Conditioning Research

In all the discussions about how different diets may or may not promote insulin resistance, one thing that often gets missed out of the discussion is the role of the muscles.  Empty the muscles of glycogen through hard exercise and they will get more insulin sensitive to suck up the sugar out of the blood.  ( Nigel has been trying to explain this but that is a different topic) It is something that I talk about in Hillfit as a side benefit of strength training and an issue that Doug McGuff and John Little go into in Body by Science .  Anyway, interesting to see this study come through this morning - at least some association between strength levels and markers of insulin sensitivity Muscular strength and markers of insulin resistance in European adolescents: the HELENA Study The aim of the study was to examine the association of muscular strength with markers of insulin resistance in European adolescents. The study comprised a total of 1,053 adolescents (499 mal...

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I saw this on Todd's Blog - Better Movement. Superb stuff  - thanks Todd!

I have spent the last week with my parents. My Dad has dementia - mixed Alzheimer's and vascular - which is a cruel condition. It is painful to watch his bewilderment at the world, terrible to see my mum's heartbreak at losing her man, yet wonderful to see them both retain such tenderness towards each other. It made me realise that so much of all the drama in life does not matter, including all the petty debates around diet and exercise. All the energy that we all expend studying and writing on training and eating mean little in the end. 75 or 80 years on this earth are pretty short. But I am also thinking of what does matter. Love and relationships Happiness Health and function. It is that last one that keeps me going here on this blog. Health and function If there is any thing that I can do to avoid ending like my dad I want to try to do it. Brain health, sufficient strength, balance, functional movement (climbing stairs, getting out of a chair) good bowel functi...

This research is quite disturbing, but not surprising.     Playing on computers is displacing outdoor activity such that even since 1998 the ability to do some pretty basic movements and activities has declined markedly.   Certainly a worry for the future functioning of society. We are training people to sit indoors at desks and we will reap the consequences in poor health both physical and psychological. Academics led by Dr Gavin Sandercock, a children's fitness expert at Essex University, studied how strong a group of 315 Essex 10-year-olds in 2008 were compared with 309 children the same age in 1998. They found that: ■ The number of sit-ups 10-year-olds can do declined by 27.1% between 1998 and 2008 ■ Arm strength fell by 26% and grip strength by 7% ■ While one in 20 children in 1998 could not hold their own weight when hanging from wall bars, one in 10 could not do so in 2008. "This is probably due to changes in activity patterns among English 10...

I interviewed Frank here

Interesting little abstract here in that the implication is that it is not about exercise per se but about the dangers of inactivity. Lack of regular physical exercise or too much inactivity. PURPOSE To discuss the current data that acute periods of physical inactivity are harmful to health. RECENT FINDINGS: Bed rest prescribed for recovery from clinical conditions causes changes in thousands of mRNAs in leg muscles within days. Humans genetically more susceptible to metabolic disorders (low birth weight babies and type 2 diabetic offspring) are as, or more, susceptible to further metabolic dysfunction by the environmental perturbation of bed rest, as compared with healthy controls without these risk factors. High daily accumulations of sitting are not only associated with enhanced metabolic risk, but current findings report that increased sitting time leads to a reduction in insulin sensitivity. Reductions in walking or in ambulatory activity (lower step numbers taken by healt...

Back to it now.... I took that photo a couple of days ago, just south of Edinburgh.  It was beautiful. I spent a few days with family and again it puts things in perspective.  All this fitness stuff has to improve your life, your happiness, your health and longevity.   That is so much more than performance. The metric has to be health and happiness.

This one caught my eye! Google knows everything, so we tried ‘What is the health cost of a week of physical inactivity compared with the health cost of cigarette smoking?’ 915 000 results provided no clear answer. PubMed, on the other hand, was concise. Two results but no help. What is your guess? Does a day of physical inactivity affect your health like just a couple of smokes (no big deal), or like a packet of 20? How much physical inactivity damages health as much as a carton of cigarettes? Personal Healthcare utilisation attributable to physical inactivity=US$300 annually Given Google's lack of help, we reused some backs of envelopes. It is really not hard. The US population in 1999 was 272 million. The percentage inactive ranged from 29% to 48%, depending on your source. You could use both of these numbers for a sensitivity analysis, but let's be optimistic: 29%=79 million inactive Americans in 1999. These folks racked up $24 billion in healthcare costs in 1999.1 So, the ...

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.

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 exercis...

Maybe. It is one more reason to train anyway. My Dad has had a series of strokes recently and so I am interested in anything that might limit damage. Exercise Preconditioning Reduces Neuronal Apoptosis in Stroke by Up-regulating HSP-70 (HSP-72) and ERK 1/2. Exercise preconditioning induces neuroprotection after stroke......Our results indicate that exercise diminishes neuronal injury in stroke by up-regulating HSP-70 and ERK 1/2.

Matt and Seth have been posting interesting things recently on the so-called hygiene hypothesis Here is another study Think again about keeping little ones so squeaky clean "Contrary to assumptions related to earlier studies, our research suggests that ultra-clean, ultra-hygienic environments early in life may contribute to higher levels of inflammation as an adult, which in turn increases risks for a wide range of diseases," said Thomas McDade, lead author of the study, associate professor of anthropology in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research. Relatively speaking, humans only recently have lived in such hyper-hygienic environments, he stressed. I had all this explained to me recently by an immunologist and it is more complicated than it sounds in terms of balancing immune responses....but the overall picture is that we were not designed to live in such sterile conditions . I've heard of a...

OK here is an interesting one. (It is epidemiology and as ever association doesn't equal causality , but it is interesting....hypothesis forming as my scientist friends tell me) A systematic review of the evidence supporting a causal link between dietary factors and coronary heart disease. What is associated with heart disease? intake of trans-fatty acids and foods with a high glycemic index or load What isn't: total fat; alpha-linolenic acid; meat; eggs; and milk. What is protective? intake of vegetables, nuts, and "Mediterranean" and high-quality dietary patterns (whatever they are - I think lots of meat and few fruits is high quality!) What isn't: supplementary vitamin E and ascorbic acid (vitamin C); So it sounds like: meat, eggs, milk, low carb, veggies and nuts. Don't worry about fat....don't take supplements?

Here is a disturbing new study for those of us who spend our days sat down at the office..... The more sitting down you do....the more likely it is that you will die - irrespective of what leisure time activity you do! (Of course we are all going to die eventually....) So stand up! In addition to the promotion of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity and a healthy weight, physicians should discourage sitting for extended periods. Sitting Time and Mortality from All Causes, Cardiovascular Disease, and Cancer PURPOSE:: Although moderate-to-vigorous physical activity is related to premature mortality, the relationship between sedentary behaviors and mortality has not been fully explored and may represent a different paradigm than that associated with lack of exercise. We prospectively examined sitting time and mortality in a representative sample of 17,013 Canadians 18-90 yr of age. METHODS:: Evaluation of daily sitting time (almost none of the time, one fourth of the time, half of th...

I posted a couple of videos ( here and here ) last week from Exuberant Animal . They have just posted a superb essay - Pathology on Parade - that is well worth reading. It is about observations of bodybuilders - and the bodybuilding culture - at the recent Arnold Bodybuilding Festival. where’s the health? In the end, the whole experience brought me to an entirely new level of misunderstanding. For years I have agonized over the state of the modern human body, especially our epidemic of sedentary living and physical apathy. But here I observed something altogether different. The bodybuilders weren’t sedentary and they obviously weren’t obese, but they certainly weren’t healthy. Outside of the convention center, I observed normal Americans as they passed: they were fat and sedentary as usual. As I stood on the sidewalk and looked around, the contrast was stark: On one side of the door, a parade of diabetic adipose tissue. On the other, a parade of obsessive-compulsive muscle and sili...

Well, is that what this study says? Consumption of red or processed meat does not predict risk factors for coronary heart disease Objectives: To investigate whether a high consumption of red or processed meat is associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Subjects/Methods: The subjects were 517 men and 635 women, who were members of the Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development, 1946 birth cohort. Assessment of diet was carried out at two time points 1989 and 1999 with outcome measures collected in 1999. Food intake data were recorded in 5-day diaries. Meat consumption was estimated by adding individual meat portions to the meat fractions of composite dishes. Results: There was no significant association between red or processed meat consumption in 1989 and 1999 and serum cholesterol concentrations and blood pressure measured in 1999. The combined intake of red and processed meat in 1999 had a significant positive association with blood ...

Another interesting new study. People need to be encouraged to be active. Some people are put off exercise because they might find it hard to find the time for say a 30 minute workout. (I think everyone can find the time for a 30 minute walk but....) However 10 separate 3 minute walks are just as good at giving certain health benefits.... Accumulating short bouts of brisk walking reduces postprandial plasma triacylglycerol concentrations and resting blood pressure in healthy young men Background : Physical activity recommendations promote the accumulation of aerobic activity in bouts of 10 min. It is important to determine whether shorter bouts of activity can influence health. Objective : We compared the effects of accumulating ten 3-min bouts of brisk walking with those of one 30-min bout of brisk walking on postprandial plasma triacylglycerol concentrations and resting blood pressure. Design: Fifteen healthy young men completed three 2-d trials 1 wk apart in a randomized, repeat...

I like this quote : Don’t you just love that feeling of your heart thumping in your chest when you are free to exercise again after a few days of being way too sedentary? There is a visceral joy about being alive that has to be almost as good as the feeling of removing an annoying bit of dental plaque that has been there for days when you can't find the floss. I digress – the paper sheds light on the physiological process that probably makes the difference between longevity and an early grave for many, many folk. Read about it and then turn research into practice Here is the article (well the abstract of the article) about which he is talking: Physical activity throughout life reduces the atherosclerotic wall process in the carotid artery Background: Good cardiorespiratory fitness has been associated with a reduced risk for clinical events of atherosclerotic vascular diseases. It is still unclear how this relates to a slower progression of the early atherosclerosis wall process. M...

Just walking will do you a lot of good. Note that intensity - walking pace - is also important. Walking and primary prevention: a meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies Objective : To quantify the association between walking and the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and all-cause mortality in healthy men and women. Data sources: Medline, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Web of Science databases were searched to May 2007. Study selection: Prospective epidemiological studies of walking and CVD and all-cause mortality. Results : 18 prospective studies were included in the overall analysis, which incorporated 459 833 participants free from CVD at baseline with 19 249 cases at follow-up. From the meta-analysis the pooled hazard ratio of CVD in the highest walking category compared with the lowest was 0.69, (95% CI 0.61 to 0.77, p Conclusions : The results suggest walking is inversely associated with clinical disease endpoints and largely support the current guidelines ...