Nutrition

Lots of Stuff to Read: Sports drinks with protein, Negative phys. ed teachers, Running shoes and knee damage, Why crunches don’t work, Science of weight loss

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Wow!  There’s a lot of good reading out there on the health & fitness front.  I can’t comment on all of it but I’ll refer you to several articles that may pique your interest.  I’ll get back to recovery strategies for endurance athletes later.

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Recovery & Restoration Methods for Endurance Athletes Part I: Nutrition

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An acquaintance who’s a competitive road cyclist asked about protein consumption, particularly post-ride.  He got me thinking on a variety of issues regarding the topic of recovery and restoration for endurance athletes.  I’ll start with post-workout nutrition

There are several goals here.  The first task is to rehydrate.   No matter how much you drink during a long ride or run you’re going to be dehydrated.  It’s normal and not dangerous despite widespread belief to the contrary.  Rehydration is very simple despite the many complicated formulas you may have read or heard about.  Drink if you’re thirsty and stop when your thirst is quinched.  Beyond that, check your urine color.  It should be clear or very pale yellow.  Dark yellow means you need to drink more.  So what should you drink?

Wait 'til you're off the bike to make this.

Wait 'til you're off the bike to make this.

Water is a good start, but we also need to replenish muscle glycogen and slow the breakdown of muscle protein due to the stress of a long workout.  Therefore a blend of simple carbohydrate (as opposed to complex carbs) and protein is ideal.  On this topic, the following is from an article by Bob Seebohar written for PT on the Net:

“Recent research has proven that consuming protein with a carbohydrate source versus a carbohydrate alone during recovery is beneficial. In fact, one study showed that the addition of protein to carbohydrate post-training led to a more rapid replenishment of glycogen and was slightly higher in glycogen restoration at four hours post training than just carbohydrate alone. Several other research studies found a reduction of total free radical buildup (by 69 percent), increased insulin levels (by 70 percent), decreased post-exercise muscle damage (by 36 percent) and increased muscle glycogen levels (2.2 fold). There is no doubt that the addition of protein to recovery nutrition is important and useful for endurance athletes. These studies used a ratio of 4:1 carbohydrate to protein intake, and while this ratio is not accepted by all scientists, the data from the studies act as a springboard for future studies that will explore and find the optimum ratio of carbohydrates to protein.

Current recommendations to enhance glycogen resynthesis post-training include eating 50 to 100 grams of rapidly absorbed carbohydrate and 10 to 20 grams of protein within the first 15 minutes after the completion of exercise. Continue this every two hours until the next complete meal.”

Based on this information, what might you post-ride/run/swim meal look like?  Plain old chocolate milk can be a very good start.  Chocolate milk has a nice blend of simple sugar, protein, and other nutrients that are good for us.  Plus it tastes good so it’s easy to drink.  It’s also quite a bit cheaper than many of the commercial athletic drinks.  You could also blend a smoothie with milk, ice, fruit, and perhaps some protein powder.  (There are all sorts of protein powders out there: whey, casein, egg, soy to name a few.  I’ll skip the science and tell you that directly after a hard workout, whey protein is the best choice.)

Regarding daily intake for a hard-exercising endurance athlete, the common recommendation is about 1.5 grams per kilogram (2.2 lbs.) of body weight.  Here’s how to determine your intake: (Your weight/2.2) x 1.5 = your daily recommended protein intake.

From my own personal experience, I can say that I have a very favorable opinion of Hammer nutrition products, especially something called Recoverite.  I first used Recoverite last year when I was training for the Bicycle Tour of Colorado.  I did a 90-something mile ride that started into an ugly headwind and took me through a decent portion of Colorado’s Front Range including climbs up High Grade and Shadow Mountain.  I got home and I was incredibly fatigued–tired to the bone on an epic scale.  I imagined I’d be sore, tight and tired for at least one if not two days.  To recover, I sat in cold water, drank Recoverite (which contains whey protein and amino acids which are building blocks of protein) and then drank an energy drink containing caffeine.  The next, much to my surprise, I felt amazing!  I wasn’t the least bit sore or lethargic.  In fact, I went on a short run.

But what was the magic ingredient?  The protein drink, the cold water, or the caffeine?  Hard to say but so what?  Something in that mix worked very well for me.  I’ll discuss cold water immersion and caffeine plus other aspects of recovery in subsequent posts.

Finally, for a very thorough analysis of not only post-workout nutrition but all aspects of nutrient timing, the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition offers this position statement.  This covers all athletes, not just endurance athletes.

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Vitamin Supplementation: Good? Bad? Or Ugly?

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As a personal trainer, I’m often asked about dietary supplements and vitamins.  My position has long been that most dietary supplements are not needed by most people.  Rather, I advise clients to eat a common sense healthy diet full of real food: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, beans, nuts, seeds, and some lean animal products if they like.  Still, I’ve figured that a multi-vitamin probably doesn’t do any harm and may do some good.  On this topic, I may be wrong.

Tasty...

Tasty...

Vita Myth: Do supplements really do any good?, an article from Slate, offers several references to research suggesting that A) there is almost no link between multi-vitamin consumption and decreased mortality, and B) consumption of individual antioxidants like vitamins A, C, and E; beta carotene, selenium, and folate may actually increase mortality risk by speeding the growth of cancers.

“But not only do antioxidant supplements fail to protect against heart disease, stroke, and cancer; they actually increase the risk of death, according to a 2007 analysis of research on more than 232,000 people, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, as well as other studies.”

These antioxidants are often taken in order to cleanse our bodies of free-radicals, substances which are implicated in a range of ailments including cancer.   Researchers have found that “certain kinds of antioxidant pills can feed latent cancers growing in the body, for instance, and reduce the effectiveness of chemotherapy.”  Apparently these good-for-us substances in some cases are also good for replication of cancer cells.  Researchers also suggest that perhaps free-radicals are actually necessary to our good health, and that among other functions they may help kill cancer cells.

Who knew!?

The article explains among other things, the placebo effect of taking vitamins to cure colds, and why we ever took vitamins in the first place (nutritional deficiencies which resulted in diseases such as scurvy).  There also seems to be some evidence that some consumption of vitamin supplements by some populations–folate for pregnant women for example–seems prudent.  The overall message though is that these various vitamins which are found in food simply aren’t all that beneficial once they’re extracted and put into a pill.

Beyond this article, there are a few other factors regarding vitamin consumption worth discussing.  Let’s consider Total cereal which famously tells us that one bowl has 100% of various vitamins and minerals.  Sounds great right?  Sounds convenient.  One bowl of this stuff and we’re set for the day!  Not so fast.  Our bodies can only use or absorb so much of a particular vitamin or mineral at a time.  That one bowl may indeed have all the vitamins you need for that day but your body will only use what it needs at that time.  The rest is digested and excreted.

fruits-and-vegetables

Hey now!!!

Further, we’ve learned that in many cases, in order for vitamins to work the way we want them to, they must be consumed in the presence of any number of other substances.  Food is remarkably complex.  There are literally thousands of molecules in any individual food.  The vitamins in the food need the rest of the food to do their work.  The big picture is very clear: Vitamins in isolation won’t do the trick.  Food is required.

Should we be surprised by any of this?  Once again the American quest for convenience has led us away from good health.  Again, science has tried to out think Mother Nature, and again the results are of questionable use.  Common sense often turns out to be an amazingly accurate guide.  To anyone seeking weight loss, better health and a longer life, I offer this advice: Eat right most of the time.  Work hard often.

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NEAT and the Benefits of Hunger: Part III

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In Part I discussed Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT).  The biochemistry of hunger and the possible benefits of hunger were the issues in Part II.  I ended by posing the question of whether or not consuming several small meals per day was more or less conducive to losing weight than the popular admonition to eat up to six small meals per day.  It seems the verdict is very much out.  The answer is: It depends…

To start with, here’s an article by registered dietitian Kristine Clark writing for the IDEA Health & Fitness Association.  Clark first offers wise observations on the exact nature of hunger and satiety.  Hunger being the main reason we should eat at all and satiety being the signal to stop.  She writes,

“‘Unfortunately, many people are out of touch with the feeling of satiety.”  Marion Nestle—researcher, author and professor of nutrition at New York University—says, ‘You can’t teach satiety.  People have to learn it themselves.’  The bottom line is that recognition of both hunger and satiety is key to appropriate eating.

Anyone seeking weight loss must take that statement to heart.

Clark then refers to the research from the 1960s and ’70s that associated several small meals with a leaner physique.  I won’t go into the details of the studies (references are found at the end of Clark’s article) but both studies show weaknesses worth considering.  The small sample sizes and the use of a 24-hr diet recall interview in one study make me question to what degree we should hold to the implications of these studies.  I’m not the only one thinking this.  For further reading on the strength or lack thereof of nutritional studies, look here and here.  (And remember these sorts of weaknesses the next time a news anchor tells you that some study shows This causes That. Odds are the cause and effect aren’t that strongly linked.)

Most importantly, Clark interviews Dr. Barbara Rolls of the Penn St. Nutritional Science Department.  Essentially she says that meal frequency isn’t the key issue–It’s how much you eat!

“As long as people hold their calorie intake constant—as long as they eat less than what they normally eat, whether in six or three increments —they will lose weight, regardless of the frequency.”
– Barbara Rolls, PhD

So it should be obvious.  The key issue is energy intake vs. energy expenditure.  This is no revelation.  Whether it’s three, four, five or six meals per day, if we eat too much then we get fat.  (I’ll add my own opinion to this equation and say that the quality and the nature of our food–real food vs. food-like substances–is of tremendous importance to physique goals as well.)

I’m surprised by the fairly weak correlation between the several-small-meals strategy and successful weight loss.  I’ve been saying this to clients as if it were a settled subject.  I will say though I believe the first time I ever heard the suggestion to eat many times throughout the day was as advice to bodybuilders who were trying to gain weight, not lose it.  Bodybuilders need the raw materials to add body mass so loading up on food several times a day is about the only way to do it.  In contrast, the general public doesn’t have that need, and it stands to reason that by many among us may easily eat too much if we’re eating up to six times a day.

No second helping for me, thanks.

No second helping for me, thanks.

Finally, I didn’t know exactly where to put this, but General Stanley McChrystal, the current commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, eats one meal per day!  This man is a dedicated runner with a Special Forces background.  One meal per day…

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NEAT and the Benefits of Hunger: Part II

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Previously we looked at the deliterious health effects of our seated, sedentary modern lifestyle; and we saw remarkable value of NEAT, or Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.  Essentially, sitting a lot correlates to early death while moving around a lot makes you healthy–even if this movement isn’t what you might call “exercise.”

Part II of the discussion revolves around the article Movement comes with appetite, found on Science Daily.  We’re told of findings by a Swiss research team, whose study is found in the journal Nature.  (The full study can be accessed here for a fee.)  The science here is fairly complicated so I’m going to try and avoid the overly complex details.  Essentially, the star of the study is a molecule found in the liver and hypothalmus called Foxa2.  Foxa2 is found in humans and other animals.  Here we go with an attempt at explaining why Foxa2 is important.

Foxa2 found in the liver affects fat burning.  It’s also found in the hypothalmus which affects daily rhythm, sleep, intake of food and sexual behavior.  Researchers also observed that Foxa2 helps form two proteins (MCH and orexin) which trigger both the intake of food and spontaneous movement.  Foxa2 is blocked by insulin which is released when we eat.  In a fasted state–between meals for instance–insulin is absent and Foxa2 is active.  Thus animals tend to be more active while hungry.

If mammals are hungry, they are more alert and physically active. In short, they hunt and look for food. “If you watch a cat or a dog before feeding it, you can see this very clearly,” Markus Stoffel, a professor from the Institute of Molecular Systems Biology at ETH Zurich.

Researchers found a Foxa2 disorder in obese mice.  High levels of insulin blunted Foxa2 which in turn reduced production of the two proteins that triggered hunger and movement.  To prove this, the researchers bred mice with ultra-active Foxa2 production and the result were mice with high production of the two proteins.  These mice lost fatty tissue and formed larger muscles. Their sugar and fat metabolism increased considerably.

The practical suggestion from Stoffel is that we should be hungry sometimes.  “The body needs fasting periods to stay healthy.”  Hunger promotes movement and thus all the benefits we expect from an active lifestyle.  Both the study’s evidence and the suggestions from this researcher are contrary to much of the popular nutrition advice.

The suggestion that one should eat small frequent meals throughout the day (aka grazing) is standard advice found on almost any list (look here, here, here, here and here for starters) of healthy eating tips.  I’ve told clients this many times and I’ve followed this bit of common knowledge for years.  The reasoning behind the several-small-meals tactic is 1) eating throughout the day keeps the metabolism up, and 2) if we become too hungry then we tend to overeat at mealtime.  Is it possible we’ve been doing it wrong?  Could three meals a day in fact make us leaner and healthier?  I think the answer to that question is the same answer  to most questions: It depends.  I’ll discuss it more in Part III.

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Holiday Reading: Obesity, Wacko Cookie Diet, Strength Training, Running Research, Ice vs. Heat for Injuries

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Artwork: St. Petersburg Times, FL

Artwork: St. Petersburg Times, FL

A day of severe gluttony is headed our way like a runaway chuck wagon.  Therefore, how about a discussion of two articles on obesity?   For the Overweight, Bad Advice by the Spoonful was published back in August of this year in the New York Times Health Guide. The other, Energy Gap Useful Tool for Successful Weight Loss Strategy is from early November in Science Daily.  The two articles present very daunting insights into our fight against obesity.  The Times piece tells us the following:

  • Weight control is not simply a matter of willpower. Genes help determine the body’s “set point,” which is defended by the brain.
  • Dieting alone is rarely successful, and relapse rates are high.
  • Moderate exercise, too, rarely results in substantive long-term weight loss, which requires intensive exercise.

The article further states:

“…the notion that Americans ever ate well is suspect. In 1966, when Americans were still comparatively thin, more than two billion hamburgers already had been sold in McDonald’s restaurants, noted Dr. Barry Glassner, a sociology professor at the University of Southern California. The recent rise in obesity may have more to do with our increasingly sedentary lifestyles than with the quality of our diets.”

Our bodies are remarkably stubborn in their ability to keep us at our current weight (discussed further here).  We eat smart and healthy one day, a little less so the next.  In contrast to the Times article, from everything I read and understand, the food component of weight loss is far more powerful than the exercise component (suggested here, and here).  In fact the issue is poor eating plus a sedentary lifestyle that’s gotten our nation so heavy.  Things like this are never isolated to one cause.  (By the way, body weight isn’t the only measure of health.  Look here for more on the issue of fit vs. fat.)

There are two things not mentioned in the Times article that we should consider.  First regarding the way we ate decades ago vs. how we eat now is the presence of processed foods.  I don’t have statistics but I think it’s safe to assume that in the 1960s we were eating more fresh, unprocessed food. We now eat gobs of food every day that is packed with calories but contains very little actual nutrition.  For a sober, practical, in-depth look at our nation’s obsession with “nutritionism” you must read what Michael Pollan says in Unhappy Meals.  Another comment on Pollan’s work is found at Disease Proof.  (For truly fascinating insights into the American food system, you must read Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma and/or In Defense of Food.)

The second component of our eating we must consider is portion size.  Portion size is a tremendous component of obesity.  In recent decades past, our overall calorie intake was lower than it is now, thus there was far less obesity.  The article notes the billions of McDonald’s hamburgers that were sold but do you know what those hamburgers looked like?  You can still buy it today.  If you look at a McDonald’s menu they actually have something simply called a hamburger; not a Big Mac, Quarter Pounder, Titanic Monster Burger, or whatever.  It’s a small thing with one meat patty, pickles, onions and ketchup.  A customer in the ’60s may have gotten fries and a soft drink, but the fries came in a small paper envelope, not a cardboard crate, and the soft drink was an eight ounce cup rather than an industrial drum.

For more on portion sizes and our consumption habits, the Centers for Disease Control provide a report called Do Increased Portion sizes Affect How Much We Eat? It’s amazing to see how we can unconsciously eat a lot more than we need to if it’s sitting there in front of us.

The Science Daily article tells us that once one is obese, the body fights extra hard to stay there.  In contrast, one who never becomes obese seems far less likely to become obese.  The article discusses the Energy Gap, a term used by the American Dietetic Association to estimate the change in energy balance (intake and expenditure) behaviors required to achieve and sustain reduced body weight outcomes in individuals and populations.  We’re told that the energy gap to prevent weight gain is about 100 calories.  That is, someone can prevent weight gain with a combination of reduced energy intake and increased physical activity that amounts to 100 calories.   The news isn’t so good for those trying to lose significant amounts of weight.  The energy gap may be 200-300 calories for someone looking to lose 10%-15% of their body weight.  That means serious eating modification and quite a bit of time exercising.

According to James O. Hill, PhD,

“This analysis indicates that to create and maintain substantial weight loss (ie, obesity treatment), large behavioral changes are needed. This is in stark contrast to primary obesity prevention in which small behavioral changes can eliminate the small energy imbalance that occurs before the body has gained substantial weight. Because the body has not previously stored this ‘new’ excess energy, it does not defend against the behavioral strategies as happens when the body loses weight.”

What does all of this mean?  First, obesity is much like any other disease in that preventing it is much easier than treating it once you’ve got it.  (This makes the topic extremely relevant to the current health care debate.  Preventing obesity will result in prevention of obesity related illnesses, and we’ll all spend less on health care.)  Second, there’s much evidence to suggest that losing weight is a complex battle that is more than simply making a decision.  We have a very tenacious system wired into us (likely rooted in some prehistoric survival strategy) that makes dropping pounds extremely difficult.  It’s akin to telling the drug addict to just stop.

Just stopping–a conscious decision to change a behavior in other words–is still the heart of the issue.  Weight loss still comes down to willful decisions to make changes.  There’s no way around it.  I learned a little bit about human psychology and behavior in graduate school.  It seems that most of us adhere to changes if they’re made in small, gradual steps.  Just one healthy decision made today is one more than was made yesterday.  That’s a step toward whatever healthy goal we have in mind.  Keep making healthier daily decisions and over the course of a year, two years, 10 years and you’ll have made a lot of them.  Guess what’s around the corner though: the New Year’s Resolution.

We’re getting close to the time of year when many people will make the big decision to lose weight this year.  Gyms will be packed with people exercising like they’ve never done before–at least not since the beginning of the previous year.  They’ll make attempts to banish their favorite foods from their plates and replace it with food they’ve never much liked.  Most of these noble attempts will be abandoned by the end of February.  This is the perfect example of people making drastic lifestyle changes which cannot be maintained.  As a personal trainer, I see this happen every year.

Speaking from personal experience, I look back to childhood, high school and college and see what I ate and/or drank–and in what amounts–and I’m amazed at the amounts of junk I once consumed.  I’ve spent over a decade making changes here and there and I’ve found that it hasn’t been too terribly painful at all.  Of course I can’t extrapolate my experience out to everyone else, but it seems to me a strategy of small changes in both eating and exercise made over time, plus the decision to stick with these changes is still the best strategy to lose weight and get healthy.  If there’s a better strategy, please let me know.

Beyond that, here’s more to read on a variety of topics:

  • Are we Insane? Part II: the Cookie Diet.  Does this even need any explanation?  Cookies and dieting….  I think I’ll try breathing underwater later today, or maybe flapping my arms and flying.  (Ever notice how everyone who was on a diet… WAS on a diet?  No one stays on any of these things.)
  • To thrive longer, get stronger.  The Washington Post discusses Consumer Reports’ findings on various clinical trials of strength training.  Turns out picking up heavy objects is good for you in many ways.
  • Runners: Train less and be faster.  OK, this will be controversial to some and I’m not saying this is true for everyone all the time.  However the findings here help support some of the arguments made at Power Running that running fewer miles (low volume) while running faster (high intensity) may increase race performance.  Science Daily profiles a report in the Journal of Applied Physiology on the topic of running less but running faster.  Again, do not assume this is the be-all-end-all for everyone, but it might be exactly the strategy that will work for you.
  • Ice or Heat?  The topic of icing or heating an injury is often debated.  Like many issues of sports conditioning and rehabilitation, the jury is still out.  The following is a reprint of a comment by the late Dr. Mell Siff from the Supertraining forum:
    ICE OR HEAT?
    by Dr. Mel C SiffThe use of ice treatment may not be universally superior to the use of heat
    in enhancing recovery or rehabilitation.

    THE PROBLEM

    The use of localised or more extensive ice or cold treatment has been well
    authenticated over the years and there is little doubt that, in many cases,
    it is a highly effective and cheap method of restoration and rehabilitation.

    However, any literature searches for definitive studies that compare the
    effectiveness of ice cold versus very hot treatment of the same sort of injury are not as common as one would believe.

    It seems as if we have all accepted that heat is contraindicated largely on
    the basis of theoretical considerations or extrapolations form cases where
    bleeding is apparent. We know that heat causes blood vessels dilatation,
    temporary increase in inflammation and the decrease in blood viscosity, but
    does this necessarily imply that it will be detrimental to the course of
    restoration or rehabilitation of all sore, bruised and fatigued soft tissues?

    Why I am saying this is because I have been experimenting, much against my
    education and scientific traditions, with the use of very hot water as a
    restorative means with myself and several other athletes, some of whom are
    top pro footballers and basketballers.

    Surprisingly, this seems to diminish muscle soreness and speeded up recovery
    in many cases, especially if we use alternate hot and cold bathing. I have an
    8 ft deep jacuzzi and long lap swimming pool and have my athletes alternate
    between hot and cold immersion. Interestingly, I have found that the water
    has to be almost unbearably hot (about 108 deg F or 41C) to be optimally
    effective. Movement under these conditions also seems to be valuable
    (‘cryokinetics’ for ice old immersion and ‘thermodynamics’ for hot
    immersion).

    Certainly my comments on this controversial topic merely constitute anecdotal
    evidence at this stage, but I am curious to hear if anyone else has had
    similar experiences or come across scientific research which legitimately
    shows that dedicated ice treatment is significantly better than very hot
    treatment or ice-heat contrast methods. Failing that, is there any evidence
    that the use of heat is a general contraindication for musculoskeletal
    recovery and rehabilitation, other than cases where there is obvious bleeding
    or serious pathology?

    Are we promoting ice therapy far too liberally to the exclusion of heat
    therapy, when the latter may well also play a very helpful role in
    musculoskeletal rehabilitation? Are we unfairly proclaiming that heat is
    potentially harmful for treating any soft tissue repair? Does this attitude
    go against our recent attestations to the value of ‘holistic’ treatment?

    There have been a huge number of studies on the effect of stretching,
    jogging, supplements, heat, cold, drugs, you name it …. and virtually
    nothing has yet been found that appears to make some significant and
    consistent difference to the dissipation of DOMS. Do a Medline search
    and you will see what I mean. Many higher level weightlifters and
    ppwerlifters rarely if ever suffer from DOMS even after very heavy
    workouts, which afflicts mainly newcomers to a given exercise or
    routine – or certain more susceptible individuals. For general recovery,
    I have found it difficult to beat sensible program (or periodisation) design and
    hot-cold contrast bathing, as I have written in previous letters. Your
    recommendation to do some mild post-exercise activity probably is
    a sound idea for general relaxation and recovery, but it has not been
    shown to have any real effect on DOMS.

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Benefiber??? Are we Insane?

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My gym is currently handing out free samples of something called Benefiber.  Sounds healthy, right?  It’s got the word fiber in it and it even has the first part of the word beneficial in there too!  Fantastic…  (Also doesn’t sound much like real food, does it?  This is a food-like substance.)  What is Benefiber?  The label tells us it’s a fiber supplement, and that it “Makes Taking Fiber Easier.”  It’s a flavored sugar-free powder that comes in a small packet that’s emptied into a container of water, mixed, and drunk.  For your troubles, you’ll get a whopping three grams of fiber for only 15 calories.  Flavors include: kiwi strawberry, raspberry tea, citrus punch, cherry pomegranate, or unflavored.

So miracle of miracles, we have a fruit-flavored source of fiber that we can drink–thereby eliminating the titanic burden of actually eating a piece of fruit.  We can now rest easier.  (If this doesn’t yet sound a little koo-koo to you, then you might want to move along and find something else to occupy your time.)

Let’s back up just a little and figure out why we might be concerned with fiber at all.  It’s fairly well known that food high in fiber helps confer good health.  Fiber’s health benefits include the following: helps control blood sugar levels which probably reduces the risk of diabetes, reduces risk of heart disease, facilitates a healthy digestive tract, and fiber probably helps regulate the appetite.   Nice stuff this fiber.

So Benefiber must be good for us right?  What else is in this stuff?  Well, that’s what’s really interesting.  There are 11 ingredients, most of which are almost unpronounceable.  They’re probably nothing you could cook up in your kitchen or reach for in your pantry.  (Anyone ever brew up a hearty batch of acesulfame potassium?)   These things are remarkably complex substances that were built by people in laboratories.  This stuff is not found in food.  Other animals don’t eat these things.  I wonder how much time, effort, electricity and money went into concocting these magical items?

Is it food or Is it furniture varnish?

Is it food or Is it furniture varnish?

Look at the fourth ingredient, aspartame.  It has two asterisks next to it.  Down below the ingredient list in menacing bold print is PHENYLKETONURICS: CONTAINS PHENYLALANINE.  Good lord what does that mean?  I think we’re being warned.  The issues associated with aspartame and other artificial sweeteners are more than I can go into here, but the point is there are more than a few concerns about the safety of these things.  All this for three grams of fiber.

This seems like a product sold by Monty Python.  Good nutrition in a powder is silly!

Meanwhile, I could eat actual cherries, strawberries, kiwis, oranges, or any number of other fruits and/or vegetables–real food in other words–and get the same amount of fiber plus untold amounts of various healthy molecules and none of the weird science-fiction chemicals.  This whole thing seems absurd.  It might be one part health to four parts poison.  What are we doing here?

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Drinkers More Physically Active Than Abstainers

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Who’da thunk it??  Science Daily reports on a study in the September/October issue of the American Journal of Health Promotion indicates that drinkers exercised more than abstainers–and those who drank more exercised more!

“Among women, those currently using alcohol exercised 7.2 minutes more per week than those who abstained. Relative to abstainers, the more alcohol used, the longer the person exercised. Specifically, light, moderate and heavy drinkers exercised 5.7, 10.1 and 19.9 minutes more per week. Overall, drinking was associated with a 10.1 percent increase in the probability of engaging in vigorous physical activity. The results for men were similar.”

That outcome might be surprising to a lot of people.  However, it’s interesting to note that for 2008 Colorado was the leanest state in the nation with an obesity rate of 18.4% yet a recent Men’s Health survey listed Denver as the most dangerously drunk city in the nation.

What does all this mean?  It seems we might see parallels between alcohol and medicine.  Too much of either will sicken and/or kill us but the right amount might be healthy.  It certainly seems clear that some degree of alcohol consumption works well for a lot of people.

In my experience the drinking culture here in the Denver area is one that is strongly balanced with vigorous exercise. Hiking, skiing, kayaking, mountain biking, and/or running is often followed by a loosely reasonable amount of the region’s superb beer.  Combine these habits and you get a fairly healthy and happy population.

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Exercise is Medicine

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Exercise is medicine.  Jake “Body by Jake” Steinfeld writing for the Huffington Post offers three points of advice to help improve the health of the nation.  His advice goes to the point that above and beyond anything else, our personal choices have the greatest impact on our health.  More than doctor visits, cutting edge disease treatments or the latest medicine we have the greatest power to either stay healthy or get sick.  We decide what food to eat.  We decide whether or not to exercise, and we decide whether or not to smoke.  Those are the big three and that’s where health care begins.

Michael Pollan, author of the Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food puts it very well in his op-ed piece for the NY Times:

“But so far, food system reform has not figured in the national conversation about health care reform. And so the government is poised to go on encouraging America’s fast-food diet with its farm policies even as it takes on added responsibilities for covering the medical costs of that diet. To put it more bluntly, the government is putting itself in the uncomfortable position of subsidizing both the costs of treating Type 2 diabetes and the consumption of high-fructose corn syrup.”

So there it is.  We’re using tax dollars to subsidize a food industry that poisons us, while at the same time we’re looking to send our tax dollars to treat the resulting illnesses.  Might it make sense to cut food subsidies so that we then can reduce spending on health care?  And to the point of personal responsibility, if through our own actions we can avoid illnesses such as diabetes altogether–and thus never treat them at all–then isn’t that the best version of health care available?

(BTW, if you haven’t read Pollan’s In Defense of Food then you should go get it right now and start reading.  As well, he was interviewed by Bill Moyers interviewed Pollan a few months ago.  Go to PBS to watch it.)

Politicians very rarely suggest that we bear the most responsibility for our health.  To do so would point out that we as a nation are failing miserably at controlling ourselves.

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