Word: mins
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...sure what, if anything, estrogen can do for the heart, you should focus on what we know can help preserve good health. First of all, if you smoke, stop. And exercise regularly; even if you're averse to strenuous activity, you can help yourself by taking a brisk 30-min. walk at least four days a week. Find out by a visit to the doctor if you have diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol, and, if so, start treatment. Most important, don't be spooked by interim reports from unfinished studies or by breathless accounts about them...
...almost any standard, the best yardstick for measuring how steadily--if slowly--athletic performance has improved is the mile run. In 1900 the record for the mile was a comparatively sleepy 4 min. 12 sec. It wasn't until 1954 that Roger Bannister of Britain cracked the 4-min. mark, coming in six-tenths of a second under the charmed figure. In the half-century since, uncounted thousands of mile heats have been run, yet less than 17 additional seconds have been shaved off Bannister's record--about a third of a second per year...
...credit for the improvement goes mostly to better training and equipment, but shoes and diet can get only so good before they--and the runners--hit a wall. "It's conceivable the record could be 3 min. 30 sec. in 50 years," says American Olympic miler Steve Holman. "But bringing it down much more is a long way off." Scientists agree. In 1987 researchers at Canada's McGill University developed a mathematical model that predicted a world mile record of precisely 3 min...
Muscles process oxygen through cellular components known as the mitochondria. Human mitochondria take up only about 3% of the space in a cell. But in animals that run the fastest, mitochondria are far bigger; the mitochondria of an antelope--an animal that easily runs a 2-min. mile and does so in wispy mountain air 7,000 ft. up--are three times larger than ours. "If you could genetically engineer humans to have more mitochondria, bigger hearts and more blood vessels," says Weyand, "we might run about 40 m.p.h...
...designed to run--suffer all manner of physical ills, from fractured legs to bleeding lungs, as a result of overuse. "You don't have these problems in antelopes and cheetahs, but in horses, we've apparently pushed to the limit," says Weyand. "If a human ran a 2-min. mile, you might see the same thing...