Journal Article Review
Song, C., Ikei, H., Kagawa, T. and Miyazaki, Y., 2019. Effects of walking in a forest on young women. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(2), p.229.
Introduction
In daily life, people are exposed to different stressors. Therefore they end up looking for effective means to cope with the stress. In this article, Song suggested that forest therapy is one way that can be used to mitigate stress leading to psychological relaxation. This study aims to make clear the psychological and physiological effects on young women of brief walks through the forests.
Participants
In this study, experiments were conducted in six different forests in Jordan. Twelve females participated in each research who were university students. During investigations, the participants were restricted from taking any hard drugs like alcohol. For all the experiments, no participant reported any psychiatric or physical disorder.
Results
Compared with walking in the city, no significant difference found when participants walked through the forests. But walking in forests, participants experienced substantial statistics in psychological and physiological responses to nervous activities. Some forest samples were hostile and tension, and this increased anxiety among participants. Participants had a high mood as there was less disturbance in the forest.
Conclusion
The study clarified that brief walks in through the forests caused psychological and physiological relaxation in young women as it resulted in improved mood state, a lower rate of heart, lower sympathetic nervous activity, and higher parasympathetic nervous activity.
Rosado-Pérez, J., Ortiz, R., Santiago-Osorio, E. and Mendoza-Núñez, V.M., 2013. Effect of Tai Chi versus walking on oxidative stress in Mexican older adults. Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity, 2013.
Introduction
Aging is a slow and adaptive process that is identified by a decrease in homeostatic response as a result of the changes associated with aging and the accumulated influence of constraints confronted by the organism over its life. Aging has been related to oxidative stress. The present study focuses on determining the effects of walking comparing Tai Chi, on oxidative stress.
Participants
Quasi-experiment was conducted on a sample of 106 seniors who were subdivided into a control group and Tai Chi group and walking group. They were all above 65 years and below 74 years. They were not to undertake any physical training before the intervention.
Results
For the blood pressure and biochemical features, there were significant statistical differences in systolic blood pressure for the walking group. Moderate physical exercise per se had an antioxidant impact. But this was high when Ti Chi was practiced. The Ti Chi positive impacts are as a result of various mechanism combinations like the signaling. It offers a psychological relaxation effect as it lowers the activity in the sympathetic nervous system. Profound meditation also boosts hormone dehydroepiandrosterone, a factor of aging.
Conclusion
The findings of this study imply that Tai Chi practice results in a more intense antioxidant effect than even walking, and this is linked with the delaying effect of aging. However, such results have to be corroborated by long term cohort studies.
Lima, A. H., Correia, M. A., Soares, A. H., Farah, B. Q., Forjaz, C. L., Silva, A. S., … & Ritti‐Dias, R. M. (2018). Acute effects of walking and combined exercise on oxidative stress and vascular function in peripheral artery disease. Clinical physiology and functional imaging, 38(1), 69-75.
Introduction
Patients with peripheral artery disease are recommended for walking and resistance training to improve their walking tolerance and mitigate the risk of cardiovascular activities. The purpose of this was to compare the impacts of single sessions of combined exercise and walking only the exercise on post-exercise vascular and oxidative stress responses of PAD patients.
Participants
In this study, patients with PAD were the participants in the study who were recruited from public and private vascular clinics. Their medication history was taken, and they were aged between 50 and 80 years. They had not undergone bypass surgery for the last one year.
Results
The results were based on elderly, female, and hypertensive. 90 % of them were taking medication on anti-hypertension, and again 50% were recovering from peripheral vasodilator. The exercise sessions, which consisted of only walking or a combination of resistance exercises, produced almost similar improvements in BF. Although resistance plus walking sessions, they produced more significant oxidative stress than the walking session only.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the exercise sessions consisting of only walking or a combination of walking and resistance exercise produce the same improvements in BF and VR. Though for a combined experiment, there was a superior effect on oxidative stress responses.
Holtzer, R., Schoen, C., Demetriou, E., Mahoney, J. R., Izzetoglu, M., Wang, C., & Verghese, J. (2017). Stress and gender effects on prefrontal cortex oxygenation levels assessed during single and dual‐task walking conditions. European Journal of Neuroscience, 45(5), 660-670.
Introduction
For functional independence and a sense of comfortability, locomotion is very critical. Poor walking has been associated with a high risk of extreme outcomes. This study was conducted to determine if gender moderated the effect of perceived stress on experiment results by using 3-way gender interactions, perceived stress, and task in the model.
Participants
In this study, the participants were the community-residing older adults aged above 65 years. They were enrolled in a cohort study to evaluate the cognitive and brain predictions of mobility. Potential participants were obtained from the region through telephone interviews.
Results
There were 316 non-demented participants in total. For the visual depiction and data interpretation, stress dichotomized for the effects of stress and gender on gait velocity. As the significant and moderating impacts of gender were not necessary, the effect of stress on the velocity change in gait was because of dual-task interference was still in the entire sample examined. For a visual depiction of 3-way interactions, stress effects on change were higher.
Conclusion
In conclusion, perceived stress impacted the dual-task cost in gait velocity and locomotion associated variances mostly in older men. The effects of these results on risk assessment and treatment of people at risk of mobility impairments have to be evaluated.
Kortas, J., Kuchta, A., Prusik, K., Prusik, K., Ziemann, E., Labudda, S., … & Antosiewicz, J. (2017). Nordic walking training attenuation of oxidative stress in association with a drop in body iron stores in elderly women. Bio gerontology, 18(4), 517-524.
Introduction
Nowadays, 12% of the population of the globe is occupied by people above 60 years in which 70% are over 80 years. Regular physical activity is attributed to healthy aging. This study hypothesized that Nordic walking exercise mitigates oxidative results by reducing iron stores in elderly people.
Participants
A sample of 30 elderly women involved in the study, and all of them were aged above 60 years. Prior to the intervention, they went for a medical check-up. And through the intervention, they were not allowed to change the diet.
Results
The 11 weeks of Nordic walking showed no significant body composition changes despite the free fat mass, where it was seen a considerable increase. In oxidative stress balance, there was a high reduction in the experiment’s follow up. The level of physical activity, all the physical fitness improved. For iron metabolism, this training resulted in significant changes in iron metabolism. Consequently, there was a great correlation between glucose and ferritin in elderly subjects.
Conclusion
According to the study, which has demonstrated the effects of Nordic walking training, it was chosen as it is the most effective for older people. Then it was observed that training improved physical fitness, and a drop in blood ferritin was observed among the elderly people.
Karstoft, K., Clark, M. A., Jakobsen, I., Müller, I. A., Pedersen, B. K., Solomon, T. P., & Ried-Larsen, M. (2017). The effects of 2 weeks of interval vs continuous walking training on glycaemic control and whole-body oxidative stress in individuals with type 2 diabetes: a controlled, randomised, crossover trial. Diabetologia, 60(3), 508-517.
Introduction
This article focuses on evaluating the oxygen consumption effects matched short-term interval walking training and a progressive walking training on glycemic control in people with diabetes type 2. The study aimed to assess if any training improvements induced in glycemic control were related to systematic oxidative levels of stress.
Participants
A sample of 14 participants with type 2 diabetes was used in the three experiments, CON, CWT, and IWT, in which every exercise continued for two weeks. The training comprised of 11 supervised treadmill sessions for one hour each and was done in a facility of research works.
Results
From the study, none of the intervention induced changes were witnessed in physical fitness or in the composition of the body. Considering the baseline, IWT mitigated glucose mean level non-considerable and significantly decreased glucose levels and glycemic mean amplitude excursions. No significant changes were seen in CON and CWT. It resulted that systematic oxidative stress was not impacted by short-term walking and changes in oxidative stress levels.
Conclusions
In conclusion, short-term IWT, and not CWT increases CGM-derived measures regarding glycemic control independent of changes in fitness of the body composition mostly in people with type 2 diabetes
References
Song, C., Ikei, H., Kagawa, T. and Miyazaki, Y., 2019. Effects of walking in a forest on young women. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(2), p.229.
Rosado-Pérez, J., Ortiz, R., Santiago-Osorio, E. and Mendoza-Núñez, V.M., 2013. Effect of Tai Chi versus walking on oxidative stress in Mexican older adults. Oxidative medicine and cellular longevity, 2013.
Lima, A. H., Correia, M. A., Soares, A. H., Farah, B. Q., Forjaz, C. L., Silva, A. S., … & Ritti‐Dias, R. M. (2018). Acute effects of walking and combined exercise on oxidative stress and vascular function in peripheral artery disease. Clinical physiology and functional imaging, 38(1), 69-75.
Holtzer, R., Schoen, C., Demetriou, E., Mahoney, J. R., Izzetoglu, M., Wang, C., & Verghese, J. (2017). Stress and gender effects on prefrontal cortex oxygenation levels assessed during single and dual‐task walking conditions. European Journal of Neuroscience, 45(5), 660-670.
Kortas, J., Kuchta, A., Prusik, K., Prusik, K., Ziemann, E., Labudda, S., … & Antosiewicz, J. (2017). Nordic walking training attenuation of oxidative stress in association with a drop in body iron stores in elderly women. Bio gerontology, 18(4), 517-524.
Karstoft, K., Clark, M. A., Jakobsen, I., Müller, I. A., Pedersen, B. K., Solomon, T. P., & Ried-Larsen, M. (2017). The effects of 2 weeks of interval vs continuous walking training on glycaemic control and whole-body oxidative stress in individuals with type 2 diabetes: a controlled, randomised, crossover trial. Diabetologia, 60(3), 508-517.