Should You Take Supplements Before Working Out?

Timing is everything—even when it comes to keeping your bones healthy. That’s the takeaway from a new study that finds taking calcium supplements before working out helps minimize exercise-induced calcium loss.

Athletes who train intensely can lose substantial amounts of calcium when they sweat, leading to decreased bone density. So authors of the study, which was presented recently at the annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, set out to see if taking calcium supplements pre- or post-workout would help fix the problem. They divided 52 male cyclists into two groups. One group took 1,000 mg of calcium along with 1,000 iu of vitamin D (which helps the body absorb calcium) 30 minutes before training. The other group took the same calcium-vitamin D combo an hour after training.

The result: Though both groups showed decreased blood-calcium levels, the cyclists who popped the supplements before breaking a sweat had much less calcium loss, said Vanessa Sherk, PhD, lead author of the study and postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. The findings suggest that when a person consumes calcium makes a difference in terms of how much bone density loss they rack up.

“It’s interesting research because we already know that getting enough calcium is crucial to maintaining bone health, but this may be the first study demonstrating that timing plays a role,” says Steven Hawkins, PhD, a professor of exercise science at California Lutheran University and a fellow of the American College Sports Medicine, which partially funded the study.

So should you pop calcium pills or load up on yogurt before killing it in your cycling class? Because the results are preliminary and the study focused on a small group of hardcore athletes (not to mention all men), Sherk says that further research needs to be done before any recommendation can be made. On the other hand, future studies may prove that calcium before a workout really does shore up bones—and women in their 20s, 30s, and 40s already need up to 1,000 mg of calcium daily as well as 600 iu of vitamin D to maintain good health. So it certainly can’t hurt to chose a pre-workout meal or snack from the dairy aisle, says Hawkins. Think: yogurt and nuts, an egg-white omelet with cheese, or a low-fat milk smoothie. But skip the supplements if you can. Nutrients are better absorbed when you consume them via food sources.

photo: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

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Should You Take a Break from Working Out?

Former gym rat Gwen Stefani has thrown in the towel on exercise. “This past year, I kind of stopped working out. I think my body just needed a break. And so I did that and focused more on feeling good as opposed to beating myself up,” she recently told Marie Claire UK in an interview.

While recording and promoting No Doubt’s sixth studio album, Push And Shove, the singer, clothing designer, wife, and mother of two decided that working out, something she once felt she “had to do,” had to go. Last year, Stefani claimed she was addicted to exercising, according to the magazine.

However, that all-or-nothing approach to exercise is what Stefani and other exercisers really need to rid themselves of, says Barbara Bushman, Ph.D., a professor of kinesiology at Missouri State University.

“Rest can be just as important to fitness as working out,” she says. Why? Your body doesn’t get stronger during exercise. It gets stronger while it’s rebuilding itself from that exercise. Overtraining deprives your muscles the time they need to heal, diminishing results and risking injury. What’s more, people who work out too hard for too long may be less healthy than people who don’t work out at all, according to a review recently published in the British journal Heart. During excessive exercise, the body releases more free radicals than the body’s antioxidants can handle, risking harm to internal organs and tissues.

“However, rest doesn’t mean lying in a hammock. Rest should be part of your workout, not an alternative to your workout,” Bushman says. Unless you have a medical condition that prohibits you from exercising, physical activity should always be part of a healthy lifestyle. Putting exercise on hold for more than two weeks can lead to loss of muscle mass and a decline in fitness.

Have you been beating yourself up with exercise? Here, five ways to make rest part of your workout, improve your fitness gains, and love the gym again:

Be diligent with off days
Include at least one or two no-exercise days into your fitness schedule each week, and let at least 48 hours pass before re-working any given muscle group to give your body time to repair itself, Bushman advises. For example, if you work your triceps hard on Monday, wait until Wednesday to perform a triceps-specific exercise. Also, by realizing that effective workouts can be short and sweet, you are less likely to feel that they are keeping you from your other priorities. Bonus: In a recent study from the University of Copenhagen, people who exercised for 30 minutes a day lost more weight than those who exercised for an hour a day.

Alternate hard and easy
Crafting a schedule that switches between “hard” and “easy” days can add variety, interest, and needed rest into your workout. Runners who train using the model suffer fewer injuries, enjoy their workouts more, and can run almost twice as far as those who exercise at a similar level of intensity during each workout, according to University of Oregon track and field coach Bill Bowerman, who popularized the training principle.

Try something new
Have you stopped looking forward to your workouts? “Try out a new exercise such as hiking or cycling, or take up a team sport or gym class with your friends,” Bushman says. It will allow you to mix up your workout plan, give overworked muscles a rest, and train those you might typically miss.

Nourish your muscles
Between workouts, focus on helping your muscles repair themselves through gentle stretching, eight hours of sleep a night, and plenty of healthy muscle-building foods, she says. Research has shown that good-for-you nutrients including protein, whole grain-carbohydrates, omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, zinc, and vitamins A, C, and D promote cell growth and muscle recovery. (Check out the best workout foods.)

Tweak your priorities
By valuing working out as a way to improve mood, fight stress, and increase energy, you’ll enjoy exercise more and consider it as something you want to do, not something you are obligated to do, Bushman says. The result: You’ll make fitness a priority over the long term and reap bigger fitness gains. According to research from the American College of Sports Medicine, people who exercise to feel good stick with workouts longer than those who do it to look good.

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Would You Take “Female Viagra?”

Put the aphrodisiacs aside. Soon, you may be able to sniff your way to a sexier mood. Australian researchers are currently recruiting women for a new clinical trial that will test a nasal spray intended to boost female sexual arousal.

The new drug, Tefina, marketed by Trimel Pharmaceuticals, consists of a testosterone gel that is absorbed into the body through the nose. The company refers to the medicine as a “use-as-required treatment for women experiencing Female Orgasmic Disorder” and would be administered 2-8 hours before a “planned sexual event” with the hopes of increasing the probability for an orgasm.

Testosterone—often referred to as the desire hormone—is one of the main driving forces in the sex drive of both genders, says Monnica T. Williams, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences at the University of Louisville. But although increasing testosterone levels may improve libido, it doesn’t necessarily affect a woman’s ability to orgasm, she says.

Moreover, anorgasmia (inability to orgasm) and low libido (desire to have sex) are two separate issues, Williams says. And what aids one may not necessarily solve the other. For instance, many women have a hard time reaching orgasm due to the effects of antidepressant medication, which isn’t a hormonal issue, says Williams. Thanks to the rewiring of the neural pathways, it can be harder to climax, even if your sex drive is high, she explains.

A low sex drive, on the other hand, can be the result of lots of different factors—not just low testosterone, Williams says. “If you don’t have the desire to have sex, whether or not you can orgasm won’t make a big difference,” she says.

Energy levels, for example, can seriously impact your mojo, says Patti Britton, PhD, MPH, author of The Art of Sex Coaching. “If someone has really low energy, it doesn’t matter how much testosterone they have in their body,” she says. And the list of libido-killers goes on. “You have to take into consideration your thought patterns, your emotional state, your physiology, and your mechanical skills,” says Britton.

With that in mind, if you’re suffering from low libido, there are other options to try before reaching for a sniff of T. And while they can’t guarantee you a big O, these natural libido boosters can help you better navigate the obstacles of sexual pleasure:

Work Up a Sweat
A good workout can be a wonderful libido booster, says Britton. Sure, it seems like you’ll be more tired post-kickboxing, but moving your body can help you loosen up, relieve tension, and boost blood flow—all things that can help you elevate desire, says Britton.

Swap Your BC Method
Hormones in your birth control pill essentially put the ovaries to sleep, freezing ovulation, which halts testosterone production. The pill also renders the other 50 percent of your testosterone useless, thanks to the super-potent artificial estrogen it contains. Opting for a non-hormonal baby blocker (like the copper-coil IUD Paraguard) can help improve the testosterone shortage.

Switch Into Airplane Mode
Our addiction to smart phones mixed with our attention-deficit culture can make it difficult to switch from work mode to relationship mode, says Britton. Taking a mini “E (electronics) fast” at least once a day and shutting down your devices can help you better manage switching off your analytical side and giving into your primal (not digital) urges.

Check Your Meds
Some prescription medications, like antidepressants, anti-anxiety and hypertension-treating drugs have been shown to contribute to a low libido. Even antihistamines can dry out the vagina, which can make sex uncomfortable. Talk to your doctor about alternative options that have fewer negative sexual side effects, recommends Britton.

Additional reporting by Women’s Health staff.

Image: Pixland/Thinkstock

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How Safe Is Your Sleep? Take the Elbow Test

If your loud-snoring slumber is frequently disrupted by your partner’s flying elbow, it could be a sign of a serious health problem, according to a recent study which found an association between being woken due to snoring, and likelihood of having sleep apnea.

Researchers from the University of Saskatchewan asked 124 patients the following two questions: Does your bed-partner ever poke or elbow you because you’re snoring? and Does your bed-partner ever poke or elbow you because you’ve stopped breathing? Those who answered “yes” to one or more questions were more likely have sleep apnea, the sleep disorder in which the sleeper takes abnormal pauses between breaths. Researchers think the so-called “elbow test” has potential to predict whether a person may have sleep apnea before they go in for a polysomnogram, the diagnostic test for sleep disorders. That’s promising, as statistics show about 80% of people with sleep apnea don’t even know they have it.

Those who suffer from this sleep disorder face the scary prospect of breath ceasing in the night. And if that’s not enough to worry about, the sleep apnea was recently named a cause of high blood pressure in women. In addition to snoring so loudly that you get poked, sleep apnea has other symptoms, particularly among women, for whom symptoms can be more subtle. Fatigue after seven to eight hours of sleep, memory lapses, morning headaches, waking to a sore throat, irritability, and depression could be indicators of sleep apnea–just ask your doctor whether sleeping problems may be to blame. In the meantime? Check out these three ways to sleep safer.

photo: Jupiterimages/Creatas/Thinkstock

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Take THIS to Cut Your Ovarian Cancer Risk

Sure, most OTC painkillers can effectively knock out your cramps, headache, and many other pesky aches. But there may be an even better reason to pop those pills—and make sure they contain aspirin: new research shows that regularly taking an aspirin-based pain reliever may reduce your risk of the fifth-leading cause of cancer deaths among women—ovarian cancer.

The recent Danish study of 2,320 women between the ages of 35 and 79 (including 756 with ovarian cancer of varying severity) found that women who took aspirin two or more times per week for longer than a month were less likely to develop ovarian cancer than those who typically took non-aspirin pain relievers, or none at all.

Aspirin’s cancer-fighting power comes from its anti-inflammatory effects, which reduce the chronic inflammation suspected to play a role in the development of cancer, says study author Susanne Krüger Kjær, M.D., of the Danish Cancer Society Research Center and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Copenhagen University Hospital, both in Copenhagen, Denmark. So why were non-aspirin pain relievers—which may also reduce inflammation—found to be less effective at curbing cancer? “This may reflect differences in the way these drugs induce their effect on inflammation,” says Kjær.

The medicine cabinet staple boasts even more beyond-the-label benefits. While the OTC drug won’t necessarily shield women from heart disease, it could help reduce men’s risk of heart attack. And for women ages 55 to 79, the U.S. Preventive Task Force recommends taking regular doses of the aspirin to stave off strokes. (Younger than 55? Strokes are more common than ever among younger women. Here’s how to reduce your stroke risk.)

So are the virtues of aspirin reason enough to start popping pills as if they’re candy? Kjær says the protective effects should be balanced against possible adverse effects, such as risk of bleeding and peptic ulcers.

Want to slash your ovarian cancer risk the safe way? Begin with these tips. 

photo: Stockbyte/Stockbyte/Thinkstock

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Are You Depressed? Take the Test

 
depression testIf you feel blue more often than not, you owe it to yourself to find out if you have depression, a treatable disease that strikes millions of American—especially women.

Today is National Depression Screening Day, where clinicians at more than 1,000 locations nationwide will offer free, anonymous assessments for depression and other treatable conditions including anxiety disorders, PTSD, and bipolar disorder. To find a participating site or to take a screening online, visit helpyourselfhelpothers.org.

How it works: You complete a questionnaire, receive mental health information, and, if applicable, a list of treatment providers in your area. The annual event began in 1991 and is sponsored by the non-profit group Screening for Mental Health, Inc.

And in case you feel ashamed or that you should “just get over” feeling sad, take a minute to digest how prevalent depression is in the United States. In 2004, an estimated 31 million adults had experienced at least one major depressive episode in their lifetime, and an estimated 17 million reported having an episode in the past year, says the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Plus, women are 70% more likely than men to experience depression during their lifetime, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

If you think that you or someone you know might be suffering from depression, do the right thing for your health and take the time to get screened. You won’t regret it.

photo: Hemera/Thinkstock

 
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