Rush Limbaugh and Time Magazine Are on the Same Page

While you wouldn’t think so, Time Magazine and Rush Limbaugh are on the same reality denying page. Neither the magazine nor Rush are looking at the facts and being fair and balanced on the topic of exercise. Rush, not

Time For Exercise

that long ago, implied that exercise was not necessary, didn’t add to your health, and increased the cost of health care since all those exercising were injured so frequently. Time magazine denigrates the value of exercise and espouses the twisted thought that exercise will not help with weight loss and may lead to weight gain because after you eat, the author felt, you’d be hungrier and would eat donuts and other junk food.

But we have some big problems that are too often overlooked. This is a society where a town, Elgin, is deemed the fattest in Illinois offers $1,000 grants to encourage exercise and fitness and no one applies. We have a county where a public health doctor  is fired who while working for a county agency feels that it is his duty to distribute healthy messages such as “Donuts = Diabetes” and “America Dies On Dunkin” since one of the county commissioners is part owner of a donut shop (and said 2 attorneys were threatening to sue). Dunkin’ Donuts declared themselves happy over the doc losing his job.  And it is the place where a respected weekly magazine hypes on its cover page an anti-exercise piece.  And here we are Rush and Time magazine agreeing strongly on the same wrong headed, mistaken issue and leading people down the path to increased sickness and disease, to osteoporosis, sarcopenia, dementia, colon cancer, congestive heart failure, diabetes, metabolic syndrome and an early death. Those are some of the health problems of which the risks are greatly decreased.

We  are lucky to have Mike Huckabee and President Obama talking about the benefits of  exercise and healthy life habits in lowering the cost of care and improving life quality. We are not lucky in how some of our media portray the importance of exercise, diet, healthy body weight and body composition in improving our health and our lives.

We are a nation with an obesity rate 3.5 times that of Sweden and 10 times that of Japan. Of all large industrialized nations we have the highest rates of overweight and obesity. 65% of our population are overweight or obese. How can we wonder why we spend more on health per individual than most other countries and don’t always have as much to show for it. Health reform seems to scare some of us. Are some scared that healthy habits will be encouraged? Is just feeling good about yourself enough? Or should you be working on healthy living so you can really feel good and reduce your risk of chronic disease?

Recent studies have made it quite clear how healthy life habits can have a major impact on our well being. Studies have also shown that only about 3% of Americans follow 4 simple healthy life habits. (Reeves and Rafferty 2005). Exercise is about more than losing weight. As far as losing weight goes it is considered so important that HHS and the American College of Sports Medicine came out with extensive documentation and guidelines within the last year. Recent research has been so clear I didn’t think anyone could be so foolish that they would deny clear and obvious evidence. But this seems to be a year in which many seem to look for whatever evidence supports the point of view they want to believe, even if the evidence is weak and their point of view doesn’t hold up to critical examination.

We evolved to move and I’m sure that we evolved because we moved and we are still meant to move and exercise. Without movement we become less healthy, get sick, and die short of what should be our full, healthy life span. A few recent studies  have demonstrated “Sitting Disease” and also found that excessive television watching was associated with serious illness and an increase in mobidity and mortality.

The “modern hunter-gatherer” who commutes to work by walking, running, or biking is far healthier than the bus taker, metro using, or car driving worker. The authors conclusions were that “Active commuting was positively associated with fitness in men and women and inversely associated with BMI, obesity, triglyceride levels, blood pressure, and insulin level in men” (Active Commuting and Cardiovascular Disease Risk: The CARDIA Study. Gordon-Larsen, Penny PhD; Boone-Heinonen, Janne PhD; Sidney, Steve MD, MPH; Sternfeld, Barbara PhD; Jacobs, David R. Jr PhD; Lewis, Cora E. MD. Arch Int Med Volume 169(13), 13 July 2009, p 1216–1223

On the podcast “Fitness Rocks”  Robert Salas, M.D., past president of  ACSM said “Our patients will take rat poison to live longer. Can’t we convince them that exercise is good for them?” The rat poison Salas referred to is Coumadin, a blood thinner.

Quick look at exercise, diet, and weight loss:

1)   calories in – calories out are what gives weight change. You should maintain a healthy body weight. And a good body composition too.

2)   Eat multi-colored servings of fruit and vegetables each day.

3)   Don’t smoke

4)   Exercise 30 – 45 minutes 5 days a week. Strength train 30 minutes 2 days a week. And stretch just a bit for good luck.

Facts without hype or hyperbole:

Looking at just a few recent studies we see:

Exercise and Fatness Gene: Amish who have the gene for FTO (one of many obesity genes) have the entire effect of the gene negated by adequate exercise. They don’t become overweight with enough exercise. Moderate exercise such as folding laundry counts, but it takes an incredible amount of exercise to work in this case; 4 -5 hours of moderate exercise per day.

Lifetime risk of heart failure reduced by 50%. (Relation Between Modifiable Lifestyle Factors and Lifetime Risk of Heart Failure Luc Djoussé, MD, ScD, MPH; Jane A. Driver, MD, MPH; J. Michael Gaziano, MD, MPH JAMA. 2009;302(4):394-400.)

Survival and exercise capacity

Those who followed healthy life habits had their risk of heart failure reduced from 50% going from a lifetime risk of about 20% to 10% by adhering to 4 healthy life habits.

Inability to exercise at a vigorous intensity compared to those who are fit is associated with a 260% decline in long term survivability. Or put another way 2.6 times  increase in chance of death. The study compared those only able to exercise or reach a maximum effort level of 5 Mets in comparison with those over 7.1 Mets and 10 Mets.  (Circulation. 2008;117:614-622. Exercise Capacity and Mortality in Black and White Men. Peter Kokkinos, PhD; Jonathan Myers, PhD; John Peter Kokkinos; Andreas Pittaras, MD; Puneet Narayan, MD; Athanasios Manolis, MD; Pamela Karasik, MD; Michael Greenberg, MD; Vasilios Papademetriou, MD; Steven Singh, MD)

There are many more examples of why exercise and healthy life habits are important and vital keys to your future health, well being, and life. Each week more studies are published demonstrating this. Earlier this month I gave a lecture at the annual American Podiatric Medical Association meeting in Toronto entitled “Exercise: Good For What Ails You”. References and links to resources are available at the previous hyperlink. If I sit still long enough, I may be convinced to voice over the lecture and post the slides online.

References:

Healthy Lifestyle Characteristics Among Adults in the United States, 2000 Mathew J. Reeves, PhD; Ann P. Rafferty, PhD. Arch Intern Med. 2005;165:854-857.

Active Commuting and Cardiovascular Disease Risk: The CARDIA Study. Gordon-Larsen, Penny PhD; Boone-Heinonen, Janne PhD; Sidney, Steve MD, MPH; Sternfeld, Barbara PhD; Jacobs, David R. Jr PhD; Lewis, Cora E. MD. Arch Int Med Volume 169(13), 13 July 2009, p 1216–1223

Circulation. 2008;117:614-622. Exercise Capacity and Mortality in Black and White Men. Peter Kokkinos, PhD; Jonathan Myers, PhD; John Peter Kokkinos; Andreas Pittaras, MD; Puneet Narayan, MD; Athanasios Manolis, MD; Pamela Karasik, MD; Michael Greenberg, MD; Vasilios Papademetriou, MD; Steven Singh, MD

Sitting Time and Mortality from All Causes, Cardiovascular Disease, and Cancer. Katzmarzyk PT, Church TS, Craig CL, Bouchard C Med Sci Sports Exerc 2009 Apr 3

Rampersaud, E., B. D. Mitchell, et al. (2008). “Physical activity and the association of common FTO gene variants with body mass index and obesity.” Arch Intern Med 168(16): 1791-7.

Outside Link:

Tom Venuto on Why Time Magazine Owes the Fitness Community a Big Fat Apology

Bonus Music:

Anime: Move Your Body

Old School Moving: Rolling Stones – You Got To Move

Audio Reference: Rush On Exercise