Soccer Improves Health, Fitness And Social Abilities

Soccer is a pleasurable team sport that provides an all-round fitness and can be used as treatment for lifestyle-related diseases. Men worry less when playing soccer than when running. Women’s soccer creates we-stories and helps women stay active.

The above statements are taken from some of the results from an extensive soccer research project involving more than 50 researchers from seven countries. The researchers studied physiological, psychological and sociological aspects of recreational soccer and compared it with running. Led by Professors Peter Krustrup and Jens Bangsbo from the Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences, University of Copenhagen, the 3-year project covered several intervention studies involving both men, women and children, who were divided into soccer, running and control groups. The results from the studies are so remarkable that the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine and Science in Sports are publishing a special edition issue entitled Football for Health containing 14 scientific articles from the soccer project on Tuesday 6 April 2010.

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‘Is Dark Chocolate Good For You?’

Volunteers are to have chocolate delivered to their homes and be encouraged to eat 50g of it every day for eight weeks as part of a new research study.

Researchers at Queen’s University Belfast, funded by Northern Ireland Chest, Heart & Stroke and the NI Research and Development Office, are to study 110 people with high blood pressure for the opening stage of a three-year project starting in August.

The aim is to discover if a high fruit and vegetable diet incorporating dark chocolate and berries – which are all rich in important compounds called polyphenols – is better for the cardiovascular system than a diet low in fruit and vegetables.

Dr Pascal McKeown from Queen’s School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences who is leading the study, said: “The important thing to stress is that the chocolate we will be using will be very high in cocoa – at least 70 per cent. Standard milk chocolate has nothing like the polyphenol content of dark chocolate.

“One group of patients will be put on a low polyphenol diet – probably the average UK diet, since most people tend to eat only two portions of fruit and vegetables per day. Another group will be encouraged to eat six portions of fruit and vegetables, including one portion of berries, each day, together with the 50g of dark chocolate. We will examine people’s blood vessel health and the stickiness of their blood at the start and end of the study to discover whether a diet rich in polyphenols can reduce the risk of developing heart disease.” Read more

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