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Friday Link Love for 03.05.10

It’s back!

At least for this week, anyway :)

I found a couple of interesting articles. The first one is particular compelling…

Here’s what I’ve got this week

Futurity.org: Probiotics prime immune system to fight – Scientists have long pondered the seeming contradiction that taking broad-spectrum antibiotics over an extended period of time can lead to severe secondary bacterial infections. Now researchers may have figured out why.

We suggest that if the immune system is on idle, and you treat someone with broad-spectrum antibiotics, then you turn the system off. The system is deprimed and will be less efficient at responding quickly to new infections.

NPR.org: How Revving Up Your Heart Rate, Even A Bit, Pays Off – I know a lot of people with Lyme struggle to exercise. They want to bike, run, hike or do whatever they did before getting sick. Sadly, they hit the wall quickly and are wiped out for days afterward.

This article and accompanying podcast show that even just a little bit of activity can be beneficial. According to the researchers involved, even as little as 72 minutes a week (that’s just over 10 minutes a day) can deliver an increase in your health.

I wrote an article many months ago about how I used targeted heart rate training to help me restart my running. Check it out here.

Oh, and a side benefit to the cardiovascular improvement is that exercise increases blood flow to the prefrontal cortex. This helps with cognition, attention and overall mood. Who couldn’t use some of that?

Lymenaide: Paining This May Lyme Green – May is Lyme Awareness Month! Who knew? The ladies of Lymenaide do and they are all over it.

They’re putting together a multichannel PSA campaign to help raise awareness about the disease. On their blog post they’ve listed several ways that you can help, but if you just want to give some cash, check this link. Good luck!!

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Friday Link Love for 01.15.10

It’s Friday again already. Man!

I came across a lot of interesting things this week, but there’s on thing that I could use everyone’s help with. I’m about to switch insurances and my wife and I are utterly confused on what to do. We’ve shopped around, but the options are so great. If you have any advice on this topic, please post it here. Or email me if that’s easier ChronicTriathlete(at)gmail.com.

Also… I’m in the final phase of fixing up this blog. If you find things are broken or displaying funny, I’m sorry. I hope to have it all back to normal in a week or so.

Here’s what I’ve got this week

Slate: The Vita Myth – An informative article about the cloud of confusion surrounding the effectiveness of daily vitamins and other supplements. I’ve personally given up on taking supplements. I’ve never noticed any improvement or changes in my condition while taking up to 40 pills a day so I’ve just stopped. I’m opting to just eat better and get the nutrients I need via food. That said, I do plan to get my vitamin levels checked next week when I go to my LLMD.

Runner’s World: Do Running Shoes Cause Running Injuries? – I tweeted this link earlier in the week. It’s an interesting response by Amby Burfoot to a recent study done on the amount of torque suffered by the knees of runners wearing traditional running shoes versus runners wearing minimal or no shoes. There’s a growing (or perhaps reemerging) trend in fringes of the running community that claim that less is more, big shoe companies are the devil (sorry Jim) and that we should all run barefoot.

Being a coach and having worked in a running store that fits people in shoes via a treadmill analysis system I have to say that I believe there’s some validity to the topic. I’m not as Evangelical as some, but I’ve personally experienced the benefits of running in less and less shoe. I plan to write more about it in the near future.

LA Times: What Goes Into Chicken – This freaked me out! Read about how manufactures are “plumping” your chicken.

This American Life: Long Shot – A podcast by Ira Glass that I found particularly inspirational. In the first segment he talks to Leo Paur, coach of a high school football team in Utah that hasn’t won a game in two and a half seasons, about how he motivates his team to keep going after so many crushing defeats. Namely: you decide that you’re about to turn things around.

In the second segment Nancy Mullane reports on the case of Don Cronk, an inmate at San Quentin Prison, to see what would happen as Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger reviewed his case. Though Cronk knew the odds were against him, he found it hard to stop himself from believing he’d get out.

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