So massage is safe for pregnant women, but is it effective?

I know that fitness trackers are very popular, particularly with joggers and althletically minded indivduals.  I think fitness trackers are great for desk bound indivduals as it helps your monitor your physical acitivity.  However, I personally don't have a fitness tracker, I have considered buying one, but I am saving up so I didn't see it as an essential purchase.   However I had always assumed that a fitness tracker would help you lose weight.  But do they? Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh were interested in testing a conventional weight-loss programme against the use of a fitness monitor to determine the latter's effectiveness as part of an anti obesity iniative.  During the randomized control trial they tested weight-loss programmes and fitness trackers on a group of 471 obese volunteers.  During the two year experiement those wearing a fitenss tracker lost 7.7lb (3.5 kg) whereas those who just followed a weight loss programme and didn't use a tracker lost 13lb (6kg).  I was quite surprised by this result as were the researches who couldn't explain it.   It seems that fitness trackesr give feedback and encouragement to lose weight but those wo are better at just sticking to a programme lose the most weight.  So what is really required is persistance. References JM Jakicic, K K Davis, R J Rogers et al, 2016, Effect of Wearable Technology Combined with Lifestyle intervention on Long-term Weight Loss - The IDEA Randomized Clinical Trail, JAMA, Vol 316, No 11, pg 1161-71 See >> http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2553448          

Obviously I am a firm believer of massage in the workplace, so I will start by acknowledging my bias on the topic.  What people may not know is that during the many years working in IT, I suffered from a verity of neck and shoulder issues.  This lead me to go to see a GP, chiropractor, osteopath and masseur.  While they all helped, what was most beneficial to me was regular seated acupressure neck & shoulder massage which helped me nip the tension and the problems in the bud. We all know getting a massage feels great. Once your massages starts, the nerve cells in your skin send messages to your brain to release feel-good endorphins .  As a result stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline begin to decrease and the other all effect is to boost your mood and give you a natural high.  On a physical level the tension and tightness in the muscles begin to release. This means your awareness shifts so your mind and body can function better.  Researches find your mind gets de-cluttered helping you to think more clearly, improve your alertness which leads to improve performance. So why not book a massage see>> http://vitalitytherapy.co.uk/booking

In part 1, I looked at the impact of sitting on your muscles,  and in part 2 I started to explore the impact on the rest of your body.  In this post I continue to explore the impact of sitting on your circulatory system including your heart. Heart Disease When sitting for prolonged periods of time, muscles burn less fat and blood flows more sluggishly, allowing fatty acids to more easily clog the heart.  In 2012 Ford & Caspersen in their research paper, Sedentary behaviour and cardiovascular disease: a review of prospective studies (International Journal of Epidemiology, Vol 41, No 5 pages 1338 - 1353) showed that the people with the most sedentary time are more than twice as likely to have cardiovascular disease than those with the least. In 2012 Zedric and Hamilton found that just a few hours sitting suppresses a gene that helps keep your cardiovascular system healthy by controlling inflammation and blood clotting. T W Zedric & M T Hamilton, 2012 Identification of hemostatic genes expressed in human and rat leg muscles and a novel gene (LPP1/PAP2a) suppressed during prolonged physical inactivity (sitting), Lipids in Health and Disease, Vol 11 see http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1476-511X-11-137.pdf Cholesterol Sitting also means that your large postural support muscles are inactive.  When active these muscles produce a quite of beneficial molecules.  One molecule skeletal muscles produce is an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase - which you can think of as a vacuum cleaner for fats in the blood stream.  A study in rats showed that after 24 hours forced inactivity, their lipoprotein lipase acitivity was reduced by 90 - 95%, which led to a 75% drip in the ability of their muscles to remove fats from their bloodstream as will as a significant decrease in "good" (HDL) cholesterol. L Bay & Mark Hamilton, 2003, Suppression of skeletal muscle lipoprotein lipase activity during physical inactivity: a molecular reason to maintain daily low-intensity activity, Journal of Physiology, Vol 551, No 2 pages 673 - 682.See http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1113/jphysiol.2003.045591/full