DEPRESSION

According to a Harvard study, women who strength train commonly report feeling more confident and capable as a result of their program. The study found that 10 weeks of strength training reduced clinical depression symptoms more successfully than standard counseling.

New evidence indicates that regualr workouts may help combat depression as effectively as antidepressants. In addition to giving certain brain chemicals a boost, working out may enhance your body image and may impart a sense of accomplishment, mastery and pride.

Researchers at Duke University tested people with major depression and found that a moderate exercise program (30 minutes 3 times per week) reduced depression as much as medication. The medication produced results more quickly, but after 16 weeks, the exercise effect caught up, according to the study. Exercise causes the brain to produce serotonin, neurotransmitter that can reduce depression.

The patients in this study and others in a continuing series of experiments at Duke had received diagnoses of majoy depressive disorders. Their loss of pleasure, and feelings of worthlessness and guilt, had to exist for at least two weeks.

Weight training relieved my depression within a few months. I believe that the trigger for me was a change in mental attitude. Lifting weights and deep breathing helped to reduce my stress. Once my mind cleared, I recognized the negative thinking which fueled my fear and shyness. Reading books on positive thinking helped me, because until then, I really han't recognized I was negative. I believed everyone else saw the world as negatively as I did.

Dealing with my anger also helped me become a more positive and happy person. Internalizing my anger made me feel powerless to change my condition. Fearful of expressing what I didn't like for fear of being rejected, I resigned myself and felt trapped. Learning to express my frustrations gave me the power to change any situation and to move forward.

Reading Women, Anger and Depression, by Lois P. Frankel, helped me understand the need for self-expression, the root of self-esteem.

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OSTEOPOROSIS

According to Wayne Wescott, PhD, weight training can increase spinal bone mineral density by 13% in six months!

Resistance training has a positive effect on bone mineral density by mechanically loading the skeleton. Bones that are strong can handle more stress and are less likely to fracture.

The National Osteoporosis Foundation's Physician's Guide to Prevention and Treatment of Osteoporosis recommends regular weight bearing and muscle-strengthening exercise both for osteoporosis prevention and overall health.

About two years ago, at age 57, I discovered that even though I had been weight training since age 46, I had below normal bone density. I couldn't believe it! I then set out to discover why, so I could reverse further bone loss. The result was that since my hysterectomy ten years earlier, my body had stopped producing the hormones needed for bone strength.

I knew I wanted to take hormones, but I didn't want to take synthethic hormones. Reading books such as Preventing and Reversing Osteoporosis, by Alan R. Gaby, M. D., really helped me understand the link between hormones and bone density.

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CANCER

According to Dr. Timothy Smith, author of Renewal: The Anti-Aging Revolution, the United States is in the midst of a cancer epidemic. One in every three Americans will develop the disease. An astounding 1.2 million cancer cases are diagnosed every year in this country---and that number is going up, not down.

The good news is, says Dr. Smith, that the National Cancer Institute estimates that 80% of all cancer cases can be prevented. The same percentage of cases are limked to lifestyle and/or environmental factors, according to Margaret Heckler, U. S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. However, diet causes more cancers than any other single risk factor, including smoking. Take away cancers from smoking, and diet accounts for more than 50% of the remaining cancer cases.

Remove the other known risk factors---excessive sun exposure, alcohol consumption, occupational exposure, environmental pollution,viral infection, medicine, and medical procedures---and diet accounts for at least 70% of the remaining cancer cases.

According to Dr. Smith, prevention is the ultimate solution to the puzzle of cancer. No chemotherapeutic regimen or screening program can save as many lives as some simple preemptive changes in diet and lifestyle.

In his book, Formula For Life,Dr. Harry B. Demopoulos says that too much dietary fat and fiber deficiencies are associated with breast, prostrate, colon, rectal and other cancers.

Internationally accalimed psychologist Dr. Lydia Tomoshok, presented in her book, The Type C Connection,The Behavioral Links to Cancer and Your Health, her landmark conclusion that a specific behavior pattern ---which she calls "Type C"---may influence cancer risk and recovery.

Drawing on hundreds of patient interviews and case histories for over a decade, the author describes de Type C individual: unflailingly pleasant, appeasing, and ---most important---unable to express emotions, especially anger.

When I read this book, many years after my own uteran cancer diagnosis and recovery, I felt Dr. Tomoshok was describing me. I felt that not only had my passive personality been a factor in attracting the disease, but also my firm childhood belief that I'd get cancer just as my mother had. Not only that, but that I'd get it when I reached the age she was when she contracted her cancer!

Dr. Tomoshok's discoveries offer hope because they emphasize that we all have potentially powerful allies against cancer: our hearts and minds. Type C transformation in everyday life, writes Dr. Tomoshok, involves "recovering lost shards of the self", confiding inner truths, and acting to assert one's needs.

In a study reported in the International Journal of Epidemiology, "drinking intensity" was found to be related to breast cancer risk. Researchers found that risk of breast cancer was increased by 40% to 45% for those women who reported ever drinking alcohol. The duration of consumption was not as important as the intensity of consumption. An average of only 5 grams of alcohol daily (less than half of an alcoholic beverage) increased the overall risk of breast cancer by 50%!

The relationship between cancer and diet is explored by Dr. Bob Arnot in his book, The Breast Cancer Prevention Diet. Dr. Arnot synthesizes the recent flood of medical studies that confirm that what a woman eats can have a dramatic impact on whether or not she contracts the disease. Dr. Arnot encourages women to think of foods as drugs---without the side effects. Although you can't single out specific foods or toxins that initiate breast cancer, you can still take charge of your diet---and in the long run, your life.

Emelina, November 2000

To order Dr. Arnot's book, click on the image.