Feb 26, 2022 Notes
SUBJ: Exercise doesn’t help you burn more calories but is great for health
SUBtitle: If you haven’t had COVID, don’t get it!
SHORT NOTES: Exercise doesn’t help you burn more calories. Elders burn 26% less energy than middle-aged adults. Exercise prevents you from getting sick and lowers inflammation. But diet is the best tool for weight management; For mental health, our traditional approaches usually come too late; COVID boots risk of heart disease and brain harm, and intensive care cases have a 30% increase for heart damage; More exercise keeps your brain healthier; when participants wrote down when, where, and how they exercised, 91% followed through on exercise programs; To get better exercise walking, pull in your abs and pump your arms back and forth. 100-130 steps per minute; statins do not reduce mortality. Debate is whether they are helpful for overall health; Vitamin C (AREDs+Mito-C) preserves telomere length, a biomarker of human aging; There is a common pattern of changes in the proteins in our bodies that happen in the 4th, 7th, and 8th decade of life; known interventions retard but do not stop or reverse aging; The Hallmarks of Aging - telomere attrition, epigenetic alterations, loss of proteostasis, deregulated nutrient-sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion, and altered intercellular communication; Worst foods for your brain: diet drinks, donuts (darn!!), etc.; Medications that cause weight gain.
LONG NOTES:
Science 18 Feb pg711:Exercise doesn’t help you burn more calories (on average)! Total energy expenditure decline steadily from birth to age 25, and again from 60 to 90+. Elders burn 26% less energy than middle-aged adults. Basic metabolic rate uses 50 to 70% of total energy use. Our big brains use 20%. Sedentary women who trained to run a half-marathon burned barely more energy after training. However, people who exercise are less likely to gain weight in the first place. It affects where fat is stored, the risk of diabetes and heart disease. Exercise prevents you from getting sick, and tamps down the stress response. It lowers inflammation. But diet is the best tool for weight management. Stress is also effective to burn calories, 40% more while taking a math test.
Science 18 Feb pg728: For mental health, our traditional approaches usually come too late; they are applied infrequently enough that improvement is not guaranteed, and often solutions are focused on the wrong problems. People, places, and purpose are the keys to recovery. (Healing: Our Path from Mental Illness-T. Insel)
Science 18 Feb pg706: COVID boots risk of heart disease and brain harm. Those hospitalized have a15% increased risk and intensive care cases have a 30% increase for heart damage. The risk for 14 neuropsychiatric disorders was 46% greater than controls.
Studies have found that exercise is associated with reduced brain decay. Therefore, physical activity may help protect against cognitive decline. In a study of 120 participants, individuals who exercised regularly showed growth of the hippocampus, a region of the brain associated with memory, and they performed better on memory tests compared to individuals in the control group. For more information on physical activity and health, please visit these resources below: https://www.alz.org/help-support/brain_health/stay_physically_active; https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/basics/older_adults/index.htm; https://www.nia.nih.gov/health/exercise-physical-activity
In a British study, when participants wrote down when, where, and how they exercised, 91% followed through on exercise programs. In groups that did not write it down, less than 40% succeeded. It is best to exercise in the morning, when cortisol levels are higher to provide motivation. To get better exercise walking, pull in your abs and pump your arms back and forth. 100-130 steps per minute
Here is an article that reviews several studies involving statins. The summary is that statins do not reduce mortality. They do reliably reduce cholesterol levels, but there is a major debate as to whether this is helpful for overall health, cardiovascular or otherwise.
Vitamin C (AREDs+Mito-C) preserves telomere length - The telomere length (TL) has increasingly been used as a biomarker of human aging because it has been shown to predict the chances of survival and longevity. Oxidative stress is presumed to be a major cause of telomere shortening, Our findings supported the idea of a possible correlation between the TL and biomarkers of oxidative stress in aging.
Tony Wyss-Coray from Stanford has published two papers where through single cell RNAseq he has confirmed that there is a common pattern of changes in the proteins in our bodies that happen in the 4th, 7th, and 8th decade of life. Such predictable, synchronized changes in proteome at around same age gives evidence of a program. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0673-2
In spite of significant advances in the understanding of genetic, dietary, and pharmacological manipulations of aging in animals, known interventions retard but do not stop or reverse aging. [known interventions] For those seeking eternal youth, life-extending interventions like caloric restriction (capable of extending rodent lifespan up to 50%) and rapamycin (>20% in mice) will not be sufficient and therefore reversing aging may be essential.
The Hallmarks of Aging - Aging is characterized by a progressive loss of physiological integrity, leading to impaired function and increased vulnerability to death. This deterioration is the primary risk factor for major human pathologies including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disorders, and neurodegenerative diseases. Aging research has experienced an unprecedented advance over recent years, particularly with the discovery that the rate of aging is controlled, at least to some extent, by genetic pathways and biochemical processes conserved in evolution. This review enumerates nine tentative hallmarks that represent common denominators of aging in different organisms, with special emphasis on mammalian aging. They are genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic alterations, loss of proteostasis, deregulated nutrient-sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion, and altered intercellular communication.
AARP Worst foods for your brain: margarine and frosting, soda, diet drinks, fried foods, donuts (darn!!), white bread and rice, red meat, butter and full fat cheese, Swordfish and ahi tuna (mercury), bottled dressing and syrups.
AARP Medications that cause weight gain: 1. Diabetes drugs (newer ones do not) 2. Antidepressants (use SAMe instead) 3. Beta-blockers (, talk to your doctor about possible alternatives such as carvedilol, a nonspecific beta-blocker; angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors; angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs); or calcium blockers) 4. Oral corticosteroids 5. Migraine meds (For people who are overweight and for people with obesity, however, the chance of chronic migraine is 3 to 5 times greater. )