Bodybuilders Sell Steroids to Maintain Social Status and Maintain Their Own Usage

Posted on December 11, 2016 | Comments Off on Bodybuilders Sell Steroids to Maintain Social Status and Maintain Their Own Usage
Exercise helps postpone death

I doubt she’s juicing (i.e., taking anabolic steroids)

This study was based in Europe, so may not apply to the U.S.

Anyway…

“Many bodybuilders illegally sell steroids to help fund their own use of performance and image enhancing drugs and maintain their social status in the weightlifting community, a new academic study has found. Researchers at Birmingham City University analysed more than 60 criminal cases and interviewed dozens of people involved in the purchase and sale of performance enhancers in the Netherlands and Belgium, to identify the different types of people drawn to selling the drugs.

The report found that sellers often broke the law to help fund their own use of steroids and that most viewed the substances no differently to high street supplements such as protein powders, energy bars or sports drinks.”

Source: Bodybuilders illegally sell steroids to fund own use and maintain social status, finds report

Comments Off on Bodybuilders Sell Steroids to Maintain Social Status and Maintain Their Own Usage

Posted in Exercise

Tagged , , ,

Women Reduce Risk of Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes With Strength Training

Posted on December 9, 2016 | Comments Off on Women Reduce Risk of Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes With Strength Training
That's a dumbbell in her right hand. I work-out with those myself.

That’s a dumbbell in her right hand. I work-out with those myself.

I don’t have access to the full scientific report, but I’ve posted part of the abstract below.

The biggest problem with the study at hand is that physical activity apparently was surveyed only at the start of this 14-year study. Results would be much more robust if activity was surveyed every year or two. My overall activity level seems to change every two or three years. How about you?

Moving on.

“Compared to women who reported no strength training, women engaging in any strength training experienced a reduced rate of type 2 diabetes of 30% when controlling for time spent in other activities and other confounders. A risk reduction of 17% was observed for cardiovascular disease among women engaging in strength training. Participation in both strength training and aerobic activity was associated with additional risk reductions for both type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease compared to participation in aerobic activity only.

CONCLUSIONS: These data support the inclusion of muscle-strengthening exercises in physical activity regimens for reduced risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease, independent of aerobic exercise. Further research is needed to determine the optimum dose and intensity of muscle-strengthening exercises.”

PMID 27580152

Source: Strength Training and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes and Cardiovascular Disease. – PubMed – NCBI

Steve Parker, M.D.

PS: Cardiovascular disease includes heart attack, cardiac death, stroke, coronary angioplasty, and coronary artery bypass grafting.

Comments Off on Women Reduce Risk of Cardiovascular Disease and Diabetes With Strength Training

Posted in Exercise

Tagged , , , , ,

Free “Paleo Asian Cookbook” From Alfie Mueeth

Posted on December 6, 2016 | Comments Off on Free “Paleo Asian Cookbook” From Alfie Mueeth

Author Alfie Mueeth tells me via email that his new recipe book will be available for free “tomorrow.” I don’t know what time zone Alfie’s in, so I don’t know when tomorrow starts and stops. Tomorrow for me is December 7.

The link Alfie gave me is https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01MPX9QNF?utm_content=buffer46c9c&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

or

http://track.mlsend3.com/link/c/YT01MTEzMDY3MzA5OTEyNTczMzAmYz1pMHQ0JmU9MTkyOCZiPTcyNTkxMjkzJmQ9cDJjNGYxYw==.56-8LPN0zt_VA7GZZp3yT19Dx9eAL27uPihfIUDVf_M

Comments Off on Free “Paleo Asian Cookbook” From Alfie Mueeth

Posted in Recipes

Reduce Your Cancer Risk Via Diet and Exercise

Posted on December 3, 2016 | 2 comments

You need to worry about cancer because you have a roughly four in 10 chance of coming down with invasive cancer. (Skin cancers like squamous cell and basal cell are quite common, but rarely invasive.)

Dr. David Gorski is a breast cancer surgeon. He’s looked at the scientific literature on the linkage between diet and exercises, and the risk of developing cancer.

Here’s his conclusion from his review at Science-Based Medicine:

“You can reduce your risk of cancer by staying active and exercising, eating a healthy diet with a lot of plant-based foods and minimizing intake of processed meats, limiting alcohol consumption (although I think the WCRF/AICR guidelines go a bit too far in saying that you shouldn’t drink at all if possible), and maintaining a healthy weight. (Of course, if you stay active and eat a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight will probably not be a problem.) Conceptually, it’s easy to do. In practice, as I’m discovering, it’s anything but easy.”

Source: Diet and exercise versus cancer: A science-based view « Science-Based Medicine

The Mediterranean diet seems to protect against cancer.

Steve Parker, M.D.

PS: One of the reasons I write diet books is that I want to keep you from getting cancer.

2 Comments

Posted in Cancer

Tagged

How Much Weight Will You Gain Over the Holidays?

Posted on November 18, 2016 | 2 comments

MB900446412

MNT has the details:

“Around the world, weight gained from holiday feasting takes months to lose, a study found.

Christmas Day in particular is a holiday that appears to pack on the pounds: in a study of some 3,000 individuals in three countries, Americans showed an average 0.4% weight gain from 10 days before Christmas to 10 days after; Germans gained 0.6% more weight; and the Japanese 0.5%.

U.S. participants packed on 0.7% more weight in total during the full Christmas-New Year holiday season, but the Germans had us beat with a 1.0% weight gain, according to Brian Wansink, PhD, of Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. and colleagues.”

Source: Holiday Feasts Take Months-Long Weight Toll | Medpage Today

Those percentages aren’t very helpful, are they? In real life, if you weigh 180 lb (81.8 kg) and gain an extra 0.7%, you’re all the way up to a whopping 181.26 lb (82.4 kg). But if you do that—1.26 lb—every year for 20 years and fail to lose the weight, you’re up to 205 lb (93.2 kg) and now you’ve got diabetes and high blood pressure.

Here are a few tips to avoid the weight gain:

  • On the day of the major feast, just eat two meals, and make one of them small
  • Don’t  snack or graze; just eat at mealtimes
  • Work in some extra exercise
  • Minimize the alcohol that weakens your discipline

Steve Parker, M.D.

Pro Tip: Read one of my books before you make your annual New Year’s weight-loss resolutions.

PPS: Click for the research report in NEJM.

2 Comments

Posted in Uncategorized

Julianne Taylor Has a Great Post on Amylase Gene Copy Number and Predisposition to Obesity and Carbohydrate Intolerance

Posted on November 16, 2016 | Comments Off on Julianne Taylor Has a Great Post on Amylase Gene Copy Number and Predisposition to Obesity and Carbohydrate Intolerance

“Before I knew anything about the effect of diet on my health and hunger, I did notice that an hour or 2 after eating refined starch foods I suffered low blood sugar and was ravenously hungry.

Back in the day (1995) as I’ve written about previously, I discovered The Zone Diet, it was literally life changing for me.

Through following this eating plan I discovered that refined carbohydrates, particularly those from grains and sugars played havoc with my blood sugar regulation. The Zone diet reduces carbohydrates, for me it was down to around 70 – 100 grams a day, divided to around 20 – 30 grams per meal.  Vegetable and low glycemic index (GI) carbohydrates are encouraged over refined grains and high GI carbs.

I’ve followed this principal for 20 years now, and found limiting carbohydrates, and adding animal protein to each meal is critical for both my well-being and appetite regulation. I’ve since found that 50 to 100 grams of carbs per day works well for me, and carbohydrate quality is important. This works out to 1 to 2 grams per kg body weight per day.I’ve often wondered why I seem to be so sensitive to carbohydrates, while others don’t suffer the dysregulated blood sugars and reactive hypoglycemia and consequent carbohydrate cravings that I do.The answer may be in my genes. I recently had a gene test to find out how many copies of the AMY1 gene I have, this a gene that codes for salivary amylase.”

Source: Your carbohydrate tolerance – is it written in your genes? AMY1 copy numbers | Julianne’s Paleo & Zone Nutrition

Comments Off on Julianne Taylor Has a Great Post on Amylase Gene Copy Number and Predisposition to Obesity and Carbohydrate Intolerance

Posted in Low-Carb

Author John C. Wright Converted From Atheism to Christianity at Age 42. Why?

Posted on November 14, 2016 | 9 comments

“My conversion was in two parts: a natural part and a supernatural part.

Here is the natural part: first, over a period of two years my hatred toward Christianity eroded due to my philosophical inquiries.

Rest assured, I take the logical process of philosophy very seriously, and I am impatient with anyone who is not a rigorous and trained thinker. Reason is the tool men use to determine if their statements about reality are valid: there is no other. Those who do not or cannot reason are little better than slaves, because their lives are controlled by the ideas of other men, ideas they have not examined.

To my surprise and alarm, I found that, step by step, logic drove me to conclusions no modern philosophy shared, but only this ancient and (as I saw it then) corrupt and superstitious foolery called the Church. Each time I followed the argument fearlessly where it lead, it kept leading me, one remorseless rational step at a time, to a position the Church had been maintaining for more than a thousand years. That haunted me.

Second, I began to notice how shallow, either simply optimistic or simply pessimistic, other philosophies and views of life were.”

Click through if you want to hear about the supernatural part:

Source: Philosophy, Evidence, and Faith: The Conversion of John C. Wright | Strange Notions

9 Comments

Posted in Religion

NYT Suggests That the Paleo Lifestyle May Be Here to Stay

Posted on November 13, 2016 | 1 comment

“To the uninitiated, the much talked about Paleo diet — a nutritional regimen centered around pasture-raised meat, eggs, fresh fruit and vegetables, and nuts, in the spirit of our cave-dwelling forebears — may seem like another low-carb fad, the South Beach diet dressed up in a mammoth hide. But the time has passed when it could be written off as a fringe movement of shaggy-haired Luddites with an outsize taste for wild boar meatloaf.

Lately, Paleo has charged toward the mainstream, not only as a hugely popular diet (it was most-searched diet of 2013, according to the Google Trends Zeitgeist list), but also as a cave-man-inspired lifestyle that has spawned a fast-growing industry.”

Source: The Paleo Lifestyle: The Way, Way, Way Back – NYTimes.com

1 Comment

Posted in Uncategorized

Dietitian Amy Kubal Answers, “Are Potatoes Paleo?”

Posted on November 13, 2016 | Comments Off on Dietitian Amy Kubal Answers, “Are Potatoes Paleo?”
Rosemary Chicken (garnished with pico de gallo) and Rosemary Potatoes

Rosemary Chicken (garnished with pico de gallo) and Rosemary Potatoes

“The whole “to spud or not to spud” issue is seriously ‘no small potatoes’ in the Paleosphere. It’s highly debated as to whether or not white potatoes are ‘safe’ or ‘allowed’, and if they are okay, the questions really start rolling in – Can I eat the skin? I should only eat the red ones, right? How should I prepare them? Do I need to only eat them cold? If I do eat them, does it mean I’m not ‘doing Paleo’? It’s exhausting and absolutely amazing how such an innocent looking food can create so much controversy. Seriously, people are VERY opinionated on the issue, and I’m sure my opinions will not go unopposed. Well, haters be damned, you’re going to get them anyway.”

RTWT.

Source: “Ask Amy The RD”: Are Those Spuds For You?? The “Paleoness” of Potatoes

paleo diet, Steve Parker MD

Sweet potatoes ready to pop in the oven

Comments Off on Dietitian Amy Kubal Answers, “Are Potatoes Paleo?”

Posted in Paleo Diet, Paleo Theory

O’Dea Says the Transnational Food Industry Is Likely to Block Cure of T2 Diabetes

Posted on November 11, 2016 | Comments Off on O’Dea Says the Transnational Food Industry Is Likely to Block Cure of T2 Diabetes
Australian Aborigine in Swamp Darwin

Australian Aborigine in Swamp Darwin

Kerin O’Dea (School of Population Health, U. of South Australia) performed one of the first clinical studies utilizing the paleo diet for treatment of type 2 diabetes. I discuss it in my Paleobetic Diet book and here.

O’Dea recently wrote:

“The most important lesson that can be drawn from this study is that metabolic control in type 2 diabetes can be greatly improved with healthy lifestyle interventions. The diet in the 1982 study was rich in very lean meat from wild animals: its high protein content aided satiety despite low energy intake [1,200 cal/day]. The carbohydrate was mostly high fibre and slowly digested. The fat content was low, but relatively rich in long chain highly polyunsaturated fats (omega-3 and omega-6). Recent research has demonstrated  that ectopic fat is a driver of both defects of type 2 diabetes: insulin resistance when in the liver, and impaired insulin secretion when in the pancreas. Both are potentially reversible by healthy diets instituted early in the disease process. However, current population trends to increased obeisty are driven by the powerful transnational food industry. Preventive interventions will therefor be very challenging.”

Source: Pathology (2016), 48(S1), Abstract Supplement

Comments Off on O’Dea Says the Transnational Food Industry Is Likely to Block Cure of T2 Diabetes

Posted in Uncategorized