Mindfulness meditation is an effective alternative to powerful antidepressants.

According to a new report, sitting for more than three hours a day (which applies to most of us in desk jobs, or driving) is responsible for an average of 3.8 per cent of all deaths.

Sitting for half that time reduces the mortality risk threefold, down to 2.3 per cent. However, anything we do to reduce our time spent sitting would help, say researchers, from the University in Sao Paulo School of Medicine in Brazil. The researchers assessed the health risks of sitting in 54 countries.

On average, 60 per cent of people spend an average of 4.7 hours each day just sitting. The mortality rate from sitting, though, isn’t quite as uniform. The largest impact was in Lebanon, where 11.6 per cent of deaths were attributed to too much sitting, while the smallest effects were found in Mexico, where just 0.6 per cent of deaths were the result of the ‘chair effect’, as the researchers called it (Am. J. Prev. Med., 2016). So, the lesson is to move about or get a standing desk.

More and more people are using fitness monitors; it appears to be the thing to wear on your wrist, in some cases more popular than wearing a watch. However, research is saying that they may not be responsible for losing weight, when compared to those who just follow a programme and don’t keep track of every step.

In one two-year experiment, those wearing such monitors lost 3.5 kg, whereas those who just didn’t use trackers lost six kilos.

Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh tested weight loss programmes and fitness monitors in a group of 471 overweight/obese volunteers. They cannot be sure why this happened; it seems that although monitors give feedback and even encouragement, those who are better at just sticking to a programme lose more weight. It seems that persistence is what really matters (JAMA, 2016). So if you are a person who needs to be tracked, and encouraged, perhaps a fitness monitor would be good for you. However, if you can just get out there and do your programme, don’t bother.

Sitting for more than three hours a day is responsible for an average of 3.8 per cent of all deaths

I have written about mediation before. Once again, we see that mindfulness meditation is an effective alternative to powerful antidepressants. It can reduce levels of depression and stress as much as powerful drugs and psychotherapy.  A new study has concluded, after eight weeks of meditation, symptoms of depression and stress scores were reduced in 37 women with either, or both, of these conditions. In addition, the general sense of well-being and the identification of stress triggers were increased.

Researchers from the North-western University Feinberg School of Medicine asked the women to practise mediation and yoga four days a week, for an average of 150 minutes each week. Before beginning the study, 45 per cent of the volunteers said they had no experience of meditation and 71 per cent had never tried yoga (Compl. Ther. Clin. Pract., 2016). There is no doubt that meditation practised correctly and regularly is very powerful.

Prostate cancer is common; many of us know someone who has it or has suffered from it. Men who opt to just have their prostate cancer monitored are living as long as those who, instead, choose aggressive treatment. They also enjoy a better quality of life, new research has discovered.

These sufferers are just as likely to be alive after 10 years as the men who underwent radical prostatectomy (aggressive surgery to remove the prostate gland) or radiotherapy.  Many of the men whose cancer was treated also had a poorer quality of life as a result, including incontinence and erectile dysfunction.

Researchers from Oxford University tracked the lives of 2,664 men diagnosed with prostate cancer for 10 years. During that time, 17 men died, including eight whose cancer was being actively monitored, five who had surgery and four who had recently received radiotherapy.

Although treatment seemed to make little difference to mortality rates, cancer spread was more common in those in the active monitoring group; the cancer had metastasized in 33 men in the monitored group as against 13 in those who had undergone surgery and 16 who had radiotherapy (N. Engl. J. Med., 2016).

There is a belief that we are more likely to live longer if we have good genes. Now researchers have put some numbers on this belief. For every decade your parents made it past their 70s, for instance, you are seven per cent less likely to die from cancer, and your risk of dying from heart disease is 20 per cent lower.

Not surprisingly, your risk of dying from either of these diseases drops even further the older your parents were when they died.  Researchers from the University of Exeter assessed the health of more than 186,000 people aged 55 to 73  by tracking them for eight years.

So, if either of your parents made it to 70, your chances of living to a similar age are around 17 per cent, say the researchers, whereas having a parent who lived to the age of 100 increases your chances of making it to at least 70 by 68 per cent (J. Am. Coll. Cardiol., 2016).

In my opinion this throws up many questions. For example, what if you live an unhealthy lifestyle? What if one of your parents lived an unhealthy lifestyle?  This is nothing to do with genes.

kathrynmborg@yahoo.com