Editorial 3-2018

«Exercise is Medicine» Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen Das American College of Sports Medicine hat vor einigen Jahren mit dem twitterfähigen Slogan «Exercise is Medicine®» eine globale Gesundheitsinitiative lanciert. Zahlreiche Studien…

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Osmolality, pH, and titratable acidity of sports drinks on the Swiss market

The regular consumption of acidic drinks can erode dental enamel and promote caries. As many sports drinks on the market feature critically low pH values, it is possible that athletes with regular sports drink consumption harm their oral health. As neither pH nor osmolality values must be labeled on products, it is difficult for athletes to make informed choices. We screened the Swiss market for sports drinks and gels for domestic and international brands and products and analyzed products for their pH, titratable acidity, and osmolality.

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Sleep – A Game Changer in the Athletic World?

The restorative qualities of sleep are fundamentally the basis of the individual athlete’s ability to recover and perform, and to optimally be able to challenge and control the effects of exercise regimes in high performance sport. Research consistently shows that a large percentage of the population fails to obtain the recommended 7–9 hours of sleep per night [17]. Moreover, recent years’ research has found that athletes have a high prevalence of poor sleep quality [6]. Given its implications on the recovery process, sleep affects the quality of the athlete’s training and outcome of competitions.

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Recovery strategies for football players

Recovery from intense efforts and matches demands special consideration, and recent years have seen the development of multiple new modalities which promise faster and better recovery. The world of professional football has taken notice, especially due to the repetition of matches and reduction of number of days in between for the best teams playing in the Champions League. Abd-Elbasset Abaïdia presented at the #SportSuisse2018 conference for Grégory Dupont, who was on duty with the World Cup winner French National team.

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Return to sport following hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement syndrome: return to sport rates and methodological considerations

Research studies on “Return to sport” (or return to play) have been recently published also in the field of hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement (FAI) in athletes. While most published papers discuss cases series (low level of evidence), Lasse Ishoi and the group of K. Thorborg and P. Hölmich (Copenhagen, Denmark) conducted one of the first prospective cohort studies on this topic. The paper has already been published in AJSM and the results were presented at the #SportSuisse2018 conference. One of the key methodological points is the definition of “Return to sport” when conducting studies: is it return to any sport at any level, or return to preinjury sport at preinjury level?

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Hip-related pain and femoroacetabular impingement syndrome: How common is it? How does it impact on biomechanics? How does it affect muscle function?

The aims of this study were to describe the prevalence of bony morphology in football players with and without hip related groin pain, and to determine the association between pain and bony morphology in these athletes (soccer and Australian football players; subelite level; mean age: 26 years old, 80% men; 187 symptomatic and 55 asymptomatic). All subjects underwent specific x-rays exams (­supine AP pelvis, Dunn 45°) and filled the International Hip Outcome Tool (IHOT-33).

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Bony hip morphology and intrinsic risk factors for groin injury in male football players*

There’s a relatively high prevalence of groin pain in male football players across the literature (ca. 21% of all time-loss injuries per season), and it is considered the third most common injury in football. About 2/3 of all groin injuries are adductor related. Andrea Mosler (former Aspetar, Doha, now at La Trobe University, Melbourne) who presented at the #SportSuisse 2018 conference, completed her PhD with a series of prospective studies on risk factors for groin pain in athletes. The aims were to identify the intrinsic risk factors for hip/groin injury, to determine if the “at-risk” individual can be identified through screening, and to examine the association between bony hip morphology and groin injury risk.

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Clinical Examination of Hip Dysplasia/Instability

Clinical examination is one of the main skill that clinicians acquire through training and experience, and its contribution to diagnosis is a key addition to history taking. Mike Reiman is a physical therapist, author of the excellent textbook «Orthopedic clinical examination», who just conpleted his PhD (congrats!) under the supervision of Kristian Thorborg (Denmark), looking at the validity of the most frequently used clinical examination tests around the hip area. We tend to think that “specialized” tests have great significance for the examination of a particular structure of pathology, yet as we have already learned from multiple studies on this very question around the shoulder examination tests, this is deceptive.

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Hypoventilation Training: a systematic review

Background: High altitude training seems beneficial for many athletes. However, training in altitude is always associated with travel and high expenses. Thus, methods have been developed to achieve similar effects as with high altitude training. One method is voluntary hypoventilation training (VHT). Although commonly used in training, the effectiveness of this method has not been analysed sufficiently.  Methods: Intervention studies of voluntary hypoventilation training were identified from searches in PubMed, SciVerse Science Direct, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, EBSCOhost and Google Scholar.

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From Epidemiology to Psychology: Physical Activity Recommendations in Transition!?

Current physical activity recommendations are based on epidemiological-medical findings. They define what doses of physical activity are necessary for positive health effects: adults should be physically active at least 2½ hours per week with moderate or 1¼ hours with high intensity. However, some people find it difficult to implement these recommendations and to be active in the longer term. For optimal long-term adherence, physical activity recommendations should also be based on psychology.

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Physical activity and cancer

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  • Post category:oncology

This article aims to summarize the literature on the role of physical activity in cancer patients and to propose exercise programs based on studies and recommendations. Medical advances with improved early diagnosis and treatment have increased the number of cancer survivors. At the same time, the quality of life of these patients must also be improved. In the different stages of the disease physical activity has an important role to play with its beneficial effects on fatigue, physical condition, mood etc. Collaboration between health system actors and patient education are the key to success in this multi-disciplinary care.

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The Role of Physical Exercise in Obesity and Diabetes

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  • Post category:obesity

The prevalence of obesity is increasing world-wide. Obesity is associated with a plethora of metabolic and clinical constraints, which result in a higher risk for the development of cardiovascular complications and metabolic disease, particularly insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. Obesity is an acknowledged determinant of glycemic control in patients with type 1 diabetes and accounts for the majority of premature death due to cardiovascular events. Physical exercise is generally recommended in patients with diabetes in order to prevent the development of or reduce existing obesity, as adopted by every international treatment guideline so far.

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Exercise and Sports in the Therapy of Chronic ­Diseases – Coronary Heart Disease

Despite increasingly advanced diagnostic and therapeutic ­methods, coronary heart disease and myocardial infarction continue to be by far the leading cause of death worldwide. This makes it all the more important in this context to make full use of known but far from optimally used therapeutic measures. Adequate physical activity in everyday life and addi­tional targeted training lead to an evidence-based ­improvement in quality of life, a reduction in morbidity and above all to a ­significant reduction in cardiac and overall ­mortality.

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