Dr. Ann

I am a huge advocate of monitoring heart rate during exercise to optimize health, safety and fitness and for the first time a landmark report has determined what calculation can accurately give women their “peak heart rate.” Instead of the traditional 220 minus your age, the new formula is 206 minus 88% of your age.  […]

We all know that vigorous physical activity is great for our health, but what if we have arthritis or some other joint condition?  Thankfully, there are a host of joint-friendly ways to get your heart rate up to reap all the benefits of aerobic exercise while sparing your joints both stress and pain. Take a […]

In a study of over 39,000 US females followed over 12 years, those who engaged regularly in brisk walking were 37% less likely to have a stroke. (Stroke, April 2010)  Are you getting enough exercise? For more detailed guidance, check out 8 Steps to Lifelong Wellness & Vitality.

A mammoth study involving 1.2 million Swedish men determined that the better the cardiovascular fitness level at age 18, the better the cognitive function throughout adulthood.  In this study, there was no relationship between muscle strength at age 18 and future intelligence scores. (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Online, December 2009  

The National Weight Control Registry, the largest on-going study of triumphant dieters, has identified regular exercise as one of a handful of common denominators in those who succeed in keeping lost weight off for the long run.  A fascinating new report (American Journal of Physiology, Sept 09) shed some powerful, really bright and happy light […]

Here are some quick highlights from a number of cool, new studies on the weight loss front: High intensity aerobic exercise is effective for reshaping body contour. (Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, Oct 08).  If you want to “spot” reduce your waistline, high intensity workouts appear to do the trick.  Spinning has definitely […]

One of the most precious gifts the human body can receive is the gift of physical activity – and a totally uplifting new report found that when it comes to boosting your mood, exercise gives for much longer than previously thought.  Compelling and consistent research has documented that moderate intensity aerobic exercise (like a brisk […]

A while back I reported on a clinical trial that found taking supplemental doses of vitamin C unexpectedly blunted some of the beneficial physiological changes that occur in the body as a result of physical activity.  According to a new report in the May 11th edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, […]

Assuming you are a non-smoker, engaging in regular physical activity is the most powerful thing you can do to protect your health and a hot-off-the-press report confirms a simple means to gauge whether your effort is enough to reap the extraordinary benefits. The latest guidelines urge all adults to engage in 30 to 60 minutes […]

Thanks to an amazing body of new science presented over the past decade, we now know that regular physical activity has remarkable benefits for virtually all aspects of brain health and function. Conversely, this same science has established that a sedentary lifestyle is most definitely a powerful risk factor for our 2 most common brain […]

A disheartening finding in the August issue of Patient Education and Counseling served as a provocative reminder to me to remind you of the power we hold as individuals to slash our cancer risk simply by moving more.  Despite the fact that regular exercise has been shown to lower colon cancer risk by 30 – […]

According to a powerful new study – the largest such study ever, middle aged to elderly men can slash their risk of premature death from all causes in half simply by taking a brisk, 30 minute walk at least 4 to 6 days a week.  The investigators calculated the fitness levels of over 15,000 adult […]