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The death of David Goldberg perhaps caused by an accident on a treadmill or, the use of a phone while on a treadmill, calls attention to the risks of the machines. And calls attention to the risks of exercise. WaPo tells us about the dangers of treadmills.
… Today, treadmills are the nation’s most popular type of exercise equipment. More than 50 million Americans now use them, CBS reported. The exercise industry grew by 3.5 percent in 2014 to a total of $84.3 billion, and “treadmills continue to be the largest selling exercise equipment category by a large margin,” according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.
But exercise equipment — and treadmills in particular — can also be dangerous.
“Almost 460,000 people were sent to the hospital in 2012 for injuries related to exercise equipment,” according to USA Today. “The vast majority — nearly 428,000 were treated and released for their injuries — but about 32,000 were hospitalized or were dead on arrival.”
Treadmills account for the majority of such exercise equipment injuries, Graves told The Washington Post in a phone interview. In a study of 1,782 injury reports from 2007 to 2011, she found that “treadmill machines comprise 66% of injuries but constitute approximately only one-fourth the market share of such equipment.”
“Mechanical belt-driven equipment may present disproportionate injury risk in mechanical home exercise equipment,” she wrote in her study. “While we do not have data on the use of these machines, our study suggests the need to consider the hazards associated with in-home mechanical exercise equipment in the context of exercise recommendations.”
Graves says she was shocked not only by the proportion of injuries caused by treadmills but also by the victims. “We were surprised by the number of pediatric injuries that we saw,” she says. “There was a pretty high incidence among kids, especially 0 to 4 years old, also 5 to 9 years old.” In many cases, kids turned on their parents’ treadmills, only to burn their hands on the fast-moving tracks or, worse, get their fingers caught in the powerful machines. …
The Post followed up with an item about using treadmills safely.
It’s a pretty straightforward piece of equipment and you’ve been walking and running for how many years now? I mean, how difficult can it be to try a treadmill for the first time?
As my colleague Michael E. Miller points out in this excellent post, more than 460,000 people found out about the dangers the hard way when they suffered injuries related to exercise equipment, according to data for 2012. About 32,000 people were hospitalized or dead on arrival after those accidents and, according to one study, 66 percent of gym injuries involve treadmills. The tragic death of Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey and husband of Facebook exec Sheryl Sandberg, is the exclamation point at the end of this warning.
So if you’re on vacation, as Goldberg was, and get a hankering to jump on the treadmill, or you’re a novice starting an exercise program, here are some great tips on how to use the treadmill safely. They come from exercise physiologist Mike Bracko of Calgary, Alberta, who wrote the American College of Sports Medicine’s guide on treadmills. (The guide covers home treadmills but the lessons apply in the gym as well.)
• No phones! Or as Bracko put it: “Don’t look at your friggin’ phone, man. You’ve got to [set] your priorities. If it’s exercise, it’s exercise.” Many people don’t realize at first that the running or walking gait you use on a treadmill is different from the one you use in real life. Until you’re accustomed to that, and even once you are, looking at your phone is a major distraction that can cause you to trip.
“If you trip, you’re going to go down and it’s not going to be pretty,” Bracko said.
But what if your music is in your phone (for those of you comfortable enough to listen on the treadmill)? Set it to airplane mode, Bracko said, so you won’t be tempted to respond to each ping or vibration as e-mails and texts arrive. And set your playlist so you won’t have to fiddle with a phone or iPod while you’re running. …
Fox News reports low levels of vitamin D lead to increased risk of pancreatic cancer.
While it’s clear that too much sun can increase the risk for skin cancer, a new study has found that too little vitamin D can increase the risk of pancreatic cancer. The study is the first to link vitamin D deficiency with pancreatic cancer, Medical Daily reported.
Researchers at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine gathered data from 107 countries and found that those with the least amount of sunlight also had the highest rates of pancreatic cancer. …
Continuing with the health theme, Huffington Post lists 10 things you can do to live to 100. Pickerhead’s favorite is #6.
6. Laugh a lot.
In a 2012 study published in the journal Aging, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Yeshiva University researchers identified what personality characteristics that a group of 243 centenarians had in common. Among them? They all found a reason to laugh a lot. “They considered laughter an important part of life,” the lead researcher said.7. Learn to drink tea the healthy way.
Both green and black teas contain a concentrated dose of catechins, substances that relax blood vessels and protect your heart. In a Japanese study of more than 40,500 men and women, those who consumed green tea had a lower risk of dying from heart disease. Other studies involving black tea showed similar results.Ready-to-drink teas don’t count because the catechins degrade once water is added. And some studies suggest that adding milk diminishes tea’s protective effects on the cardiovascular system; stick to lemon or honey.
8. Be a giver, not a taker.
Generous people give of themselves in many ways. They do favors, pay compliments, go out of their way to help others. And what they get in return for it is, among other things, a longer life. Researchers from the University of Buffalo found a link between giving and having a lower risk of early death. “Our conclusion is that helping others reduced mortality specifically by buffering the association between stress and mortality,” study researcher Michael J. Poulin, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at the University at Buffalo, told PsychCentral. …
Salon with a piece attacking fad diets (gluten-free, paleo, etc.). This is long so we included just the start of it. Follow the link if you want to read more.
The numbers are hard to pin down, but roughly 1.1 million Americans keep kosher in their homes. Around 15 million are vegetarian. Meanwhile, according to a 2013 survey, more than 100 million Americans are trying to cut down on gluten, and (as of 2014) more than 10 million households are gluten-free. Simply put, gluten avoidance is the reigning dietary restriction of our time.
It’s harder to pin down why gluten-free diets should have conquered the culture so quickly. Few people have the kinds of serious medical conditions, such as celiac disease, that necessitate the elimination of gluten from the diet. Billions of people thrive on gluten-rich foods, all around the world.
Yet somewhere in our collective search for health, security, and purity, gluten transformed into a mainstream taboo. Scientific-sounding language (and savvy marketers) have driven this transformation, though one suspects that mass gluten avoidance has more in common with religious food restrictions than it does with anything premised on actual medical data.
Fittingly, Alan Levinovitz is a religion professor at JamesMadisonUniversity and a chronicler of our peculiar dietary culture. In his new book, The Gluten Lie, Levinovitz digs into the fear and moralizing that surrounds dietary fads, including gluten avoidance and the MSG scare.
Reached by Skype, Levinovitz spoke with The Cubit about paleo dieters, grain-free monks, and why Fitbit represents a cultural descent into profound moral vacuity.
Late night humor from A. Malcolm.
Fallon: The Kentucky Derby is that special time of year when people use a two-minute event as an excuse to drink for 12 hours.
Meyers: A new survey finds people in Ireland tell an average of four white lies per day. And three of them are, “I’m fine to drive home.”