The Associated Press- Taking it easy is not the best treatment for chronic fatigue syndrome. A better option: exercise and behaviour therapy, according to a large new study.

For years, patient groups warned such treatments could be dangerous, instead promoting a strategy known as adaptive pacing — which advises patients to adjust to their illness by simply doing less. But the biggest study of chronic fatigue found that approach didn't help.

The research, published Friday in the medical journal, Lancet, concluded that behaviour and exercise seemed to moderately reduce fatigue and improve activity levels, while pacing and medical care wasn't much help.

The findings also suggests the crippling condition can sometimes be reversed.

"I hope more people will be convinced you can treat chronic fatigue syndrome and that this isn't necessarily something people will have forever," said Hans Knoop, a clinical psychologist at the Expert Centre for Chronic Fatigue in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, who co-authored an editorial on the research, which was funded by the U.K. Medical Research Council and others.

Chronic fatigue syndrome affects up to two per cent of people worldwide. It is characterized by persistent tiredness, muscle pain, insomnia and memory problems. The cause is unknown, though the syndrome can be triggered by certain viral infections and there is no cure.

In the study conducted across the U.K., British researchers analyzed common treatment approaches:

• Cognitive behaviour therapy, which uses psychology to address fears of activity.
• Exercise such as walking to boost energy.
• Adaptive pacing.
• Medical care, including self-help advice and drugs for insomnia or pain.

More than 600 British patients were divided into four groups, and each given a strategy for around six months. The first group received just medical care while the remainder received medical care and one of the strategies. Patients were then monitored for up to one year to see if the strategy had any permanent effect.

Since pacing is championed by many patient groups, scientists wanted to test whether it works. Previous patient surveys have suggested behavioural and exercise therapy make people worse, though the study found all treatments tested were safe.

Knoop said the behavioural and exercise therapies may have worked by convincing patients they can recover, leading to an actual improvement.

Still, the treatments only helped about 60 per cent of patients and researchers were unsure how long the results lasted.

"Even with the best therapies we have, four out of 10 people don't improve," said Peter White, a professor of psychological medicine at the Queen Mary University of London, who led the study.

"This is a genuinely disabling condition and we need to do more to determine how to enhance current therapies."

A section of the brain involved in memory grew in size in older people who regularly took brisk walks for a year, U.S. researchers reported Monday.

The new study reinforces previous findings that aerobic exercise seems to reduce brain atrophy in early-stage Alzheimer's patients, and that walking leads to slight improvement on mental tests among older people with memory problems.

The new analysis, led by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, appears in Tuesday's edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study involved 120 sedentary people, ages 55 to 80. They were divided into two groups: Half began a program of walking for 40 minutes a day, three days a week to increase their heart rate; the others only did stretching and toning exercises.

The hippocampus, a region of the brain involved in memory, tends to shrink slightly with age and that's what happened in the group that only did stretching. But among people who took part in the walking program, the hippocampus region of the brain grew in size by roughly 2 per cent.

Researchers found that there was some memory improvement in both groups, but "in the aerobic exercise group, increased hippocampal volume was directly related to improvements in memory performance."

"We think of the atrophy of the hippocampus in later life as almost inevitable," Kirk Erickson, professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh and the paper's lead author, said in a statement.

Added Art Kramer, director of the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois and the senior author: "The results of our study are particularly interesting in that they suggest that even modest amounts of exercise by sedentary older adults can lead to substantial improvements in memory and brain health."

Dr. Jeffrey Burns of the neurology department at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, said he was "enthusiastic" about the paper. Burns, who wasn't involved in the new research, said that while previous studies have pointed to the relationship between exercise and memory, this rigorous, yearlong study advances what's known about the brain and exercise.
-Canadian Associated Press

VANCOUVER — Coffee drinkers who prefer a dark roast may be getting more than just a buzz from their beverage of choice. University of B.C. food scientists say their study shows that roasting coffee beans a dark brown produces antioxidant benefits linked to slowed aging.

Science student Yazheng (Ya-Jang) Liu and co-author Prof. David Kitts analyzed the complex mixture of chemical compounds created during the browning process.

They say their tests show that browning coffee beans under high temperatures creates the antioxidants.

The scientists say previous studies suggest antioxidants in coffee could be traced to caffeine or chlorogenic acid found in green coffee beans.

But their study, to be published in the journal "Food Research International," found that coffee beans lose 90 per cent of their chlorogenic acid during the roasting process.

(Canadian Press)