More Secrets To A Longer Life

A couple of related stories caught my attention recently. The impression I got from them is that people continue to look for easy answers, tips and secrets. With all the new technology and scientific breakthroughs, they tend to abandon common sense, expecting something better and easier. This attitude drives a lot of wasteful behavior indicative of a lack of discipline and critical thinking.

 

The first was from a website called Outside with the title: “8 Simple Tips to Live Longer and Healthier.” These tips, it explains, are easy and based on scientific time-tested methods. The tips are merely to develop healthy daily living habits. This idea has been around for ages and the evidence to support it “has mounted, even as more people try to find the elixir of youth.”  A 2016 British study “found a healthy lifestyle reduces one’s chance of all-cause mortality by a whopping 61 percent.”

 

To make such a list, as the line from Casablanca goes, “round up the usual suspects.” They are easy to understand, but not so easy to adopt.

1. Exercise is good for you.
2. Watch what you eat.
3. Socialize – loneliness has surprisingly bad effects.
4. Avoid nearly all supplements – “the vast majority don’t work and may even cause harm.”
5. Get enough sleep.
6. Get outside and enjoy nature.
7. Don’t smoke.
8. Drink alcohol in moderation.

This kind of information is republished frequently by the news media and in public service announcements. By now it’s not really news! Some might add a few more such as: sunscreen, brushing and flossing, drink when you are thirsty, wash your hands and get a flu shot.  But most of this is common knowledge.

 

The one about the supplements is certainly right but not often mentioned. For example, Harvard School of Health calls claims about antioxidants “mostly hype” adding, “mostly disappointing [study] results haven’t stopped food companies and supplement sellers from banking on antioxidants.” The American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) says, “Many studies have shown antioxidants do not add health benefits nor do they play a key role in preventing cancer or heart disease.” I have covered the dangers and waste associated with dietary supplements many times in the past.

 

The related idea of looking for the easy answer came from a story early in the pandemic. Americans were hoarding not only toilet paper but also another product that made little sense. Last May a Forbes article reported, “retail sales of orange juice increased 46% in the United States in a four-week period ending on April 11.” 

They apparently believed in the power of Vitamin C to cure colds and other viruses. That this is not true should also have been common knowledge. Back in 2006 NPR ran a story, “The Vitamin C Myth.” By then there had been “at least twenty well controlled studies on the use of mega doses of vitamin C in the prevention of colds, treating the duration of colds, and in treatment of the severity of colds;” none of them showed any evidence that “vitamin C in mega doses does anything.” 

 

This vitamin C myth is just another example of what I referred to recently in “Flashback – Fear of Power Lines” on September 11: when people get an idea stuck in their heads, it takes a great deal of persuasion to get them to change their minds, even if the science is definitive.

 

Problems in discipline cause us to ignore the simple but not easy-to-follow lifestyle instead hoping for a pill or magic medical device. Problems in critical thinking cause the brain latch on to one of those ideas and never again wonder if it’s accurate.

Those Sore Muscles

Last time I discussed a book I hadn’t read, but based on a couple of reviews, I found some positive things to say about the advice it gave about taking responsibility. (I also threw in some snarky comment about the title.)

This time I want to discuss a book that I actually did read. Published quite recently, it’s called Good To Go, by Christie Ashwaunden. The subtitle is: What the athlete in all of us can learn from the strange science of recovery. It covers a variety of tools and techniques for physical recovery after participating in a sporting event or hard practice session. Examples are taken from professional athletes, Olympic-level competitors and serious sports enthusiasts. The book is an investigation of what works, what has real scientific backing vs. what is based on marketing, hype, and urban myth. It contains many surprises, but reinforces the need for critical thinking, the need to challenge our deeply held beliefs in everything we do.

The introduction states the problem clearly. “The explosion of recovery products and services can seem ridiculous.” Although “everyone intuitively knows what recovery is and how to achieve it,” the industry has found a way to make it much more complicated, expensive and time-consuming than it needs to be or ever has been.

Promoters of these new methods usually use stories rather than scientific facts, and stories told by celebrities or sports stars are most effective. The advertised science behind them is often based on poorly constructed studies with very small sample sizes. Only the ones with positive results see the light of day with the rest (often the majority) filed away. The book investigates many of these products and services to see what really works. I will cover just a few.

One such product with little scientific justification is the sports drink phenomenon, a huge industry with many devoted fans. One expert characterized some of their studies as verging on “comical.” The author takes on the whole idea of hydration, pre-hydration and electrolyte supplements and comes to the conclusion that the best defense against dehydration is to drink when you are thirsty. Any other approach can result in waste or even harm. 

She gives the example of running with her dog. When they get home, she gives her access to a water bowl. The dog decides whether or not to drink. The author has “never needed to inspect the color of the dog’s urine or give her an emergency IV for low fluid levels.” We make it overly complicated, yet hydrate is common advice from all sides every summer.

Similar advice goes for sports nutrition. She gives the example of Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, filling up on chicken nuggets during the Olympics. They may not have been the most nutritious meals, but “when your muscles are hungry for fuel, they don’t care where the energy comes from.... What should I eat after exercising? The easiest answer is: whatever your body is hungry for.” 

She also discusses the promotion of such ideas as infrared saunas, explaining that heat is heat, and any magical powers attributed to infrared, such as reducing inflammation, boosting growth hormones, clearing toxins or boosting the immune system are unsupported and have received negative attention from the FDA. Yet marketers and pro athletes push overpriced infrared saunas, cold lasers, massage beds and pajamas, based on the “sciency” sound of it all.

Subsequent chapters talk about sleep and supplements. Sleep is vital for recovery. Keep it uncomplicated; our body helps us figure out how much is enough. I have addressed the problems with supplements many times in the past. (See here and here). They are unregulated, can be dangerous and are poorly researched. They have a reverse approval process compared to prescription drugs. No one has to prove they are safe and effective. The FDA only gets involved when they prove to be harmful, as in the case of ephedra, where a hundred people died taking it to increase energy. “Yet it took the FDA ten years to ban it.”

There is much more to learn from this book. But I found it an excellent example of applied critical thinking with a host of interesting surprises.

Irresponsibility: Finding Excuses

Last time I was very pleased to find an example of strong behavior in the dimension of responsibility. The woman attacked by the jaguar at the zoo admitted her part in the incident and hoped that others would learn from her mistake. 

When someone is in the wrong, the common reaction seems to be denial or making excuses. The news lately is filled with celebrities, politicians and their defenders quick to deny a charge, downplay the seriousness of a charge or call attention to all the celebrities or politicians in the past who did the same or worse without ramifications. So it’s OK?

Making excuses covers a multitude of sins, and it serves as a convenient, and often accepted, way  if covering up for behavioral slip-ups in any of the five key dimensions.

One area where this comes into play is when weak behavior in the area of discipline leads to unwanted consequences, for example, lung cancer from smoking, retirement insecurity from failure to save during the working years or obesity.

Along the lines of the latter I found this article on line: “10 Reasons Why Obesity Is NOT About Gluttony and Sloth.” First, the author obviously used the most provocative words possible to describe a situation characterized by a simple lack of discipline, too little exercise or too large portion sizes. Use of the terms gluttony and sloth, boarders on name-calling; they arouse a sense of resentment to prepare the reader to be receptive to a litany of ready-made excuses.

And here they come, all the reasons an unmotivated person can fall back on:

• Obesogenic Environment: where living in an area without sidewalks or safe walking routes coupled with a lack of accessibility to fresh fruits and vegetables along with other environmental factors may add challenges. (People would be thin as rails if only they had sidewalks.)
• Culture of Beauty: drives people toward an unattainable standard, encouraging “self-starvation, exercise abuse, and other eating disorders. It really only serves those who make money off of it.” (This stems from a perspective problem, being manipulated by external values.)
• Mental Health problems “from depression and anxiety to chronic stress and past trauma” can become an issue. “Weight gain can be the result of emotional eating as a way to cope or a result of medications.” (See addiction below for the same excuse in different words.)
• Genetics: While genetics does not predict obesity, over time the combination with other factors may predispose individuals to have obesity issues (though that doesn’t explain why it would suddenly become a factor in the last 50 years.)
• Social Networks: Social influences “play a role in our health behaviors including eating, exercise, weight loss or gain.” (Blame it on your friends.)
• Food Addiction: works like other addictions as “a way to cope with uncomfortable feelings and situations in life.” (Is it realistic to expect life to be comfortable all the time? How easy to forget that life in this century is more comfortable than at any other time in history.)
• Lack of Awareness: too many confusing “messages about what to eat, how to exercise, and ways to lose fat” leave “most of us…scratching our heads.” (But most of these confusing messages come from the purveyors of easy solutions, miracle diet plans and magic answers or from scientists trying to secure funding.)
• Family Income: “Soda is less expensive than water…” (Last I checked water is so inexpensive that I take a shower in it! It falls from the sky! Unless you live in a place like Flint, MI, this argument is as bogus as they come! See here for more about the expensive healthy food myth.)
• Environmental Chemicals in lab experiments alter the metabolism and increasing “the size and number of fat cells in animal exposed to chemicals.” (Blame it on the chemicals, while ignoring the difference between lab experiments and reality.)
• Fat Shame: causes the internalization of society’s fat phobia…creating the most harm. (But change is hard; it doesn’t happen without some discomfort as a motivation. If anything, society has become overly sensitive to the idea of fat shaming and many other attitudes labeled as intolerant.)

So there they are, ready-made excuses to maintain an unhealthy lifestyle. Just spouting off one or two of these (and ignoring the comments in parentheses) is a lot easier than taking responsibility for lapses in discipline.

The Fad Diet Strikes Again!

Even though Americans should react to the news of another diet fad the same way they do to the news of an epidemic of shark attacks, they don’t. Instead of fleeing, enough fall in line to merit an article on the Huffington Post site.

This time the gimmick to lose weight is intermittent fasting. The piece begins, “For years, we’ve been told it’s important to eat breakfast within an hour of waking up, to rev up our metabolism and get our day started right.” So apparently the writer has not been reading the Huffington Post for years because, as I wrote in February 2017, they reported that breakfast had been declared optional. But by May of this year, “experts” had once again reversed course on that decision.

Intermittent fasting is the newest answer to our prayers. “The technique relies on restricting your eating to set times and alternating between feasting and fasting” and is considered by its proponents as more of a lifestyle than a diet. It’s more about when you eat than what you eat, although to be successful it still requires healthy food choices. (Aren’t those ideas of lifestyle and food choices essential for any successful weight-loss program?)

There are several flavors of intermittent fasting. The 16:8 plan is most common and most reported on. Eat meals “within an eight-hour window” and then fast (and sleep) for the rest of the day. The 5:2 plan involves restricting calories to 500 on two nonconsecutive days each week. Alternate day fasting involves fasting every other day (500 calories) and eating whatever you want with no calorie restrictions on alternate days.

The first method may present a challenge for “people who have busy family lives or social commitments.” The second “can have an impact on a person’s sleep, mood and energy level.” And the third has been found by a JAMA Internal Medicine study to be no more effective than a restricted-calorie diet. And any one of them “can be particularly dangerous for people with certain health conditions.”

But it’s all for a good cause. How else are we supposed to lose weight if not for the latest fad diet? It’s a hard job made harder by the purveyors of fast food, fancy coffee, streaming entertainment and not enough sidewalks. Then there are all the excuses about genetics.

Consider those excuses and what science (from Harvard) has to say. “In 1990, obese adults made up less than 15 percent of the population in most U.S. states. By 2010, 36 states had obesity rates of 25 percent or higher, and 12 of those had obesity rates of 30 percent or higher. Today, nationwide, roughly two out of three U.S. adults are overweight or obese (69 percent) and one out of three is obese (36 percent).” 

The USDA index of food consumption shows that the per person intake of calories increased by 22% from 1990 to 2006. We have been eating more (and moving less). What do we expect? 

Consider also the cost, as presented by the Business Insider. “According to a 2010 study, direct obesity related medical expenses in America are $160 billion per year. The estimated indirect costs? $450 billion." Costs include more food, larger clothing, increased energy consumption (fuel and electricity), weight loss programs, and obesity related medical care. Medical problems lead to missed work, decreased productivity and short-term disability expenses, which we all pay for when we buy goods or services from the businesses that have to cover those costs.

This is a problem, but it’s one people can solve on their own a lot faster when they finally stop looking for magic answers. When we hear about the latest diet fad, we should run as if it were a shark attack. And the exercise would be good for the waistline.

New Study, Indeed!

Here is another no-brainer for the discipline-challenged.  According to this source, researchers at Harvard University released late last month “a major study” investigating the influence of behavior on longevity.  They used lifestyle questionnaires and medical records from 123,000 volunteers to understand how much longer people could live if they made some simple adjustments to their lifestyle.

The dramatic headline read: Five Habits That Can Add More Than a Decade to Your Life.”  That is an announcement sure to capture attention, especially for people looking for the easy answer, the magic bullet, to ensure longevity.  In this era of fads and gurus one is tempted to suspect such a new discovery would be about a vegan diet, avoiding processed foods with their additives and preservatives, eating only local or organic produce, going gluten-free and shunning the GMOs and fast food, drinking only bottled water instead of tap water or discarding the artificial sweeteners – and don’t forget the periodic detox.  These are the so-called secrets we hear about daily, the warnings we hear about on the news, fears that advertisers pick up on in their promotions and food packaging.  Surely a high-profile study from Harvard with a very large sample size would be able to validate at least some of these popular beliefs about healthy lifestyles.

Actually what they came up with in 2018, they could have easily come up with in 2008 or 1998.  As a matter of fact, except for some of the wording, this was common knowledge in 1968!

Here it is, straight from the article:  “The five healthy habits were defined as not smoking; having a body mass index between 18.5 and 25; taking at least 30 minutes of moderate exercise a day, having no more than one 150ml glass of wine a day for women, or two for men; and having a diet rich in items such as fruit, vegetables and whole grains and low in red meat, saturated fats and sugar.”

Wow!  Imagine that! If we don’t smoke, keep our weight down, drink alcohol only in moderation, exercise, and eat healthy foods, we have a better chance of living longer, even 10 years longer.  Notice that the recommended foods were available 50 years ago, and they made no mention of the fad foods, special fruits (acai berries), super-foods (beet juice), or ancient Chinese secrets with a new one coming into vogue every year like the colors in a fashion magazine.  Where is the mention of nutritional supplements that the majority of Americans pop every morning or evening?

It seems Harvard spent a good deal of time and energy confirming what we knew, or should have known, all along.  No easy answers?  What a disappointment!

The Best Exercise for Losing Weight

News of the latest study from Duke University claims to settle what some refer to as a decades-old debate - which type of exercise: classic cardio, strength training, or a combination of the two is the best for losing weight?  “An 8 month study that followed 119 overweight volunteers found that cardio was the winner!”  That’s the simple answer, but not the whole story.  Let’s use some critical thinking and research to take a deeper look into this revelation.

First, they were not using a very large sample size, and we find out the 119 subjects were split into three smaller subgroups of about 40 each.  Cardio did provide the best results but the group that did both “actually had the most improved ration of fat-to-lean muscle mass.”  In an attempt to decide if it’s one or the other, they conclude that the best answer is both – pretty anticlimactic.

But pay close attention to the subtitle of the article:  “Don't forget to make healthy food choices too.”  Exercise alone isn’t the answer.

The big mystery, though, is why they presented this as a decades-old debate.  Another very thorough article on the subject from the WebMD archives dated 2007 tells us, “In all cases, however, you'll burn more calories with cardio (aerobic) exercise than with strength or resistance training.”

Then they come to pretty much the same conclusion about the benefits of doing both and top it off with:  “Eating and exercise are not separate issues…Too many people think these large doses of exercise are an excuse to eat whatever you want."

Which takes us to an NPR segment from six months ago on the results of long-term research looking at the effectiveness of wearable technology, specifically those fitness monitors.  “The 470 people in the study were put on a low-calorie diet and asked to exercise more. They all started losing weight. Six months in, half the group members started self-reporting their diet and exercise. The other half were given fitness trackers to monitor their activity.”  Researchers were surprised to find that after two years, reporting equal amounts of physical activity, the group with the fitness trackers lost less weight.”

A possible explanation for this difference is related to a theory of behavior called risk compensation (later renamed risk homeostasis).  The theory was developed to “explain the fact that people adjust their behaviour in the face of interventions.”  Often used to explain why making cars safer causes some drivers to take more risks and adding padding to playgrounds results in wilder play among some children, risk compensation can also refer to how a technological monitor could cause some dieters to eat more than they otherwise might have.  They are more easily tempted to offset the more visible effect of the exercise by snacking a little more.

This brings us full circle.  There was never any need for a debate or for a new study.  We’ve known for at least 10 years that cardio burns more calories but cardio and strength training work well together.  But any exercise alone is not enough.  It’s well known that healthy eating is top priority and that it’s much easier not to eat calories than to burn them off through exercise.

Finally, the same wisdom applies to both exercise and dieting.  The best exercise for you is the one you will do.  The best diet is the one you will stick to.  Nothing new here!

Surrendering Our Freedom

At least fifteen times over the past 5 years I have made the point about the link between responsibility and freedom.  In July of last year I wrote that experts often believe:  “when people are not taking responsibility, the responsibility should be taken away from them.”  Later that month I wrote:  “We surrender our freedom for the convenience of not having to deal with [problems].  Many Americans are letting the government, marketing machines, politicians, advocacy groups, and celebrities do their thinking for them.”

Almost one year ago I wrote about health insurance:  “in turning the responsibility of paying your doctor over to others results in having to follow their rules and sometimes fighting with insurance companies or Medicare to receive what you think is due.”  Two years before that I warned of a coming of the “fat tax” on sugary drinks and other items.

Now I find out that I was only partially right.  It’s not just government, marketing machines, politicians, advocacy groups, and celebrities.  We must also add in schools.

I’m not just talking about high schools banning certain foods from vending machines and the cafeteria.  According to the Newser website (with the story later picked up by major news agencies), one university in Oklahoma has been taking it a step further.  As of this year, “freshmen and transfer students at Oklahoma's Oral Roberts University have been told that Fitbits are now mandatory—and failure to log at least 10,000 steps per day will affect their grades.”  Previously, the university set physical fitness requirements for students requiring them to keep a journal to track their fitness points, but now they will use the “fitness-tracking device, which will send data directly to a university computer.”  Data collected will be used as part of their grade in a health and fitness class.  They claim the journal system was “inaccurate and time consuming.”  Apparently no one is protesting about a right to privacy because this is for the students’ health and wellbeing.

From bans or taxes on soft drinks to automatic data collection at college, how far away are we from automatic locks on freezer display doors when someone deemed too large tries to buy ice cream at the grocery store?  Whenever we don’t take responsibility for ourselves, there is no shortage of people ready to step in and make rules and restrictions for our own good.  And as technology advances it just becomes easier.

Caution! Too Clean!

One aspect of perspective is the practice of moderation.  I’ve said before that too much of anything, even water, can be harmful or possibly lethal.  Likewise some things that are known to be dangerous in large amounts are sometimes beneficial in small amounts.  It is a principle of toxicology that dosage makes the poison.  Now we are being told that too much cleanliness may lead to unwanted consequences.

This NBC story gives the details.  Based on several studies (plus good, old common sense) scientists and doctors believe that many of the allergies and other sensitivities that have grown more common among children are the result of over-cleanliness, including overuse of the seemingly ubiquitous hand sanitizers.  When overly sanitized, children’s bodies, on one hand, don’t develop the ability to identify and fight harmful bacteria as well because they are under-exposed, and on the other hand, may become more sensitive to any other irritant that comes along.  In the words of the scientists, “kids who grow up in less tidy environments end up with a lower risk of developing sensitivities to benign substances, like pollen and dog dander.”

Ironically, at one point in the article, the word “clean” is hot-linked to an ad for just the kind of product they are trying to discourage.  This is one danger of our over-exposure to advertising hype.  In many cases they try to scare us into buying products by warning us of dangers and telling us how much safer or healthier we will be.  They tell us to protect our families with extra insurance, with hand sanitizers or with organic foods.  They tell us to protect our environment by buying only green products.  What they don’t tell us is that moderation is most often the secret to success.

We are constantly being urged and coerced in the opposite direction, toward the extremes.  This (brave) new world of instant communications brings with it both the convenience of keeping in touch from nearly anywhere, but also an information overload from both well-meaning people and self-serving institutions trying to manipulate our behavior and opinions – advertisers, politicians, journalists. 

What are we to do in the face of this constant information barrage?  You can’t go wrong by practicing moderation.  A new opinion from the medical community reinforces the point.  Even exercise, in this case running, can be detrimental if it’s overdone.  Perspective reminds us that moderation is the key.