Game of Thrones: For Those Who Are Not Into Stretching (this just may be the perfect place…)

By Marlene Harris, NSCA-CSCS

     I never have never been a rabid pursuer of stretching, more like a casual advocate of the whole concept. I see its value and it makes perfect sense in many ways for warm-ups, cool-downs, and general movement when you’ve been still a bit too long. However, it can, (as most, if not all areas of fitness can be) over-used and outright abused. As such it has the capacity to cause as much harm as good. As with over-eating, over-training, over-working, or any other “over” thing you can name, “over-stretching” is also possible and has undesirable outcomes. If you over-stretch your structures, you can cause them to tighten up even more as opposed to release and loosen. This is because your body has a fine Goldilocks Zone sense of where your structures are supposed to be (according to your present context), and anything that pushes that boundary too far will cause your neurology to contract your tissues in protection of them. Overly-loose structures are no more favorable than overly tight ones from a functional point of view; you won’t move well or comfortably in either case.
     Many people don’t stretch regularly, myself included. It’s very easy not to because it’s very easy not to think about it, and being it’s not a high priority for most, it doesn’t make the “Gee.  I really want to/need to do that...” list. But, one day while I was in the, ahem, “throne room”, I mindlessly did a couple stretchy-type moves while in process of “throne room things” and thought “Eureka!”. Why not do a couple stretchy-type things when I visit the throne room? I have to be in there anyways, so why not optimize my time? I started doing this about a week or so ago, and I gotta tell ya, as it’s a very easy habit to acquire (because its not umpleasant), and again, you don’t have to spend a great deal of time devoted to it. Just a couple of moves done each or every other visit will do! Not sure what to do? Here’s a brief sampler. Bear in mind these all assume a seated position on the throne. For those of you who do more standing for throne room visits, feel free to make up your own position-appropriate versions!

1). Ragdoll stretch: while on the throne, drop your arms to your sides and bring your chest towards your knees and count to 10. This stretches your lower and mid-back. Do it twice if it so pleases you. For a more assertive version; place your hands on the front of your knees and pull your chest towards them (pull sensibly!).

2). Hammy stretch: straighten one leg and reach for your toes (or whatever), count to 10. Do the same for the other side. You can also place both feet out at once (be careful with this one!).   

3). Side-bend reach: place one arm at your side, and try to touch your fingers to the floor. You can either do this as a “hold” stretch or a “pulse” stretch where you do mini-touches. Again, go for that 10 count.

4). Cross-reach stretch: turn your torso to the right, and reach your left arm across your body towards the right. Hold or pulse for a 10 count. Do the same for the left side, turn towards your left, reach your right arm across your body in that direction, again for 10, hold or pulse.

5). Ceiling reach: raise one of your arms straight up overhead towards the ceiling, hold or pulse for 10, repeat with the other arm. To further lengthen the arm-up aide, do a bit of a side bend as well!

6). “IT Worker”/shoulder stretch: this one is a must for all office/IT workers. Reach both arms straight behind you and try to touch the tank of the throne. Can you touch it? Great! See if you can squeeze a bit for an enhanced effect! No hunching those shoulders allowed!   

7). Adductor (inner) & Abductor (outer) thigh stretch: place your hand on the inside of one knee and pull lightly towards the outside, stretching your inner thigh (adductor), then place your hand on outside of your knee and lightly pull towards your middle stretching your outer thigh (abductor). Repeat with the other side, 10 counts, hold or pulse, as you like.

      Pick and choose among the stretches, have fun with it, and above all, DO NOT make it a chore! Even if you pick just one here and there throughout the day you’ll be more productive than not doing any at all yes? As you’re likely aware, little efforts, done consistently, can add up to big results in the long term. The above are just a few ideas to get you started. Feel free to incorporate any favorite stretches you may know as best the positioning allows and invent your own variations! Again, you gotta be in there anyways, so…I’m just sayin’…

Alarming Rise in Obesity-Related Cancers in Young Adults

from the AICR Newsletter

A new analysis raises the alarm that the rates of obesity-related cancers are rising in younger and younger adults. Findings from a new study published in The Lancet Public Health indicate that six obesity-related cancers have significantly increased between 1995-2014 and the risk of these cancers is increasing in each successive younger age group. These cancers include colorectal, pancreatic, gallbladder, kidney cancer and multiple myeloma (a type of blood cancer). These cancer types are particularly concerning because they are very serious and account for over 150,000 deaths in the U.S. every year.

The findings were built on the researchers’ previous work demonstrating that the incidence of colorectal cancer in the U.S. has increased in recent decades, especially among younger adults. Colorectal cancer is an obesity-related cancer. “We wanted to find out whether there was a similar increase in incidence of other cancers related to obesity,” says Ahmedin Jemal, DVM, PhD, the vice president of the Surveillance and Health Services Research Program at the American Cancer Society, and the senior author of the study.

The current study was based on cancer incidence data for people aged 25 to 84 years between January 1995 and December 2014. Data was obtained from the Cancer in North America database of the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries. The researchers limited their analysis to data pooled from 25 state cancer registries, covering more than two-thirds of the population living in the U.S.

Statistical analysis revealed that during the 20-year period under study, incidence of six of the 12 known obesity-related cancers – colorectal, endometrial (also known as uterine corpus), gallbladder, kidney, multiple myeloma, and pancreatic – increased in the U.S., and the risk of developing these cancers increased within each successively younger age group.

Although the rates of obesity-related cancers also rose among older adults, the magnitude of change was greater among younger adults. The greatest annual percent change increases by age were observed among young adults between the ages of 25 and 29 years for kidney (6.23 percent), gallbladder (3.71 percent), endometrial (3.34 percent), and colorectal cancers (2.4 percent). The annual percent change for people between the ages of 30 and 34 years for multiple myeloma increased by 2.21 percent.

The analysis showed an escalating risk among younger generations for obesity-related cancers. For example, “The risk of developing endometrial cancer among millennials is twice as high as the risk among baby boomers of the same age,” says Jemal.

The authors of the study suggest that this shift in the trend toward increased younger adult cancer incidence may be due to the rapid rise in overweight or obesity prevalence. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, obesity rates among children and teens have more than tripled since the 1970s. A growing body of evidence from experimental studies suggests that having obesity or overweight can speed up the multistep processes involved in the development of cancer, potentially explaining the changes in cancer trends. In addition, people having overweight or obesity may engage in behaviors that increase cancer risk, such as a sedentary lifestyle, extensive screen time, or eating a diet high in processed or red meat and low in fruits and vegetables.

The findings from this study highlight the need for interventions that address the obesity epidemic. “If there is no intervention, the burden of obesity-related cancers in older adults is likely to be much higher in the future,” says Jemal. “This is a bellwether. We haven’t seen the full impact of the obesity epidemic on cancer burden.”

Source: Sung, Hyuna, et al. "Emerging cancer trends among young adults in the USA: analysis of a population-based cancer registry." The Lancet Public Health (2019).

 

The Case Against Sugar is Very Strong

from Brian Johnson’s” Optimizer” E-Zine

Gary Taubes wrote a great book called The Case Against Sugar.Basic idea: If you were a detective in charge of figuring out a series of crimes and you noticed a common pattern among those crimes, you'd be smart to put the pieces together and see if you could narrow your search down to a single suspect. Right?

Well... That's what Taubes does in his book. The crimes? All the chronic diseases wreaking havoc on our society—from diabetes and obesity to heart disease and cancer. Short story: All those chronic diseases are associated with metabolic dysfunction. And the fastest way to make your metabolism dysfunctional? Sugar. Enter: The case against it.

Remember our Nobel Prize winner Elizabeth Blackburn? She discovered telomerase—the stuff that replenishes telomeres.
     Here's how she puts it in The Telomere Effect: "When we want to spot the parties responsible for metabolic disease, we point a finger at the highly processed, sugary foods and sweetened drinks. (We're looking at you, packaged cakes, candies, cookies, and sodas.) These are the foods and drinks most associated with compulsive eating. They light up the reward system in your brain. They are almost immediately absorbed into the blood, and they trick the brain into thinking we are starving and need more food. While we used to think all nutrients had similar effects on weight and metabolism — a 'calorie is a calorie' — this is wrong. Simply reducing sugars, even if you eat the same number of calories, can lead to metabolic improvements. Simple carbs wreak more havoc on metabolism and control over appetite than other types of foods."

Blackburn is at UCSF. She references her colleague Robert Lustig when she makes the point above. As we discussed in our last +1, Lustig is one of the world's leading research endocrinologists. You know what he says about sugar? He tells us that sugar is the "Darth Vader" of the nutrition world. This little statistic (from his studies) might be THE most powerful one we'll ever read regarding just how dangerous sugar is:

"If you had any residual doubt about 'a calorie is not a calorie,' this analysis should remove it. Every additional 150 calories per person per day barely raised diabetes prevalence. But if those 150 calories were instead from a can of soda, increase in diabetes rose sevenfold. Sugar is more dangerous than its calories. Sugar is a toxin. Plain and simple."

That's crazy. 150 additional calories from any source? No big deal. 150 additional calories from a CAN OF SODA? DIABETES GOES UP SEVENFOLD. Know this: "Sugar is more dangerous than its calories. Sugar is a toxin. Plain and simple."

Please tattoo that on your consciousness. (Right after throwing away your sodas!) And... To be clear: This isn't just about risk for diabetes. It's a metabolic issue—which is all about how every cell in our bodies produce Energy—which means it affects EVERYTHING.

 

Eating processed food leads to weight gain

From Tom Venuto from the Burn the Fat E-zine 

"Eating processed food leads to weight gain; eating unprocessed food leads to weight loss? Duh. Of course. Common sense. Not news." But there is new news about ultra-processed food, from a study just completed at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.

Common sense may dictate that "processed foods are fattening," but how? Are they simply a delivery vehicle for excess calories or are they inherently fattening in some other way as well? If this seems like an odd question, consider that it's not unusual at all for people to believe that refined sugar simply turns right into body fat (false).
 
Only a controlled study can show a cause-effect relationship between food and fat gain and that's what this study did - the first study of its kind. The scientists admitted 10 men and 10 women who were weight-stable into their inpatient facility where they lived for 28 days and everything they did could be controlled and measured.

They were assigned randomly to the ultra-processed or unprocessed diet for 2 weeks, and then crossed over to the other diet for 2 weeks. Each participant was given 3 daily meals and instructed to eat as much or as little of them as they wanted (ad libitum). The results?

On the ultra-processed diets, subjects ate on average, 508 more calories per day. That's an ENORMOUS difference. It shouldn't be a surprise then, that on the ultra-processed diet, subjects gained weight (1.7 lbs in only 2 weeks) and lost weight on the unprocessed diet (2.4 lbs in only 2 weeks).

Before shrugging this off as, "Still just common sense," a key point to remember is that the subjects were not counting calories or tracking macros. Also, if this is common sense, then why are there still so many diet wars with factions arguing, sometimes aggressively, about whether the ideal weight loss diet is low carbohydrate, keto, paleo, grain-free, high protein, low fat, vegetarian, vegan,  and so on?

The question is not whether these diets work - all of them can work, and no single diet is going to be suitable for everyone's preferences and lifestyles. The more important question is why do they work? For some strange reason, there are still large numbers of people who don't believe weight loss is a calorie thing. Low carb dogma is usually dismissive of the role of calories. Low carb and keto advocates to this day will tell you that obesity is caused by carbs and insulin (wrong).

It really is an excess of calories that leads to fat gain. Ultra processed carbs can simply be a big part of that energy surplus in the average person's diet, and the call to cut carbs is simply one way to reduce calories. Also kind of strange if there's no specific health reason for it, the "reduce carbs" guideline often includes non processed carbs like sweet potatoes, brown rice, beans, oatmeal, 100% whole grains, even, believe it or not, fruit.

In a similar fashion, all kinds of specific foods, from wheat to dairy to potatoes and more, have been demonized and implicated in fat gain by an endless parade of popular diets, with no cause and effect evidence. It's never advertised as "too many calories" because that's not sexy enough to sell.

Popular diet recommendations are diverse, but the ones that work all share a common piece of advice: avoid or minimize ultra-processed foods. The scientific evidence points to obesity and associated diseases like type 2 diabetes rising in parallel with an increasingly industrial food system and the easy availability of cheap processed food.

We may still be talking common sense here, but there were more "uncommon" findings that popped up in this study as well. Some previous research theorized that ultra processed foods are hyper-palatable, have "supernormal appetitive properties," or may disrupt gut-brain signaling and influence food reinforcement and overall calorie intake through pathways distinct from energy density or palatability of the food.

As many scientists have suspected, appetite hormones are involved. The high processed food group saw an increase in the hunger hormone ghrelin, while the unprocessed food group saw an increase in the appetite suppressing hormone PYY (peptide YY).

Yet another interesting finding was that the processed food group ate faster - 17 calories per minute faster. This eating rate was directly correlated to higher total calorie intake. Previous studies found that a 20% change in eating rate can impact energy intake by 10 to 13%.

And an even more notable finding for the few remaining who still don't believe in calories in vs calories out: This was a metabolic ward study, so calorie balance could be directly tracked. The amount of weight gain experienced by eating the processed food correlated highly with the amount of surplus calories consumed. This gives us more confirmation about the role of energy balance in weight gain or loss.

Like many pieces of the body transformation puzzle, this is simple stuff, but not easy to apply, especially when you consider how cheap, convenient and ubiquitous junk food is.  Be prepared to flex some discipline and put in some effort, because eating for healthy fat loss is not always easy in our modern environment.

"Eat less processed food" is sound advice, for health as well as weight loss, but it may not be useful enough to stop there. Meal planning and more specific strategies on controlling excess calories from processed food will help even more.

Pressured Apologies, False Confessions, Witch Hunts

BY STEWART JUSTMAN

Someone makes a public comment out of line with progressive opinion. Enforcers of such opinion promptly descend on the offender online, pelting him or her with abusive slogans in the name of Justice. The offender buckles, offers submission — even while protesting that he or she didn’t really mean any harm — and promises, perhaps, to become a better person. Over recent months we have become all too familiar with this sequence, which by now constitutes virtually a genre.

For example, answering a question about the possibility of a transgender player competing against women on the tennis court, the former champion Martina Navratilova tweeted on Dec. 20, 2018:

Clearly that can’t be right. You can’t just proclaim yourself a female and be able to compete against women. There must be some standards, and having a penis and competing as a woman would not fit that standard [sic].

Given her history in tennis, Navratilova must have felt she was on solid ground in commenting on the principles of competition. Nevertheless, when the transgender cyclist Rachel McKinnon reviled her (a lesbian) as “transphobic,” she apologized, placed herself under a sort of gag order, and deleted the original tweet, in effect withdrawing her argument.

I am sorry if I said anything anywhere near transphobic — certainly I meant no harm — I will educate myself better on this issue but meantime I will be quiet about it. Thank you.

The story goes on from there, but the two tweets in and of themselves are enough to suggest an analogy between the extraction of an apology for an ideological offense and the extraction of a false confession in a criminal case. Both Martina Navratilova and an innocent suspect who confesses under pressure disown a position that originally seemed to them self-evident — that it “clearly” can’t be appropriate for a biological male to compete against women, and that one didn’t commit a crime one knows nothing about. Of course, a person who confesses to a murder faces penalties that go well beyond the shaming suffered by someone who apologizes for a comment.

Here, though, I am concerned with a larger point suggested by both the extracted apology and the extracted confession: that our certainties may not be as immune to coercion as we would like to think. […]

Read the complete article.