Can Rowing Kill You?

[gooseflight]

If you think through the implications of the two scenarios, I think that the second scenario would result in greater training effect (and faster times), but it might increase the risk of premature death because of cardiac issues. The question is how much more effective is the training, and how much higher is the risk. As far as I can tell, there is no published research to help sort it out for me. My gut feeling is that it would probably mean that I would max out at a 6:45 2k versus a 6:40, if I trained to those limits. I have no idea if it would have an impact on potential health problems.

Does anyone? As it says in the headline article, “I don’t think the data is nearly enough to say ‘Stop at 30 miles per week,".

And as you say, "it might increase the risk of premature death because of cardiac issues.". But it might not.

And do we trust the science? As journeyman rowers we don't have an accurate way to measure intensity and even if we did we don't have the tools to do the analysis.

The article concludes with:

And like most runners, once he’s out on the roads, floating along under the Louisiana sun, he’s no longer thinking about his heart. “It’s a stress-relief. I feel better. I’m able to eat more,” he says. “But mostly, I enjoy it.

Which sounds pretty good to me.

[ArmandoChavezUNC]

Seriously? What's next, vaccines cause autism?

C'mon now. Despite all the fearmongering, aspartame is actually perfectly fine.

[Anth_F]

Tbh i get sick to the back teeth of seeing all stuff that can kill you!!! Just going online, it's a task to avoid seeing it (bit like trying to avoid the daily who died today trendings on facebook) You get all this dross about even healthy foods you should avoid because of cancer containing chemicals blah blah blah.


Your time is up when your time is up

[Anth_F]

Tbh i get sick to the back teeth of seeing all stuff that can kill you!!! Just going online, it's a task to avoid seeing it (bit like trying to avoid the daily who died today trendings on facebook) You get all this dross about even healthy foods you should avoid because of cancer containing chemicals blah blah blah.


Your time is up when your time is up

I agree Anth, but its nice to let some know if it might change there mind or help

Tbh i would prefer not to know about a lot of the stuff i see. It starts to make you dubious about certain foods/drinks that in actuality probably have no bearing on ill health at all. Just a simple case of scaremongering at it's finest for the most part.

[mdpfirrman]

Chemicals in food and the environment, unfortunately, have become too much a reality for some (including me). My wife woke up around 2 years ago one day in pain. For months, she was in so much pain she told me she wanted to die. No conventional doc we saw could help her. We went Holistic. She has (or had) serious fibromyalgia (and severe chemical sensitivities). They did blood work and allergen tests. Turns out everything that just so happens to have the most Round-Up residue in it (eggs, sugar, all grains that aren't organic, all dairy) are the things that she's allergic to (per her blood tests). Coincidence? Monstanto has a whole division spinning against any researcher that says Round-Up might represent a problem spending millions a year. They have even set up websites that look scientific but are back door funded by big agriculture (like "gmoliteracyproject.com") to ease your mind about what you eat.

After a year eating all organic grains, no dairy or gluten, my wife recovered about 80%. If she still has any exposure to chemicals, she gets very sick (whether in her food or environment). She has actually created a Facebook support group for women with fibromyalgia that is nearing 1000 members (many from the health care field that didn't get any help from conventional medicine that now believe the ONLY cure is by taking the crap out of our food supply). Many of those members started out as very heavy diet soda drinkers. Also a coincidence? Many people have biological issues with processing chemicals (my wife does - she's had DNA testing on it).

Some of us have to worry about chemicals in our systems. I personally don't have to but I eat like her now - no gluten, very limited sugar, no sweeteners, whole foods and organic limited grains. No dairy at all. Not easy to do but personally I feel a lot better eating this way and my body composition has changed dramatically in a positive way.

What I've found is most that don't have to deal with these issues think that those that do are just doing it to be "trendy" or perhaps it's all in their heads. All I can say is I don't care what they think. I've seen the recovery my wife had and it's astounding. I know I had rashes that I've had for 10 years clear up within months. I watched my wife eat anything with dairy in it or gluten in it for years and her stomach (she has a thin waistline) would blow up like she's 5 months pregnant within 20 minutes (we later learned that's the stomach filling with water to protect itself from toxins).

The body is an amazing wonder. It's also a very fragile ecology. It's hard for people to believe that chemicals in food or the environment cause harm yet we're in the process of wiping out the honey bee from a coating that Dow put on GMO seeds. Something that little can change everything in nature, why do we find it so hard to believe small toxic changes can change our bodies?

If everyone just limited the processed junk they eat, they'd gain 5 years.

[Tim K.]

C'mon now. Despite all the fearmongering, aspartame is actually perfectly fine.

[Tim K.]

Some of us have to worry about chemicals in our systems. I personally don't have to but I eat like her now - no gluten, very limited sugar, no sweeteners, whole foods and organic limited grains. No dairy at all. Not easy to do but personally I feel a lot better eating this way and my body composition has changed dramatically in a positive way.
.

You have not experienced any symptoms, yet. Some people never do. Something else kills them first or the progression of disease is slow enough they "die of old age first". Oh wait.....

but personally I feel a lot better eating this way and my body composition has changed dramatically in a positive way.
.

Maybe you did have to eat like her......

[Bob S.]

Seriously? What's next, vaccines cause autism?

C'mon now. Despite all the fearmongering, aspartame is actually perfectly fine.

The vaccines are not the problem. It the thimerosal, aka merthiolate (Ethyl(2-mercaptobenzoato-(2-)-O,S) mercurate(1-) sodium), an antiseptic and anti fungal agent used as a preservative in vaccines. This Wiki link describes it in detail, including its alarming toxicology: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thiomersal
It appears to have been exonerated by the powers that be from being an autism cause, but it has nevertheless been banned in those countries that can afford to keep their vaccines refrigerated. Of course banning does not mean that the use of a banned material is stopped immediately.

My first encounter with this was in the 40s. Agene, the trade name for nitrogen trichloride, was widely used as a bleaching agent for wheat flour, but it is not only highly toxic but a sensitive explosive as well. It was finally banned in 1949, but the flour manufacturers were allowed to used their shelf stock until it ran out. They just could not get new supplies.

Bob S.

[sekitori]

Just to put this into perspective. I am now reading on the effects of alcohol. Only one glass per day already significantly increases the probability that you get breast cancer or bowel cancer. The serious medical research is quite sobering about this, even though the alcohol lobby would like you to believe that a glass a day is actually beneficial.

I think there are a lot among us who can do more for their health by limiting alcohol consumption than by reducing the number of minutes at high heart rate. If you want to do something about your health, you've got to tackle the big things first.

I realize that a few studies indicate that alcohol consumption could possibly be a cause of breast and colon cancer. There are many, many more studies that show the positive effects of alcohol on the prevention of cardiovascular disease. As part of its guidelines on nutrition and physical activity for cancer prevention, the American Cancer Society recommends that people who drink alcohol limit their intake to no more than 2 drinks per day for men and 1 drink a day for women. The American Heart Association states that the same amount of alcohol (but no more than that) can be beneficial in preventing cardiovascular disease. I doubt very much if the American Cancer Society and the American Heart Association are in any way part of the alcohol lobby.

The most reasonable approach to me is, if someone cares to, to drink alcohol in moderation and have checkups to monitor breast and bowel cancer. From the information I've learned (if someone has more accurate info, please correct me), cardiovascular disease including heart attacks and strokes kills about eight times the number of people than do breast and colon cancer combined. I agree that you have to tackle the big things first and to me the biggest thing is preventing cardiovascular disease.

[Shawn Baker]

Just as a way of general commentary- the vast majority of the "substance x causes disease y" is often based on very weak epidemiology with statistically clinically meaningless conclusions- media often picks it up and suddenly you get stuff like "coffee increases risk of brain cancer by 12%" (I made that up, but I think we have all seen similar"- Tim Noakes has some very nice insight on using the "Bradford Hill criteria" to make valid conclusions about epidemiologic studies. Basically we can show almost anything causes cancer/disease etc..

Having said that I think the vast majority of "food" currently available to us is garbage and to concur with Henry, it is more likely "other factors" rather than the exercise itself that lead to most "sports deaths" in older populations- just happens to occur while exercising rather than sitting on the couch- years of poor diet take their toll and exercise might delay or mask the damage- how many runners spend years chugging sugary sports drinks and loading up on refined carbohydrates (a lot of them)- obviously I'm biased toward a low carb approach to health but regardless a poor (however defined) diet is a major player- stress, sleep, smoking etc... all far more likely to kill than regular intense exercise.

[lindsayh]

Now here is something that crossed my desk today that is a little different - go for it Shawn!
(BTW this is a serious high level multi disciplinary research centre)

Researchers discover optimal diet to boost life-extending hormone
30 September 2016
Findings could unlock new diabetes and obesity treatments

New research from the University of Sydney's Charles Perkins Centre suggests a low protein, high carbohydrate diet may be the most effective for stimulating a hormone with life-extending and obesity-fighting benefits.
The findings, published today in Cell Metabolism, paint a clearer picture of the role of a little-known hormone called Fibroblast Growth Factor 21 (FGF21) – the so-called 'fountain of youth' hormone produced primarily in the liver.
Previous studies have shown that FGF21 plays a role in curbing appetite, moderating metabolism, improving the immune system and extending lifespan. It is also currently being used as a therapeutic target for diabetes, though little is known about how this hormone is triggered and released in the body.
Now researchers from the Charles Perkins Centre have found that diets high in carbohydrate and low in protein are the best for boosting levels of FGF21 in mice.
"Despite the popularity of high protein 'Paleo' diets, our research suggests the exact opposite may be best for us as we age – that a low protein, high carbohydrate diet was the most beneficial for latelife health and longevity," said lead author Dr Samantha Solon-Biet. "The nutritional context in which FGF21 is most elevated is dependent on the balance of protein to carbohydrate, and this balance was also shown to be important in how this hormone helps to mediate protein hunger.
"These findings take us one step closer to understanding how FGF21 works, and as an extension of that to be able to use FGF21 to help people live longer and healthier lives."
In the first ever study to assess how certain macronutrients interact with each other to influence FGF21 level, researchers fed 858 mice one of 25 diets that varied in protein, carbohydrate, fat and energy content. These diets ranged from five to 60 percent protein and five to 75 percent carbohydrate and fat.
Using the geometric framework, researchers then mapped these macronutrient variables to investigate how nutritional balance affected FGF21 levels.
The study also revealed that when high carbohydrate diets increased FGF21 levels, the mice compensated for the excess by burning more energy. Conversely in a starvation state, FGF21 promoted energy conservation.
"FGF21 has been shown to be elevated in really paradoxical conditions: in starvation and obesity, in cases of both insulin resistance and sensitivity and when there’s a high and a low intake of food," said co-author Professor Stephen Simpson, Academic Director of the Charles Perkins Centre.
"It appears that FGF21 is really switched on by a low protein intake, and its metabolic effects vary on whether it's coupled with high energy or low energy.
"Discovering more about how FGF21 is activated opens the way for nutritional interventions to chronic health problems, including as a potential drug target for the treatment of diabetes and other metabolic disorders. The next step will be to identify FGF21's exact signaling pathway in order to better tailor our diets and nutritional guidelines to generate the maximum benefit from this essential hormone."
The study was conducted in collaboration with the ANZAC Research Institute, Macquarie University, EWOS Innovation in Norway and the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Louisiana, USA.

[S-man]

Just as a way of general commentary- the vast majority of the "substance x causes disease y" is often based on very weak epidemiology with statistically clinically meaningless conclusions- media often picks it up and suddenly you get stuff like "coffee increases risk of brain cancer by 12%" (I made that up, but I think we have all seen similar"- Tim Noakes has some very nice insight on using the "Bradford Hill criteria" to make valid conclusions about epidemiologic studies. Basically we can show almost anything causes cancer/disease etc..

Having said that I think the vast majority of "food" currently available to us is garbage and to concur with Henry, it is more likely "other factors" rather than the exercise itself that lead to most "sports deaths" in older populations- just happens to occur while exercising rather than sitting on the couch- years of poor diet take their toll and exercise might delay or mask the damage- how many runners spend years chugging sugary sports drinks and loading up on refined carbohydrates (a lot of them)- obviously I'm biased toward a low carb approach to health but regardless a poor (however defined) diet is a major player- stress, sleep, smoking etc... all far more likely to kill than regular intense exercise.

A lot of scaremongering in this thread. FWIW I agree entirely with Shawn's comments. Most of the data is not conclusive and a sensible approach with healthy foods in moderation and a healthy lifestyle is probably the best we can do. Jury's out on regular intense exercise, although as others have said, it's unlikely to apply to most people here.

Lindsay - lot's of work on worms, flies and mice regarding lifespan extending diets, although who knows if this will apply in humans. But it does make sense that diets (and lifestyle) that prolong lifespan may not be the same as those designed to maintain a high level of physical function. You could make the analogy between a low performance, high economy car engine and a highly tuned one in a racing car.

[hjs]

http://greatist.com/live/autophagy-fasting-exercise

Following http://www.ibtimes.com/nobel-2016-medic ... ms-2425234

Eating does stop this process, endurance athletes tend to eat often, maybe thats not the way to go. High carb eating also tend to lead to eat often. Carbs are fast acting and easy to digest.
Limiting the time we eat, not the overall amount, could be benificial. Think intermittent Fasting.

[Anth_F]

Having said that I think the vast majority of "food" currently available to us is garbage

Right on point with that statement!!! More and more processed foods hitting the shelves these days, more than ever before.

[jamesg]

a low protein, high carbohydrate diet was the most beneficial for latelife health and longevity,

With a little olive oil and plenty of fresh fruit and veg, sounds almost like the Med diet. Who needs shelves?