Archive for the ‘Fitness’ Category

An alternative to vitamin D supplements?

12 Comments
Posted 11 Feb 2013 — by Todd
Category Diet, Fitness, Health, Hormesis

Screen Shot 2013-02-10 at 11.51.13 PMMy recent post on Why I don’t take vitamin D supplements generated a lot of interest and a few misconceptions.  In that article, I did not suggest any practical alternatives to taking high dose vitamin D supplements.  Here I will suggest a way that may provide the benefits of vitamin D without popping any pills, spending all day in the sun, or ingesting copious amounts of fish.

Some readers got the idea that I believe vitamin D is not beneficial, and that I discount the evidence from studies that show the benefits.  I want to dispel that notion.  I do acknowledge the key role that vitamin D and the vitamin D receptor (VDR) play in bone mineralization and regulation of  innate and adaptive immunity, and among other things.  I further acknowledge that many (but certainly not all) studies support an association between higher vitamin D3 levels and reduced incidence of diseases such as cancer.

As I wrote:

Nobody doubts the important role of vitamin D in the body. But are higher levels of a hormone like vitamin D–whether or not provided as a supplement– always a good thing?

My doubts are focused on several points:

  • Under-appreciation of the fact that vitamin D is a hormone with diverse and dose-dependent systemic effects, still not fully understood
  • Misleading  claims that vitamin D supplementation is “equivalent”  to vitamin D from sun exposure. While the two forms are chemically identical, levels of vitamin D3 synthesized from sun exposure are self-limiting due to feedback regulation.  What happens when we chronically exceed natural limits?
  • Inadequate attention to the possible effects of chronic vitamin D supplementation on homeostatic down-regulation of the VDR receptor. See this discussion bv Dr. David Agus of USC medical school.
  • Inadequate study of the possible long term adverse effects of chronic vitamin D supplementation. Few studies look beyond 4 years. Hormone replacement therapy was in favor for 50 years before the risks came to light . Things don’t necessarily look any more promising when synthetic hormones are replaced bioidentical hormones.

My article created a dilemma for several commenters. These people acknowledged the risks, but nevertheless cited  benefits they personally experienced  from supplementing with vitamin D–ranging from fewer colds and flu, to relief of autoimmune symptoms, and even lessening of depression.

For these people, a key question remains:

Is there a way to get the benefits of vitamin D supplementation, while avoiding the dependency and risks of taking vitamin D capsules daily for the rest of your life?  While I don’t have a definitive proven answer to that question, recent research leads me to speculate here that there is a promising approach that is within everyone’s reach.

It lies within a powerful natural biological process called autophagy.

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The Iceman

47 Comments
Posted 29 Jan 2012 — by Todd
Category Fitness, Hormesis, Psychology

Wim Hof can raise or lower his body temperature at will, overriding his autonomic nervous system. He is able to sit in a box of ice for almost two hours. He can swim 50 meters under arctic ice. Wearing only shorts and going barefoot, he has run a marathon in Lapland and climbed through snow to the summits of Mt. Everest and Mt. Kilamanjaro. In carrying out these feats, he is able to avoid hypothermia, the normal human response to extreme cold. Monitoring by physiologists show that he keeps his core temperature constant and normal during these challenges.

Yet Wim is not a genetic freak or Tibetan monk. He is a 52 year old Dutch man without much body fat. He believes that anyone can adapt to the cold and learn to control body temperature.

In this article, I will try to answer two questions:

  • How does he do it, and can anyone really do the same?
  • Is this basically an impressive stunt, or is there any benefit to learning Wim’s methods?
I will end by reporting on a preliminary experiment of my own with cold exposure.
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Get stronger using stress oscillation

11 Comments
Posted 14 Aug 2011 — by Todd
Category Diet, Fitness, Health, Hormesis

How much weight lifting or other exercise is optimal for fitness?  What is the right amount of carbohydrate restriction or fasting for sustained weight loss and health? What level of exposure to allergens will reduce allergies? How many hours of sun tanning is healthy? How frequently should plus lenses be worn to reduce myopia?  Do I need to take cold showers every day to get their benefit? How much stress is enough — and how much is too much?

Many of the questions I get on this website and the forums are of this type.  People understand the general concept of hormesis, namely that exposure to controlled amounts of stress can be beneficial, because it elicits beneficial adaptive responses in the organism.  They understand that weight lifting builds muscles, and that intermittent fasting and calorie reduction can be healthful. But too much of any stressor — weight lifting, caloric restriction, sunlight, allergens  – can have adverse consequences.  With hormesis, it seems, the Goldilocks principle applies: to get a benefit, the level of stress must be “just right”.  And because it’s so easy to veer into overload, many people seek to avoid even mild stress:  Avoid allergens. Cover up with sunscreen. Eat frequent small meals. Don’t exert yourself. But if you choose this path, you forgo the possible hormetic benefits.

So how do you determine the optimum level and frequency of exposure to a stress?  And how much rest or recovery between exposures is optimal? Read More

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Change your receptors, change your set point

47 Comments
Posted 25 Oct 2010 — by Todd
Category Diet, Fitness, Hormesis

Why is it so hard to make permanent changes to your habits, your health, and your happiness?  Some of the most difficult struggles in life involve losing weight (and keeping it off), overcoming addictions, and recovering from depression. Many diets and therapies deliver great short term results, but the most common pattern appears to be relapse.  It often seems that you are destined to fulfill some biological program — that you are stuck with a high body weight set point or an addictive or depressive personality that cannot be escaped in the long run.

This pessimistic message is prevalent among those who have investigated the track records of the “helping” industries: the weight loss companies, the addiction recovery centers, and the various schools of psychology and psychiatry. Unlike the advocates, those who investigate them often find the results are less than what the practitioners might want you to believe.  In the arena of dieting and weight loss, books such as “The Dieter’s Dilemma” (Bennett and Gurin, 1982), and  ”Rethinking Thin”  (Kolata, 2008) echo the original set point theory first propounded by Gordon C. Kennedy in the 1950s; they conclude that your body weight is largely predetermined by a biological set point that is handed to you at birth, plus or minus about ten pounds. I do agree that sustained weight loss cannot be achieved through sheer will power alone, or simply by using diet and exercise in order to create a calorie deficit. Yet, while there is some plausibility to the set point theory, I am convinced that it is wrong because it overlooks some important factors. I’ve already given some of my reasons for my disagreement with set point theory in other posts on this blog (Flavor control diets, How to break through a plateau). But in this post I’ll present some strong evidence for an alternative theory, based on the homeostatic regulation of cellular receptors for hormones and neurotransmitters. This is a variable set point theory which I call the receptor control theory. This theory proposes a mechanism that controls appetite and body weight, as well as regulating the balance of  energy and pleasure in your life. It provides practical tools to lose weight and keep it off, overcome addictions without relapse, and move out of depression into happiness.

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How to break through a plateau

14 Comments
Posted 19 Sep 2010 — by Todd
Category Diet, Fitness, Psychology

You’ve embarked on a new weight loss diet or fitness program. You’ve read a book, become inspired, signed up for a program or health club and what’s more — it’s working.  For the first week, two weeks, a month, the weight is coming off, you’re hitting the gym on a regular schedule. You even drop a size or two and garner some compliments from friends.

And then…progress stalls. You’re still eating the same foods, faithfully completing your workouts, but your weight loss stalls, perhaps the scale even goes up a few pounds. The progress you make at the gym similarly maxes out…you can’t lift any more weight, your running speed or distance maxes out…maybe even some soreness or injury sets you back a bit. You’ve hit the dreaded plateau.  Sometimes it lasts a few weeks and progress resumes. But it can last months. And it saps your morale because you are not getting any more return on your invested effort. In all likelihood, you give up or cut back, your discipline withers. Your weight goes back up, maybe adding a few pounds on top of where you started, and you cut back on or cut out your exercise program. The genie is back in the bottle.

What causes plateaus?  Are they inevitable endpoints in any effort to make progress? Or are they at best temporary way-posts or resting points that you can move beyond with the right approach?  The school of thought that says that plateaus are unavoidable indicators of biological limits is called the Set Point theory. I think that the Set Point theory is wrong, and that there is a reliable way to push past plateaus to bring about substantial weight loss and improved fitness.

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The paradox of barefoot running

17 Comments
Posted 28 Mar 2010 — by Todd
Category Fitness, Rehabilitation

Christopher McDougall’s sensational book Born to Run has been credited for an upsurge of interest in barefoot running over the past year, and its publication probably also explains much of the increased sales and visibilty of the once-esoteric and comment-provoking Vibram “Five Finger” running shoes.  Besides being a paean to the joys of running without shoes, McDougall’s book is certainly one of the best written, most entertaining adventure books of recent memory.  It sucks you in with tales of the mysterious hidden tribe of Mexican mountain runners, the Tarahumara, and an unforgettable cast of hardy and eccentric ultramarathoners. The adventure culminates in two exciting and unpredictable ultramarathons through the wilderness — one in the Colorado Rockies, and the other in the Copper Canyon of Mexico — with the protagonists of the book running shoeless over trails and boulder fields for 100 miles. While I’m not a total convert, after reading this book I’ve adopted a habit of alternating my runs between barefoot, Vibrams, and regular shoes. After some initial soreness, stiffness, and development of calluses, I found that my calves were strengthened in a way that significantly benefited my endurance and speed in running.

Other than recommending this book as a great vacation read or a way to rekindle your passion for running, I’d like to concentrate here on one of its central claims about the biomechanics of barefoot running, because it resonates so strongly with the thesis of Hormetism and Edward Tenner’s theories about the “revenge effects” of technology — and because it has implications that extend well beyond the sport of running. McDougall’s seemingly paradoxical assertion is that running without shoes makes one less susceptible to injury than using modern engineered running shoes, with their high-tech cushioning. Says McDougall: “Running shoes may be the most destructive force ever to hit the human foot.” (BTR, p. 168)   …How can this possibly be true?

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The physiology of stress

3 Comments
Posted 09 Feb 2010 — by Todd
Category Fitness, Hormesis

Do adaptations to stress exposure show up as changes in blood chemistry or heart function?  The answer appears to be “yes”.  In his Newsweek article “Lessons in Survival”, Ben Sherwood reported on a very interesting study of elite Army Airborne and Special Forces soldiers that probed the differences between those who could and could not endure an extremely stressful 19-day mock-prisoner-of-war camp.  The Resistance Training Laboratory, located at a secret location near Fort Bragg, North Carolina, subjected participants to sleep deprivation, blaring music, semi-starvation and — worst of all — intense interrogation techniques used by enemy forces during WWII, Korea and Vietnam.  ”The goal is to simulate hell on earth like the Hanoi Hilton in Vietnam or Al Qaeda’s torture chambers,” according to Sherwood.  In another test of mettle, at the Navy Diving and Salvage Training Center in Florida, trainee divers were put through stressful routines such as being thrown into a pool with their hands and feet bound, and underwater ocean swimming from 3 miles offshore to a target on shore.

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Stress management and toughness training

10 Comments
Posted 15 Jan 2010 — by Todd
Category Fitness

One of the best explanations of the use of “stress oscillation” for increasing physical and mental toughness can be found in the works of James E. Loehr, an athletic coach turned corporate consultant. Loehr worked with star athletes such as tennis legend Monica Seles and Olympians such as speed skater Dan Jansen to improve their performance and bounce back from defeat to become tougher and more resilient. Loehr’s insights are well summarized in two books, “Stress for Success” and “The Power of Full Engagement”, the latter co-authored with Tony Schwartz.

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