Are you fitter than the Crown Prince of Norway?

 

The Crown Prince of Norway tested his fitness using our Fitness Calculator during an event at Egertorget in Oslo at the World Activity Day in May – and as expected he was quite fit.

Physical fitness is key to a long, healthy life. Your body’s ability to transport and use oxygen during exercise is the most precise measure of overall cardiovascular fitness. The more oxygen your body can transport and utilize, the higher your maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) and hence your cardiovascular fitness. Your fitness depends, among other things, on your age, gender and how often and how hard you train. You can increase your fitness though training!

CERG discussed their research projects with “America’s Doctor”

Last week the United States Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, held a lecture at the annual meeting of the American College of Sport Medicine (ACSM) about his Call to Action to Promote Walking and Walkable Communities.

In his initiative to improve the health of the American people he stated that he aimed to walk the talk by implementing the best science for the benefit of the society. He wants to help people of all ages protect and improve their health and reduce risk of obesity and disease through regular physical activity and a healthy diet.

Exercise Training as Medicine in Trondheim

April 18^th 2016 the Norwegian National Advisory Unit on Exercise Training as Medicine for Cardiopulmonary Conditions was officially opened at St. Olav’s Hospital, Trondheim University Hospital in Norway.

The advisory unit concerns the dissemination of knowledge about exercise training as treatment for people with coronary heart disease, heart failure, peripheral artery disease and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The service is involved in education, research and promotion of exercise training as medicine for those cardiopulmonary conditions.

Obesity in youth leads to cardiac death in adulthood

Overweight and obesity has increased significantly recent decades among children and teenagers. Studies have shown that in some Western countries, up to one third of children and teenagers are obese. The New England Journal of Medicine recently published a study where the relationship between BMI (body mass index) and heart disease in 2.3 million youths from Israel were examined. The special features of this study are the large sample of youths who were investigated, and the correlation between BMI in teenagers and heart disease in midlife.

Why “Survival of the fittest”?

We all know that a sedentary lifestyle is unhealthy and that we should be physical active. However, why is that? Why does evolutionary biologist describe natural selection as survival of the fittest meaning that the “fit” has a greater probability for survival than the “unfit”.  Under follows a brief and simplified history lesson on why we become “born to be active”.

Once superior locomotive skills and physical capacity were essential for human survival and certainly a reason that Homo sapiens developed and prospered. Physical capacity was important in order to evade predators and secures food supply. Comparative physiologists (Hochachka et al., 1999) together with anthropologist (Bramble and Lieberman, 2004) has hypothesized that superior traits of endurance capacity together with an impressive ability to thermoregulate was essential for ancestral humans from the high plains of East Africa to succeed as game hunters. A success which ensured high protein sources of food which again was important for the development of larger brains and complex cooperative behavior compared to other primates. Simply stated: Physical capacity was necessary for human survival and development.

The Physically Active Less Prone to Post-Heart Attack Depression

Depression is common and estimates suggest that in a family of four, one of the family members will likely suffer from mental health problems. Depression is even 3 times more common in patients after a heart attack than in the general population. Depression after a heart attack is bad not only because of the accompanying emotional distress, it also increases the risk of having another heart attack or premature death.

Studies of patients with coronary heart disease with elevated depressive symptoms support that exercise is just as effective as antidepressant drugs, and that the reduction in depressive symptoms among those participating in cardiac rehabilitation is related to improvements in fitness. All together the existing literature gives support for a positive effect of aerobic exercise on depressive symptoms in patients with established heart disease.

PAI – Personal Activity Intelligence – introduced to the world

Close to 175 000 attendees, including 6000 journalists, visited to the worlds largest convention for consumer electronics, CES, last week in Las Vegas. Among them was head of CERG, professor Ulrik Wisløff, who together with Canadian wearable company Mio Global introduced PAI, Personal Activity Intelligence to the worlds technology press.

PAI is a result of research based on the HUNT study where more than 60 000 individuals has been monitored over a period of more than 20 years. The goal is to make PAI the new world standard of activity tracking. PAI is an individual metric that makes sense of measured heart rate data, and significantly reduces the risk of lifestyle related diseases.

A Revolutionary Metric System to Help Your Lifestyle – CERG research in new Fitness app

January 6th, the fitness app Mio PAI is launched during CES 2016 in Las Vegas. The app is based on CERG research.

“This is based on solid medical research. We have developed an algorithm, PAI – personal activity intelligence, which relies on the data from The HUNT Study,” CERG leader, Professor Ulrik Wisløff, explained to Adresseavisen.

Wisløff thinks the app could revolutionize the measurement of exercise effects.

“PAI score adapts the individual user’s lifestyle and creates customized targets that are realistic to achieve. As long as the heart rate reaches a certain zone for a certain period, the user will achieve maximum health impact”, Wisløff told the Norwegian newspaper.

PAI is based on incredibly robust data. With a large population we have studied over many years, through The Hunt Study, this is unique.

A Journey to Hell and Back: Man in Extreme Environments

«A Journey to Hell and Back» is the name of the unsupported expedition to the South Pole and back, carried out by Justin Jones and James Castrission. December 18th they told their breathtaking story during our event «Man in Extreme Environment» at Brukbar/Blæst in Trondheim. Who would believe that two guys from Australia would be the first persons ever managing this? It’s a saying that Norwegians are born with skis, but Australians for sure aren’t. They skied for the very first time 15 months before the expedition started.

In fact, a Norwegian, Aleksander Gamme, could have beaten the Justin Jones and James Castrission, but he waited for the Australians three kilometers before the finish line, so they all could cross it together. Great sportsmanship from our own Aleksander Gamme.

Emil Eide Erikssen was also on stage telling his story of rowing across the Atlantic Sea. An impressing story about two years of preparing, sore buttocks, courage, and battling the harsh sea.

Three fantastic men on stage with impressive, entertaining and inspiring stories to tell, made this a great night to remember. Thank you Cas, Jones and Emil!

 

Enjoy the Christmas holiday, but stay active!

In 1966 a legendary study from Dallas was published where they studied the effect of total inactivity for 3 weeks. After this 3 week period, the so-called “Dallas bed-rest study” found an increase in body weight, body-fat and a marked decline in fitness level. 30 years later they followed up the same participants and re-examined their health status. As one might expect after 30 years of aging, both body weight, body fat percentage and fitness declined from the happy 20s (before the 3 weeks of bed-rest). However, they found that they were in better shape after 30 years of aging than they were after 3 weeks of inactivity! What many researchers are asking now is if the decline in fitness associated with aging is caused by lower activity level with aging compared to activity level as young.

Some of this we are trying to answer with the Generation 100 study, which you can read more about in our blog here!