Hip Exercises Found Effective at Reducing, Eliminating Common Knee Pain in Runners, Study Suggests

A twice weekly hip strengthening regimen performed for six weeks proved surprisingly effective at reducing -- and in some cases eliminating -- knee pain referred to as patellofemoral pain (PFP) in female runners.
The study by Tracy Dierks, assistant professor in the Department of Physical Therapy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, was based on the theory that stronger hips would correct running form errors that contribute to PFP, even though study participants were given no instruction in gait training. The study used a pain scale of 0 to 10, with 3 representing the onset of pain and 7 representing very strong pain -- the point at which the runners normally stop running because the pain is too great. The injured runners began the six-week trial registering pain of 7 when they ran on a treadmill and finished the study period registering pain levels of 2 or lower; i.e. no onset of pain.

"I wasn't expecting such huge reductions, to be honest," Dierks said. "We've had a couple of runners who have been at level 2, but the overwhelming majority have been a 2 or below."

PFP, one of the most common running injuries, is caused when the thigh bone rubs against the back of the knee cap. Runners with PFP typically do not feel pain when they begin running, but once the pain begins, it gets increasingly worse. Once they stop running, the pain goes away almost immediately. Dierks said studies indicate PFP essentially wears away cartilage and can have the same effect as osteoarthritis. His study participants showed many of the classic signs of PFP, the most prominent being their knees collapsing inward when running or doing a squat exercise move.

Diabetes may double cancer risk in women

Type 2 adult-onset diabetes causes insulin-like hormones to circulate through the body. A new study finds this has a surprisingly positive effect on reducing the rate of prostate cancer in men, but is bad news for women: Type 2 diabetes may double the risk of female genital and other cancers.
The new study, led by Dr. Gabriel Chodick and Dr. Varda Shalev of Tel Aviv University's Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine, is not the first to report such a risk. But it's one of the largest to confirm these findings, and it's the first to determine the statistical differences in cancer risks for men and women.

Recently published in the journal Cancer Causes & Control, the Tel Aviv University study looked at 16,721 diabetics, differentiating between men and women and defining the relative cancer risks for each group. When the study began in 2000, none of the subjects had a history of cancer. Over the following eight years, the researchers documented 1,639 cases of different cancers among people with diabetes, and compared them to occurrences of the same cancers in the healthy non-diabetic population - a sample of 83,874 people.

Omega-3 may protect against hearing loss: Study

Increased intakes of omega-3 fatty acids, and the fish that provide them, may reduce the risk of age-related hearing loss, says a new study from the University of Sydney.

At least two servings of fish per week was associated with a 42 per cent reduction in the risk of hearing loss in over 50 year-olds, compared with people who average less than one serving per week, according to findings published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Similar reductions were observed with intakes of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids, with increasing intakes associated with 14 per cent reductions in the risk of age-related hearing loss (presbycusis).

“Dietary intervention with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids could prevent or delay the development of age-related hearing loss,” wrote the researches, led by Paul Mitchell.