Add it to the list of “Why HFCS Sucks”
Researchers at Princeton University have found that HFCS is actually much worse than regular sugar when it comes to causing weight gain. The study found that rats with access to HFCS gained significantly more weight than rats with access to table sugar — even when their caloric intake was the same. A second study by […]
Canadian Health Measures Survey: Cholesterol bad, vitamin D good?
Leaving aside for the moment the cholesterol debate about what blood cholesterol actually represents, just-released data from the Canadian Health Measures Survey indicate that Canadians appear to have poor blood lipid profiles. Personally I look at circulating triglycerides more than cholesterol, as the cholesterol hypothesis is undergoing some revision at the moment… however we do know that blood TGs are definitely correlated with things like metabolic syndrome.
High levels of total cholesterol increase with age. About 27% of adults aged 20 to 39 had high levels of total cholesterol from 2007 to 2009. This percentage increased to 47% among those aged 40 to 59 and 54% of those aged 60 to 79. About 36% of adult Canadians had unhealthy levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol, while 30% had unhealthy levels of “good” HDL cholesterol. Unhealthy levels of LDL cholesterol generally increase with age, but peaked at 43% among adults aged 40 to 59. Overall, about 25% of Canadian adults had unhealthy levels of triglycerides. About 36% of Canadians aged 20 to 79 who did not have a healthy level of good cholesterol were obese, compared with 16% of those with a healthy level of good cholesterol. Unhealthy levels of total cholesterol, triglycerides, and bad cholesterol were generally associated with higher measured hypertension.
On the other hand, the CHMS argues that most Canadians are not vitamin D deficient. Again, a contentious suggestion given that we are all basically dressed like Nanook, living in the dark, for several months of the year. The survey found that the vast majority (90%) of Canadians aged 6 to 79 had concentrations of vitamin D in their blood that were considered adequate for bone health. I find this a bit puzzling, personally… unless everyone is somehow consuming tons of vitamin D-fortified milk…
Anyhoo, make of this what you will.
Yogurt Mania
Some funny stuff from Mark Sisson. Truly, how did we all survive without food companies jacking everything full of “fortification”? Oh wait, that’s right, we ate real food.
“If it weren’t for Yoplait and Dannon enhancing our digestive facilities, I bet we’d never get anything done in the bathroom. I, for one, can’t recall the last time I had a satisfying bowel movement without concurrently sucking on an extra large Purple Gogurt as I sat astride the toilet.”
Personally I swear by my man Chef Kim down the street in Koreatown. Fermented cabbage and panchan FTW!
Scientific evidence for popular supplements — like you’ve never seen it before
Have you ever asked yourself, “Gee, how strong is the evidence for green tea anyway? And could I get that in a pretty bubble graph format?”
Some beautiful data visualizations that explore the clinical research support for popular supplements. Big bubbles for fish oil!
There are multiple bubbles for some supplements — click on each bubble to see the specific disease/health condition to which it refers.
Thanks to reader J for the link.
A bit of honesty from Dan John
Everyone who reads my site regularly knows that I love Dan John. This post epitomizes many of the reasons why.
He is a strong man in every sense of the word — most significantly, he is strong enough to publicly acknowledge ‘weakness’ and explore it within himself, in order to gain awareness and insight. He also offers thoughts on why focusing on “failure” is a problem.
“The ideas have been tossing around in my head since then: how much emotional impact is there in physical training? Did I, as I assumed (I think wrongly now) “shrink” in front of my cadre?… This insight leaped me into a great realization about why training to failure is such…a failure. You literally make failure a normative movement. The body responds by saving itself the time and effort by reducing the time and effort it takes to fail.”
Full post: A Bit of Honesty
Single vs multiple sets? Finally the answer (again)
We’ve talked about single vs multiple sets on this site before. In that case, the study examined the relationship between sets and strength gain. This study examines the relationship between set number and muscle mass gain. Basically: multiple sets are better than single sets for adding muscle mass. You’re welcome.
[clicky on the title above to see the full study abstract…]
Stumpy = evolution’s triumph
From Macleans.ca:
For years, some scientists heralded the end of human evolution. The post-industrial homo sapiens, they argued, was free of the kinds of “survival-of-the-fittest” pressures that could drive large-scale genetic change. Yet new research suggests that humans continue to evolve.
What might our granddaughter’s granddaughter’s granddaughter’s granddaughter’s granddaughter look like? Shorter and stouter, says a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. If current trends continue, its authors predict, then by 2409 descendants of the women in the study will have evolved to be one kilogram heavier and two centimetres shorter than their 2010 foremothers.
Kids not only obese but “extremely obese”
A recent study that looked at the weights and heights of more than 710,000 children aged 2 to 19 found that 7% of boys and 5% of girls — and as many as 12% of children in some ethnic groups — were “extremely obese”. Overweight is defined as the 85th or higher percentile on the […]
Big in Japan? Fat chance for nation’s young women
From Washingon Post:
As women in the United States and across the industrialized world get fatter, most Japanese women are getting skinnier. Still, many view themselves as overweight. The trend is most pronounced among women in their 20s. A quarter-century ago, they were twice as likely to be thin as overweight; now they are four times more likely to be thin.
Social pressure — women looking critically at other women — is the most important reason female skinniness is ascendant in Japan. “Japanese women are outstandingly tense and critical of each other,” said researcher Hisako Watanabe, who has spent 34 years treating women with eating disorders. “There is a pervasive habit among women to monitor each other with a serious sharp eye to see what kind of slimness they have.”
Public health experts say that younger Japanese women, as a group, have probably become too skinny for their own good. Restricted calorie consumption is slowing down their metabolisms, the average birth weight of their babies is declining, and their risk of death in case of serious illness is rising.
“I would advise these women to eat when they are hungry,” said Satoshi Sasaki, a professor of preventive epidemiology at the University of Tokyo School of Public Health. “They should be satisfied with a normal body.”
Sibutramine warning
From JAMA:
Preliminary data suggest that taking the weight loss drug sibutramine (aka Meridia in the US or Reductil in the UK) may increase a patient’s risk of adverse cardiovascular events such as heart attack and/or stroke, according to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
After reviewing the study, the FDA asked the manufacturer to add a warning to the label. The manufacturer, Knoll Pharmaceutical Company, has agreed to add the warning.