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4A Daily News – Monday, August 29, 2011 Vitality & health DETROIT (MCT) — In an 18-year career at the Uni- versity of Michigan, where she's a customer service center supervisor in the pay- roll department, Jackie Adams figures she's done a whole lot of sitting. And that scares her. So when her department installed a treadmill desk, Adams started using it to fit a little bit more exercise into her day. And when she heard about studies that showed that long periods of sitting can be dangerous to a woman's health, Adams stepped up getting up at work. She tries to spend 30 minutes each day on a treadmill desk installed at the office. She urges coworkers to walk while they talk. She stands up while taking phone calls. "I heard that those who have a sit-down job take years off their lives. That scared me. I came in here and said, 'Everybody walk at lunch. Everybody walk on the treadmill,'" recounts Adams, 43, of Saline, Mich. "We can't help it if we have desk jobs, but I don't want to die early because of it." Research released last fall found that women who sat for more than six hours a day had a 37 percent increased risk of premature death, compared to 18 per- cent for men. Those results stayed the same, even when factors such as an individ- ual's diet, amount of physi- cal activity and smoking were taken into account. Dr. Alpa Patel, senior epidemiologist at the Amer- ican Cancer Society, is the lead author of that study, the largest on how sitting affects mortality. The study was based on information from surveys of 123,000 people who participated in the study between 1992 and 2006. Females who sat the longest and exercised the least had twice the risk of death compared with women who recorded more activity and less sitting. Under similar circum- stances for men, there was only a 50 percent greater chance of death. Patel can't explain why The deadly danger of sitting Alternatives to sitting WALK TO TALK: Every other instant message or two, get up and go tell the per- son instead of mes- saging or emailing them. Communicate like it's 1989 — before there were computers on every desk. STAND UP: Anchored to your desk for a conference call? Stand while you're participating instead of sitting, says Dr. Alpa Patel, who has studied the effects of too much sitting.You want to mix sitting and standing. Standing still for long stretches also can promote problems such as sore feet. Mix it up. MCT photo DTE Energy analyst Laurie Payne of Rochester Hills, Mich., sits on a balance ball chair. sitting may be more haz- ardous to women's health. It's unclear whether the varying results are caused by gender, or if there's some other influence at work. "We don't understand the biological reason why it might be more detrimental to women than men." Patel now walks to talk to colleagues instead of using e-mail, and she sends some of her documents to a printer in a different room at her Atlanta workplace to force herself to move more. She sits on a balance ball in her office, rather than a chair. And she doesn't use instant messaging to com- municate with colleagues. "I walk to their office to take a quick break," she says. "There are very small changes that you can make that collectively add up." Patel says she always had a hard time sitting still in front of the TV. Now, she channels that extra energy into multi tasking endeav- ors. She tries to fold laundry while watching her favorite shows. She knits. And she's lost 40 pounds in the last two years. Office furniture manu- facturers are paying atten- tion to the research. Grand Rapids, Mich.,-based Steel- case, for example, in 2007 introduced treadmill desks •Weight Loss • Kickboxing • Muscle Tone • Boot Camps • Strength Training & Sport Specific Training J J & No Gym, No Problem! We come to you! or email: in.homefitness@yahoo.com Call Jacob (530) 529-0095 In Home Fitness —Walkstations, which combine an adjustable desk surface with a slow-moving treadmill. The Walkstation sells for $4,399. Steelcase has sold more than 2,000 of them to corpo- rations such as Humana, Google, Kraft Foods, eBay and General Electric, says Steelcase spokeswoman Katie Hasse. The Steelcase treadmill desks were inspired by Dr. James Levine, an endocri- nologist at Minnesota's Mayo Clinic. Levine approached Steelcase with research that showed how lean people consume more calories by incorporating more movement into every- day activities — even by fidgeting "Many corporate cus- tomers have purchased mul- tiple units as part of well- ness initiatives," says Hasse. "We launched the product to better serve our customers after multiple studies which point to mixing up time spent sitting with intermit- tent standing as a way to engage metabolism, keep nutrient and oxygen flowing to the brain as well as burn a few more calories than remaining seated for long periods." At the University of Michigan payroll center, Adams walks on a Walksta- tion while working on a computer screen for about 30 minutes a day. She asks clients if they can hear her footsteps or noticeable changes in her breathing, and they tell her they can't, she says. DTE Energy just last month installed a Walksta- tion in a corridor connecting buildings in its downtown Detroit campus. "We're trying to find THE HOUR RULE: Do something that gets you up from your desk every hour. PARKING PERK: Patel tries to park far- ther away from stores to get in a little more walking. "If you add five minutes of activity to your day every hour, at the end of a 10-hour workday, it's almost an hour," she says. REARRANGE FOR MORE RANGE: The doctor who helped inspire Steelcase's treadmill desk, Dr. James Levine of Min- nesota's Mayo Clinic, suggests that compa- nies promote walk- and-talk meetings with co workers instead of conference room gath- erings. Or, suggests WebMD, move trash cans from worker cubi- cles to central loca- tions to promote a get- up-to-toss-trash move- ment. ways we can incorporate more opportunities for physical activity in the day" of thousands of employees who spend the day sitting at desks, call centers or meet- ings, says Susan Morgan Bailey, the utility's program manager for health and wellness. The utility may order more Walkstations to post around offices so "employ- ees could do an hour of work on them, and take a break from sitting," she says. The utility also has ordered chairs made out of fitness balls to encourage more healthy movement at work. "You have to use the abdominal muscles to use them, so you don't fall out of the chairs," Morgan Bailey says. fitness Expand your kids' diets (MCT) — If your kids seem permanently picky, don't despair — simply introducing them to new foods can pave the way for future good eating. "Encourage them to take a bite, but don't make a big deal of it," says Janice Kailos, a school wellness instructor in Williams- burg, Va. Don't push kids to eat. Anger, bribes and threats will set up a power struggle over food that will only worsen over time. Serve small portions to avoid waste, stay calm and don't expect too much. Be patient. It's normal for young kids to do anything but swallow a new food — including touching, smelling, squishing and even putting tiny bits in their mouth and spitting it back out. You also may need to serve some- thing 10 or even 20 times before a child accepts it. Don't focus on taste. Present new dishes neutrally, without saying, "You'll like this." Talk about color, shape, smell and texture instead of taste. Experiment together... Pick out items you've never tried before either, and sample them with your kids. Encourage everyone to take a bite — or ideally two — before labeling something "icky." ... and enlist others to help. Kids may try new dishes at parties or with friends or relatives that they'd never touch with a parent watching. Serve the best versions of produce. Don't introduce kids to melon with an unripe slice of cantaloupe. Let them help pick out in-season fruits and vegetables. Make it fun. Pair food with a kid-friendly dip, cut it into fun shapes or combine it with favorites: thinly sliced vegetables on noodles, for example, or fruit salad with a little ice cream or cucumber between two crackers. Respect their tastes. Kids might not like certain dish- es until they're older (or never). Just keep looking for new favorites. Improving performance (MCT) — Endurance athletes are obsessive about nutrition — not to lose weight but to improve per- formance. Those in the know follow Runner's World editor-at-large Amby Burfoot's Twitter feed: @exerscience. Take our quiz based on recent studies he has retweeted. 1. A study of the effects of zinc and selenium sup- plements in cyclists, pub- lished in the Biological Trace Elements Journal, showed what type of change in resting testosterone and lactate levels after four weeks of use? a) No significant change b) 14 percent increase in serum testosterone levels c) 1.5 percent increase in plasma lactate 2. Some athletes believe quercetin, a plant-derived flavonoid, can improve endurance by reducing inflammation. A study, pub- lished in the International Journal of Sports Nutrition Exercise Metabolism, of runners who either ingested four quercetin chews or four placebo chews before exer- cise showed what? a) Quercetin chewers' bloodwork showed nearly twice the reduction of inflammation compared to placebo chewers. b) Quercetin chewers actually had slightly higher inflammation levels. c) No significant differ- ence in the two groups. 3. True or false: The spice curcumin does not help treat inflammatory arthritis and tendinitis, according to researcher at the University of Notting- ham in Great Britain and Ludwig-Maxmillians Uni- versity in Munich, Ger- many. 4. The flavonol epicate- chin, most commonly found in cocoa (chocolate, any- one?), was found to increase fatigue resistance and oxy- gen capacity in lab mice exercising on treadmills, according to a study in the Journal of Physiology. How much more did the epicate- chin-fed mice improve on the treadmill compared to the placebo mice? a) .01 percent improve- ment b) 20 percent c) 37 percent 5. Runners need to store glycogen in their muscles for endurance. In a study published in the British Journal of Nutrition, sub- jects who augmented their post-workout recovery meal with the supplement hydroxycitrate (HCA) saw what type of increase in glycogen synthesis into their muscles? a) no increase b) a twofold increase c) a threefold increase wedalse (results sho3: f ents thevthat curcumin pre molecule interleukins from promoting inflam- mation); 4: b; 5: a. ANSWERS: 1: a; 2: c;