Today marks our final podcast of 2016. What a year it's been! Join us today for a conversation with another Huffines Institute alum, Dr. Emily Schmitt. Dr. Schmitt's work on health, exercise, and the environment is sure to close the year out well. A very interesting subject! LISTEN NOW!And as always, remember that you can win a free Huffines t-shirt by listening to the podcast and being the first to send us an email with the answer to the question.  And don't thin...

We're thrilled to have Dr. Amanda Boyce from the National Institutes of Health join us on the Podcast today! Amanda brings a wealth of experience in scientific review, and discusses the specifics behind how our tax dollars get spent on research in funding from the National Institutes of Health. A really informative talk! LISTEN NOW!

Playing the piano, swinging a golf club, typing words on a computer - what do all these activities have in common? Physiologically, each requires the careful coordination of different movements by both limbs to complete the task. This is bimanual coordination, and we have Dr. Deanna Kennedy in the studio to talk about it! Join us for a talk on the very basics of human performance, and how completion of even the smallest tasks is an impressive physiological feat! LISTEN NOW! 

For more information about this week’s Human Performance Minute, check out the links listed below. http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/salt.html http://health.usnews.com/health-news/health-wellness/articles/2015/03/20/is-salt-the-newest-workout-supplementBe sure to check out future weekly Huffines Institute Human Performance Minute broadcasts at TexAgs SportsRadio (The Zone 1150 AM) every Wednesday morning at 10:45am. If you missed it you can listen to it here!

Today is the eighth video and audio-only rebroadcast from the 2015 Huffines Discussion. Up today in our series is Dr. Claude Bouchard, The John W. Barton Sr. Endowed Chair in Genetics and Nutrition in the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, LA.  Dr. Bouchard’s talk is called "Less Sitting or More Exercise or More Fitness?” and discusses the various benefits and drawbacks of approaching health in different ways. LISTEN&nbs...

Jorge GranadosPerforming loaded work in hot ambient environments is a common challenge for military soldiers. Blood delivery to the skeletal muscles in the attempt to maintain body temperature within certain boundaries place simultaneous demands on the volume of blood being pumped by the heart, also known as cardiac output (Q). Competition between these processes leads to significant cardiovascular strain and reduced blood flow to the intestinal tract. This results in increased risk of exertiona...

Read the weekly text article by Yang Lee titled "Mitochondria and Cardiac Aging". "Oxidative damage, which is the accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in cells, affects the aging process, and old age is a major risk factor for cardiovascular diseases. This phenomenon is well explained by “The Oxidative Stress Theory of Aging”, which explains..."

Use it or lose it! Wait, that never is something you want to hear! Read the text article by Jeffrey Hord titled "Use It or Lose It: The Dynamic Nature of Skeletal Muscle" to learn how to combat a loss in muscle. "Skeletal muscles come in a variety of sizes and shapes so that they suit the particular function that they perform. Some of these muscles work virtually all of the time while others are necessary only part of the time."

Read the weekly text article by Anita Mantri titled "Do Oral Contraceptives Impair the Osteogenic Response to Exercise?" "Since the introduction of “the pill,” its use as a form of birth control and contraception has steadily increased in women of child-bearing age as seen in reports from the CDC. When the pill first came out in the 1970s, its use was very limited out of caution about the unknown effects of adding extra hormones to the body."

Losing muscle mass? Check out this weeks article "Powering Skeletal Muscle Growth" by Ms. Jacqueline Perticone for an intervention to maintain your muscle health! "Loss of muscle mass with advancing age, disease or lifestyle has a profound influence on healthcare and society. Our laboratory uses hindlimb suspension in rodents to better understand loss of muscle mass occurring with disuse in an effort to design specific interventions that may be suitable to maintain muscle hea...