Are Office Gyms Worth it?

Today I'd like to talk about Office Gyms. 

The Office Gym has been a subject of heated conversation between business owners of late and Clinical Health Appraisals would like to weight in.  First of all, many employers think that office gyms are too much of an expense to make available to their employees.  They think it would be much easier and cheaper to offer gym memberships or on-site testing clinics to their employees.  While these options are good, the current Wellness Employee Trends Study of 2012-a survey provided to employees through Healthiest Employers LLC-found that employees much prefer on-site exercise facilities to on-site clinics or nurses.  The survey also found that most employees are greatly interested in improving their exercise and nutrition habits over such programs as smoking cessation.  Exercise and overall-heath also ranked in the top two slots as the  most important health-related topics employees were concerned with.  Overall, the survey shows that employees are concerned with fitness and overall bodily health and not as concerned with targeted programs as smoking cessation and diabetes management.  So what do we do with this information?  Many employees that participated in the study expressed a desire for on-site exercise facilities and for good reason.  One, if an on-site facility is provided, they don't have to compete with the public for their favorite machines and often feel more comfortable exercising in a small facility than in a mega-gym with hundreds of other people-some of whom like to stare awkwardly at you until you get off "their" machine.  Two, if they can fit in exercise during their lunch hour or right before or after work, they don't have to spend the time and gas to go out of their way to another facility-something that is incredibly important to the increasingly busier employee.  Three, an on-site facility has added tax benefits to the employers.  Until the Workforce Health Improvement Program Act gets passed in Congress-it has died every year since 2007 when it was introduced-an employer cannot deduct the cost of off-site gym memberships like it can the cost of setting up on on-site facility.  If an employer only offers off-site gym memberships, they may have to pay employment taxes as the membership is considered a fringe benefit and they must add it to the employees' W-2 as income.  If the Act gets passed, employers will be able to deduct both on and off-site gym memberships without including them as income.  Until that happens however, the best way to go is with an on-site facility.  Especially if the company already has an unused space that can be converted into a small gym, cost of facility instillation can quickly be overshadowed by the benefit of having healthier, happier employees. 

Thanks you reading and have a healthy, happy week!

Links to the 2012 Wellness Employee Trends Study-you will have to log in:
https://www.research.net/s/HealthiestEmployersProfile?utm_source=Promo-Profile-0313&utm_campaign=Update+Profile+Email&utm_medium=email
Link to the Lynchburg Business Magazine's article-Office Gyms: The Benefits, the Legalities
http://www.lynchburgbusinessmag.com/mag/office-gyms-the-benefits-the-legalities/

The Bacteria we should LOVE!

When we mention bacteria in a conversation, they are usually in conjunction with whatever disease we are currently suffering from.  We desperately try to kill all the bacteria in our immediate presence with antibacterial wipes, hand gel, and antibiotic medications.  What we are finally realizing however, is that the bacteria that we thought were oh so bad, are not only good for us, they might actually contribute to a healthy immune system and weight regulation.  According to the latest counts, we have about 10 to 1 bacterial cells and microbes to our human cells living in and on our bodies.  That's trillions of tiny symbionts! These tiny critters make up what is known as the human microbiome and what we are finally realizing is that they are as important to our health as any exercise or diet regime.  We are born sterile creatures, completely pure.  We start to acquire microbes when we pass through the birth canal during birth and then continue to add to our collection through breastfeeding, handling by parents, siblings, grandparents, and from every surface in our environment.  By the time we are 1, we have one of the most complex micro ecosystems on the planet living in and on our tissues.  Scientists finished mapping the human genome- which consists of roughly 20,000-25,000 genes-in 2003, and now groups in the US and in Europe have decided to map the human microbiome.    In 2010 the European group announced they had completed a census of the 3.3 million bacterial genes that inhabit our digestive system.  That is 150 times more genes than humans have in their entire genome!  And that's just the gut bacteria!  Needless to say, we are discovering new and exciting details about the bacteria that co-habitate with us everyday.  So what is a "good" bacteria and why should I be concerned?  Since 1980, scientists have developed the idea that bacteria have some key to our health.  When they discovered that the vitamin B12-which we need to regulate cellular energy production, DNA synthesis, and fatty acid synthesis-is only produced by a gut bacteria, they were shocked!  We cannot make it ourselves?! That's ridiculous, we are the most complex organisms on the planet, capable of anything! Well lately, scientists have discovered that certain bacteria can also aid in developing our immune system, respiratory system, and maintain a healthy weight.  Long story short, we need our bacteria!  Case in point is a bacteria called Bacteroides fragilis that lives in 70-80% of humans that helps boost the anti-inflammatory branch of the immune system and thus, regulates its function.  According to a 2010 study, rats grown in a sterile environment without B. fragilis grew up with dysfunctional, overactive immune systems.  When B. fragilis was introduced back into their environments, their immune systems regulated themselves and returned to a normal status.  Unfortunately, B. fragilis as well as several other bacteria are disappearing from our microbiomes as a result of the changes we have made in our lifestyles in the last century.  Greater use of antibiotics, consumption of more processed foods, even cleaner drinking water are changing the make-up of our microbiomes.  So why should we be concerned?  Because if B. fragilis  disappears completely, we will likely see an increase in autoimmune disorders such as Crohn's disease, Type 1 diabetes, and multiple sclerosis.  However, this is only a hypothesis and the correlation between changing human microbiomes and increased incidence of human disease and obesity is just a correlation at this point.  What we do know, is that the very delicate balance of microbes in our system is being changed by the lifestyle choices we make.  Next time you pop an antibiotic for a minor irritation or sanitize your hands for the 10th time in an hour, or eat some processed food out of a bag or box, think to yourself-do I really need this? Or am I taking the easy way out?  What you are putting in your body has very real effects on the populations of bacteria living within us and if we aren't careful-we risk losing our best friends in the world, our friendly bacteria, forever.

The Olympians Give Advice about beating jet lag!

Summer is here and its the time for travel.  Many of us are hopping on a plane and journeying to far away exciting places.  Depending on our destination, we may have to deal with long plane rides and bothersome jet lag.  Experts agree that to help prevent some of the side effects of timezone shift-tiredness, headaches, nauseousness, irritability-you should drink plenty of water before and on the plane and try to prepare your body for the shift in circadian rhythms early by altering your daily schedule to one more similar to the time zone you are traveling to.  An example of this is finding the time to go to sleep earlier if you are traveling east.  Since its an Olympic year, I find it very interesting to hear what our young and hopeful athletes try to help defeat jet lag and perform at their best.  An article from the Team USA website details their methods: http://www.teamusa.org/News/2012/July/05/Team-USA-Shares-Advice-on-Fighting-Jet-Lag.aspx

The U.S.’s top athletes are preparing to head across the pond for the London 2012 Olympic Games, where they will have a fight… with jet lag. Here 11 Olympians share their advice for beating travel fatigue the best way they know how.

Gwen Jorgensen, Triathlon

“I think jet lag affects almost everyone; however, this doesn't mean you can't minimize the affect of jet lag.  I always travel with my Hincapie Compression Tights. Compression wear helps my legs feel more normal upon arrival at my destination. I also drink a lot of water. I make sure to pack at least three Specialized water bottles and fill them up in the airport (after security). I'll drink them on the plane, along with other juices offered during the in-flight services to help keep me hydrated.”

Arielle Martin, BMX 

“Going east is always the toughest, it takes me a solid three days to get back into routine when we fly to Europe. I always make an effort to try switching my body clock a day or two pre-flight. Hydration and plenty of sunlight once I land also helps.”

Nathan Adrian, Swimming 

“Jet lag takes my body that has been trained for 11 months out of the year and throws it on a completely different rhythm. One thing that helps me get over jet lag is trying to eat my meals at the same time I usually do during training. Even if I am not hungry, I force myself to eat; and it helps to get my body on the right track.”

Mariel Zagunis, Fencing 

“Generally, I don't have a hard time with jet lag, but the best way I deal with it is the first few days I get to bed really early so I can sleep for a long time. I am lucky enough to have the natural ability to sleep anytime, anywhere. My record for sleeping is 19 hrs and 45 minutes straight. (I was in Italy and I only woke up because I happened to look at the clock and see that it was 5:00pm! Oops!) So my general rule when I get to Europe for a competition, I sleep as long as I can that night (luckily for me I get the first day of competition off because it's the preliminary qualifying rounds) then when I fly home from Europe a couple days later, I let myself take that next day off and sleep in as long as possible again (usual 14-15 hours for me) and this helps turn me around pretty quickly.”

Todd Rogers, Beach Volleyball 

“When it comes to jet lag staying away from the temptation of taking a nap is critical. I usually try and get a good workout in as I feel physical exercise helps acclimate the body. Just staying busy is a must. If I do wake up at 2am or something, I like to stretch until I get tired again. Usually about an hour or so.”

Mark Ladwig, Figure Skating 
“I find the best way to beat jet lag is to prepare your body in advance. I have heard from doctors it takes roughly a day per hour or time difference. When I have made trips to Beijing for competitions, which is a 12-hour time change from the Eastern Time zone, I began to combat possible jet lag 10 days prior to leaving. Each day I got up an additional hour earlier (which is easier to regulate than when I will go to sleep). So for example, 10 days out I got up at 6:30am, nine days 5:30am, etc., until one day before leaving I woke up at 9:30pm. I also try to fly out of the U.S. in the early evening so that I can arrive in the morning at my destination.”

Reid Priddy, Indoor Volleyball 

“When it comes to jet lag sleep is key. And when it comes to that time, I use three sleeping aids to ensure the longest possible rest:

1. Eye Mask - I try to cover my eyes and make it completely dark telling my body: ‘It’s time to sleep. It’s night.’ (Even though it may still be light outside.)

2. Ear phones with ambient sounds playing - I use iPacifier's RIVER noise; we use it for my infant son and I am used to it now. This helps block out any outside noise and helps me stay asleep.

3. Ambien - Usually I am able to get to bed with no problem, so instead of taking a sleeping pill when I go to sleep, I will put it next to my bed in anticipation of waking up in the middle of the night wired.  I quickly take the pill, roll over, and that is usually good for another four hours.”

Brittney Reese, Long Jump 

“The best way for me to reduce the effects of jet lag — so that my performance on the track is not affected — is to sleep through the flight. This way by the time I get to where I am going, I will not be as tired.”

Diana Lopez, Taekwondo 

“Before we go to London, USA TKD will be going to Croatia 12 days before to get acclimated to time in Europe. But usually I go straight from the plane to get a good sweat in to fight jet lag!”

Matt Chrabot, Triathlon 
“When dealing with jet lag, I try to get used to the new time zone as quickly as possible. If I'm lucky enough to arrive in the morning, I force myself to stay awake for the entire remainder of the day —using as little as caffeine as possible, especially in the afternoon.”

Donny Robinson, BMX

“Over the years I've become quite a combat veteran to jet lag. A Monster energy drink to keep me up during the day and as much sleep at night is the key. Two days of that and it’s primetime.”

 

Maybe some of their tricks with work for you, but whatever you find that works, stick with it.  We cannot fully prevent jet lag, but we can give it quite a lot of help with some preparation.  Good luck on your journeys and remember to experience as many new things as possible, even if they may seem scary! 

Have a healthful and adventurous week!

-CHA

A quick guide to diets for summer...

A quick poll:  Raise your hand if you have every "dieted?" According to a Gallup poll, 2/3rds of all Americans will attempt dieting at some point in their life.  If you are female, that ratio climbs to 75% with the average number of times attempting dieting hovering around 7.  Men, you aren't immune to the allure of dieting, 55% of you will try to lose weight four times in your life.  Whether we want to admit it or not, we will probably try to start a diet plan at some point in our life so, how do we know we are doing it right? Some tips to making your dieting a success:

• Do your research!  There are hundreds of diet plans out there from low carb, to Paleozoic eating, to only eating foods that start with the letter S.  While most of these diet plans are legitimate, many only result in short term weight loss and increased levels of crankiness.  The best course of action is to talk with your doctor or nutritionist to decide what you need to alter about your current eating habits to reach your weight goals. 
• Get to know yourself-Calories are sneaky sneaky creatures.  While many of us think we are eating healthily, excess calories might be working their way into our daily consumption.  The best way to figure out if this is happening is to keep a food journal.  Many websites like http://www.choosemyplate.gov/ are available to help measure how many calories you are eating as well as where those calories are coming from.  If say, you aren't eating very many calcium rich foods, it can help suggest what you should be eating based on average daily requirement.
• Pick a plan that works for you-  If you love to cook, then a diet plan that requires making a lot of your own homemade foods  will work well for you.  Diets that work are diets that last, so fit it to your lifestyle.  If you need extra motivation, pick a plan with weekly meetings.  You ultimately know yourself best so if eating only raw foods turns you green at the thought, it might not be the best idea...
• Double up for double benefits-Dieting alone can help us lose weight of course, this has been proven over and over again.  However, according to most experts, altering diet PLUS exercise is the most effective plan to lose-or gain-weight.  When we exercise, the signals let out by our empty fat cells are suppressed.  This, along with the feel good generating endorphins that are released during exercise, can help us keep from getting what was known in my house as the "h-angries."  Plus, when we exercise, our bodies learn to regulate such factors as blood pressure and eating patterns much more efficiently.  We are more likely to eat only what we need to replace what we burned, pair this with a little bit of calorie restriction and BANG! weight loss. 

These tips sound so easy to accomplish when written this way, but we understand that it is VERY hard work.  Maintaining a healthy physique is going to be different for every single person so the most important tip to remember is not to compare yourself with others.  The weight your body is most happy and functional at is likely different than your friend's or co worker's.  As long as you start and continue the life long healthy habits associated with losing weight-calorie control and exercise-you will see improvements, both physically and emotionally.  You can do it, we know you can. :-)

Have a healthful weekend and week!
-CHA
Gallup Poll About Dieting

Health Topic of the Week: New Study on Value of 'Good Cholesterol'

 

If you do not subscribe to the Sacramento Bee then you may have missed the article that was placed in one of the bottom corners of the front page last Thursday, May 17th. The article highlighted a new study conducted by researchers at The Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital that challenged the accepted notion that raising a person's levels of HDL-or the good cholesterol-will result in a decreased risk of heart attack.  

This comes as quite a shock to medical professionals because for the last thirty years, it has been the accepted opinion that if you could raise a person's HDL levels, their risk of heart attack would go down dramatically and they would essentially be "safe" from an early death. Operating under this assumption, there has been an attempt to develop drugs to raise HDL levels with the hope that they would have as much success as statins-or a drug that lowers LDL-the bad cholesterol-levels in the blood have had.

The study examined 170,000 individuals for genetic markers that made them predisposed to having high HDL levels and found that they were at no less risk of heart attack then individuals who did not possess these markers.  While this is ground breaking research, the issue comes when sources such as the Sacramento Bee use these findings to make it sound like HDL is no longer important.

Last week, the Clinical Health Appraisals team had to confront this issue when patients who were undergoing blood lipid analysis would remark, "why are you doing this test for HDL levels?  I heard it doesn't really matter anymore." The truth is, HDL does matter, but the capacity to which we had previously assigned it has changed. Cholesterol is carried by molecules called lipoproteins in the blood.  High levels of Low Density Lipoproteins or LDL, has been proven to increase a person's risk for heart disease in countless large scale studies.

When life saving statins were developed, it seemed that the logical course of action would be to develop a drug that would raise HDL levels and all the world's cholesterol issues would be solved.  Until the development of a truly effective drug occurred, physicians and medical professionals operated under the “play it safe” policy and advised nearly everyone with low HDL levels that it was essential to raise them.  Now it seems that raising HDL is not the be-all end all when it comes to preventing Heart Disease. What is more likely is that high HDL levels and decreased risk of heart attack are correlational not causational. Meaning, they happen to occur that the same time but one does not necessarily lead to another. 

Benjamin Voight, PhD one of the authors of the original paper (highlighted below) summed it up:

"There are many biomarkers measurable in the blood that track with disease but only a very    small number are actually causal and directly participate. The reason you want to distinguish between causal and non-causal biomarkers is because of the implications for therapy.” Basically, it is extremely important to understand the genetic background and interactions of the bio-markers you are trying to develop a drug for, before moving to mass production and prescription of said drug.

Senior author Sekar Kathiresan, director of preventive cardiology at MGH, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and an associate member of the Broad Institute put is like this:

“We know that HDL is a great biomarker — it’s quite useful in identifying individuals at higher risk of having a heart attack in the future. But we have shown that you cannot assume that raising HDL by any mechanism will help patients. Perhaps other mechanisms exist that can lower risk, but we will need to keep searching for them.” 

What this means for the patient and the doctor is, if the patient is diagnosed as having a low HDL level, should you immediately worry about jumping on newest medication that claims to raise HDL? No, in fact what we should all do is look at the other factors that may be causing a lowered HDL level.  Is the patient eating properly, exercising regularly, drinking to excess, getting enough sleep?  Do they have elevated levels of LDL and Total Cholesterol?

If the answers imply that the patient is not living a healthy lifestyle, then the prescription of diet and exercise that usually accompanies a low HDL finding is entirely appropriate.  Though it seems now that raising HDL alone might not be the key to preventing heart disease, the lifestyle changes that accompany an HDL raising regime will help prevent disease in the future by lowering LDL and Total Cholesterol, increasing cardiovascular fitness, bone density, quality of sleep, and overall well-being.

This, along with a million other positive effects is reason enough to say that YES! HDL is STILL IMPORTANT, but not just by itself.  You have to take other risk factors into account and ask yourself, am I living the most out of this life I have?  One day, they will discover what HDL's role in maintaining a healthy cardiovascular system is, but until then, we need to look at the big picture and think, is what I am doing today going to help or hurt this one body I have when I am 40? 50? 60? 70?  If the answer is negative, then it's not so much the numbers we get in a blood test that we need to be concerned with, but the life style that is giving rise to those numbers.

Have a healthful week!
-CHA

Original Article on the Massachusetts General Hospital website
Original Study published in The Lancet
Sacramento Bee Article-May 17th

Health Question of the Week

Question: I try to workout regularly and enjoy outdoor activities most of the year. However, living in the Sacramento area and knowing the extreme heat we often experience from the months of May to September, what are some good exercise routines that will keep me active for the warm Summer months without having to endure the extreme summer heat?

Answer: Great question! If you don't have access to an indoor gym, the best recommendation would be to try to utilize the early morning hours for those outdoor activities before it gets too warm. If you enjoy biking or running outdoors, make sure to take breaks often and keep hydrated during these activities. However, it is important to remember when you take breaks to take them in the shade. Be on the look out for these shady spots and when you see them, take advantage! You never know when the next shady spot will be available.

Swimming is another summer activity that is perfect for avoiding the heat. Swimming is a great upper body workout. If you want to balance out the upper and lower body workouts while still staying in the pool, grab a kick board and kick a few laps. Remember it is important to stay hydrated even when swimming in a pool full of water. We still sweat when we are in a pool, it is just less noticeable. Drinking water before, during and after a swim is key to a healthy swimming workout.

Have a wonderful week of wellness!

-CHA

Welcome to the NEW CHA Blog!

We're glad you are here! The purpose of this blog is to provide up to date information for CHA clients, friends and fans. We hope to provide helpful tips on health and wellness related topics as well as notify our readers of any improvements, changes, opportunities that come along at CHA. We'd love to hear from our readers about what topics are most interesting to you, so please don't hesitate to contact us by leaving a comment or emailing us at ottocha@aol.com

Have a wonderful week of wellness!

-CHA