Health & Wellness

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OSU exercise physiologist helps Columbus commit to fitness

Steven T. Devor's research at Ohio State has found a definite link between exercise and a healthy aging process. And the assistant professor of exercise physiology within the section of sport and exercise sciences is passionate about attempting to influence the health and fitness behaviors of others based on his laboratory discoveries.

"You need to buy your health insurance every day. How do you do that? By exercising and being physically active every day," Devor said.

His platform increased dramatically when he was asked earlier this year to design a series of exercise programs for the Commit To Be Fit initiative launched by Mayor Michael Coleman and WBNS-TV; the Ohio State Medical Center is one of the initiative's three sponsors. The yearlong program is intended to help Columbus shake off the dubious distinction of being named the fifth-fattest city in the nation by Men's Fitness magazine.

Steven Devor has contributed week-by-week exercise program information to the Commit To Be Fit Web site.   By Kevin Fitzsimons

Commit To Be Fit (CTBF) is designed to convince central Ohioans to make the necessary lifestyle changes to live a healthier, happier life. The primary vehicle is a Web site: www.10tv.com/health/commit/. Participants make a six-month pledge and join Commit To Be Fit, which offers a weekly series of online diet, exercise, stress management and smoking cessation programs. Pledge cards are available online and at the OSU Medical Center and Kroger stores.

"My goal is to influence as many people's lives and behaviors as I can and get them to incorporate daily exercise and physical activity into their lives," Devor said. To date, approximately 12,000 individuals have signed up for the CTBF program in central Ohio.

Devor designed seven different six-month, week-by-week physical activity and exercise programs that are posted on the CTBF Web site, which amounted to approximately 75 pages of text. (Devor designed programs for weeks 7-24, while the OSU Center for Wellness and Prevention designed programs for weeks 1-6.) The programs Devor designed offer varying activity levels, ranging from children's to senior to advanced exercise, with activities that can be done at home or at the gym.

For example, Program 3 addresses "Active Exercise," and encourages people to increase their general physical activity -- without a structured routine. Devor offers practical everyday exercise tips, such as:

• When grocery shopping or going to the mall, park you car at the farthest point of the lot and walk to the entrance.

• Or, when you go watch your child play soccer or baseball, walk around instead of sitting in the stands.

Other suggestions include:

• Wash the car yourself rather than at an automated car wash;

• Cut your own grass;

• Do your own gardening; and

• Take the stairs instead of the elevator.

"Those kinds of things are not going to get you physically fit, but it's a start," Devor said.

His attitude toward Commit To Be Fit is grounded in his University-based research. Devor directs a program that studies how the structural, functional and metabolic properties of skeletal muscle adapt during the aging process.

"We know from research we do in my lab -- from animal and human studies -- that being physically inactive is one of the worst things you can do," Devor said.

A sedentary lifestyle devoid of exercise can lead to obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes, increased stress, hypertension and coronary artery disease, he said.

More specifically, as director of the Wellness, Physical Activity and Exercise Centers at Friendship Village of Columbus and Westminster Thurber continuing care retirement communities, he and his graduate students have studied a relationship between exercise and the need for long-term nursing care.

"We also know from research that the No. 1 reason people enter nursing homes is not because of a disease, but because of an inability to perform the activities of daily living," Devor said.

He said the key is keeping older people physically active and maintaining the skeletal muscle mass that allows them to keep up with simple daily activities, such as getting up out of a chair or rising from a bed or bath tub, or carrying groceries.

Young or old, exercise needs to be scheduled into the daily routine.

"It just needs to be a priority in your life. It's time you need to schedule and dedicate to you, because without optimum health everything else in your life suffers," Devor said.

He said the challenge is to get people to change their attitude toward exercise. For those who totally lack motivation, he said, a change in their perception of exercise is required. For example, exercise doesn't have to mean running on a treadmill for 30 minutes. Often, he said, it takes a life-changing event such as developing diabetes, hypertension or suffering a heart attack to get someone's attention.

The Ohio State Medical Center is trying to change that pattern by promoting the Commit To Be Fit core principles toward better health: stop smoking; lose weight; become more physically active; and reduce stress.

"A core part of the Medical Center's outreach program is to encourage people to take a proactive approach to health," said Beth NeCamp, associate director of communication and marketing for the Medical Center.

Interest has been high in Commit To Be Fit-sponsored events. Approximately 1,000 participants attended a stop smoking event in January, while an osteoporosis education program in April also was a big draw. Coming July 20-21 is a CTBF Fitness Expo at Polaris Fashion Place, which will feature exercise sessions, cooking demonstrations, and experts on a variety of health and wellness topics.

OSU Medical Center's Center for Wellness and Prevention offers classes, programs, screenings and consultations with nutritionists, exercise physiologists and others to help people meet their health and wellness goals. For more information, call the center at 293-2800.

Devor also recognizes the outreach and engagement value in his work.

"One of the most exciting things my graduate students and I do is to take the data and results from our investigations in the laboratory and make them Ôreal and usable' by the community as a whole," Devor said. "In my view, to have a positive influence on the lifestyle and health and fitness of an individual is one of the most gratifying things I do as a faculty member."

He said he encourages his graduate students to become involved in outreach efforts, as he believes that it makes them better scholars if they can see the application of their science beyond the walls of the University.

Devor makes himself available by telephone for those seeking further assistance. Appointments also can be made for body fat composition testing in the OSU Body Composition Laboratory for a fee of $20. For details, contact 688-8436 or devor.3@osu.edu.

Mind, body and spirit are focus of JamesCare for Life

It will come as no surprise to patients that they will find practitioners providing superb clinical care at the James Cancer Hospital and Solove Research Institute at Ohio State. But patients also will find that at a frightening time in their life, they are embraced for the long haul by others at The James who consider themselves companions on the healing journey.

These companions -- staff and volunteers of the JamesCare for Life: Comprehensive Oncology Rehabilitation program -- tend to the effects of the disease on not just the body, but the mind and spirit, as well. With a focus on the patient plus his or her family or social environment as a unit, JamesCare for Life programs and services are designed to enhance the quality of life for all who are affected by each patient's cancer.

"We are grounded in holistic, or whole-person, care," said Pat Schmitt, program director of JamesCare for Life. "We're the high-touch component to complement the highly advanced technological care our patients receive."

Founded eight years ago as a cancer rehabilitation program, JamesCare for Life is evolving to emphasize an integrative care approach that combines rehabilitative, supportive and complementary therapies and services that function as adjuncts to conventional medical care for cancer. The program serves a broad range of patients and family members through a number of regular support groups and thousands of individuals over the course of a year, including about 500 through the Kick It! tobacco cessation program alone.

Next year's calendar of monthly educational classes will revolve around an integrative care theme. An example of the shift in thinking, Schmitt explained, might mean developing a support group or program focusing on women's unique needs across all types of cancer rather than designing programs only on the basis of one kind of cancer or another.

"The menu is so broad, and will be driven by real experience, not just the medical experience," she said. But she also emphasized that JamesCare for Life is intended to complement, not compete with, the medical side of cancer treatment.

"We are not, and never will be, a replacement of traditional care," Schmitt said.

Integrative care is intended to enhance the quality of life through education, skill development, support and resources that address the body and mind and recognize the emotional, social and spiritual needs of patients and families. "We really want to transform that sense of victimization to empowerment," Schmitt said.

Services for patients range from piping music into chemotherapy suites and providing guidance on dealing with treatment's effects on appearance to exercise advice and massage therapy, one of the program's newest offerings.

"We try to come into the clinical environment with some aspect of the patient's everyday surroundings, hoping to detoxify the environment and make it more palatable," Schmitt said.

Art, guided imagery, meditation, journaling and relaxation exercises are among activities patients and their families may be guided to try, all in the name of reducing the stress and distress of living with a complicated disease. The program's encouragement of communication between patients and their health care team about complementary care also fosters patient comfort and satisfaction with the overall treatment approach, Schmitt said.

No one in a patient's circle is left out, including children whose loved ones have cancer, for whom a special program has been created.

Schmitt said efforts are geared now toward making the services and programs as centralized and accessible as possible, in part through the prospective development of Web-based resources and information, which could include a patient newsletter and listservs through which cancer survivors could communicate with each other and with current patients. Use of technology also would extend the availability of the program beyond Franklin County, recognizing that many patients of The James do not live in central Ohio. Just last year, JamesCare for Life's reach extended to 19 Ohio counties and five states.

"We're trying to meet the technological thinking capacity of people living today," Schmitt said.

Planned programs and services are developed with the guidance of a committee, which includes a number of patients who have proved to be valuable resources to the program. "Who better to tell us what would be effective than the patients themselves?" Schmitt said. "It's actually a very exciting thing to learn from our patients."

The James' location in an academic setting also allows for easy access to a range of research-based information on the contributions diet, nutrition and exercise can make to the overall treatment of cancer.

A key to the effectiveness of JamesCare for Life is a patient's willingness to be an active partner in enhancing his or her own life, Schmitt acknowledged.

"Integrative care places strong emphasis on skill development. It's not a passive approach to care," she said. "We expect patients to play a role in optimizing their well-being."

Causing quite a splash

By Jo McCulty Instructor Karen Dean leads a class in water aerobics, sponsored by the Center for Wellness and Prevention. Yoga and water aerobics classes were offered to faculty and staff for free during the winter as part of an evening program supplement to the popular Lunch and Learn workshop series.

When a picture is worth a thousand words

Mammography can mean a longer life

Thousands of breast cancer survivors all over the country will join the Race for the Cure this month, a testament to the many advances we have made in fighting breast cancer over the past few years.

Our progress is exciting. Just last month, scientists at the American Association of Cancer Research presented some of the first data outlining how we can use an individual's molecular profile to create designer chemotherapy treatments to match their particular disease. That, coupled with exciting new developments in imaging and surgery, point to a future where breast cancer treatment is going to be easier and more effective than ever.

Still, the fact remains that breast cancer still kills thousands of women every year, and unfortunately, mammography, one of the best defenses against it, has come into question.

When the respected British journal the Lancet published an article last year questioning the value of mammography, it understandably set off renewed debate among patients and professionals alike. The article suggested we cannot assume mammography saves lives because the large randomized trials of the past that purported to demonstrate that were flawed in their methodology.

An international panel recently reviewing those very same trials, however, came to a different conclusion. The panel, from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a part of the World Health Organization, consisted of 24 experts from 11 countries. After examining all the data, it said the trials did provide sufficient evidence for the efficacy of mammography in saving lives of women between the ages of 50 to 69 years old. At the same time, the panel found only limited evidence to show mammography was helpful for younger women.

Several panels of experts continue to study the efficacy of the various mammography trials, however, and we can expect more pronouncements about their findings in the future. But for now, the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society continue to recommend mammography, and suggest women start getting mammograms at age 40.

Breast cancer treatment is more effective when the tumor is found early, and mammography can detect cancer when it is still too small to be felt by hand. Despite its limitations, mammography is the best we can offer at the moment for early detection.

The ancient saying still makes sense. In mammography, a picture can be worth much more than a thousand words. It can mean a longer life. So, if you are among those who need a mammogram yet still have to make that first appointment, remember, it's May, when the Race for the Cure begins with a single step.

For more information, call the James Line at (800) 293-5066, or visit www.jamesline.com.

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