A couple weeks ago in my post about health and vanity a good discussion got started in the comment board about the body composition of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Was Grok lean and ripped or not? Let’s take a look at what we know.
It’s pretty well established that hunter-gatherers eating their traditional, whole-foods hunter-gatherer diet (whether Inuit, or Masai, or Pacific Islander, or whatever else) display little to no signs of the diseases of civilization. Infection, warfare, pestilence, starvation, and colonial incursion were occasional or even frequent sources of poor health outcomes, but for the most part they were well-nourished and free of degenerative diseases, even the long lived members. These guys weren’t dying for lack of statins or chemotherapy – let’s put it this way.
Read MoreRejoice!
A new clinical study was just released linking a low-carbohydrate diet to reduced liver fat. Get this, though – the scientists actually compared the low-carb diet to a low-calorie diet and found the low-cal diet severely lacking. Their results aren’t surprising, especially to our readers. In fact, we’re almost tempted to put this in the “Duh” files, but these guys seem to be on our side: they went into it with a hypothesis that maybe, just maybe, a low-carb diet could be helpful, and the results speak for themselves. A study that’s actually intended to investigate the advantages of a low-carb diet without the underlying assumption that CW-driven low-cal diets are better? No way we’re passing up a chance to discuss it!
Read MoreLoathe your love handles? A study in the New England Journal of Medicine suggests the extra belly fat isn’t just an eyesore; it can increase your risk of an early death.
While the link between extra belly padding and health problems has been long established, this new study is the first to show such a powerful link between pant size and death risk.
For the study, researchers from Imperial College London studied almost 360,000 people from nine European countries. The average age of participants at study onset was 51. Across the 10 year study period, 14,723 study participants died.
Read MoreIn a new study out of the Archives of Internal Medicine investigators discovered that even people with extra copies of the “fat mass and obesity” genes called FTO did NOT get fatter if they were active throughout the day. In other words, a so-called genetic predisposition to obesity was effectively avoided when the owners of the so-called defective genes were active four to five hours a day doing low-level aerobic stuff. And it didn’t have to be much: brisk walking, housecleaning and gardening were sufficient. Just like Grok did in the original Primal Blueprint. 900 calories day of this was plenty.
Read MoreDear Mark,
What do you think about the claim that being heavier doesn’t necessarily mean you’re less healthy than someone who’s thin?
Thanks to reader Corey for his question and for sending the New York Times article that highlights recent research.
The article references a study published in this month’s Archives of Internal Medicine.
Read MoreIn my recent Context of Calories post, I explained how the different macronutrients we eat at each meal (fats, proteins, and carbohydrates) have different effects in the body. I suggested that, despite their raw calorie values, it’s far more important to get a lasting intuitive sense of how much of each macronutrient you need and when you need it (or not).
But how do you do that? How do you figure out the proper number of calories—and breakdown of fats, protein and carbs—to accomplish your fitness and health goals? To lose weight? Lose fat? Gain muscle? Maintain status quo? Run marathons?
In fact, most popular daily diets look at overall calories as the main factor in weight loss and weight gain. The age-old conservation of energy Conventional Wisdom says that “a calorie is a calorie.” From there, most diet gurus generally prescribe some formulaic one-size-fits-all breakdown of fats, protein and carbs. A classically trained Registered Dietitian will tell you that protein should be around 10-15% of calories, carbs should be 60% (and mostly from whole grains) and fat under 30%. This macronutrient breakdown stays the same regardless of how much weight you need to lose or what other goals you might have. Barry Sears has his 40/30/30 “Zone” diet. The USDA bases everything on a choice of between 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day. But, as I said earlier, it’s not that simple. Calories do have context.
Read MoreA study published online in this month’s Neurology suggests that people whose waistline expands once they hit age 40 are more likely to develop dementia in their 70s than their slimmer peers.
For the study, researchers measured the abdominal fat of 6,583 people between the ages of 40 and 45 living in Northern California. After an average of 36 years, 16% of participants had developed dementia.
Based on this data, the researchers determined that those with the highest abdominal fat measurements were roughly three times more likely to develop dementia than those with the lowest levels of abdominal fat. These findings held true regardless of whether the individual was of normal weight overall, overweight or obese, although the researchers note that future dementia risk was highest among obese individuals with high abdominal fat measurements. According to researchers, women were more likely than men to have high abdominal fat levels, along with non-whites, those with less than a high school level of education, smokers, and people with high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes.
Read MoreA study appearing in a recent issue of the journal Urban Studies suggests that the neighborhood a person resides in can motivate – or discourage – their likelihood of exercising or remaining physically active.
For the study, researchers from The Ohio State University, the University of Chicago and the University of Utah reviewed data from the Metropolitan Chicago Information Center Metro Survey, the 1990 U.S. Census, and the Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods Survey to determine the level of exercise of 8,782 residents of 373 neighborhoods in Chicago.
Read MoreThe proliferation of over-indulgent double meat, double bacon, double cheese, double bypass-surgery monster burgers across our fast-food nation has been taken to an all new level as detailed by this article in Portfolio magazine. (If you don’t believe me take a look at this interactive feature.) It doesn’t take a 7 page magazine article to tell us that fast-food chains from sea to shining sea have hardly even paid lip service to the public outcry against their freakishly fatty fare. You can hardly go anywhere without being bombarded with ads of fit young guys diving into double-pattied, greasy behemoths “no holds barred.” The latest evil-genius marketing ploy uses opponents charges against them by developing a false sense of pride associated with eating something that is so extremely socially incorrect. The bigger burger you eat, they tell us, the higher your middle finger flies in the face of whiny, veggie-eating health nuts.
Read MoreA study in the Jan. 22 edition of Circulation suggests that drinking diet soda may increase your chance of developing metabolic syndrome.
To evaluate the link between nutrition and metabolic syndrome, researchers from the University of Minnesota analyzed the daily diets of more than 9,514 men and women between the ages of 45 and 64 enrolled in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study.
After following the health of these individuals for nine years, there were 3,782 reports of metabolic syndrome, a condition diagnosed by physicians based on the presence of several risk factors thought to increase an individual’s risk for heart disease, diabetes and stroke such as abdominal adiposity, elevated blood pressure, high blood triglyceride levels, unhealthy cholesterol levels and elevated blood sugar.
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