NPR: Aging Well: Keeping Blood Sugar Low May Protect Memory

My good friend Star put this perfectly:

"It was so good then it didn't stick the landing at end of article." 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2013/10/25/240784956/aging-well-keeping-blood-sugar-low-may-protect-memory?sc=17&f=1001

"There's a growing body of evidence linking elevated blood sugar to memory problems.

"For instance, earlier this year, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine concluded that higher glucose may be a risk factor for dementia, even among people without type 2 diabetes.

So the question is, at what point does the risk of cognitive decline set in?

"Or in other words, should we be aware of creeping blood sugar, even before it gets to levels that doctors call pre-diabetes?

"Well, researchers, writing this week in the journal Neurology, have some new data that suggest that even modest increases in blood sugar among people in their 50s, 60s and 70s can have a negative influence on memory.

"The study included 141 healthy older people, all of whom had blood sugar in the normal range. All of the participants were given recall tests where they were read a list of 15 words and then asked to repeat back as many as they could remember."

At the end, the article recommends eating foods that will likely drive your blood sugar to higher levels.  

That's a good example of the cognitive dissonance in the diet/health world at present.

Another example of cognitive dissonance is the way they break diabetes into its own category.  Certainly it's true that those diagnosed with diabetes are treated differently than those who only seem like they are moving in that direction.  The underlying cause of the spectrum from elevated glucose, to metabolic syndrome, to diabetes, is the same - too much "carnage" (thanks Jimmy Moore for the term).

This podcast delivers a fantastic example of an MD who is on to the idea of how much he can help his patients by helping them get their blood sugar regulated without medications - well worth the listen for the education the doctor provides.

What Is "Doubly Labelled Water"?

Water is pretty cool stuff. It keeps you hydrated, helps you flush waste materials from your body, and when combined with healthy muscle glycogen levels from a high-carbohydrate diet, makes your muscles look nice and full and vascular and all-round swole.

But the physiological usefulness of water hardly ends there.

If you take some water, partially or completely remove the hydrogen and oxygen and replace them with the elements deuterium and oxygen-18, you end up with what is known as doubly labeled water.

At this point you’re no doubt thinking, “Why on Earth would you do that to water?”

Because the use of doubly labeled water has proved itself to be a rather nifty way of measuring energy expenditure in free-living humans (and animals). And it offers a greater degree of accuracy than the aforementioned energy expenditure formulas. 

http://anthonycolpo.com/why-you-cant-trust-nhanes-or-gary-taubes-robert-lustig-to-accurately-report-calorie-carbohydrate-fat-intake-trends/

In spite of AC's deeply held belief in the significance of immature science, I think this is a helpful description of what doubly labelled water is, and what it does.

It's a powerful tool to understand the interplay between caloric intake and expenditure, and how they interact with differing macronutrient intakes and differing individuals.

Practice CrossFit: Wisdom

If the box on the corner is all nipples and nightcaps, good for them. That’s not my box and they don’t speak for me. It’s their right to do as they wish. As for me and mine, we have a website explaining who we are in length and our actions everyday to back it up.

If someone is too stupid and close-minded to see the difference in thousands of warehouses with ropes and rigs, then I was never meant to help them; fitness doesn’t cure stupid. If some deranged local believes that one box speaks for 7,000, or that an entity speaks for a person, they’re an idiot begging for a reason to stay in spin class.

No matter the pictures they’ve posted or the quotes they’ve released, I’ve been nothing but proud to be part of a community that moves forward while helping so many along the way. I’m stoked that it encourages me to do the same.

Affiliates would do well to remember that this fitness movement is a privilege we asked for, not a right we’re entitled to. That we’re in it to lift large loads quickly, to change the game not conform to its rules. We’ve always published sexy photos of men and women and we always will. And we’re only going to get better at it, because if CrossFit is anything, it’s efficient.

http://gopractice.biz/2013/10/crossfit-controversy/

For the record, I love people in spin classes, too, but like the author, I doubt most of those in spin class get the impact for their time they would get if they were doing CrossFit.  However, "To each their own."

130928 - The Outlaw Way

Well stated, Outlaw.

I have been a CrossFit affiliate owner for roughly seven years. I’m so O.G. that Greg Glassman called me the day after I affiliated, and talked to me for hours about how to run my affiliate. Google him if you don’t know the name, and if you’re a coach or affiliate owner—slap the shit out of yourself if you have to. At the time I affiliated I believe we were one of the first fifty affiliates in the world. If you do the math (which I did), we’ve had clients perform roughly 218,400 workouts since the day we opened (100 people a day, 6 days a week, for 7 years). Yes, this is a very rough estimate, but you get the point. Out of those 200,000ish workouts, we’ve had exactly ZERO cases of rhabdo. Yes, I’m currently knocking on a very large piece of wood.

His advice on how to not get rhabdo or have someone in your gym get it: 

If you’re writing workouts with no regard for rep range, or taking into account what effect high reps will have on the localized muscle groups which are targeted—it may be time to turn the programming duties for your gym over to someone who has a better understanding of strength and conditioning, like your dog.
 
Why, IN THE FUCK, is it necessary to write a workout with hundreds of anything? Are 400 push-ups going to help your clients reach the general fitness, and overall well-being they crave? Massive amounts of pull-ups (especially with a pronounced slowing of the negative, which is usually a result of fatigue), and push-ups, target the extensors and contractors of the arms. These extensors and contractors are tiny in comparison to the primary movers of the lower body, and due to the ability to recruit the hips (I.E. Kipping), these relatively tiny muscle groups can be pushed well beyond their fatigue threshold.
 
Here’s another thing you may have never thought of… Extremely high rep workouts lead to massive amounts of DOMS. When people are really sore, they don’t want to work out. Also, DOMS generally leads to diminished performance. So, again, why are these workouts necessary?

At Outlaw HQ we very rarely go over 25 reps on any movement. If we do it is generally something like Double-Unders, or Burpees (which do utilize the arm extensors, but are a full body movement, with much longer rest intervals between each “push-up” rep). Also, we have a time cap on every workout, every day. It’s always twenty minutes, and every workout stops at that point. We do this to increase overall intensity, and to make sure that people who are not ready to do massive amounts of reps, simply don’t.

Here’s a good rule of thumb: assume everyone will get rhabdo, and assume that you are going to give it to them. Why? Because they are stupid and so are you. They are stupid because they will listen to coaches who tell them to do a ridiculous amount of push-ups. You are stupid because you think 500 push-ups will make someone “fitter”.

http://theoutlawway.com/2013/09/27/130928-2/

How Did Smoothies Gain the Mantle of "Healthy"?

"Think of eating one orange or two and getting filled," he said. "Now think of drinking a smoothie with six oranges and two hours later it does not affect how much you eat. The entire literature shows that we feel full from drinking beverages like smoothies but it does not affect our overall food intake, whereas eating an orange does. So pulped-up smoothies do nothing good for us but do give us the same amount of sugar as four to six oranges or a large coke. It is deceiving."

Nine years ago the two scientists had identified sugar-sweetened soft drinks, full of calories and consumed between meals, as a major cause of soaring obesity in developed countries. But they argue that as people change their drinking habits to avoid carbonated soft drinks, the potential damage from naturally occurring fructose in fruit juices and smoothies is being overlooked.

All sugars are equal in their bad effects, says Popkin – even those described on cereal snack bars sold in health food shops as containing "completely natural" sweeteners. "The most important issue about added sugar is that everybody thinks it's cane sugar or maybe beet sugar or HFC syrup or all the other syrups but globally the cheapest thing on the market almost is fruit juice concentrate coming out of China. It has created an overwhelming supply of apple juice concentrate. It is being used everywhere and it also gets around the sugar quotas that lots of countries have."

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/07/smoothies-fruit-juices-new-health-risk

There's not much to this article except the obvious and the irony.  The obvious is that you can dress sugar up and call it a smoothy or a Gift from God or "Pure and Natural" but it still is harmful above a certain threshold (safe intake is likely ~20g/day?).  
The irony is the industry is using George Bray's longstanding argument that a "calorie is a calorie" against him:

"Coca-Cola argues ... "We believe that rather than single out any ingredient, it is more helpful for people to look at their total energy balance. This is because obesity and weight gain are caused by an imbalance in calories consumed and burnt off. Our products should be enjoyed as part of a sensible, balanced diet and healthy lifestyle that includes regular physical activity.

"For those that are watching their calorie intake, we offer a wide range of low or no calorie options, which represent more than one third of our sales.""

It is obviously possible to make a healthy smoothy, but sadly many associate the term with "healthy" when instead they are getting just another sugar bomb in sheep's clothing.

Boyle - Wake Up That Big Butt (Muscle)

http://www.stack.com/video/2616870825001/Elite-Performance-With-Mike-Boyle-PreWorkout-Glute-Activation/
I think we would all be better if we did this routinely for a year or so.  I found that my knee injury led to (or resulted from) left/right imbalances that this drill addresses.  Were I doing these, I may not have been hurting myself as much the last few years.

BMJ: We Missed the Mark on Sat Fat

This is a great read, I highly recommend you read the whole piece.

"The aspect of dietary saturated fat that is believed to have the greatest influence on cardiovascular risk is elevated concentrations of low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. Yet the reduction in LDL cholesterol from reducing saturated fat intake seems to be specific to large, buoyant (type A) LDL particles, when in fact it is the small, dense (type B) particles (responsive to carbohydrate intake) that are implicated in cardiovascular disease.4

"Indeed, recent prospective cohort studies have not supported any significant association between saturated fat intake and cardiovascular risk.5 Instead, saturated fat has been found to be protective. The source of the saturated fat may be important. Dairy foods are exemplary providers of vitamins A and D. As well as a link between vitamin D deficiency and a significantly increased risk of cardiovascular mortality, calcium and phosphorus found commonly in dairy foods may have antihypertensive effects that may contribute to inverse associations with cardiovascular risk.6 7 8 One study showed that higher concentrations of plasmatrans-palmitoleic acid, a fatty acid mainly found in dairy foods, was associated with higher concentrations of high density lipoprotein, lower concentrations of triglycerides and C reactive protein, reduced insulin resistance, and a lower incidence of diabetes in adults.9 Red meat is another major source of saturated fat. Consumption of processed meats, but not red meat, has been associated with coronary heart disease and diabetes mellitus, which may be explained by nitrates and sodium as preservatives.10

"The notoriety of fat is based on its higher energy content per gram in comparison with protein and carbohydrate. However, work by the biochemist Richard Feinman and nuclear physicist Eugene Fine on thermodynamics and the metabolic advantage of different diet compositions showed that the body did not metabolise different macronutrients in the same way.11 Kekwick and Pawan carried out one of the earliest obesity experiments, published in the Lancet in 1956.12 They compared groups consuming diets of 90% fat, 90% protein, and 90% carbohydrate and showed that the greatest weight loss was in the fat consuming group. The authors concluded that the “composition of the diet appeared to outweigh in importance the intake of calories.”

"The “calorie is not a calorie” theory has been further substantiated by a recent JAMAstudy showing that a “low fat” diet resulted in the greatest decrease in energy expenditure, an unhealthy lipid pattern, and increased insulin resistance in comparison with a low carbohydrate and low glycaemic index diet.13 In the past 30 years in the United States the proportion of energy from consumed fat has fallen from 40% to 30% (although absolute fat consumption has remained the same), yet obesity has rocketed."

This one is a mind blower, as I have read the NNT was 100, whereas baby aspirin is 40.  It's much worse than that:

"A meta-analysis of predominantly industry sponsored data reported that in a low risk group of people aged 60-70 years taking statins the number needed to treat (NNT) to prevent one cardiovascular event in one year was 345.20 The strongest evidence base for statins is in secondary prevention, where all patients after a myocardial infarction are prescribed maximum dose treatment irrespective of total cholesterol, because of statins’ anti-inflammatory or pleiotropic (coronary plaque stabilising) effects. In this group the NNT is 83 for mortality over five years. This doesn’t mean that each patient benefits a little but rather that 82 will receive no prognostic benefit.21 The fact that no other cholesterol lowering drug has shown a benefit in terms of mortality supports the hypothesis that the benefits of statins are independent of their effects on cholesterol."

http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f6340