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NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) – Long work hours and short attention spans are driving more people to take exercise in smaller, meatier doses.

Instead of demanding clients pound the treadmill for an hour at a time, some fitness experts have created short, swift workouts for the busy and the bored.

“People just don’t have as much time anymore,” said fitness expert and trainer Amy Bento. “More people are trying to survive the economy with multiple jobs.”

The American Council on Exercise has listed shorter, more intense workouts among the top exercise trends for 2010, as consumers approach fitness with time and money in mind.

Taking aim at the time-challenged and the easily bored alike are DVDs offering fitness in 10-minute morsels.

Bento’s “10 Minute Solution: 5 Day Get Fit Mix” delivers five 10-minute bursts of cardiovascular, resistance training and stretching through a mix of kickboxing, aerobics, light weights and yoga.

“We tried to put together a mix of activities that are necessary for a well-rounded fitness program in a user-friendly format,” said Bento. “You can do whatever fits your needs.”

Of course fitness takes more than 10 minutes. The American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the American Heart Association say at least 30 minutes of exercise five to six days a week is required for fitness, and one hour five to six days a week for weight loss.

“You need to string together the workouts,” Bento said. “Say, kickboxing for 10 minutes, and then yoga for 10 for stretching, or abs. We break it up to keep people interested. Also, if you only have 10 minutes in the morning, you can come back at night and do another 20,” she said.

To date there are 25 “10 Minute Solution” DVDs, with workouts ranging from Latin Dance Mix to Boot Camp to Pilates.

Bento, who has been teaching fitness for more than 20 years, has done four of them.

“Any fitness level can do any of these DVDs,” she said. “If you’re a beginner you can build your stamina to go through each workout. And it’s only 10 minutes.”

But Dr. Philip S. Clifford, an expert with ACSM, questions whether the 10-minute concept is demanding enough.

“Exercising in short spurts may be an effective way for some people to fit exercise into their busy schedules,” said Clifford, a professor of anesthesiology and physiology with the Medical College of Wisconsin.

“My concern is that it seems easier to get busy and skip a 10-minute segment or two,” Clifford explained. “There is no way that 10 minutes of aerobic exercise is adequate for maintaining cardiovascular fitness or aiding in weight loss.”

He thinks exercise by DVD has its limitations.

“The intensity of exercise may vary dramatically from person to person, even using the same video,” he said.

Clifford said while it doesn’t matter whether you work out in a single session or several short ones, the latter might be more difficult to maintain.

“Although I have no published data to support this statement, I would contend that an individual is more likely to maintain a regular workout routine if a single workout period is scheduled into their day.”

But of course no workout is effective if you don’t do it.

“Fitness should be fun or you’re not going to do it,” said Bento. “Variety is key, the spice of life. A cliche but it’s true.”

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NEW YORK (Reuters) – A Manhattan federal judge refused on Friday to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that Merck & Co Inc’s osteoporosis drug Fosamax caused jaw damage to an Indiana woman during the nearly eight years she took the pill.

U.S. District Judge John Keenan described the case involving plaintiff Louise Maley, 69, as one of the “bellwether” trials in nationwide litigation over Fosamax, which has spawned close to 900 lawsuits. The judge is handling many of the cases.

Merck had submitted a motion for summary judgment, seeking to dismiss all claims filed by Maley, who resides in Muncie.

He set an April 19 date for a jury trial to decide whether Fosamax had caused the woman’s severe jaw pain and other jaw problems.

“We are prepared to vigorously defend the company,” a Merck spokesman said, adding the evidence will show that Fosamax did not cause Maley’s jaw problems and that Merck provided appropriate and timely information about Fosamax to doctors and regulators.

Keenan in November dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Fosamax causes jaw damage, two months after a jury deadlock led to a mistrial in a similar case.

Fosamax is part of the bisphosphonate family of osteoporosis drugs that include Procter & Gamble Co’s Actonel and Roche Holding AG’s Boniva. The drugs are designed to prevent bone fractures and help offset bone loss associated with menopause.

Fosamax once generated about $3 billion in annual sales, but its revenue has plunged since cheaper generics became available in 2008.

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SOURCE: British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, January 2010.

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Women who have been raped have much more difficulty in childbirth than their peers who have never suffered sexual abuse or violence, a new study shows.

“The challenging part seems to be in the second stage, when the baby is to descend and the woman should start pushing,” Dr. Lotte Halvorsen of the University Hospital of North Norway in Tromso, who helped conduct the study, told Reuters Health in an email.

“A possible explanation may be that the physical pain when the baby is descending activates flashbacks of the rape and the resistance to the traumatic experience,” the researcher said.

Based on the findings, she adds, doctors, midwives and nurses helping women in labor and delivery need to know if that woman has a history of rape, so that they can assist her during labor without re-traumatizing her. “A previous rape is a shameful and therefore often a silent and unprocessed negative experience in life that women do not bring up themselves,” she added.

Halvorsen and her team decided to do the study after observing that women who had been raped had longer second-stage labors and were more likely to need C-sections or assistance with forceps or a suction device to deliver vaginally.

They compared 50 women who had been raped at or after the age of 16 to 150 women who had not been raped. Birth attendants did not know about a woman’s history of rape.

Forty percent of the women who had been raped had C-sections, while another 40 percent had vaginal deliveries assisted with a vacuum-like device or forceps. This translated to a 16-fold greater likelihood of having a C-section for rape victims, and a 13-fold greater likelihood of assisted vaginal delivery.

And while the women who had not been raped spent about an hour in the second stage of labor, on average, duration for the second stage of labor among the rape victims averaged two hours.

The women who had been raped were heavier, more likely to smoke, more often unemployed, and more likely to be single. They also had experienced more abortions and miscarriages. But the researchers adjusted for these factors in their analysis.

In Norway, Halvorsen noted in an email, birth attendants “surprisingly often” do not have information about a woman’s rape history. Typical aspects of labor and delivery, such as vaginal exams and having strangers in the room, may be traumatizing for women who have been raped, she added.

“Women who have experienced rape need a birth attendant who patiently can support birth with as few interventions as possible as well as to help the woman to keep focused at the birth,” Halvorsen said. They may also need more time in the second stage of labor, she added, in order to deliver vaginally.

SOURCE: British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, January 2010.

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