Over the years, scientists have found that stretching before or after a workout has little effect on either risk of injury or what is commonly known as delayed onset of muscle soreness, the discomfort that comes a day or more after challenging physical activity. Numerous studies have reached this conclusion. One of the most recent and extensive reports was published in October 2007 in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. The report reviewed 10 randomised studies, which over all looked at the impact of stretching before and after exercise, in repeated sessions and in intervals ranging from 40 seconds to 10 minutes. The authors concluded that stretching had little or no effect on post-exercise soreness. For now, many experts say that what may work is a quick warm-up, like low-impact aerobics or walking. It also helps to ease into an activity by starting off slow and then increasing speed, intensity or weight (for lifting). Staying cool may improve healingResearchers at Ohio State University say cortisol, a hormone related to stress, seems to interfere with the healing process. The study, led by Jean-Phillipe Gouin, appeared in Brain, Behaviour and Immunity. There is evidence that stress in general can make people more susceptible to illness and slower to get better. Studies have found that people caring for a loved one with dementia heal more slowly from small wounds, as do dental students about to take an exam. For this report, the researchers focused specifically on anger, screening study participants to find how out they deal with it. They tried to identify which ones tended to keep angry feelings to themselves and which ones let others know if they were displeased. They also looked for those who flew off the handle. Researchers found that those who expressed anger, if in a controlled fashion, and those who did not healed about as quickly. This was not the case with hotheads. They were about four times as likely as other participants to take more than four days to heal.Dialysis can lower blood sugar readingsA common test to see how well diabetics control blood-sugar levels tends to give misleading good news when the patients are on hemodialysis, researchers say. The test, which doctors use, has a big role in deciding medications, doses and diet restrictions, said a researcher, Dr Barry I Freedman of the Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. With 2,00,000 diabetics on hemodialysis in the United States, the implications are broad. When glucose levels grow too high, diabetics can suffer serious cardiovascular and other problems. The study appeared in Kidney International. Researchers said, doctors should take the effects of dialysis into account when using the test to measure blood sugar.
