Exercise: 7 benefits of regular physical activity

You know exercise is good for you, but do you know how good? From boosting your mood to improving your sex life, find out how exercise can improve your life.

Want to feel better, have more energy and even add years to your life? Just exercise.

The health benefits of regular exercise and physical activity are hard to ignore. Everyone benefits from exercise, regardless of age, sex or physical ability.

Need more convincing to get moving? Check out these seven ways exercise can lead to a happier, healthier you.

1. Exercise controls weight

Exercise can help prevent excess weight gain or help maintain weight loss. When you engage in physical activity, you burn calories. The more intense the activity, the more calories you burn.

Regular trips to the gym are great but don't worry if you can't find a large chunk of time to exercise every day. To reap the benefits of exercise, just get more active throughout your day — take the stairs instead of the elevator or rev up your household chores. Consistency is key.

2. Exercise combats health conditions and diseases

Worried about heart disease? Hoping to prevent high blood pressure? No matter what your current weight, being the active boosts high-density lipoprotein (HDL), or "good," cholesterol and decreases unhealthy triglycerides. This one-two punch keeps your blood flowing smoothly, which decreases your risk of cardiovascular diseases.

Regular exercise helps prevent or manage a wide range of health problems and concerns, including stroke, metabolic syndrome, type 2 diabetes, depression, a number of types of cancer, arthritis and falls.

3. Exercise improves mood

Need an emotional lift? Or need to blow off some steam after a stressful day? A gym session or brisk 30-minute walk can help. Physical activity stimulates various brain chemicals that may leave you feeling happier and more relaxed.

You may also feel better about your appearance and yourself when you exercise regularly, which can boost your confidence and improve your self-esteem.

4. Exercise boosts energy

Winded by grocery shopping or household chores? Regular physical activity can improve your muscle strength and boost your endurance.

Exercise delivers oxygen and nutrients to your tissues and helps your cardiovascular system work more efficiently. And when your heart and lung health improve, you have more energy to tackle daily chores.

5. Exercise promotes better sleep

Struggling to snooze? Regular physical activity can help you fall asleep faster and deepen your sleep. Just don't exercise too close to bedtime, or you may be too energized to hit the hay.

6. Exercise puts the spark back into your sex life

Do you feel too tired or too out of shape to enjoy physical intimacy? Regular physical activity can improve energy levels and physical appearance, which may boost your sex life.
But there's even more to it than that. Regular physical activity may enhance arousal for women. And men who exercise regularly are less likely to have problems with erectile dysfunction than are men who don't exercise.

7. Exercise can be fun … and social!

Exercise and physical activity can be enjoyable. It gives you a chance to unwind, enjoy the outdoors or simply engage in activities that make you happy. Physical activity can also help you connect with family or friends in a fun social setting.
So, take a dance class, hit the hiking trails or join a soccer team. Find a physical activity you enjoy, and just do it. Bored? Try something new, or do something with friends.

The bottom line on exercise

Exercise and physical activity are a great way to feel better, boost your health and have fun. Aim for at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-intensity exercise, or 75 minutes per week of vigorous exercise.
Try to engage in a combination of vigorous and moderate aerobic exercises, such as running, walking or swimming. Squeeze in strength training at least twice per week by lifting free weights, using weight machines or doing body weight exercises.
Space out your activities throughout the week. If you want to lose weight or meet specific fitness goals, you may need to ramp up your exercise efforts.
Remember to check with your doctor before starting a new exercise program, especially if you haven't exercised for a long time, have chronic health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes or arthritis, or you have any concerns.

Internet Banking Benifits

Tips for Smart Money Managemen

Understanding where your money is going is key to effective money management. Banking online can help you keep your finances on track.

Do you know how much money you have in your checking account? If you have just a rough idea, you may want to take a closer look at how you manage and track your account activity. Banking online can make this easier by offering convenient access to your account information and the ability to pay bills and move your money. The following tips will show you how to use these services to your advantage.

Access your bank accounts anytime, anywhere

Banking online allows you to securely bank anytime and anywhere you want as long as you have access to the internet. You can use your computer (or, with some banks, your smartphone) to check your balance, transfer money and pay bills on the go. Mobile banking services are generally available to you at no cost, but keep in mind that you may incur charges from your mobile service provider depending on your wireless plan. Some banks also offer features like a mobile website and mobile app to enable on-the-go banking and money management.

Keep track of account balances to help avoid overdraft fees

Sometimes it's far too easy to lose track of your money when you're busy trying to balance work and family. Banking online can help you keep tabs on your money and account balances. Many banks even let you set up alerts to notify you when your balance is low if a bill is due when your paycheck is direct-deposited and more. Alerts are a great way to keep track of the money in your account and help avoid incurring overdraft and late payment fees.

You can also use your smartphone to check your account via Mobile Banking right before you make a purchase. Remember to mentally subtract any checks you've written that haven't been cashed, as well as any automatic payments due to come out of your account soon. Many digital banking services also enable you to transfer funds from your savings account to your eligible checking account to ensure purchases are covered. (Learn more about Bank of America overdraft solutions.)

Organize your bill payments

Paying your bills online can make your banking life much easier. You can avoid the hassle of paper bills, making extra trips to your bank or worrying about checks being lost in the mail. In addition, paying your bills online keeps all of your billing records in one easy-to-find place. You can also set up automatic payments using your debit or credit card.

See how much you pay, and to whom

Many online banking systems let you see exactly how much you’ve paid to any given company (such as a mortgage provider, dry cleaner or utility company) over a certain period of time. When tax season rolls around, you can easily access a record of all the online payments you've made. For example, you can see an aggregated total of payments to your mobile carrier to figure out how many of those charges could be tax deductible.

Protect yourself

Tips for money management through digital banking wouldn't be complete without a note on online and mobile security. Banks take the security of their online services very seriously. In addition to site encryption, most banks also exempt users from liability for fraudulent transactions, guard their users' personal information and ensure accurate as well as fast online transactions. (Note: Bank of America helps to ensure your protection via its Online Banking Security GuaranteeFootnote1.)

If you haven't yet taken advantage of the features mentioned in this article, take some time to set them up to ensure you're maximizing the potential of banking online. Your local bank branch may be able to guide you in setting up digital banking and can provide additional tips for smart money management.

Ready to get started with Online Banking? Learn more about industry-leading Online Banking solutions from Bank of America.

Biological Research

PharmaMar announced positive preclinical results for an ADC candidate, showing that the traditional chemistry-based pharma companies are shifting towards the new generation of biologicals.

PharmaMar is an oncology pharma in Madrid mining a vast source for drug discovery: marine organisms. The company is now pivoting to a more innovative technology with the announcement of positive in vitro results of an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) candidate, MI130110, against fibrosarcoma and multiple myelomas. Which means the popular ADC field has managed to attract yet another company into what could be a major breakthrough in cancer therapy.

Immuno-oncology stole the show during the last decade by promising a cure for cancer. However, the deaths of five patients in Juno’s CAR-T trial are a clear indicative of the challenges this field is facing. While scientists work on it, ADCs offer an effective alternative capable of overcoming tumor resistance, preventing metastasis and relapse, and most importantly: less expensive than CAR-T.

It’s then clear why companies like PharmaMar, as well as big pharma such as Roche, Novartis, Eli Lilly and Pfizer, are turning to ADCs. This is also a sign of how recent innovations are driving the modernization of the pharma industry, shifting from a traditional purely chemical perspective to a biotech-based focus.

With a drug already on the market for soft tissue sarcoma and relapsed ovarian cancer and another pending market authorization for multiple myelomas, PharmaMar seems to be doing really well. By entering the ADC field, which promises more effective therapies with fewer side effects, the company is updating its already solid portfolio to keep up with the times.

However, PharmaMar will encounter tough competitors in its new area: both ADC Therapeutics, in Switzerland, and Wiley, in Germany, has ADC candidates against multiple myelomas in the preclinical stage. ADC Therapeutics, with two programs already in Phase Ia, received the biggest funding round in Europe this year, led by AstraZeneca.

In our review of the promising ADC field, Chris Martin, CEO of ADC Therapeutics, stated that ADCs show a huge promise for future therapies in combination with immuno-oncology strategies like checkpoint inhibitors. With big and small companies alike jumping into these revolutionary approaches, could we be nearing the end of cancer?

Affiliates Marketing

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'), the network (that contains offers for the affiliate to choose from and also takes care of the payments), the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate'), and the customer. The market has grown in complexity, resulting in the emergence of a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third party vendors.

Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization (SEO), paid search engine marketing (PPC - Pay Per Click), e-mail marketing, content marketing and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.

Affiliate marketing is commonly confused with referral marketing, as both forms of marketing use third parties to drive sales to the retailer. However, both are distinct forms of marketing and the main difference between them is that affiliate marketing relies purely on financial motivations to drive sales while referral marketing relies on trust and personal relationships to drive sales.

Affiliate marketing is frequently overlooked by advertisers.^[1] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' ma