SATURDAY, April 24, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- If you plan to resume running after an extended break due to the COVID-19 pandemic, you need to ease back in, one expert advises."There are a lot of good programs, including Couch to 5K or C25K, that focus on increasing running slowly up to about 3 miles or 30 minutes," said physical therapist Grace Neurohr, a running and bio-motion specialist for the Rubin Institute for Advanced Orthopedics at Sinai Hospital of Baltimore."Depending on what your goals are, I typically recommend adding in a run up to three times per week and giving yourself at least one day of rest between each day to avoid overtraining," she said in a Lifebridge Health news release.In setting your initial running goals, consider your current health status, the length of your...

THURSDAY, April 22, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Extra padding around the belly can spell trouble for the heart, even if you're not technically overweight.That's among the conclusions of a new scientific statement from the American Heart Association (AHA), where experts lay out the heart risks of being "apple-shaped."It encourages doctors to dust off those old-fashioned tape measures and make waist circumference part of patients' health assessments.While obesity can raise the odds of developing heart disease, not all body fat is the same, said Dr. Ruwanthi Titano, a cardiologist and assistant professor at Mount Sinai's Icahn School of Medicine in New York City."We used to think everything is about BMI," Titano said. "But BMI does not tell you where fat cells are in the body."Titano, who...

TUESDAY, April 20, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- Here's some good news for aging athletes: If you played high school football, you're no more likely than others to have problems with concentration, memory or depression in middle age, according to a new study."Men who played high school football did not report worse brain health compared with those who played other contact sports, noncontact sports, or did not participate in sports during high school," Grant Iverson, of Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues concluded.The study included more than 400 men, aged 35 to 55, who completed an online survey. Of those men, 123 said they played high school football. Men with recent concussions or those who played semi-professional football were excluded from the study. The researchers...