Not just athletes, but anyone for that matter tend to over exercise. Some people think that the more you exercise, the better. However this is not necessarily true. The first effect of too much exercising is muscle pain. While lactic acid build-up has been blamed for producing muscle pain, it is actually the result of three things combined. Lactate, certain acids, and ATP. During muscle contraction, these substances are released causing pain and discomfort. Scientists at the University of Utah conducted a study of mice to show how too much exercising can cause pain. Researchers isolated the substances and injected them into mouse nerve cells. At first there was no response, but when all three substances were injected at the same time, many of the nerve cells responded. The neurons responded differently depending on how much of the substances were injected. The results were similar when they performed this on humans. When the substances were combined, the subjects reported pain, swelling, and fatigue. Therefore, “The accumulation of these substances is likely what causes your muscles to hit a wall, so to speak, when you exercise too much.”

While exercise is essential for good cardiovascular health, new research is finding that too much exercise can also increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke in patients with existing heart problems. The journal, “Heart,” published a new study that tracked a decade’s worth of exercise habits and survival of more than 1,000 people with diagnosed, but stable, coronary artery disease. “Surprisingly, those who did the most strenuous daily exercise were also more likely to die of a heart attack or stroke than people who engaged in more moderate activity.”

While of course exercising regularly is extremely beneficial to your body, you must be careful to not reach an excessive amount. There are some drawbacks with prolonged and high-intensity activities.Swedish researchers studied the physical activity of more than 44,000 men periodically over 12 years. “They found that those who exercised more than five hours per week were 19 percent more likely to develop irregular heart rhythm than those who exercised less often.”

Current medical recommendations call for heart-disease patients (like everyone else) to exercise five to seven days a week. What is shocking, is that this may actually be more detrimental than beneficial. One study followed 1,038 patients with heart disease for 10 years and found that “Those who vigorously exercised daily were more than twice as likely to die of a heart attack or stroke than those who exercised only two to four days a week.” Endurance exercise also increases the risk of atrial fibrillation. It is a cardiac arrhythmia that greatly increases the risk of stroke. These health risks come with consistent vigorous exercise. It is important to exercise and be active, but always know when to stop. 

Works Cited

http://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-too-much-exercise-can-be-bad-042514

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/too-much-exercise-may-be-bad-for-the-heart/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-stulberg/health-and-fitness_b_5622445.html

http://www.ajc.com/news/lifestyles/health/too-much-exercise-bad-your-health/nfxmX/#__federated=1

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2511045/Getting-exercise-bad-getting-all.html

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304908304579561802820076042

I know many days I wake up and rush off to school skipping breakfast along the way. Also many people trying to lose weight, actually skip breakfast purposely. Doing this actually has the opposite effect and skipping breakfast should not be part of your daily routine. Skipping any meal, especially breakfast, can actually make weight control more difficult. If you skip breakfast, you tend to eat more food than usual at the next meal, or snack on high-calorie snacks to shave off hunger. In a study published in The American Society of Nutritional Sciences’ Journal of Nutrition, researchers found that, “Calories consumed early-on in the day were more satiating than the same amount of calories eaten later in the day; this led to lower calorie consumption overall. Therefore, eating breakfast helps with weight control.”

Kid’s especially need to eat breakfast. Their growing bodies and developing brains need regular refueling often, from food. When kids skip breakfast, they don’t get what they need to perform and be at their best. Studies show that kids who skip breakfast are tardy and absent from school more often than children who eat breakfast on a regular basis. According to the American Dietetic Association, “children who eat breakfast perform better in the classroom and on the playground, with better concentration, problem-solving skills, and eye-hand coordination.”

The NHS says, “Eating breakfast has long term health benefits. It can reduce obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes.” A study conducted in England also showed that eating a good breakfast every day decreases your chances of developing insulin resistance. “When your body becomes insulin resistant, your cells become unable to respond to the functions of insulin. As a result, your body produces more and more glucose which accumulates in your blood stream.” Insulin resistance can lead to multiple health conditions such as diabetes, obesity, acne, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Eric Rimm, Sc.D., a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston says, “If you don’t bother with breakfast, though, the prolonged fasting might lead to a bigger than normal boost in “hunger hormones” such as ghrelin, encouraging you to overeat at your next meal and leading to spikes and dips in glucose. Over time, if your pancreas is constantly producing insulin to compensate for high levels of glucose, it will burn out and you’ll develop diabetes.” Also, In a recent study that involved almost 27,000 men, researchers found that those who didn’t eat breakfast were 27 percent more likely to develop heart disease than those who did. That is why it is so important that you don’t develop a daily routine of skipping breakfast. Although it may seem like skipping breakfast is not a big deal, research shows that it can lead to multiple health problems later on in life as well.

However, this does not mean ANY breakfast is good for you. It is important that while you are eating breakfast everyday, that it is nutritional. A nutritional breakfast provides energy for the day. Studies show that a healthy breakfast as opposed to an unhealthy breakfast can give you more strength and endurance, lower cholesterol levels, and improved concentration and performance in the classroom. 

Works Cited

http://www.webmd.com/diet/news/20140902/breakfast-importance

http://www.jhsph.edu/offices-and-services/student-affairs/_documents/breakfast

http://www.shakeupyourwakeup.com/content/why-breakfast-important-1

http://www.calorieking.com/learnabouts/Why-Is-Breakfast-So-Important_OTI5.html

http://www.3fatchicks.com/the-long-term-benefits-of-eating-a-healthy-breakfast/

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2014/10/why-eating-the-right-breakfast-is-so-important/index.htm

While it’s true that studying hard is always good, there comes a point where too much studying may actually have negative affects. The first reason is that the more you study, the less you sleep. According to researchers, if a student sacrifices sleep time to study more than usual, he or she will have more trouble understanding material being taught in class and will be more likely to struggle on a test the following day.

If you choose to cram in last minute studying for a test and end up studying for hours without taking breaks, your brain will begin to get fatigued and you will have more trouble processing and remembering information. If you study too much you may begin to realize that you can’t concentrate. Your thoughts may jump around in your head and you become easily distracted. It might even be more difficult to fall asleep. A balance of studying and breaks is essential.

A study conducted by Stanford Graduate School of Education, surveyed more than 4,300 students from ten high-performing public and private high schools in affluent California communities, and found that excessive homework causes high stress levels and physical health problems. Denise Pope, co-author of the study said, “We found a clear connection between the students’ stress and physical impacts — migraines, ulcers and other stomach problems, sleep deprivation and exhaustion, and weight loss.” Doing more than 3 hours of homework a night is actually the cause to many health problems.

According to the New York Times, “In 1900, Harvard Law School student William T. Parker Jr. went crazy—as in waving his hands wildly, [he] cried out a number of unintelligible sentences—during an exam. He was promptly sent to a hospital, where he died several days later of an abscess on the brain caused by overstudy.” There are many study/homework tips that are easy and help to avoid overstudying.

Caffeine filled all nighters the night before a big test are very popular among students, especially college students. Studying all night will actually only have a negative affect. Every hour of sleep lost that night impacts your performance the next day. In a new study, “535 high school 9th, 10th and 12th graders in Los Angeles kept a diary for 14 days that recorded how long they studied and slept, and whether or not they had any trouble understanding something in class the next day. They also reported how they performed on tests, quizzes and homework. For nearly all of the students, the researchers found that, counterintuitively, more study time correlated with worse academic performance. The connection, however, rested in the amount of sleep the students got: more studying tended to equal sacrificed sleep.” Don’t stay up all night to cram for a test. Think ahead and study productively and reasonably.

Works Cited

http://www.healthline.com/health-news/children-more-homework-means-more-stress-031114#2

Are You Studying Too Much?

http://sputniknews.com/voiceofrussia/2014_03_22/Good-grades-or-ulcer-Studying-too-much-dangerous-for-your-childs-health-2096/

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/5/out-studying-school-people/

A lot of people (including me) like to watch television to help them fall asleep at night. What they don’t realize is that whether it’s a computer, video game, or television, these diversions can keep us from both falling asleep and sleeping well. The most simple but important reason technology affects our sleep is cognitive stimulation. According to Mark Rosekind, former director of the Fatigue Countermeasures Program at the NASA Ames Research Center and president and chief scientist at the scientific consulting firm Alertness Solutions, “As your brain revs up, its electrical activity increases and neurons start to race — the exact opposite of what should be happening before sleep.”

Another reason that electronics prevent us from getting a good night’s sleep is because “The physical act of responding to a video game or even an email makes your body tense. As you get stressed, your body can go into a “fight or flight” response, and as a result, cortisol, a stress hormone produced by the adrenal gland, is released, creating a situation hardly conducive to sleep”(Rosekind). The bright glow from an electronic like a computer screen or a TV can also prevent sleep. The light from these devices pass through the retina into a part of the hypothalamus (the area of the brain that controls several sleep activities) and delay the release of the sleep-inducing hormone, melatonin. If you consistently use electronics before sleep, you will begin to stay up later and readjust your internal clock. This is the cause of “Delayed sleep phase syndrome.” This means that your body cannot physically fall asleep until that new time. Allison G. Harvey, a sleep specialist and professor of psychology at the University of California at Berkeley said, “Falling asleep isn’t like flicking a switch. We don’t put our heads on the pillow and fall off to sleep. We take time to wind down at night. If we’ve got bright light conditions, we’re not giving ourselves a chance to get off to sleep and stay asleep.”

The National Sleep Foundation’s annual Sleep in America poll, surveyed 1,508 people between the ages of 13 and 64. The survey showed that a majority of Americans aren’t getting enough sleep. 63 percent said their needs aren’t being met during the week and ninety-five percent of those surveyed said they’d used an electronic device such as a television, computer, video game or cell phone  within the hour before bed.

Turning off or not using electronics before bed can really make a huge difference in your sleep patterns. Next time you want to watch one last TV show before bed, or check social media one last time, think about the affects that it will have.

Works Cited

http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/features/power-down-better-sleep

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/sleep/articles/2011/03/07/using-electronics-before-bed-may-hamper-sleep

http://www.kolotv.com/home/headlines/Using-Electronics-Before-Bed-How-it-Can-Have-a-Negative-Effect-on-Your-Sleep-263455691.html

Before sports drinks became so popular, people drank water when they exercised or got sweaty. Today, the sales of sports drinks exceed $1.5 billion a year with Gatorade being the most popular. Sports drinks are flavored beverages that contain carbohydrates (usually sugar) and minerals such as sodium and potassium. Many people believe that sports drinks are the best alternative to replace lost fluids and electrolytes when exercising, but that’s simply not true. “Many sports drinks contain as much as two-thirds the sugar of sodas. They also typically contain high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), artificial flavors and food coloring, none of which contribute to optimal health.”

Sugar after exercising has a negative affect on your body. It affects your insulin sensitivity and your human growth hormone production. Despite being referred to as “Energy drinks,” the sugar that they contain does just the opposite. After a quick burst of energy, your energy level drops as your pancreas and other glands try to balance out the toxic stimulation to your blood sugar. School of Public Health professor, Mary Story, says, “We’re seeing schools, parents, and community members making the decision to swap soda for sports drinks thinking they’re improving children’s consumption of sugary-sweetened beverages, but really, they’re replacing one sugary drink for another.”

Along with other sugars, high fructose corn sugar is known to increase your risk of almost every chronic disease including cancer, heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and osteoporosis. What makes HFCS so unhealthy is that is raises your blood sugar levels and causes sugar to attach too many of your body’s proteins, causing permanent damage to them. In 2004, a researcher from The University of New Mexico said that “Gatorade is no better than water because it isn’t retained any better than water, so while it may make an athlete feel better initially, it isn’t any better for long-term hydration.”

Researchers say that the increased consumption of sports drinks is adding to the obesity epidemic. They are not any better than drinking soda. Professor Mary Story, from University of Mexico’s School of Public Health, says “A 20-ounce sports drink may have fewer calories than a soda, but it has more sugar and more sodium-and no nutritional value.” Story says 83 percent of the high schools in the U.S. sell sports drinks and 55 percent of middle schools do too. It’s become a popular everyday drink that Story says is part of why more and more kids are overweight. In addition to these health factors, the color additives and citric acid in these drinks are very bad for your teeth.  Instead of sports drinks, athletes along with everyone else, should stick to water and healthy alternative drinks to stay hydrated.

Work’s Cited

http://heritageihc.com/blog/sports-drinks/

http://sph.umn.edu/sph-research-finds-sports-drinks-just-as-unhealthy-as-soda/

Sports Drinks, Overhyped, Overrated and Unhealthy for our kids.

http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/08/10/research-says-sports-drinks-just-as-bad-as-soda/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/28/brain-sleep-_n_5863736.html

The more sleep, the better, may be the obvious answer to most people. What they don’t realize is that oversleeping can actually be harmful. On one hand, it’s true that a good night’s sleep is essential for your health, but oversleeping is actually known to be linked to multiple health problems like diabetes, heart disease, and increased risk of death. According to experts, adults should sleep an average of seven and nine hours per night. Anything over that is considered oversleeping. According to a survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “People over the age of 15 are snoozing an average of 8 hours and 43 minutes each night.” An extra 43 minutes may seem harmless, until you see the problems associated with sleeping too much.

Oversleeping is actually a medical disorder, known as hypersomnia. Hypersomnia means excessive sleepiness. It is a condition in which a person has trouble staying awake during the day. People with this condition can fall asleep at any time during the day. According to the national sleep foundation, “Up to 40% of people have some symptoms of hypersomnia from time to time.” Treatments for hypersomnia include different medications.

One medical problem linked to oversleeping, is obesity. Sleeping too much could also make you weigh too much. In a study, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveyed 87,000 people and found that 26 percent of people who slept nine hours or more per night were obese. By sleeping more you are being less active. This gives the body less time to burn off its energy which otherwise gets stored as fat. Another health problem caused by oversleeping is Heart Disease. Findings from The Nurses’ Health Study involving nearly 72,000 women, found that “Those who overslept had a 38 percent higher risk of coronary heart disease than those who didn’t.” Oversleeping can also lead to other mental health problems such as depression. 15% of people with depression oversleep.

Works Cited

death.http://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/guide/physical-side-effects-oversleeping

http://www.medicinenet.com/hypersomnia/article.htm

http://www.symptomfind.com/health/effects-of-oversleeping/

http://www.businessinsider.com/heath-hazards-of-oversleeping-2012-10

http://mental.healthguru.com/video/depression-over-sleeping

As technology use increases, more and more people today use laptops. What they don’t realize, is that the electromagnetic radiation given off, can be more dangerous than any other radiation in the environment today. When I do my homework, I tend to sit on a chair with my laptop on my lap. You see so many people today even just keeping there laptop on their lap while watching TV or hanging out. There is a lot of research done to prove that laptops are especially dangerous when they are used on your lap. The FCC report regarding safety from EMFs in 1996 states that “A laptop needs to be placed at least 20 cm from the body.” However, this study was only measuring thermal dangers of a laptop. What researchers are more concerned about  are the non-thermal hazards of laptops-“The long-term effects on the immune system and the links being drawn between laptop radiation and serious conditions and diseases.” This is an article I found on all of the possible diseases/conditions that are linked to EMF’s.

Research published in the Environmental & Occupational Health journal cites a study in which they measured EMF levels in five commonly-used laptops of different brands. They found that although the EMF values were within the guidelines, “The EMF values in laptops were actually deemed risky in these guidelines for tumor development.” These values are also extremely high when the laptop is closer to the body. Health experts recommend that you put your laptop on a table or any kind of surface while you are using it. They also recommend that if you do use it on your lap, that you keep a pillow of at least 6″ thickness between your lap and the laptop.

Having your laptop on your lap can be especially dangerous for men if they’re concerned about their reproductive health. A study to evaluate the direct impact of laptop use on human sperm was published in January 2012 in Fertility & Sterility, “Showing a significant decrease in sperm motility and an increase in sperm DNA fragmentation. And this was after just four hours of exposure.”

Dr. Blank,  one of the most experienced researchers of the cellular and molecular effects of EMFs in the United States, explained how DNA is especially vulnerable to electromagnetic fields of all kinds. He says that there is evidence of harm, and that the harm can be significant.

” As Dr. Maret explains in an interview with ElectromagneticHealth.org, your body is a                                           complex communication system where cells, tissues, organs, and organisms “talk” – it’s a veritable “electronic symphony in your body.” This communication includes finely tuned bio-electrical transmitters and receivers, which are tuned like tuning into a radio station. And when you expose a radio antenna to a significant amount of external noise, you get static, and that is what is happening to your body in today’s EMF-saturated environment” (Mercola).

In conclusion, yes, your laptop is dangerous! To help prevent the harmful risks of EMF’s, there are simple precautions you can take like keeping it on a table top, not typing too close to it, or using a battery powered laptop. These steps are important to remember not only for kids, but for adults as well.

Works cited

“Your Laptop Is Dangerous on Your Lap.” Earth Calm. N.p., 2011. Web. 19 Sept. 2014.

“Warning: Laptop Use Exposes You to EMFs.” Mercola.com. N.p., 2012. Web. 19 Sept. 2014.

Hi! My name is Carly Gerson and I am from Fairfield, Connecticut. Right now I am in DUS and I have no idea what I want to study. I took this class because I needed a science course and this class seemed very interesting to me. I am not planning on being a science major because after taking biology in high school, I realized that my interest in science is not strong enough.