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Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)
In Case You Have Not Heard, Exercise (Not A Diet) Is Good For You
In what I hope will become a trend in this country, the management of a hospital in England banned the Atkins Diet from its menus. Hooray for the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital doctors who, based on a report by the government-funded Medical Research Council linking the diet to kidney damage, took this bold action. The US-based Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) immediately urged American hospitals to protect their patients by following suit. Excellent move. Amy Joy Lanou, PCRM's nutrition director, stated in a press release," Hospitals that serve meat-heavy, fatty foods might be good at keeping their beds filled, but they're doing little to improve patient health. Research has clearly shown that high-protein, meat-heavy diets increase the risk of osteoporosis and kidney disorders and that low-fat vegetarian diets help prevent heart disease, diabetes, some cancers, and other health problems." (August 21, 2003 PCRM news release.) Oddly, the PCRM acknowledged that the organization did not actually know how many US hospitals offered the Atkins diet -- hopefully none. Still, there's no harm in urging a ban. I urge all hospitals to ban terrorists and patients who think Jerry Lewis is or ever was funny as well as anyone who admits that he might vote for Bush's reelection. There might very well be some Atkins fans and other serial dieters out there, such as followers of weight-loss queen Oprah Winfrey, who do not acknowledge vigorous, daily, life-long exercise as the key to fitness and a healthy body weight. There might be, but I kind of doubt it. Still, knowing that exercise is key to fitness and sensible weight is one thing, acting on a regular basis to make exercise as much an integral a part of one's daily routine as sleeping, bathing, grooming, eating and the like is another. The latter has not happened yet, at least not in the good old US of A - and it shows: We're number one! Number one, that is, in percentage of the population who are significantly overweight. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 64 percent of Americans are overweight and 30 percent are obese, or grossly overweight. Yet, researchers are paid to do research, so every week, if not every day, some faculty member of a university or staff scientist at a clinic or institute that managed to score grant funds to study obesity will call a press conference to announce something like this: "New research lends support to the idea that obese people who exercise have half the death rate of those who are trim but don't exercise." Now, isn't that amazing? Who would have thought such a thing? Steven Blair, lead investigator at the famed Cooper Institute for Aerobics Research in Dallas, is the genius who suggested that fitness is more important than weight loss for lowering one's risk of heart disease. Too bad Atkins did not write exercise books instead of all those weight loss best sellers. Other experts, particularly those connected with the weight loss/diet products industry, were quick to suggest, upon hearing this amazing news, that an appropriate weight is still a good idea for reducing the prospects of OTHER maladies associated with obesity, such as cancer, arthritis and infertility. Not mentioned, unfortunately, was the obvious fact that exercise is also the best way to avoid or overcome obesity for most people, that is, those whose obesity is not caused by various glandular and other physical disorders. One obesity researcher put it this way: "You don't have to lose weight. You can instead improve your fitness.'' Well, yes, but what's wrong with doing both? I know it's difficult for some people to do both, for varied reasons, so the next best strategy is to focus on becoming fit, not losing pounds. That is another good idea. What was new and different about the above noted Cooper study was that 50 percent of the subjects tested were found to function at a level considered to represent being fit. Fit, in this case, was assessed by a standard stress protocol involving how long subjects could walk on a treadmill at increasing intensity before becoming exhausted. (The Cooper Clinic investigators tracked 25,000 middle-aged men and about 8,000 women for at least 10 years.) It seems doubtful that a similar high rate of fitness would be found among obese people at the typical amusement park or elsewhere in the general population, though it makes some of us curious about what percent of obese people might be fitter than they look. Guess we need another new study. What else might we need even more, however? According to the Cooper folks, just 30 minutes of moderate walking every day, at three or four mph, would make most obese people fit. That's what we need even more -- more people exercising. It remains hard to understand why everyone does not exercise at this minimal level. It seems easy enough yet, I don't think most people will take the time unless HMOs, employers, the federal and local governments and other institutions provide a few positive incentives to induce people to do what is in their own best interest. I hope it happens soon -- but don't wait if you are not already exercising at this basic level or better. Once you are fit, you will never settle for anything less. Be well, enjoy and look on the bright side. Domain: physicalSubdomain: exercise and fitness
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