Dr. Sekula on weight loss, fitness and nutrition

Exercise is good. Inflammation in the body is bad! – it’s significantly related to a whole host of cardiovascular diseases.

The most frequently measured biomarker of inflammation in the body is C-reactive protein (CRP). High levels of CRP indicate high levels of inflammation. Essential fatty acids (Omega 3′s, for example) are known to reduce inflammation – so eat some fresh, Wild Salmon today . Other foods known to reduce inflammation are fresh fruits and vegetables, like berries, grapes, celery and avocadoes (there are more but that’s a quick list). Green tea has some anti-inflammatory characteristics too.

Fitness has been shown to be inversely related to CRP, the more fit you are the less CRP in your bloodstream. What hasn’t been very well understood, however, is the mechanism that’s in play. For example, if you are highly fit and have low CRP levels, is that because you are fit or are the habits of living your daily lifestyle (ie, diet full of fresh fruits, vegetables and healthy doses of essential fatty acids) causing your low levels of CRP.

This study attempted to answer that question.

What they found was that exercise was a significant contributor to low levels of CRP. They looked at sympathetic and parasympathetic tone. The former increases heart rate, respiration, substrate utilization, etc… when you start exercising, while the latter brings these values down, back to resting levels once you stop. Their main finding was a direct relationship between parasympathetic tone and CRP, which means the longer your body takes to get back to resting levels, the higher your levels of CRP. And, conversely, the quicker your body gets back to resting levels, the lower your levels of CRP.

So exercise is good for reducing inflammation in the body. Chalk up another one for the good guys.

Understand this, exercise is good but higher intensity exercise is even better. If you want to work on your body’s ability to recover, than do some interval training or other form of high intensity training. It can be cardio, weights, agility drills, anything really, the higher the intensity, the harder your body has to work to recover. Over time, it will recover more quickly and decrease your overall level of inflammation.

So, really, go out and break a sweat today! here in Houston today, that won’t be too hard

Dr. Brian


PS. If you need some guidance on your exercise program, sign up for one of our FREE newsletters. If you are a golfer and want to knock 4-5 strokes off your game, get a copy of the Golf Fitness Boot Camp, you can even download it to your computer right now! It will improve your game and the inflammation in your body.

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“Scientists in Indiana are reporting progress toward development of low glycemic and slowly digestible starch, a form of starch that would be less apt to cause the spike in blood sugar – and perhaps sharp hunger pangs – that many individuals experience after eating bread, baked goods, and other high-carbohydrate foods.”

The rest of the summary can be read here.

My only question is why?

I can understand the need for people to consume healthier foods – particularly than those listed in the quote above. But what if we just ate less of that food and more fruits and vegetables, healthier meats and drank more water? What if we just ate grains as they grow in the field?

Look in your pantry. Foods in plastic bags and carboard boxes are loaded with things that used to be good, healthy foods. Take enriched white flour for example. Out in the field, its a perfectly healthy and natural food.

To end up as a cake, bread or other food, it gets processed. The problem with processing is that it removes the good stuff, mainly the fiber, vitamins and minerals. As the end-product food stuff, it’s a plain-old, bland, quickly digesting starch.

Now, based on the objectives of these scientists, a new, more slowly digesting starch is being manufactured. And they’re making progress. I don’t know if I should jump for joy or just ask the question: “What is wrong with this picture?”

If we have a perfectly healthy food, process it and turn it into something that is not good for our digestive system, why do we want to further alter it so that it is better for our digestive system? Before you answer, think about the steps being taken to make the food better.

Is this coming full circle or am I just missing something completely obvious here? Please enlighten me!

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A recent study presented at the Endocrine Society Annual meeting suggested that males over 50 with low testosterone had a 33% greater risk of all-cause mortality than those who had higher levels of testerone. Low testosterone was identified as the lower-limit found in healthy young males.

The study followed 800 men for 18 years on average, a large sample size for a very long period of time. The low testosterone group had the following characteristics:

• higher levels of inflammation markers, which contribute to several forms of cardiovascular disease
• larger waist measurement (greater than 40 inches)
• metabolic syndrome – low HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides, high blood sugars and hypertension.

Over the 18-year period, men in the low-testosterone group had a 33% greater risk from all-cause mortality than the normal / high testosterone group. This is a stout finding given the characteristics of the study, indicating that even if problems exist in methodology the results are likely portable in more controlled studies.

So what does this mean for you? If you are male, over 50 and taking prescription medication for hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes and have a waist over 40 inches, get your testosterone levels checked. If you aren’t taking medication for anything listed above but have any of the symptoms below, get them checked too. Preferably by an MD trained in Natural Hormone Replacement Therapy. The synthetic hormones cranked out by big pharma just don’t seem to work as well.

Other symptoms of low testosterone include:

• reduced quality of sleep
• easier to lose your temper
• lack of drive
• reduced sex drive
• significant decrease in muscle mass
• significant increase in body fat

The symptoms above can happen from time-to-time but persistent appearances indicate something beyond the natural aging process.

If you notice these symptoms, the best thing you can do is, again, have your testosterone levels checked, start an exercise program and modify your diet.

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Reading this summary, I felt an urge to blurt out: “No blank, Sherlock!”

A recent study published in JAMA, a leading pillar of medical research dissemination, compared low GI diets with low-fat diets on insulin secretion in high insulin secreters.

On the surface, this appears to be a legitimate research question. Insulin is related to glucose metabolism and given the current state of obesity and type II diabetes in America, this might be something we should know.

However, most people in the medical fields should intuitively know this. The glycemic index of any food indicates the level it raises blood sugar when consumed. The higher the glycemic index, the higher the blood sugar response. For example, twinkies rate rather high on the glycemic index. Consume two or three of them and your blood sugar will spike.

At least for a while. In response, your body will release (secrete) insulin to bring it back down to normal.

If you are a high insulin secreter, you’re either type II diabetic, pre-diabetic or have a non-lifestyle related condition effecting your ability to metabolize blood sugar. You have to secrete more because the insulin you do release is becoming more and more insensitive to blood sugar. When this starts happening, the amount you secrete increases just to get your blood sugar back to normal. Over time your ability to regulate blood sugar becomes difficult and you become type II diabetic. For more info, go here.

But back to the study…

All markers of cardiovascular health were improved following low GI diet when compared to a low-fat diet. Again, this makes perfect sense. You’re not obese or diabetic because you eat a low-fat diet of whole, natural foods. You’re obese or diabetic (even if you eat a low-fat diet) because you are consuming overly-processed foods – cardboard boxes and plastics bags. The fat they contain is not healthy (trans fat) and to increase palatability (here) and shelf-life, sugars and preservatives are added.

The end result is a low-fat food that has a high GI, which increases insulin secretion when consumed. And the cycle continues…

I’ll conclude by saying that as a former academic, I’m well aware the importance peer-reviewed publications play in the tenure process. So in some ways, I understand why this paper was published. Without knowing all the details, I can only hope this paper was part of a larger study with these data points already collected, making the question easy to answer.

Until next time…

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On Monday, May 21, 2007, we’ll debut the beta version of our online Golf-Fitness Boot Camp. For several reasons, this is great news for you!

First, even though it’s the beta version, all features of the full-blown online Golf-Fitness Boot Camp will be fully tested and in working order before we complete beta testing. If you ever considered improving your golf game through a fitness program, this is your best opportunity to do so.

Why? Because while in beta test mode, the online Golf Fitness Boot Camp will be absolutely FREE! All you will have to do is register and we’ll take care of the rest. To stay abreast of the updates, sign up for Brian’s Report.

Second, you can’t get a workout like this anywhere else – all for FREE! So sign-up for the trial period and use it to your advantage.

Third, by the time beta testing is complete, you’ll be able to hit the ground running with your workouts. In other words, the learning curve associated with getting started won’t eat into your monthly (or annual) payment.

That’s it. Those are three good reasons to get started. Now, sign-up for Brian’s Report and don’t miss this opportunity!

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It’s good to be back!

I know, it’s been a while but I have a good excuse – I bought a fitness center.

Unfortunately, that kept me from finishing my journey. But in case you were wondering, I’ve fully recovered and have no ill effects! Now, if I could just find the time to get out on the course.

I’m still deciding on how to best utilize my blog. There certainly will be fitness center updates, videos of workouts and camps and more. You can subscribe to the feed for updates – just use the Atom Syndication below and to your right. Alternatively, you can sign up for Brian’s Report, my golf-fitness newsetter.

One idea I’ve been thinking about are health related posts. I subscribe to several medical news alert services. Nearly everyday I see a headline that makes me scratch my head or simply say “Duh!” I’m thinking about publishing these to the blog 3-4 times per week. Hopefully it will be entertaining and educational for you.

What do you think?

Any ideas?

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Press Release 1: Walking not enough for significant exercise benefits.
Press Release 2: “No time to exercise” is no excuse, study shows.

By most publications, walking is the most popular form of physical activity. And why not? It’s easy to incorporate walking into your daily routine. You can make a concerted effort to take the stairs rather than the elevator, walk down the hall to speak with a colleague rather than emailing or phoning them, or even take a quick 10 minute walk on your lunch hour.

For the longest time, many health-related organizations trumpeted the healthy effects of walking on cardiovascular disease, chronic disease, mental disorders and weight control. In fact, Shape Up America has dedicated a large part of their mission to their 10,000 steps a day program. The main message of this program (and others like it) is to accumulate 10,000 steps (about 5 miles) each day and your health will improve.

But are we missing something?

“Generally, low-intensity activity such as walking alone is not likely to give anybody marked health benefits compared to programs that occassionally elevate the intensity,” says Dr. Vicki Harber, lead author of the study in the first press release.

Their study compared traditional exercise (using treadmills and stationary cycles) at a moderate-intensity with the 10,000 steps a day program, where subjects accumulated 10,000 steps per day.

The most significant finding was that fitness levels in the traditional exercise group improved at a rate 2.5 times that of the 10,000 steps per day group.

A separate study confirms these findings.

One group followed an interval training protocol while the other performed continuous, moderate-intensity stationary cycling. Over the study period, the interval training group trained for a total of 2.5 hours while the cycling group trained for 10.5 hours.

The results?

No significant differences in health or fitness markers between the groups.

“The most striking finding from our study was the remarkably similar adaptations induced by two such diverse training strategies,” says Martin Gibala, associate professor of kinesiology at McMaster University.

My thoughts
People in the service side (personal trainers, coaches, instructors, etc…) of the fitness industry have known for a long time that harder exercise provides better results. Those doing research on physical activity and health (I used to be one of them) realize this too. However, those doing research also understand that a continuum between the benefits of exercise and the intensity of exercise exists.

So much of the American population is completely inactive that getting up and following the 10,000 steps per day program will provide health benefits, which explains the major campaigns. But it’s important to realize too, that once you leave the “couch potato” behind, increasing the intensity of exercise will do more (and in a shorter period of time) than simply walking. So the continuum is getting people off the couch to doing something and then getting them to do more.

All of this leads us to walking and “burning calories.” Earlier I mentioned a few of the reasons why walking is the most popular form of exericse. I intentionally did not mention fat loss (although I mentioned weight control, which is a completely different issue). You can readily verify the tie-in between walking and fat-burning zones by reading magazine headings, talking with any un-informed trainer or reading the “charts” in the fitness center or on the treadmill.

What do the headlines, trainers or chart say (or show)?

That fat-burning zones are of lower intensity than “cardio-training” zones. This may be true for “in-the-moment” metabolism, but completely off the mark in every other regard. Higher intensity exercise burns more calories, can be done in a shorter period of time and provides better health benefits than “fat-burning” zone exercise.

There is a ton of research to suppor this claim but the health conditions that receive the most benefit from higher intensity exercise are cardiovascular diseases. These include hypertension, type II diabetes, high cholesterol, metabolic syndrome and obesity.

Your take home message
Don’t give up on walking!

Instead, replace some of your walking with higher-intensity exercise. Make your body huff-and-puff a little. You’ll be better off in the long run.

Isn’t it better to get the same (or better) results in a shorter period of time?

Of course it is. That’s why working out harder is better than the alternative.

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