Intermittent Fasting Works

Here is an interesting study that indicates that Intermittent Fasting - as prescribed in Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat - works well for fat loss. ( Interviewed Brad Pilon here)

There are some good thoughts on the study here from the researchers:

The results defy the notion that fasting or dieting leads to gorging later; they also counter the idea that people have a genetically determined set point weight.

However, the study suggests a new strategy for losing weight. Although chronic lifestyle changes (eating healthier foods and getting more exercise) are preferable ways to lose weight, Levitsky said, a weekly fast might be another way to go.

Since it takes 10 to 14 days to recover the body tissue lost from a one-day fast, "Going without food for one day each week should produce a significant reduction in body weight over time," Levitsky said, now that we know that "fasting does not lead to overeating, and total recovery of body tissue does not occur within the week."

A useful study for those interesting in the science behind IF



One day of food restriction does not result in an increase in subsequent daily food intake in humans


The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of one day of food restriction on subsequent spontaneous daily food intake and the recovery of body weight in humans. Twenty-two, non-restrained females were fed from Monday to Friday for four weeks using food prepared and measured in the Cornell Metabolic Laboratory. For the first week, all participants ate ad libitum. For each subsequent Monday, participants were divided into three groups in which either they (a) ate ad libitum, (b) were restricted to eating 1200 kcal (5040 kj), or (c) were fasted. From Tuesday until Friday participants ate ad libitum. During each session, all food consumed as well as body weight were measured.

Body weight did not change following the day of ad libitum eating, but decreased significantly after the day of food restriction decreasing still further after fasting, indicating high compliance with study protocol. Although the loss in body weight was regained within four days, the recovery was accomplished without any increase in spontaneous food intake. Although no direct measurement of energy expenditure was made in this study, the results strongly suggest that decreases in metabolic rate play a more dominant role in the recovery of body weight following food restriction than the control of food intake.

Training with Low Muscle Glycogen Enhances Fat Metabolism

This is a concept that hovers around a few training programmes and dietary approaches: training when you have low muscle glycogen either through prior intense exercise to deplete the glycogen (this is the approach Rusty takes in his Treadmill Ninja course) or via a low carb diet. Good to see a study to look at the concept.


Training in a state of glycogen depletion limited performance but increased fat burning. It would be interesting to see this compared with Phinney's work on low carb and endurance training.


Training with Low Muscle Glycogen Enhances Fat Metabolism in Well-Trained Cyclists.

PURPOSE:: To determine the effects of training with low muscle glycogen on exercise performance, substrate metabolism, and skeletal muscle adaptation. METHODS:: Fourteen well-trained cyclists were pair-matched and randomly assigned to HIGH or LOW-glycogen training groups. Subjects performed 9 aerobic training (AT; 90 min at 70% VO2max) and 9 high-intensity interval-training sessions (HIT; 8 x 5 min efforts, 1 min recovery) during a 3-wk period. HIGH trained once daily, alternating between AT on day 1 and HIT the following day, whereas LOW trained twice every second day, firstly performing AT and then 1 h later performing HIT. Pre and post-training measures were a resting muscle biopsy, metabolic measures during steady state cycling (SS), and a time trial (TT). RESULTS:: Power output during HIT was 297 +/- 8 W in LOW compared with 323 +/- 9 W in HIGH (P<0.05), however, TT performance improved by ~10% in both groups (P<0.05). Fat oxidation during SS increased after training in LOW (from 26+/-2 to 34+/-2 mumol/kg/min, P<0.01). Plasma FFA oxidation was similar before and after training in both groups but muscle-derived triacylglycerol oxidation increased after training in LOW (from 16+/-1 to 23+/-1 mumol/kg/min, P<0.05). Training with low muscle glycogen also increased beta-hydroxyacyl-CoA-dehydrogenase protein content (P<0.01).

CONCLUSION:: Training with low muscle glycogen reduced training intensity and, in terms of performance, was no more effective than training with high muscle glycogen. However, fat oxidation was increased after training with low muscle glycogen, which may have been due to enhanced metabolic adaptations in skeletal muscle.

Low Carb diets are still healthy for your kidneys.....

This study provides preliminary evidence that long-term weight loss with a very-low-carbohydrate diet does not adversely affect renal function compared with a high-carbohydrate diet in obese individuals with normal renal function.

Renal Function Following Long-Term Weight Loss in Individuals with Abdominal Obesity on a Very-Low-Carbohydrate Diet vs High-Carbohydrate Diet.

Fat consumption and heart disease

See what you make of this:

Dietary cholesterol and egg consumption were associated with increased CVD risk ONLY in those with type 2 diabetes.

Comments?

optimism is healthy

the impact of the mind on your health is wildly underapprecited. I think many health problems are at root exacerbated by - if not caused by - psychological stress. It is not just our diet that is far divorced from what it should be, it is our psychological state. We are chronically stressed. Anyway typically, optimism is good for your immune system:

Optimism boosts the immune system

Feeling better about the future might help you feel better for real. In a new study, psychological scientists Suzanne Segerstrom of the University of Kentucky and Sandra Sephton of the University of Louisville studied how law students' expectations about the future affected their immune response. Their conclusions: Optimism may be good for your health.

Other studies have found that people who are optimistic about their health tend to do better. For example, people who are optimistic about heart transplant surgery recover better from that grueling operation. But it's not clear how optimism affects your health — or whether pessimism makes you less healthy.

Steam don't fry?

Stephan mentioned this the other day and I just saw it pop across my regular pubcrawler search:

A diet based on high-heat-treated foods promotes risk factors for diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases.



RESULTS: In comparison with the steamed diet, 1 mo consuming the high-heat-treated diet induced significantly lower insulin sensitivity and plasma concentrations of long-chain n-3 (omega-3) fatty acids and vitamins C and E [-17% (P < 0.002), -13% (P < 0.0001), and -8% (P < 0.01), respectively]. However, concentrations of plasma cholesterol and triglycerides increased [+5% (P < 0.01) and +9% (P < 0.01), respectively].

Pullups on a door

interesting idea from The Maxwell

Ketosis and Sleep Quality

Sleep Warrior has an interesting article on ketosis and sleep:

Ultimately, I think there’s something about the insulin roller coasters we put ourselves on by constantly consuming sugary or starchy foods — and it seems to be impairing how our brains function. The idea is that by fueling our brain cells with an “alternative” source of energy (ketones) we allow them to operate more efficiently, perhaps despite any damage done from too much glucose and insulin.

Naps improve recovery from exercise....

As is often the case, this is not that surprising:

The data imply that daytime naps have a potential role as a valuable recovery tool following endurance exercise,

I wish I had the opportunity to taek smoe daily naps in the afternoon. Unfortunately work intervenes.

The effect of prior endurance training on nap sleep patterns.

PURPOSE: The use of daytime napping as a recovery tool following exercise is virtually unexplored. The objective of this study was to assess the quality of daytime nap sleep following endurance training in an athletic population, and to appraise the optimal circadian timing of the nap and the time interval between training and the nap.
METHODS: Six physically trained male subjects (22.5 +/- 2.4 y) performed four separate standardized 90-min endurance training sessions followed by a 90-min daytime nap either 1 or 2 h after training (time interval), commencing at either 10:30 or 11:30 (circadian timing). During the nap, sleep was monitored using polysomnography. Subjective measurements of sleep quality, alertness and preparedness to train following a nap were recorded using a visual analog scale.
RESULTS: The duration of slow wave sleep (SWS) was significantly greater during the 11:30 naps (13.7 +/- 9.0 min) compared with the 10:30 naps (6.9 +/- 8.8 min) (P = .049). There was no significant difference in SWS duration between a 1-h (10.6 +/- 10.2 min) or 2-h (10.0 +/- 9.0 min) time interval between training and the nap (P = .82). No other sleep variables differed significantly according to circadian timing or time interval.
CONCLUSION: Recovery naps commenced later in the morning contain more SWS than earlier naps. The data imply that daytime naps have a potential role as a valuable recovery tool following endurance exercise, given the suggested energy restorative functions of SWS.

Eating more whole grains does not make you healthier.....

Well maybe. This study at least indicates that the normal accepted markers of cardiovascular risk are not changed by increased whole-grain intake. So despite the conventional wisdom it seems that an increased intake of whole grains is worthless for your heart.......


Markers of cardiovascular risk are not changed by increased whole-grain intake: the WHOLEheart study, a randomised, controlled dietary intervention.

Recommendations for whole-grain (WG) intake are based on observational studies showing that higher WG consumption is associated with reduced CVD risk. No large-scale, randomised, controlled dietary intervention studies have investigated the effects on CVD risk markers of substituting WG in place of refined grains in the diets of non-WG consumers. A total of 316 participants (aged 18-65 years; BMI>25 kg/m2) consuming < 30 g WG/d were randomly assigned to three groups: control (no dietary change), intervention 1 (60 g WG/d for 16 weeks) and intervention 2 (60 g WG/d for 8 weeks followed by 120 g WG/d for 8 weeks). Markers of CVD risk, measured at 0 (baseline), 8 and 16 weeks, were: BMI, percentage body fat, waist circumference; fasting plasma lipid profile, glucose and insulin; and indicators of inflammatory, coagulation, and endothelial function. Differences between study groups were compared using a random intercepts model with time and WG intake as factors. Although reported WG intake was significantly increased among intervention groups, and demonstrated good participant compliance, there were no significant differences in any markers of CVD risk between groups. A period of 4 months may be insufficient to change the lifelong disease trajectory associated with CVD. The lack of impact of increasing WG consumption on CVD risk markers implies that public health messages may need to be clarified to consider the source of WG and/or other diet and lifestyle factors linked to the benefits of whole-grain consumption seen in observational studies.

barefoot is best for dodgy knees

So if you have osteoarthritis in your knees, you would be well advised to go barefoot or in minimal shoes... keep away from supportive, stable shoes with stiff soles.

Shoes: A treatment for osteoarthritis in the knees?

"Traditionally, footwear has been engineered to provide maximum support and comfort for the foot, with little attention paid to the biomechanical effects on the rest of the leg," said Dr. Najia Shakoor, a rheumatologist at Rush and the primary author of the study. "But the shoes we wear have a substantial impact on the load on the knee joints, particularly when we walk."

"Our study demonstrated that flat, flexible footwear significantly reduces the load on the knee joints compared with supportive, stable shoes with less flexible soles."

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis and a significant source of disability and impaired quality of life. A higher-than-normal load on the knees during walking is a hallmark of the disease, associated with both the severity of osteoarthritis and its progression.

barefoot is best again.....

The loads on the knee joints differed significantly depending on the footwear. For the clogs and stability shoes, the loads on the knee joints were up to 15 percent greater than with the flat walking shoes, flip-flops or barefoot walking. Knee loading was roughly the same whether the subject wore flips-flops or walked barefoot.

Interview with Ray Audette - Author of Neanderthin

On Keith Thomas' EvFit site he has a page devoted to tracing the history of the current interest in the Paleo Lifestyle movement. It is interesting to track the growth of the movement and the current explosion of interest - the last few months things seem to have crept out of the shadows and the special interest and it is almost the latest fashion, the latest fad. Anyway, early on in Keith's analysis is the note:

1999 - Ray Audette's Neanderthin published

Back before Mark Sisson, before Art DeVany, before Loren Cordain, before EvFit, before MovNat, before Free the Animal, before mainstream newspapers were talking about the "Caveman Diet".....Ray Audette wrote a book about the paleo diet - Neanderthin.

I bought it 5 or 6 years ago when I was I was just starting to investigate low carb diets and enjoyed the simplicity of the concept and the quality of the approach. (Keith has a good overview of the book).

It was at the time a unique book, breaking some new ground in terms of exercise and diet. If you are interested in Paleo thinking then you really should read Ray's work.

After I had interviewed Keith - who is, like me, a big admirer of Ray Audette - someone contacted me and suggested that I should also interview Ray. I eventually got hold of him and here is the resulting interview. I hope you enjoy it and get something from it.


***********************************************************************************************************************

Neanderthin relates how as a relatively young man you found yourself diagnosed with both diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis. Researching the diseases you traced the causes of both these autoimmune conditions to be a civilisation’s move away from a hunter gatherer diet. You restored your own health by returning to a proper, hunter gatherer diet. The book covers the development of your ideas in just a few sentences. How long did your thinking on the role of diet take to crystallise in reality?

A: Within two weeks of my diagnosis of diabetes, I began a Paleolithic diet. I knew that I had inherited this condition from my maternal grandfather who was part Native American and that those people had a very high incidence of diabetes. I also knew that these Native Canadians had few crops and depended on hunting for their subsistence. I knew that the ate a much more natural diet than one dependent on the domesticated crops that their latitude precluded. As I had studied philosophy for many years, I decided to begin by defining the term "nature". After much thought, I concluded that nature was the absence of technology. Absent technology, I would be naked with only a sharp stick or a rock to use as a weapon or tool.

The night before Troy and I began writing, I came up with the title and decided that I needed to have a statement that best defined the concept of my book in as as few words as possible. Genesis 2:17 summed up the theory best!

(Ed: Gen 2:17 is "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die", which Ray expresses (on the basis of the Hebrew) as "Do not eat the fruit of the technology that makes edible the inedible")

Were you influenced by any other writers or researchers?

A: Many other researchers and writers influenced my work and shared their sources with me. I read S Boyde Eaton's book "The Paleolithic Prescription" and met him at a medical convention. I also corresponded with Vaughn Bryant of Texas A&M University as well as Lauren Cordain of Colorado State University. Michaeal Eades and his wife Mary-Dan were also very helpful and sent my first Vilhajulmur Stefansson books (copies here) to me.

Troy Gilchrist was very influential and deserves great credit for "NeanderThin". I consider it very lucky that he got a Philosophy degree just before we began and as his band had quit him a few years before ( they're now called "The Dixie Chicks") he had nothing better to do than dedicate his time to help me write.

With Amazon currently advertising Neanderthin at between £31 and £124 and the current huge interest in the paleo diet, would you consider a new edition of the book?

A: There has been some talk of a Print On Demand edition but I haven't checked with my agent yet as to my publishing rights in that matter.

Was the book what you wanted it to be or did the publishers try to turn it into a “popular diet” book so they could market it better?

A: They changed the original subtitle and chapter titles and turned my favorite chapter into an Appendix ( too many big words).

The copy of Neanderthin that I have is from 1999. Have your ideas developed in the years since then? Do you still eat and exercise as the book describes?

A: I would, in future editions, put less emphasis of organic foods and more on the chemicals such as aflatoxins, acrylamides, GAGs, estrogen analogs, etc found naturally in technology-dependent foods These are a much greater hazard than the worst chemically contaminated produce found in the market. I also would strongly discourage attempts at a low-fat version of the diet.

I still eat the same way but I don't go hawking every day as once did (though I do try to walk every day).

In the book, you present the optimal nutrition and fitness program as one which emphasises “chaos”. You talk about the multiple factors that affect health and fitness and in this chaotic model health is derived not from imposing some ideal ordered life and routine of diet and exercise but from removing the factors that were not involved in the initial condition - the agricultural diet and the routine sedentary lifestyle – and then letting the chaos of nature have its way to create health. Have I understood this correctly? Can you expand a little more of what this means in practice for diet and exercise?

Chaotic exercise interests me. It is so easy to fall into a “routine” – that is even how we describe our workouts – routines. Do you have any ideas for preserving or promoting some natural chaos in our exercise?

A: Flying Harris Hawks always worked for me!

Can we look more broadly. The initial conditions would include all sorts of factors – social situation, different stressors, sunlight, adequate sleep, good posture. Is it enough to focus on diet / exercise or should we be thinking about restoring other aspects of the initial condition?

Do you see optimal health as dependent on restoring those other things – for example good social relationships (the tribe) or sufficient sleep? In terms of health and fitness we tend to focus on the physical - how we look and perform. Do you think "civilization" - poor diet, sedentary lifestyle, chronic stressors - has equally profound negative effects on our minds, our mental health, as it does on our physical health?

A: Personal relationships, work, stress etc. all play a part.

Dogs. You have a model in the book that sees man and dog developing closely and relying on each other in the hunt. This is a novel approach that I’ve not read elsewhere. Does this concept – the unique role of hunting with dogs - imply any specifics about our diet and exercise? Does it give hints about how we should eat or move?

A: Walking the dog is good for body and soul ( but not as good as hawking - praise Horus! ).

Reading in your book a couple of times the notion of “neotony” crops up. I must admit that this is not a concept that I understand well. Could you elaborate on this idea and maybe provide an example or two which illustrate why you find it so useful to explain or justify a paleo diet?

A: This is the topic of my next book " Neanderthal Neoteny; How Wolves Domesticated Mankind". It deals with symbiosis and the origins of cultures. Culture dictates what we consider a "normal" diet.

Another of your special interests is what you call in the book "alien proteins" – can you explain a little more of what you mean by that and how it influences your approach?

A: I took this term from a Scientific American article about auto-immune disorders. I would now include any organic compound that in Nature would not be found inside your body. The problems these substances cause include obesity, diabetes, cancer, etc.

Over the years you seem to have ducked in and out of public view. Are you aware of the growing interest in paleo diets, driven largely various writers on the internet? What do you think of the recent “fashionable” paleo diet movement?

A: I'm grateful for having played a part!

Unfortunately the palaeo way can be an expensive one…..those who promote it are often seem to be affluent professionals with big incomes, able to afford lots of meat and organic vegetables. Do you have anything to share in terms of eating a healthy, paleo diet on a budget? How would the unemployed or student cope? Can we avoid being forced onto cheap carbs to survive?

A: I am very poor. I shop at Walmart and other supermarkets. I often eat at McDonalds. I don't buy into the whole "organic" thing. I don't find my diet to be a financial burden.

Perhaps the key concept in Neanderthin is the elegantly simple metric - the Sharp Stick Test - that you provide for determining what we should eat: My definition of nature is the absence of technology. Technology dependent foods would never be ingested by a human being in nature. I determined therefore to eat only those foods that would be available to me if I were naked of all technology save that of a convenient sharp stick or stone. Again, how quickly did you develop that simplest of ideas? Is it an oversimplification or does it still adequately summarise your approach?

A: see above - the best sumary is still the oldest one! Genesis 2:17

Can we think a bit about politics in a broad sense? How does your particular set of premises inform your views of politics? How should we live? What is the “good life”? Should a consistent paleo approach seek to reconstruct a Paleolithic biosphere if we are to attain holistic health? Do we need to look after this planet more than we do? A related question I suppose. Do you see a paleo diet as possible given the changes to flora, fauna and environment in the last 2 millenia or are we simply trying to mimic the biochemistry - not the literal food and lifestyle - and gain the benefits from that?

A: Our paleo past is the key to our future survival. These are the kind of issues I will address in my next book.

Ray Audette




With thanks to Don Wiss for suggesting the interview and Keith for prompting some questions.

Long Distance Running - bad for the heart

Just a quick heads up on a couple of articles I saw over the weekend indicating that long distance running is bad for the cardiovascular system, despite apparently positive impacts on the normal metrics for cariovascular health.

Kurt notes and points to one on Medpage

Open Water Chicago points to a separate report on the same research in abcNews

Researchers at the Minneapolis Heart Institute and Foundation found that these runners faced a greater risk of accumulating plaque in their coronary arteries – despite having less body fat, lower LDL cholesterol levels, and lower heart rates.

An abcnews comment amuses me:

No one is sure exactly what the plaque findings mean.

Well, we can guess.

Barefoot Ted

I've previously pointed to the excellent book Born to Run, which looked at barefoot running within a narrative of a marathon in Mexico involving the Tarahumara Indians.

The book also features "Barefoot Ted" here he is talking to the Google Staff:

Intervals in the news again

Quite a few newspapers picked up on this study - e.g the Independent

As usual NHS Choices calms things down and tries to maintain the paradigm!

While this type of research may suggest theoretical benefits to short bursts of intensive exercise, it does not change the fact that regular, moderate-intensity exercise is good for our health.

Anyway, this one adds to the evidence of the efficacy of intervals

Here is what the researchers say:

"We have shown that interval training does not have to be 'all out' in order to be effective," says Professor Martin Gibala. "Doing 10 one-minute sprints on a standard stationary bike with about one minute of rest in between, three times a week, works as well in improving muscle as many hours of conventional long-term biking less strenuously."

A practical model of low-volume high-intensity interval training induces mitochondrial biogenesis in human skeletal muscle: potential mechanisms

High-intensity interval training (HIT) induces skeletal muscle metabolic and performance adaptations that resemble traditional endurance training despite a low total exercise volume. Most HIT studies have employed ‘all out', variable-load exercise interventions (e.g. repeated Wingate tests) that may not be safe, practical and/or well tolerated by certain individuals. Our purpose was to determine the performance, metabolic and molecular adaptations to a more practical model of low-volume HIT. Seven men (21 ± 0.4 years, ml kg−1 min−1) performed six training sessions over 2 weeks. Each session consisted of 8–12 × 60 s intervals at ∼100% of peak power output elicited during a ramp peak test (355 ± 10 W) separated by 75 s of recovery. Training increased exercise capacity, as assessed by significant improvements on both 50 kJ and 750 kJ cycling time trials (P < 0.05 for both). Skeletal muscle (vastus lateralis) biopsy samples obtained before and after training revealed increased maximal activity of citrate synthase (CS) and cytochrome c oxidase (COX) as well as total protein content of CS, COX subunits II and IV, and the mitochondrial transcription factor A (Tfam) (P < 0.05 for all). Nuclear abundance of peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ co-activator 1α (PGC-1α) was ∼25% higher after training (P < 0.05), but total PGC-1α protein content remained unchanged. Total SIRT1 content, a proposed activator of PGC-1α and mitochondrial biogenesis, was increased by ∼56% following training (P < 0.05). Training also increased resting muscle glycogen and total GLUT4 protein content (both P < 0.05). This study demonstrates that a practical model of low volume HIT is a potent stimulus for increasing skeletal muscle mitochondrial capacity and improving exercise performance. The results also suggest that increases in SIRT1, nuclear PGC-1α, and Tfam may be involved in coordinating mitochondrial adaptations in response to HIT in human skeletal muscle.

Exhaustion is in your mind....

This is an mind / body one. From the abstract below it is not clear what they did or how they reached the conclusion, but it brings to mind something that Frank Forencich pointed to last year

Can Your Brain Fight Fatigue?

.....many (but not all) physiologists now believe that exhaustion isn’t just in the muscles but also involves the brain. “What we now think is that the muscle isn’t acting on its own,” he says. “There’s an interplay of central processing and muscular exertion.” From the outset of exercise, “the brain asks for and gets constant feedback from the muscles and other systems especially about body temperature” and checks on “how are things going,” says Carl Foster, a professor in the department of exercise and sports science at the University of Wisconsin in La Crosse. Through mechanisms that aren’t fully understood, the brain tracks and calibrates the amount of fuel that is in the muscles, as well as the body’s core temperature. As the amount of fuel drops and the temperature rises, the brain decides that some danger zone is being approached. It starts reducing “the firing frequency of motor neurons to the exercising muscle, leading to a loss of force production,” says Ed Chambers, a researcher at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at the University of Birmingham in England and an author of the carbohydrate-drinks study. In other words, the mind, recognizing that the body may be going too hard, starts sending fewer of the messages that tell the muscles to contract. The muscles contract less frequently and more feebly. In a sensation familiar to anyone who exercises, your legs die beneath you.

The limit to exercise tolerance in humans: mind over muscle?



In exercise physiology, it has been traditionally assumed that high-intensity aerobic exercise stops at the point commonly called exhaustion because fatigued subjects are no longer able to generate the power output required by the task despite their maximal voluntary effort. We tested the validity of this assumption by measuring maximal voluntary cycling power before (mean ± SD, 1,075 ± 214 W) and immediately after (731 ± 206 W) (P < 0.001) exhaustive cycling exercise at 242 ± 24 W (80% of peak aerobic power measured during a preliminary incremental exercise test) in ten fit male human subjects. Perceived exertion during exhaustive cycling exercise was strongly correlated (r = −0.82, P = 0.003) with time to exhaustion (10.5 ± 2.1 min). These results challenge the long-standing assumption that muscle fatigue causes exhaustion during high-intensity aerobic exercise, and suggest that exercise tolerance in highly motivated subjects is ultimately limited by perception of effort.

Paleo for children

Interesting stuff from Dr Briffa:

Gluten and milk linked with constipation in kids

Old fat....

I have pointed to stuff on telomere length previously - e.g. Marathons make your muscles old -

Telomeres are structures at the ends of human chromosomes that protect DNA from damage. To help you visualize them, they are often compared to the little plastic tips at the ends of shoelaces. As cells age and replicate, their telomeres shorten. When telomeres become critically short, cells stop functioning properly. So, the general idea is that telomeres may be a “biological clock” that reflects your physiological age/health more accurately than your chronological age. In other words, the longer the telomeres, the healthier the cells. (from here)

Here is an interesting looking study about telomere length in fat. If you are fat or - ever have been - then your fat is biologically old. Now I have no idea what to make of that, but it is something to ponder. Your fat cells are older than they should be when you are obese. That is not healthy.


Telomere length of subcutaneous adipose tissue cells is shorter in obese and formerly obese subjects

Obesity and increased fat mass are associated with increased adipocyte proliferation. Telomere length can serve as a biomarker of a cell's biological (vs chronological) age. To gain insight in the physiology of adipose tissue, we aimed to investigate telomere length in subcutaneous adipose tissue in relation to age and obesity. Telomere length was measured in 72 subcutaneous adipose tissue samples from 21 nonobese and 51 obese subjects. Telomere length of subcutaneous adipose tissue cells was negatively associated with body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure and fasting triglycerides. After controlling for age, fasting glucose, triglycerides and smoking status, BMI (P=0.009) contributed independently to 16% of telomere length variance. Interestingly, formerly obese patients (n=10) had shorter telomere length than never-obese subjects (n=12) of similar age, sex and BMI (7.1±1.3 vs 9.08±1.8 kb, P=0.01). In summary, adipose tissue cells from obese subjects show a shorter telomere length. The shorter telomere length of formerly obese subjects suggests that this is an established, irreversible feature of obesity that could contribute to its comorbidities.

Primal Blueprint promotion

It seems like all the paleo bloggers are pulling togetehr to promote Mark Sisson's book and to get it up the Amazon sales charts.

I reviewed it way back - here - but for an update on Mark's promotional free gifts etc I'll point to Kurt's post.

Stephan (Whole Health Source) interviewed

Stephan is one of the top researchers and writers in this little corner of the internet.....

An interview with him has just been published which provides a great summary of his ideas:

Researchers followed volunteers for twenty years, and found that the amount of butter they ate had no relation to their risk of having a heart attack. On the other hand, people who ate the most margarine had nearly twice the risk of having a heart attack as people who ate none. Saturated fat is a red herring that has been overemphasized largely for historical reasons. One fat that is clearly important is omega-3. It's found mostly in seafood, flax, green vegetables, and fats from pasture-raised animals. It's critical to have a regular source of omega-3 in the diet.

Every workout matters....

This post links back to one I made in January:

your most recent workout is the most important....and stay low carb

in that one I pointed out research that each workout was important, each session had an immediate impact on making you healthier. It is not just an ongoing state that you are creating....but also you are benefitting from each time you train (with certain caveats).

Anyway I saw this study today and it seems to indicate similar things: the conclusion is that :

These results demonstrate an important mechanism by which each individual exercise session may incrementally reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women.

It is there again, every session matters...everyone has an impact. As was pointed out in comments on the last post, this is motivational. What you do in this immediate workout will have a benefit...it will make you healthier.

Here is the abstract:

Plasma triglyceride concentrations are rapidly reduced following individual bouts of endurance exercise in women.

t is known that chronic endurance training leads to improvements in the lipoprotein profile, but less is known about changes that occur during postexercise recovery acutely. We analyzed triglyceride (TG), cholesterol classes and apolipoproteins in samples collected before, during and after individual moderate- and hard-intensity exercise sessions in men and women that were isoenergetic between intensities. Young healthy men (n = 9) and young healthy women (n = 9) were studied under three different conditions with diet unchanged between trials: (1) before, during and 3 h after 90 min of exercise at 45% VO(2)peak (E45); (2) before, during and 3 h after 60 min of exercise at 65% VO(2)peak (E65), and (3) in a time-matched sedentary control trial (C). At baseline, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) was higher in women than men (P < 0.05). In men and in women, total cholesterol (TC), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), HDL-C, apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I), apolipoprotein B (apoB), and LDL peak particle size were unaltered by exercise either during exertion or after 3 h of recovery. In women, but not in men, average plasma TG was significantly reduced below C at 3 h postexercise by approximately 15% in E45 and 25% in E65 (P < 0.05) with no significant difference between exercise intensities. In summary, plasma TG concentration rapidly declines following exercise in women, but not in men. These results demonstrate an important mechanism by which each individual exercise session may incrementally reduce the risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) in women.

Exercise dependence?

Well some studies just make you go "eh?"

Exercise dependence and the drive for muscularity in male bodybuilders, power lifters, and fitness lifters.

Researchers have hypothesized differences in exercise dependence and drive for muscularity between bodybuilders and power lifters, while others have not found the predicted differences. This study assessed 146 weight lifters (bodybuilders, n=59; power lifters, n=47; fitness lifters, n=40) on the Exercise Dependence Scale, Bodybuilding Dependence Scale, and the Drive for Muscularity Scale. Results showed that bodybuilders and power lifters were significantly higher than fitness lifters on EDS Total, 7 EDS scales, and the 3 BDS scales. In contrast, power lifters were found to be significantly higher on DMS Total and DMS Behavior scales than bodybuilders. The regression results suggest that exercise dependence may be directly related to the drive for muscularity.

First of all it is surprising that there are three scales:

• Exercise Dependence;
• Bodybuilding Dependence; and
  
• Drive for Muscularity.
  

So the more muscular you want to be, the more addicted you are to exercise. No real surprise, but it does make you think about how much exercise is driven by body image.... It is like Keith Thomas said about body image, in the context of Americans, but I think it is generally true about Britain too:

American popular culture, more than any other, is obsessed with body shape and images on American websites are generally representations of the website owner’s ideal or of people in progress along a before and after sequence. One of the most popular search terms which brings people to my website is ‘ideal male body shape’, but they’ll be disappointed to find uninspiring but honest pictures of me there – plus a critical discussion of the recent obsession with male body shape.

I am all for looking good but surely there is more to it ...... like health?

It is multifactoral....

The other day Skyler mentioned a book he was reading. He said:

Lessons from “The Blue Zones.” I think there’s some good information here, especially for those who wish to impart a black and white view into diet and exercise.

I was intrigued. I looked around and found the relevant website, and also ordered the book from Amazon.

The book tries to pull out some lessons about living a long healthy life by looking at the factors which some really lon lived communities around the world have in common:

Here at BlueZones.com, we've organized these behaviors into four main categories:

Move Naturally – Make your home, community and workplace present you with natural ways to move. Focus on activities you love, like gardening, walking and playing with your family.

Right Outlook – Know and be able to articulate your sense of purpose, and ensure your day is punctuated with periods of calm.

Eat Wisely – Instead of groping from fad diet to fad diets, use time-honored strategies for eating 20% less at meals. Avoid meat and processed food and drink a couple of glasses of wine daily.

Belong to the Right Tribe – Surround yourself with the right people, make the effort to connect or reconnect with your religion and put loved ones first.

It is worth digging around the site, there are some fascinating ideas in there.

It is an interesting book. What it brought home to me is the importance of thinking multifactorally.

We often tend to think in terms of a single factor - diet, exercise, stress, sunshine vitamin D or whatever. It is however simplistic to think about a single factor. We don't live like that - we are not in carefully controlled experiments with one variable at a time changing - there are lots of things at play. We need to think more broadly. It is not X or Y....usually it is X & Y & Z & A & B etc.....

The idea of there being lots of factors to bring into the mix came up in my interview with Keith and was raised in a recent comment by jleeger on this blog:

I'm always curious as to the value-judgments (and reasons behind them) that we place on things.

"Paleo" or "EV" is no different.

Were humans "freer" in a "paleo" tribe? Is one technology "better" than another? Does "paleo" as a practice extend the lifespan beyond basic, "simple-living?"

I'm still unconvinced that all or any of these "methods" we find today - from Xfit to Z-Phase to Paleo/EV to HIIT - are in any way "single" answers unto themselves.

They reveal the results a person can expect on their own basis, but also, necessarily limit development in other areas.

For instance, none of those hobbies asks its participants to become a better singer, or to learn to sew/knit, or carve wood.

Similarly, none of them teaches people how to be better at business, or how to make a living.

Taken for what they are, they all have value. But in the end, all of these "methods" are just different lenses through which to view a larger reality.

Restricting yourself to any one of them is madness.

Keep thinking......

Art DeVany comments on my interview with Keith Thomas

I thought I'd point out that Art DeVany has made some comments about my interview with Keith Thomas. His thoughts are - as ever - engaging and provoking.

As to the curious concern Chris asks Keith to comment on about the libertarian slant that sometimes perturbs some people or may be seen as egotism on my part, that attitude comes from two sources:

1. I had to take responsibility for my family's health in the face of the evidence that my our doctors were giving us bad advice regarding the treatment of their type 1 diabetes.

2. my research in economics and complex systems taught me that the order in human physiology---a truly decentalized, complex system operating far from equilibrium---is an emergent property, not one that is determined by top down control. This is true also of a life of freedom. There is no neglect of social interactions or the state of the world; indeed, these are part of the constraints and institutions that help to shape an emergent order.

3. Hunter gatherer societies are very flat and have almost no hierarchical structure (but for some male and age dominance that is primarily earned through knowledge and physical prowress), that is a legacy of agriculture and control of water resources---the hydrological state, not a natural order.

The Paleo/EF movement, if there is one, emerged out of the open and very disordered information space of the blogosphere and from many individuals communicating ideas and experience. So, relax and enjoy the individualism that has made this new science take form and let all share in its findings. I never tried to rush my book out to stake a claim on this knowledge and had I done so, I don't think the movement would have spread as it has. Sharing the information openly was the only way this was going to go anywhere. The genetic research is coming out everywhere now and revising many notions of health. Yet, it is revealing the complex networks of gene expression and hormonal and signalling pathways that take us farther into the realm of complexity. (from here)

Incidentally, my question about the libertarianism of some wings of the paleo movement was not directed at Art. I always find his stuff very inspiring, motivating and challenging intellectually. He makes me think and analyse - which is good.

Interesting thoughts though. With respect to individualism and freedom, I sometimes wonder how free or individual we could be in a hunter gatherer society. The individuals might soon be ostracized for the good of the tribe?

When I am 71 I want to be able to do this!

This one gets a bit boring, but check out his abs at 6:30



According to the note on YouTube,

he alternates 100+ press ups and 100+ ab wheel rolls every day. the result of 30 years healthy living and a daily dose of cod liver oil. legend!

An amazing 5 year old.....

This is freaky. I must admit I wonder how "healthy" this is for the kid.



There are other videos that I can't embed....but check out the kid's physique in this one!

High-Intensity Intervals Vs. Traditional Exercise

This one caught my eye because it was about High Intensity Exercise....so I thought Body by Science. Actually it is just another study on intervals.

Intervals - good for cardiorespiratory fitness but not necessarily for:

• lowering the subjects resting heart rate,
• lowering fat percentage or
• reducing the ratio between total and HDL plasma cholesterol.

Increasing total bone mass and lean body mass needs weight training.

Interesting material.

High-Intensity Training Vs. Traditional Exercise Interventions for Promoting Health

PURPOSE:: to determine the effectiveness of brief intense interval training as exercise intervention for promoting health and evaluate potential benefits with reference to common interventions; i.e. prolonged exercise and strength training. METHODS:: 36 untrained men were divided into groups that completed 12 weeks of intense interval running (INT; total training time 40 min a week), prolonged running ( approximately 150 min/week), strength training ( approximately 150 min/week) or continued their habitual life-style without participation in physical training. RESULTS:: The improvement in cardiorespiratory fitness was superior in INT (14+/-2% increase in VO2max) compared to the other two exercise interventions (7+/-2% and 3+/-2% increases). The blood glucose concentration 2 hours following oral ingestion of 75 g of glucose was lowered to a similar extent following training in the INT (from 6.1+/-0.6 to 5.1+/-0.4 mM; P<0.05) and the prolonged running group (from 5.6 +/-1.5 to 4.9+/-1.1 mM; P<0.05). In contrast, INT was less efficient than prolonged running for lowering the subjects resting heart rate, fat percentage and reducing the ratio between total and HDL plasma cholesterol. Furthermore, total bone mass and lean body mass remained unchanged in the INT group, while both these parameters were increased by the strength training intervention. CONCLUSIONS:: INT for 12 weeks is an effective training stimulus for improvement of cardiorespiratory fitness and glucose tolerance, but in relation to the treatment of hyperlipidemia and obesity it is less effective than prolonged training. Furthermore and in contrast to strength training, 12 weeks of INT had no impact on muscle mass or indices of skeletal health.

ketogenic diet plus weight training

So, it seems (for overweight women)

• Resistance exercise in combination with a ketogenic diet reduces body fat without significantly changing Lean body mass (LBM)
  
• Resistance exercise on a regular diet may increase LBM without significantly affecting fat mass.

So to lose fat and maintain muscle do weights on a low carb diet?

The full text is available:


Resistance training in overweight women on a ketogenic diet conserved lean body mass while reducing body fat

Keep your veggies in the light?

Here is an interesting little report:

Far from being a food spoiler, the fluorescent lighting in supermarkets actually can boost the nutritional value of fresh spinach, scientists are reporting. The finding could lead to improved ways of preserving and enhancing the nutritional value of spinach and perhaps other veggies, they suggest in a study in ACS' bi-weekly Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

The full text of the study is available. Here is the abstract:

Current retail marketing conditions allow produce to receive artificial light 24 h per day during its displayed shelf life. Essential human-health vitamins [ascorbic acid (vit C), folate (vit B9), phylloquinone (vit K1), α-tocopherol (vit E), and the carotenoids lutein, violaxanthin, zeaxanthin, and β-carotene (provit A)] also are essential for photosynthesis and are biosynthesized in plants by light conditions even under chilling temperatures. Spinach leaves, notably abundant in the aforementioned human-health compounds, were harvested from flat-leaf 'Lazio' and crinkle-leafed 'Samish' cultivars at peak whole-plant maturity as baby (top- and midcanopy) and larger (lower-canopy) leaves. Leaves were placed as a single layer in commercial, clear-polymer retail boxes and stored at 4 °C for up to 9 days under continuous light (26.9 μmol·m2 ·s) or dark. Top-canopy, baby-leaf spinach generally had higher concentrations of all bioactive compounds, on a dry weight basis, with the exception of carotenoids, than bottom-canopy leaves. All leaves stored under continuous light generally had higher levels of all bioactive compounds, except β-carotene and violaxanthin, and were more prone to wilting, especially the flat-leafed cultivar. All leaves stored under continuous darkness had declining or unchanged levels of the aforementioned bioactive compounds. Findings from this study revealed that spinach leaves exposed to simulated retail continuous light at 4 °C, in clear plastic containers, were overall more nutritionally dense (enriched) than leaves exposed to continuous darkness.

Low Carb diets reverse clogged arteries

I spotted this on the BBC the other day.

Actually, it is not just low carb diets. The researchers looked at 3 different diets:

Researchers studied 140 people (88 percent men, average age 51, Body Mass Index 30.4) who were randomly assigned to a low-carbohydrate, low fat or Mediterranean diet as part of the Dietary Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial-carotid (DIRECT) study.

What doesn't really hit the headlines is that while each of the diets was effective in reversing the atherosclerosis process, the low carb diet was the most effective in terms of its favorable effects on lipids in the blood.

Even the BBC note:

"Some people suggest that low-carbohydrate diets are more likely to clog arteries, but we did not see that."

Sounds like something for Dr Davies




Here is the study abstract:

Dietary Intervention to Reverse Carotid Atherosclerosis.

BACKGROUND: -It is currently unknown whether dietary weight loss interventions can induce regression of carotid atherosclerosis. Methods and Results-In a 2-year Dietary Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial-Carotid (DIRECT-Carotid) study, participants were randomized to low-fat, Mediterranean, or low-carbohydrate diets and were followed for changes in carotid artery intima-media thickness, measured with standard B-mode ultrasound, and carotid vessel wall volume (VWV), measured with carotid 3D ultrasound. Of 140 complete images of participants (aged 51 years; body mass index, 30 kg/m(2); 88% men), higher baseline carotid VWV was associated with increased intima-media thickness, age, male sex, baseline weight, blood pressure, and insulin levels (P<0.05 for all). After 2 years of dietary intervention, we observed a significant 5% regression in mean carotid VWV (-58.1 mm(3;) 95% confidence interval, -81.0 to -35.1 mm(3); P<0.001), with no differences in the low-fat, Mediterranean, or low-carbohydrate groups (-60.69 mm(3), -37.69 mm(3), -84.33 mm(3), respectively; P=0.28). Mean change in intima-media thickness was -1.1% (P=0.18). A reduction in the ratio of apolipoprotein B100 to apolipoprotein A1 was observed in the low-carbohydrate compared with the low-fat group (P=0.001). Participants who exhibited carotid VWV regression (mean decrease, -128.0 mm(3); 95% confidence interval, -148.1 to -107.9 mm(3)) compared with participants who exhibited progression (mean increase, +89.6 mm(3); 95% confidence interval, +66.6 to +112.6 mm(3)) had achieved greater weight loss (-5.3 versus -3.2 kg; P=0.03), greater decreases in systolic blood pressure (-6.8 versus -1.1 mm Hg; P=0.009) and total homocysteine (-0.06 versus +1.44 mumol/L; P=0.04), and a higher increase of apolipoprotein A1 (+0.05 versus -0.00 g/L; P=0.06). In multivariate regression models, only the decrease in systolic blood pressure remained a significant independent modifiable predictor of subsequent greater regression in both carotid VWV (beta=0.23; P=0.01) and intima-media thickness (beta=0.28; P=0.008) levels. Conclusions-Two-year weight loss diets can induce a significant regression of measurable carotid VWV. The effect is similar in low-fat, Mediterranean, or low-carbohydrate strategies and appears to be mediated mainly by the weight loss-induced decline in blood pressure.