Exercising your way to health or death?

Forty years ago, your parents or grandparents would have told you that exercise was bad for you. It wears out your joints and puts unnecessary strain on your body. Currently the CDC suggests 300 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic activity each week plus weight training for "greater health benefits." That's three hundred minutes of you wearing your body out every week. And if you do more than that, they say "you'll gain even more health benefits."

Now, do you think they have specific data on this? Of course not. But they'll tell you it's a good idea anyway, and in fact tout it as a way to prevent heart disease. Wait for it though, because I found this, written for heart month, from the newspaper the Asheville Citizen-Times and I found it amusing in it's glorious contradiction:

"A key contributor to heart disease is lack of exercise — again, a factor that seems to affect busy women as they juggle jobs, kids, homes and community work and fail to make time for their own good health, Palmer said. And obesity is a critical factor, because “the more you weigh, the harder your heart has to work to give your body nutrients,” she said." [emphasis mine]

So, their first premise is that if you work your heart harder (by exercise) that you'll be healthier, but if your heart has to work harder because you're overweight or obese, that's bad. Can we say cognitive dissonance? Of course, being obese is associated with heart disease, but the primary reason for CHD isn't because your heart has to work harder, it's probably inflammation. However, I doubt having your heart work harder, either via strenuous exercise or by being obese, is very good for it.

I'm not saying that some activity isn't good, especially walking, but these people are advocating that an already busy person, who is not sitting at home watching television all day, should try to fit exercising into their already busy schedule. And that just creates more stress because they think it's a character flaw that they've gained weight and blame it on not getting to the gym. I think that makes about as much sense as telling a diabetic they should eat more fruit. Oh, wait. They do that too.

I tried to find some studies to either backup what they're saying or refute it, but it doesn't seem like any have really been done, at least with exercise alone. I would imagine to find out if exercise were beneficial, that you would take two very large groups of healthy men and women and have one group exercise and the other not. Then you'd find out if one group lived longer than the other. Most of the studies I've seen however, are in patients who already have CHD, are part of Statin drug trials, or part of a diet trial. There is no controlling for variables, they test multiple things at once, and that is not science. It's quackery is what it is.

There are multiple possibilities for why exercise could be beneficial, or not. One might be if carbohydrates cause heart disease by creating inflammation, and if you consume carbohydrates and exercise, you may burn off the carbohydrates before they can have an effect on your tissues, if you're a person who can burn them off. Most people who are obese have a problem metabolizing carbohydrates, so this probably wouldn't work for them. Or maybe if you never eat carbohydrates, you would have no need to exercise very much, and you would still live just as long as someone who ate carbohydrates and exercised. These are things that could be tested.

We should know so much more by now about what it is that is killing us, but we don't, and we won't. The food industry benefits from people eating their processed, expensive junk food and the pharmaceutical companies reap the benefits of people winding up on maintenance medication from such diets. To a lesser extent the fitness industry benefits from this too, as people try in vain to exercise to lose the weight they gain (exercise makes you hungry) by eating the "recommended diet". And the newspapers? They benefit by advertising dollars from the previous three industries to push what they want to be said.

Expert and No-so Expert Journalism: Diet Myths

If you're going to be a journalist, I suggest that when an "expert" tells you something, that you get a second opinion on the matter from someone who disagrees with them. Or better yet, or in addition to, that you go and do some research yourself on the matter. Of course that requires having some critical thinking skills and being able to read on a post-baccalaureate level.

I'll give you an example of bad research, or just parroting whatever the nutrition "expert" tells you. In an article from yesterday in the Midland Daily News out of Michigan, they tell you that February is American Heart Month and talk to a Registered Dietitian from their local medical center to find out what you can do for a healthier heart.

I have yet to meet or read a Registered Dietitian that gives advice based on the latest metabolic research rather than the out-dated and plain wrong advice given by our government, the American Medical Association and the American Heart Association.

The first mistake that Registered Dietitian Sherry Elford makes is that we should avoid saturated fat. This is pretty typical, because since Ancel Keys decided that Saturated Fat was bad for us, it has become gospel to Dietitians and Doctors as much as Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are gospel to the Christians in this world. Now, if you're read Taubes, you'll know that there's not a shred of scientific evidence that Saturated Fat or Cholesterol has anything to do with heart disease. Heart disease has to do with inflammation which is probably caused by excess consumption of carbohydrates.

The next mistake made is that she says that "sodium raises bad cholesterol and plaque buildup in arteries increases." I'm assuming she means that cholesterol causes plaques in artery walls, which is wrong (and not that sodium does, which would also be wrong). However, her first premise, that sodium raises bad cholesterol is wrong. It doesn't. However it can LOWER good cholesterol. A five minute search on Science Direct found a study of sixty five men whose HDL cholesterol (the supposed "good" cholesterol) decreased with sodium restriction and had no statistical effect on overall cholesterol. Why aren't these "journalists" and "registered dietitians" doing their job by doing research? I'm not even a scientist and I can find this stuff!

"Short term dietary sodium restriction decreases HDL cholesterol, apolipoprotein A-I and high molecular weight adiponectin in healthy young men: Relationships with renal hemodynamics and RAAS activation" in Nutrition, Metabolism and Cardiovascular Diseases

On top of that, there is another study that showed that salt restriction may increase insulin resistance and lowers cholesterol as well.

"As a result, insulin C-peptide increased by 40% (p = 0.0001) whereas glucose rose by 6% (p = 0.02). Total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol concentration were reduced by 6% (p = 0.001), 12% (p = 0.008) and 11% (p = 0.004) respectively. HbAlc, serum triglycerides, total/HDL-cholesterol ratio, urine catecholamines and VMA were unchanged during the trial. It is concluded that salt restriction may increase insulin resistance in hypertensive patients."

"Salt restriction and increased insulin production in hypertensive patients" from the Scandanavian Journal of Clinical & Laboratory Investigation, 1994, Vol 54, No 5, pages 405-409

And another study that said pretty much the same thing. And another. In case you aren't paying attention, insulin resistance is very bad. It's a precursor to diabetes. It's associated with weight gain. And these "nutritionists" are advocating something that may cause it.

Also, let me say that lowering choleterol is bad, despite whatever dogma you may have been indoctrinated with. Cholesterol is a vital substance required for life. It's essential for the structural integrity of cellular membrane walls and your brain uses it in your neural synapses. Without it, you wouldn't be alive. Cholesterol is found in arteriosclerotic plaques probably because it's trying to repair the damage.

Lastly, Ms. Elford "recommends soy foods." Elford fails to mention that soy may inhibit thyroid function, which is a very important part of your metabolism. Soy also contains phytoestrogens, which mimic estrogen. Now, whether or not this is harmful remains to be seen. I don't think that some *unprocessed* soy in small quantities would be harmful. However, the American public is getting much more than a small quantity of unprocessed soy. They put soybean oil (sometimes soy flour) in bread (even "healthy" looking bread), in some cereal, in crackers, they put it in just about anything that it will go in. You don't have to look far to find something with soy in it. About the only way to avoid all this soy is to make your own food from scratch and/or eat low carb. The soybean manufacturers must do something with all the soybean they grow. After all most Americans don't eat very much tofu.

The thing is, these people recommend to you a course of action to take, and it could be at the expense of your health. The Buddha said, believe nothing, even if I have said it. That goes here too. It's up to everyone to investigate what they should be eating, what will be healthiest, because most of the journalists aren't going to do it, and the nutrition "experts" certainly aren't going to do it.