Micah True, one of the world’s most famous endurance runners even at the age of 58, disappeared in the Gila Wilderness of New Mexico after telling friends that he was going on a 12-mile run. The story of True, a legendary character known also as Caballo Blanco and immortalized in Christopher McDougal’s book, Born to Run, is beautifully told by Barry Bearak in the New York Times. As Bearak tells it True’s mythic renown owed less to his ability to run than to his capacity to inspire. He was a free spirit who survived on cornmeal, beans and wild dreams, aloof to the allure of money and possessions. He lived in the remote Copper Canyons of northern Mexico to be near the reclusive Tarahumara Indians, reputed to be the greatest natural runners in the world.

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For a great many people, there is life after cancer, and that life is likely to be longer for those people who are most active. That news comes from researchers at the National Cancer Institute, who reviewed 45 articles related to physical activity and cancer survival published from January 1950 to August 2011. The New York Times reports that the types of tumors studied included prostate, ovarian, brain and colorectal, but most of the studies involved breast cancer. Virtually all of the studies, the lead author reports, showed that regular physical activity “decreased the risk of cancer-related mortality and of all-cause mortality.” Read an abstract of the study here.

Eight months after Reebok agreed to pay $25 million to customers who bought toning shoes that don’t actually tighten butts, Skechers has pulled out its checkbook. The Los Angeles Times reports that the company has agreed to pay $40 million to hopeful consumers who bought rocker-bottom shoes in the hope of having a booty like Kim Kardashian. How to collect? Go to www.skecherssettlement.com and fill out online forms. The Times reports that anyone who bought Shape-Up shoes, Resistance Runners, Tone-ups or Toners is entitled to a partial refund whether they have proof of purchase or not. Good luck with that.

It turns out that the difference between being fat and not being fat is not just about what you eat, it’s about when you eat, as in how often you eat. The Salk Institute for Biological Science reports that researchers there have learned that mice limited to eating during an 8-hour period are healthier than mice that eat freely throughout the day, regardless of the quality and content of their diet. The scientists fed two sets of mice a diet comprising 60 percent of its calories from fat (like eating potato chips and ice-cream for all your meals). One group of mice could eat whenever they wanted, and the other group was restricted to eating for only eight hours every night–fasting for about 16 hours a day. Two control groups ate a standard diet with about 13 percent of calories from fat. What did they find? After 100 days, the mice who ate fatty food frequently throughout the day gained weight and developed high cholesterol, high blood glucose, liver damage and diminished motor control, while the mice in the time-restricted feeding group weighed 28 percent less and showed no adverse health effects despite consuming the same amount of calories from the same fatty food. Wait, there’s more: the time-restricted mice outperformed the ad lib eaters and those on a normal diet when given an exercise test. Read more from the Salk Institute.

Remember good cholesterol? You know, HDL cholesterol, the kind that was associated with reduced risk of stroke? Forget it. Now comes a study from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute suggesting that people with genes that boost HDL levels  do not, in fact, have a lower risk of heart attacks. Strange. The Boston Globe reports that the scientists in looked at a gene variation that raises HDL levels, and should consequently give people a 13 percent decreased risk of heart attack. But when the researchers compared the genetically blessed with people who didn’t have the gene, there was zero difference in heart attack risk. Wait there’s more: another study, in which researchers examined a panel of 14 genetic variations that raised HDL levels, also found that inheriting those variations did nothing to reduce the risk of heart attack. Read an almost inscrutable summary of the study here.

If you’re not born stupid,  you’re not out of the woods. You can always become stupid, and researchers at UCLA are now suggesting that high-fructose sweeteners can help. PsychCentral reports that scientists at the school put high-fructose corn syrup, which is commonly added to processed foods from soft drinks to baby food, in the water of two groups of rats. One of the groups was also fed omega-3 fatty acids in the form of flaxseed oil and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). After six weeks, the high-fructose fed rats who did not get omega-3s navigated a maze much slower than the omega-3 rats, and their brains showed a decline in synaptic activity. The omega-3 deprived rats also developed signs of resistance to insulin, a hormone that controls blood sugar and regulates synaptic function in the brain. The moral of the story? If you’re going to drink beverages with high-fructose sweeteners, make sure you also eat foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, like salmon, walnuts and flaxseeds. Better yet, skip the high-fructose beverage. Read more from PsychCentral.

What doesn’t break your bones makes them stronger. Especially if what doesn’t break your bones is a load-bearing sport like basketball or volleyball. How to we know? Because when researchers at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden measured the bone mass of more than 800 young men and studied their exercise habits, they found that after five years, the men who did a lot of load-bearing activities at the start of the study and those who increased their amounts of exercise during the five years had a better chance of building bone than those who weren’t as active, according to a recent report in HealthDay. And now the numbers: The researchers found that men who played load-bearing sports for four hours a week or more had an average 1.3 percent increase in hip-bone density, while who remained sedentary over the five years had an average 2.1 percent decrease in hip-bone density. Read more in HealthDay. Read an abstract of the study here.

In the video bellow, New York Times’ Phys Ed columnist Gretchen Reynolds talks with Martin Gibala, chair of the kinesiology department at McMaster University, who has good news for time-strapped people who don’t want to be health strapped: 20 minutes a day three times a week will do it, if that 20 minutes is spent doing high intensity interval training, or HIIT.  You know, one minute ON, one minute OFF..

The good news is, you don’t need the weight, of your weights, that is. Researchers at McMaster University have learned that doing more repetitions with less weight builds muscle and increases strength just as effectively as training with heavy weights. HealthDay reports on the study, which looked at how different combinations of weight and repetitions affected the leg muscles of young men. The men trained three times a week for 10 weeks doing one of three resistance training regimens: one set at 80 percent of maximum load; three sets at 80 percent of maximum load; or three sets at 30 percent of maximum load. A set, in this case, meant doing as many reps as possible, typically eight to 12 times a set at the heaviest weights and 25 to 30 times a set at the lowest weights. HealthDay reports that heavy weights and light weights built muscle and strength equally well. Read more from HealthDay.

Want to know why the United States is the fattest country in the world? Ask the researchers from Penn State and the University of Maryland who got a look at data from the American Time Use Study. They learned that most Americans exercise only two hours a week, exactly half of what is recommended by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That federal agency would like all adults to get about four hours of physical activity each week; 2.5 hours of moderate exercise and an hour and fifteen minutes of vigorous activity, such as running and muscle strengthening. A Penn State news release reports that the researchers found that walking is the most prevalent activity, engaged in by about 5 percent of Americans. The most popular active sport is basketball, followed by football, soccer, baseball, volleyball and hockey. Among seniors 65 or over, golf is the most popular activity other than walking, but seniors are about as active as younger adults in many fitness activities, such as workouts, aerobics and cardiovascular exercise. Why does it matter? Because according to a new study by researchers at University of Texas-Southwestern Medical Center and the Cooper Institute, fit middle-aged men and women have significantly lower medical expenses later in life compared to people who failed to stay in shape. HealthDay reports that the more-fit study participants had 38 percent lower medical costs many years later, measured by Medicare and other insurance claims from 1999 through 2009.