Does Exercise Really Keep Us Healthy?

Pennylane

I've just got back from a lovely walk. The wind is bitingly cold but I was well wrapped up and it really did blow away the cobwebs. We only did about 4 miles today but I feel much better for it.

Going back to gyms, my friend signed up the other year and was really enthusiastic for a few weeks and then I asked her a month or so on and she said she hated everything about it. She hated thinking she had to go, she hated driving there, she hated BEING there and she hated coming home and knowing she had to go again.

Pennylane

Actually the weather today reminded me of years ago and doing school cross country. I'm talking bare goose-pimpled legs and plimsoles (remember the film "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" :rolleyes: ). Nobody had such luxuries as tracksuits and running shoes then.

melancholly

Ted_Hutchinson wrote: »

Actually the probable reason why the overweight in Melancholly's article had better survival is probably because the overweight have higher cholesterol levels and as I'm sure everyone knows the higher your cholesterol the longer you live and visa versa the lower your cholesterol the higher your risk of dying.

i'm not really sure that that makes any sense! the article you link to is about the specific case of chronic heart failure. you cannot possibly now be saying that high cholesterol is good for people? i mean really, that's absurd and quite frankly wrong and may i say, completely irresponsible. (and to satisfy your obsession with links, here's one to point out just what current thinking is on cholesterol and mortality.

Ted_Hutchinson

melancholly wrote: »

i'm not really sure that that makes any sense! the article you link to is about the specific case of chronic heart failure. you cannot possibly now be saying that high cholesterol is good for people? .

Does high cholesterol cause heart disease?
Throw away total cholesterol!

milliemonster

The problem is much of the public have misinterpreted the need for exercise, the 30 minutes 3 times a week is a complete farce and a myth, that wouldn't be enough to even maintain your weight and cardiovascular health let alone lose weight. To lose weight on exercise alone you would need to sweat for at least 1hr a day every day. However, I am missing the point here, the problem is people go to the gym and then sit on their backsides the rest of the time, in front of the telly, sedentary jobs etc, we are inactive in our daily lives and this is where the problem lies. To improve the nations health and get the full benefit from exercise we need to be more active ALL THE TIME not for just an hour in the gym a few times a week, we need to ditch the TV and the car, walk more, get out in the garden, etc etc

Ted_Hutchinson

milliemonster wrote: »

. However, I am missing the point here

Indeed you are.

Carbohydrate intake causes insulin to rise.

Raised insulin forces the body to store fat accumulation:

When you cut carbohydrates this drops your blood sugar levels and lower BG reduces the need for raised insulin levels, therefore your body is now able to burn previously stored fat rather than adding to the surplus by being obliged to store surplus glucose as fat.

Exercise makes us hungry, so we eat more and all those extra calories make weight loss harder.

In previous generation the way to treat obesity was bed rest.

When people lose weight they find exercise easier and naturally become more active.

In the same way weight gain CAUSES a reluctance to exercise so weight loss induces RAISED activity levels.

pillypilla

Yeah I agree that exercise alone won't keep you slim long - term, it's definately a balancing act between energy in and expenditure (or creating a deficit if you wanna lose weight). Personally, as a previous comfort eater that always craved carbs (the crappy kind!) whenever a negative emotion took hold, one day I just quit eating sugar and refined rubbish. Since then I never had any cravings and realised I was eating for reasons other than hunger.
My point is, it's a complex issue with a major psychological factor, it's not just a case of - move more and eat less, cos your mind will always try and screw things up for you!
Now I'm more in tune with my body, I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full and, though I'm not diabetic, I choose mostly low G.I foods. If I'm ever tempted to binge again I just think "Am I needing a feed or feeding a need".
:j

brokeinwales

With respect Ted, you do need to be careful about putting forward claims such as this as if they are proven facts - most of your links (here and elsewhere) are to a mixture of research papers and articles, which, while interesting, and valuable in the sense that they encourage us to re-examine long-established viewpoints, don't in themselves constitute proof - Indeed I could set out to "prove" exactly the opposite of what you are saying and give you just as many academic sounding references. (I could set out to prove the world was created in seven days and find myself very well-backed up if all I used were links to papers on the internet.)
The truth is that there is ongoing debate amongst nutritionists and health professionals about exactly what is best for us - the over-riding view is still that a healthy lifestyle includes abalanced diet with a mix of wholegrain carbohydrates, fresh fruit and vegetable, and low fat protein, and that we should all take regular exercise (not just for weight loss, but for good general health. A low BMI is never the whole story when it comes to health). As yet there is no definitive evidence that that view is incorrect or harmful.

Ted_Hutchinson

Raised insulin link to breast cancer in obese womenRaised insulin levels may account for much of the increased risk of breast cancer among obese women.
US researchers analysed blood samples from 1,651 postmenopausal women enrolled in the Women’s Health Initiative Observation Study. High fasting insulin levels were associated with a 46% greater risk of developing breast cancer.

High estrogen levels were also associated with an increased cancer risk. Levels of estrogen and insulin tend to be higher in obese women and this may largely explain the association between obesity and breast cancer, the researchers say.

Interventions aimed at cutting fasting insulin levels may reduce breast cancer risk among postmenopausal women, the researchers suggest. Previous studies have supported a role for insulin in the development of breast cancer, they point out.

So who still thinks eating those foods that raise insulin higher and faster is such a smart idea?

Ted_Hutchinson

brokeinwales wrote: »

With respect Ted, you do need to be careful about putting forward claims such as this as if they are proven facts - most of your links (here and elsewhere) are to a mixture of research papers and articles, which, while interesting, and valuable in the sense that they encourage us to re-examine long-established viewpoints, don't in themselves constitute proof - Indeed I could set out to "prove" exactly the opposite of what you are saying and give you just as many academic sounding references. (I could set out to prove the world was created in seven days and find myself very well-backed up if all I used were links to papers on the internet.)

I disagree most profoundly. I think the complacency and reluctance to act on the current evidence is simply because health professionals don't want to admit how wrong they have been and how badly they have messed up. The Diet Delusion £8.44 is now available in paperback and will guide you through the evidence and the explain the research in such a way you will see how the consensus opinion has been manipulated by big business.

It is the whole low fat advice that is the root of the problem. Though of course the fact that none of the research has been done on bodies that have first have vitamin D insufficiency states correct means the way optimum levels of 25(OH)D impact on calcium uptake and glucose metabolism means that in fact we know diddly squat about nutrition as it should perform in bodies that had the natural level of 25(OH)D our DNA strives to achieve (135~225nmol/l)

Now would you trust the advice of a car performance trial where none of the vehicles tested has more than a third the optimum air pressure in tyres?

Why then should you trust current dietary guidance based on research on people with less than a third of our natural 25(OH)D requirement?

If you use Google Translate you can read what is happening in Sweden.
Article detailing the links behind dietary recommendations and big business Becuase of this expose and other similar scandals the Swedish public have sussed that decisions are not being taken in their best interests but in the best interests of big business.
People have lost their jobs and new recommendations are being drawn up.

It really is time the same happened here. Instead of putting up with the unscientific medical dogma that we have had for that past 25 yrs and which is demonstrably failing to address the root cause of the problem we should look at the issue and the links to business and sack the fools who think low fat high carb is healthy. These are not the foods our DNA evolved to cope with and it is clear from the diseases of Western Culture that this is what is killing us.