.

Mr. Dwyer spins on a stationary bike in his home for 45 minutes, twice a week, often reading while he works out. He has a Nautilus weight machine and does a 30-minute strength circuit twice a week. His routine usually includes presses, pull downs, curls and various abdominal exercises. "I try to maintain a strong core because I know it will protect my lower back," he says.

The diet

Mr. Dwyer grazes throughout the day. He eats oatmeal or Greek yogurt for breakfast topped with flax seed, berries and honey. At around 10 a.m., he will eat an energy bar or a piece of fruit, like an apple or banana.

For lunch, he'll have a turkey sandwich or a chopped salad with bagel chips. At 3 p.m., he has a snack of nuts or another energy bar. Mr. Dwyer says regular snacking on healthy foods helps keep him away from the office vending machine. Mr. Dwyer often eats dinner at the office or out at restaurants for work functions during the week. "I order fish at restaurants almost religiously," he says. "Even when I go to a steakhouse, I order grilled tuna with just lemon and salt." At home, he tries to grill three times a week, making chicken or fish. He snacks on celery with peanut butter or hummus. When out with his hockey buddies after a game, Mr. Dwyer skips the beer. "They heckle the hell out of me," he says. "I tell friends who don't work out not to drink because every glass of beer is like eating a sandwich."

Cost & gear

Mr. Dwyer is a bit of a gear obsessive, "I easily have $1,200 worth of hockey equipment alone," he admits. He estimates that his padding (knee, shin and elbow pads; gloves; pants and helmet) cost about $400. His lightweight, carbon-fiber stick cost about $150 and he goes through one stick a year. He recently purchased a pair of Graf 735 skates for $435. Mr. Dwyer spends $500 a season for his recreational hockey league and pays $10 per drop-in game.

Mr. Dwyer also has invested in gear for cycling: his Trek Madone carbon-fiber road bike cost about $3,000, his Specialized mountain bike about $1,600, and his cycling shoes about $150. Mr. Dwyer runs in Asics sneakers and spends about $110 a pair every eight months.

Fitness tip

"As I've gotten older, I've realized that sleep is pretty important. I try to get six hours, at least, a night," he says. "When I don't, I'm junk on workouts. I'm not sharp in mind, attitude or spirit."

Quick fix

If Mr. Dwyer only has 30 minutes to work out, he does a five-kilometer run. If he has less time than that, he will lift weights in his home gym or do push-ups and sit ups.

Playlist

Mr. Dwyer listens to music while he's running, but never when he's cycling, "because I like the wind in my ears when I'm biking," he says. He has an eclectic mix ranging from classic rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd to heavy metal like Metallica and hip hop like Eminem.



Yoga's Spiritual Balance May Boost Health

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

Yoga may be becoming more of a mainstream approach to Americans' health woes.

People have been practicing yoga for millennia to improve their strength, serenity and wellness, but its roots in ancient Indian philosophy have kept the exercise discipline firmly within the realm of alternative medicine.
However, a growing body of scientific evidence is building the case that the spiritual balance created by yoga provides proven health benefits.

Research has found that yoga can help people who are dealing with health problems as wide-ranging as back pain, chronic headaches, sleeplessness, obesity, neck aches, upset stomach, anxiety, depression and high blood pressure, said Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and an associate neuroscientist in the Division of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
The health benefits mainly stem from yoga's focus on the connection between mind and body, Khalsa said.
"The best evidence really shows that yoga is good at reducing stress and helping people cope with the stress they have," he said. "It improves management of stress both psychologically and physiologically."

According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, proper yoga practice combines:

• Physical postures that participants flow into and then hold, before proceeding to the next posture.
• A focus on breathing techniques that make participants more aware of their bodies.
• Deep meditation and relaxation, allowing participants to focus on their spirituality.

All of those elements must be in place for people to get the best results for their health and well-being, said Karen Sherman, an affiliate associate professor of epidemiology with the Center for Health Studies in the School of Public Health at the University of Washington.

Indeed, the elements are interlaced, she said. For example, the physical postures can help people become stronger and more flexible, but a yoga practice focusing solely on postures misses out on the original intent.
"Postures were intended to make the body strong enough to be able to sit for hours in meditation, to support the spiritual aspirations," Sherman said.

Yoga can help people deal with body aches and pains, she said, by making them stronger, showing them how to move in a less-painful way and improving their ability to cope with pain and relax.

The relaxation, meditation and breathing of yoga has been shown to improve a person's sense of well-being and can be a good treatment for anxiety and depression, Khalsa said.

Yoga may also help bolster the immune system by lowering stress. "When you reduce stress, you make the body healthier," he said. "When the body is healthy, it is able to use its own defenses better."

Khalsa's research has shown that yoga can be very helpful to people undergoing cancer treatment.
"They are under stress because it is a life-threatening disease and because everything related to cancer is stressful," he said. But relieving that stress through yoga can improve someone's quality of life and help the person deal with the rigors of chemotherapy and radiation therapy.

Yoga's focus on awareness of the body also has been shown to help people battle obesity. Researchers at the Seattle-based Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center found that people who practice yoga are better able to manage their body weight and have a lower average body mass index than people who don't practice yoga.

But yoga has not been proven a cure-all. Khalsa said that some health claims made about yoga have not yet been borne out by medical research, particularly claims that yoga can help improve the function of specific organs, such as the pancreas or liver.

"That may be true. We don't know," he said. "That's going to take some research."

People interested in improving their health through yoga need to find an experienced teacher who combines the three main elements of yoga, Sherman and Khalsa said.

"Everyone should get an instructor who is experienced and has the traditional yogic principles," Sherman said. "You should be learning how to tune into your body. Yoga is about moving with awareness. That's a skill many of us have to develop."

Many different styles of yoga exist. Those suitable for beginners include kundalini, viniyoga and Iyengar, Sherman and Khalsa said.

Be wary of teachers who focus on postures without also emphasizing breathing and meditation, particularly if they press students to take on extreme postures, they said. Yoga can cause injury if people push themselves too hard, and such contortions have little to do with the mind-body link that students of yoga are trying to attain. For this reason, the experts say, people might do better to start their yoga practice at a traditional yoga studio rather than taking yoga through a gym or health club.

"If practicing extreme postures and being able to bend yourself into a pretzel were the signs of a good yogi, then the people at Barnum & Bailey Circus would be the best yogis in the world," Khalsa said.

More information
The U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has more on yoga.
SOURCES: Sat Bir Singh Khalsa, Ph.D., assistant professor, medicine, Harvard Medical School, and associate neuroscientist, Division of Sleep Medicine, Brigham & Women's Hospital, Boston; Karen Sherman, Ph.D., M.P.H., affiliate associate professor, epidemiology, Center for Health Studies, School of Public Health, University of Washington, Seattle

Ancient food ingredients winning over modern wellness seekers

Americans interested in preventing disease and boosting their wellness are increasingly using ancient foods like omega-3 rich hemp, ayurverdic herbs, fermented herbs and grains, according to a new report.

The Center for Culinary Development (CCD) and market research publisher Packaged Facts said experimental, make-it-up-as-you go consumers were looking back through the ages to locate whole foods and healthy nutrients that could be incorporated into their health-conscious diets.

“Consumers are more engaged than ever trying out new foods and diets in hopes of curing what ails them or preventing ailments to which they are susceptible,” the report states.

“Consumers’ participation in uncovering and treating various conditions with food is part of this era’s DIY-care mentality. Hobbled with healthcare issues and economic woes, while simultaneously emboldened by innumerable Internet pages and a growing understanding and acceptance of alternative medical systems — Traditional Chinese Medicine with its acupuncture, holistic medicine and its tinctures, naturopathy and even yoga — consumers have never had more motivation or ammunition for finding new cures themselves, especially diet-related ones.”

Culinary Trend Mapping

In its latest Culinary Trend Mapping Report, CCD highlights seven wellness ingredient trends it locates at one of five separate stages on their way to mainstream acceptance.

Docosahexaenoic Acid (DHA) is the closest to broad mainstream acceptance (stage 5 – seen on popular grocery store shelves)), whether sourced from a biblical source like fish, or increasingly as a nutrient being utilized by, “CPG manufacturers looking to entice consumers on the lookout for functional foods that benefit the brain.”

Omega-3 gets another mention via Grass-fed meat and dairy which is gaining popularity due to its hormone-free status and omega-3 boosted levels due to the grass feeding. Grass-fed Meat & Dairy (stage 3 – seen in mainstream chain restaurants and smaller grocers), “possess an impressive health halo as well as an improved reputation for taste. It also feeds into consumers’ desires for more authentically good-for-you products, those our ancestors relied on.”

Also at stage three is agave nectar, gaining in popularity as a natural sweetener. “A syrup that can be easily added to products ranging from beverages to baked goods to sauces, agave nectar fits with consumer desires for a more healthful plant-based sweetener; its low glycemic-index is a plus as is its heritage in Mexican cuisine.”

Hemp, fermented foods and sprouted foods are all stage 2 food trends meaning they feature in some specialty stores and magazines. Hemp is touted for its omega-3 and omega-6 levels, while rice, wheat and other grains and nuts are being used, “as a base for wholesome grain goods that offer more nutrition and are more digestible than similar products made without sprouted grains.”

Miso, kasu, tempeh and pu-erh tea are fermented foods CCD observes, “have been trusted in Asia for their healthful properties and may soon follow in the footsteps of successful specialty fermented products like kombucha as consumers seek out foods that are less processed and more nutrient-rich.”

Healing spices like holy basil and turmeric are at stage 1 (appears in upmarket, ethnic and independent restaurants) but are increasingly being incorporated into, “teas, nut butters and energy bars.”


“American consumers are more engaged than ever in managing their health through food in hopes of curing what ails them or preventing ailments to which they are susceptible,” said Kimberly Egan, CEO of CCD. “Many of these curative foods have roots in ancient times, and have been consumed by cult

Antioxidant properties of ancient organic grain can protect against oxidative stress, study

Kamut Khorasan wheat, an ancient and organic grain, has antioxidant properties which protect against oxidative stress suggests a new study.

The research, published in Frontiers of Bioscience, showed that animals fed on the Kamut wheat breads had a better response to oxidative stress than modern wheat, according to the researchers.

Commissioned by the wheat supplier Kamut International, the study was conducted by researchers at the Department of Food Sciences and the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Bologna in Italy.

Ancient grains and cereals have enjoyed a revival of interest in recent years, as they fit with the desire for less processed ingredients and attention to the nutritional value of foods.

From these findings, the scientists claim that the reduced risk of chronic diseases related to wholegrain consumption is attributed in part to their high antioxidant content.

“This published study represents the first of many, which we believe will eventually result in a scientific explanation of why people with sensitivities to modern wheat claim they feel better when they eat Kamut Brand wheat." said Bob Quinn, president of Kamut International.

“In this initial paper, however, we focused on a nutritional property which has significant implications for everyone,” he added.

Method and results

Phase one of the antioxidant evaluation on the Kamut brand khorasan wheat evaluated and compared the antioxidant effect of the two different bread types in rats: wholegrain ancient Kamut khorasan bread and wholegrain modern durum wheat bread (WB).

Two different bread-making processes were also compared for the wholegrain ancient Kamut bread: baker's yeast (KB) and sourdough (SKB).

According to the researchers, the concentration of all potential antioxidant compounds was different in the three experimental breads. The scientists said that the total polyphenols and in particular selenium, were significantly higher in the two types of Kamut bread than WB.

Vitamin E and beta-carotene were in lower concentrations in KB compared to WB, but both compounds were increased in the SKB by the sourdough fermentation, the study found.

After feeding these different breads to rats for seven weeks, the rats were submitted to an exogenous oxidative stress. The researchers claim that the rats that were fed the Kamut breads were better able to overcome the induced stress than those fed the modern durum bread and that those fed the SKB fared best of all.

The researchers said that the benefits may be stronger when Kamut bread is obtained by sourdough fermentation.

“The research is ongoing, evaluating in the rat liver the mechanisms related to the higher protective activity of ancient Kamut khorasan wheat,” they said.

Source: Frontiers of Bioscience

Title: “Role of cereal type and processing in whole grain in vivo protection from oxidative stress”

Authors: A. Gianotti, F. Danesi, V. Verardo, DI. Serrazanetti, V. Valli, A. Russo, Y. Riciputi, N. Tossani, M.F. Caboni, M.E. Guerzoni, A.Bordoni.

Berry compounds may improve blood pressure: Harvard study

Flavonoid compounds from blueberries and strawberries may reduce blood pressure and aid in the prevention of hypertension, suggest findings from a new Trans-Atlantic study.

Increased intakes of anthocyanins – mainly from blueberries and strawberries – were associated with a reduction in the risk of high blood pressure (hypertension) of up to 12 percent, according to a collaboration between scientists from the University of East Anglia (UK), Harvard School of Public Health, and Harvard Medical School.

High blood pressure (hypertension),defined as having a systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP) greater than 140 and 90 mmHg, is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD) - a disease that causes almost 50 per cent of deaths in Europe, and reported to cost the EU economy an estimated €169bn ($202bn) per year.

The results are derived from data from over 150,000 health care professionals in the US. The study is observational in nature, and the researchers stress that this does not prove that the compounds do reduce the risk of hypertension: The data does not prove causation.

“These findings warrant further investigation, including intervention studies designed to test optimal doses of anthocyanin rich foods for the prevention of hypertension and to underpin guidelines for the prevention and treatment of hypertension,” write the researchers in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Study details

Led by Harvard’s Eric Rimm, the researchers analyzed data from 133,914 women and 23,043 men. Intakes of flavonoids and the various subclasses were calculated using food frequency questionnaires performed every four years. Subjects were followed for an average of 14 years, during which time a total of 5629 and 29,018 cases of hypertension were documented in men and women, respectively.

After crunching the numbers, the researchers found that the highest average intakes of anthocyanins (ranging from 16.2 to 21.0 milligrams per day) were associated with an 8 percent decrease in the risk of hypertension, while the benefits increased to a 12 percent reduction in risk when the analysis was limited to people over the age of 60, compared with the lowest average intakes, which ranged from 5.7 to 6.8.

No other subclasses of flavonoids were associated with hypertension, but the researchers did note that the compound apigenin was associated with a 5 percent reduction in risk, when comparing the highest with the lowest average intakes. Moreover, a 6 percent reduction in hypertension risk was observed for people over 60 with the highest average intakes of flavan-3-ol catechin, they added.

In terms of the whole foods, a significant 10 percent reduction in the risk of hypertension was observed in over 60 year old consuming more than one serving of blueberries per week, compared with people in the same age group consuming no blueberries.

“These data support the hypothesis that the antihypertensive bioactivity may be relevant to vasodilatory processes associated with specific flavonoid structural characteristics,” wrote Dr Rimm and his co-workers.

Structure is key

Dr Rimm and his co-workers said that there exist a huge variety of flavonoid structures, and that the potential blood pressure-lowering effects were likely to be limited to a small number of “structurally similar compounds such as the catechol and 4’ hydroxy flavonoids”.

“Our data suggested that several specific classes of flavonoids were associated with blood pressure reduction, specifically anthocyanins, which resulted in a 12 percent reduction in hypertension risk in multivariate analyses,” wrote the researchers. “These data are important because anthocyanins are present in commonly consumed fruit, such as blueberries, cranberries, and strawberries, which can be readily incorporated into the diet,” they added.

Commenting on average portions in the diet, Rimm and his co-workers noted that and average portion of blood orange juice, blackcurrants, or blueberries contains in excess of 500 milligrams of anthocyanins.

“The underlying biological mechanisms by which flavonoids regulate blood pressure include the effects of flavonoids on vascular blood flow, vascular reactivity, and glucose uptake,” wrote the researchers. “Growing mechanistic evidence suggests that endothelial NO regulation rather than a general antioxidant effect (ie, direct radical scavenging) is a major target for these compounds, and emerging data suggests that eNOS and NADPH oxidase activity are crucial sites of action for many flavonoids,” they added.

Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
2011, Volume 93, Pages 338-347,
"Habitual intake of flavonoid subclasses and incident hypertension in adults”
Authors : A. Cassidy, E.J. O’Reilly, C. Kay, L. Sampson, M. Franz, J.P. Forman, G. Curhan, E.B. Rimm