How to do "Your Own Research" on Supplements
I've been writing a series of blogs on critical thinking and science literacy as it relates to silly bullshit you see in the heath and fitness universe. As athletes I want us all to train hard, eat to support our training and not fall prey to fitness influencers trying to sell us magic pills, powders, elixirs and tonics promising to cleanse, detoxify and do all manner of magical things.
One of the reasons I'm critical of supplements is that they are COMPLETELY UNREGULATED. They do not have to be rigorously tested for efficacy by anyone, not the FDA, not the USDA, NO ONE SINGLE entity of oversight or testing is legally required for supplements. Within the industry there is no requirement of testing for purity, no requirement for testing of what's actually included in the bottle. No testing for if the supplement actually does what it claims to do. A recent study of 57 "sport enhancing" supplements found that 40% DID NOT contain the active ingredient listed on the label. This lack of regulation is the result of a giant multi-billion dollar lobbying force that successfully manipulated congress to pass the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994. This act reclassified supplements as FOOD and removed all regulatory oversight the FDA had in ensuring that what you put in your mouth actually contains what the big-supplement company says it does and that it actually does what the big-supplement company says it will do. I think we deserve better. I think we should be fully confident that what we take to improve our health should actually be tested. Call me crazy, but I want science to show me the money. There are three supplements that have a rigorous tome of scientific research and I have explored them in previous blogs. These are, Creatine, Caffeine, and Protein. I encourage everyone to "do their own research." In the very basic sense of this idea it means reading scientific literature and the actual words of laws, bills, etc. In the case of supplements I think everyone should have a solid understanding of the DSHEA and how the giant supplement industry successfully lobbied for removing regulatory oversight of their industry. That's a cool trick, indeed. Other resources for doing your own research include: Examine.com - Independent group of researchers who do exhaustive literature surveys of supplement efficacy and safety. Operation Supplement Safety - Department of Defense dietary supplement efficacy and safety program Consumer Reports - Third party reporting on the efficacy and safety of supplements. If you're not interested in reading, you can always listen to this podcast from OptimizeMe Nutrition, called The Consistency Project. Specifically, I recommend listening to the episode on the Supplements and the Worried Well. You can listen to it via the link below or by going here:
Do you have a health and wellness topic you want me to explore? Let me know in the comments.
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"Sunshine on My Shoulders Makes Me Happy...and Produces Vitamin D"I am not a big promoter of supplements and magic pills. This has cost me some business, and I'm totally good with that. I strongly believe in the power of our food, if we focus on eating meat, vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch and no sugar, to provide us with all of the micronutrients we need. However, there is one micronutrient that is difficult for us to obtain through our diet, not because we don't have access to eating the right foods, but rather that we don't get enough time in the sun. That micronutrient is Vitamin D. Despite the importance of vitamin D, it’s estimated that anywhere from 30% to 80% of the U.S. population is vitamin D insufficient. For us Montanans, we make make absolutely ZERO vitamin D from the sunlight between November and March. GUESS WHAT IS SPECIAL ABOUT TODAY? It's SPRING and it's sunny! That means we are near enough the sun, at our latitude, that we can FINALLY get our Vitamin D from sun exposure! WOOOHOOOO! It's time to get outside people! Because Vitamin D is one of the most common micronutrient inadequacies it's also one of the most studied. A nutrient inadequacy differs from a deficiency in that a deficiency causes a disease, in the case of Vitamin D a deficiency causes rickets and osteomalacia. Vitamin D inadequacy doesn't cause a disease, but neither does it promote optimal health. Vitamin D is a fat-soluble micronutrient that promotes calcium absorption, it also modulates cell growth, neuromuscular and immune function and reduces inflammation. Can you guess what might cause cell growth and inflammation, and requires neuromuscular function? You guessed it, high-intensity workouts and weight lifting. From today through November, spending more time in the sun, like going for a walk in the middle of your day, will not only give you enough sun exposure to generate Vitamin D, it will also help you recover from CrossFit. When your skin is exposed to sunlight, it makes vitamin D from cholesterol. The sun's ultraviolet B (UVB) rays hit cholesterol in the skin cells, providing the energy for vitamin D synthesis to occur. UVB rays cannot penetrate through windows. So people who work next to sunny windows still need sun exposure to make Vitamin D. Research suggests that midday is the best time for exposure since the sun is at its highest point and your body may manufacture it most efficiently around that time of day. Taking a 30 min walk with your face, hands and/or arms exposed three times per week during the spring is enough to produce Vitamin D. In the summer, the sun is closer and we wear less clothes (shorts and short sleeved shirts) and we can get adequate Vitamin D from shorter exposure times. Just 10-15 mins, three times a week, will make all the Vitamin D we need. If you're exposed longer, you can use sunscreen to protect your skin. Let's celebrate spring by taking a walk at noon and harnessing solar power to make an essential micronutrient! You can expect that now that our parking lot is ice and snow free we will restart our post-workout cool-down walks. To your good health! NEW THURSDAY 5:30 PM CLASS STARTS THIS WEEK!!!Lift Weight For Longevity
National Public Radio started a special series this year called, How to Thrive as You Age: the Science and Secrets of Longevity. The first episode aired January 29th and focused on a series of tests that can give us insight into our "Healthspan." I wrote about it here.
The most recent installment, Women Who Do Strength Training Love Longer. How Much is Enough?, explores a recent study of 40,000 women that found a causal link between strength training and a 30% reduction in cardiovascular mortality. This is remarkable considering that heart disease is the leading cause of death if U.S. women. According to one of the lead authors of the study, â"We were incredibly impressed by the finding," says study author Martha Gulati, who is also the director of preventive cardiology at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles. "We don't have many things that reduce mortality in that way."
That is impressive! A 30% reduction in risk is significant and it doesn't take much for women to see the immediate benefit. According to the study:
"women who do strength training exercises two to three days a week are more likely to live longer and have a lower risk of death from heart disease, compared to women who do none."
Share this information with your mom, your sisters, your aunties, your daughters and all of the women in your life!
According to the NPR article, there are other benefits to strength training that have a synergistic improvement of lifespan and healthspan. They are 1. Strength training helps protect joints. 2. Building muscle burns more calories 3. Resistance training protects against injuries and falls 4. Strength training helps control blood sugar 5. Muscle building may help boost mood All of you at True Spirit can rest easy knowing you are making a difference in your health. However, we have a long way to go to convince the women in our lives that lifting weights is good for them, too. According to the study, of the 40,000 people in the study, only 1 in 5 women had a regular strength training program. That's only 20% of the women in the study!Clearly we need to spread this message far and wide. âYou can read the article here or listen to it below. I encourage you to forward this blog or the link to this article to all the women you know! ...Or, How to Spot BullshitI have written before about how to use reason and critical thinking skills to help wade through all the silly bullshit you see on the interwebs. In our current situation, misinformation, silly bullshit and conspiracy theories are at an all time high.
Every day I see something on "the" Facebook that makes me scream into my computer screen. It's an time of uncertainty and people are taking advantage of our collective vulnerability to gaslight us into thinking that the deep state, big pharma and modern medicine are out to get us. Keep calm and do CrossFit my friends, and also take comfort in the laws of math, specifically the lovely predictability of probabilistic statistics. Probabilistic statistics is our way of determining if something is plausible, or in other words if it's probable that something is true or not. We live in an ethos of you can do anything if you just try hard enough. Anything is possible so keep reaching for the stars. This is great for memes and encouraging Hallmark cards, and it sets us up to give credit to silly bullshit because, "it's possible". "It's Possible" is not the same as "it's probable" and probability is the world we live in. Thinking that anything is possible is giving equal weight to all possibilities or potentialities. In the real world, the one we all live in, all possibilities do not have the same probability. Let me explain it this way. What if I say to you, "It's possible that you can do a muscle up." Do you believe that? Based on your knowledge of your body, physicality, mobility and strength it may not be possible that you can do a muscle-up. However, with a focused training program and lots of skills progression you might be able, some day, to do a muscle up. You will have increased the probability through specific action. Some people will never get a muscle up, no matter how hard they practice and progress. You see? Possibility is "everyone" can do a muscle up where probability is the mathematical likelihood that it can happen for people who work towards it. Just because something is possible does not mean it is likely to be true. When it comes to conspiracy theories and other silly bullshit on the internet people are preying on our collective "it's possible" belief even though it's highly improbable that it's true. The more complicated the conspiracy theory the less probable it is purely based on mathematics. I hope this helps you wade through all the silly bullshit that is floating in the sea of collective craziness. When you get caught in a wave, take a deep breath and ask yourself how probable this thing is. Recognize people are trying to capitalize on your fear, and rely on your calm logic and reason to keep your head above water. Good luck! |
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