Groundbreaking results from a study to evaluate the effectiveness of the MEND Program, a multi-component community-based childhood obesity intervention have just been published. The independent study demonstrates the success of weight management program MEND for overweight/obese children and their families.

The protein nNOS-mu, which is just one form of the nNOS protein, is essential for skeletal muscle health, and signaling via nNOS-mu is commonly reduced in neuromuscular disease. Now, Justin Percival and colleagues, at the University of Washington, Seattle, have identified a crucial role for the nNOS-beta form of nNOS in mouse skeletal muscle, where it enables skeletal muscle to maintain force production during and after exercise.

Using combined and intensive treatments and restructuring care to treat obesity like other chronic diseases may help primary care clinicians and patients better address the condition, according to several new studies.

Challenging yourself in fitness training is good. But overdoing training is counterproductive to realizing your fitness goals, says an expert. Over-training, also called over-exercising, he said, happens when you’re “not allowing your body the opportunity to adjust, adapt and recuperate in response to the training regimen you’re taking part in.”

Physical activity appears to be associated with a reduced risk or slower progression of several age-related conditions as well as improvements in overall health in older age, according to several new studies.

Many of the health benefits of aerobic exercise are due to the most recent exercise session (rather than weeks, months and even years of exercise training), and the nature of these benefits can be greatly affected by the food we eat afterwards.

Female athletes experience dramatically higher rates of specific musculoskeletal injuries and medical conditions compared to male athletes.

Antioxidants increasingly have been praised for their benefits against disease and aging, but recent studies show that they also can cause harm. Researchers have been studying how to improve oxygen delivery to the skeletal muscle during physical activity by using antioxidants. Their findings show that sometimes antioxidants can impair muscle function.

In a new study, the amount of calories selected by parents for their child’s hypothetical meal at McDonald’s restaurants were reduced by an average of 102 calories when the menus clearly showed the calories for each item. This is the first study to suggest that labeled menus may lead to significantly reduced calorie intake in fast food restaurant meals purchased for children.

According to a new study, there is no direct link between parents’ own level of physical activity, and how much their child may exercise. In fact, parents’ perceptions of their children’s athleticism are what have a direct impact on the children’s activity.