July 24, 2012 · 8:26 PM

Jimmy Moore Interviews Keith Runyan, M.D.

Jimmy posted a recent interview with type 1 diabetic Dr. Keith R. Runyan, who is a nephrologist and internist.

Dr. Runyan is training for his first Great Floridian Triathlon in October, 2012, so he naturally has a great interest in high level athleticism as it intersects with diabetes.

Dr. Runyan’s current carb consumption level didn’t come up specifically in the interview, but his website indicates he’s on a ketogenic diet heavily influenced by Dr. Richard Bernstein.  So I figure he’s eating under 50 grams of digestible carbohydrate daily.  He also tried Loren Cordain’s paleo diet; my sense is that it didn’t help much with his diabetes, but perhaps some.

Overall, the interview strongly supports carbohydrate-restricted eating for folks with diabetes.  Definitely worth a listen for anyone with diabetes who’s not sold on a very-low-carb diet.  If you’re sitting on the fence, at least check out his “About Me” page.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Triathlon: run, swim, bike

Comments Off on Jimmy Moore Interviews Keith Runyan, M.D.

Filed under Carbohydrate, Exercise, Inspiration, Paleo diet

Tagged as , , , , , ,

July 24, 2012 · 2:00 AM

Sources of Calories in U.S. Diet Over Last Four Decades

Italian seaside totally unrelated to this post

Do you ever wonder how many of your total calories come from added sugars? Grains? Dairy products? Added fats?

Deriving your personal numbers would require detailed nutrient analysis, but if you’d like U.S. averages, see this cool infographic at Civil Eats.

It also shows how many calories are or were available for consumption per capita over time (without accounting for wastage in restaurants). It’s based on U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

A superficial glance suggests that U.S. per capita daily calorie consumption has increased by about 600 from the 1970s until now. But remember, these numbers don’t discount for restaurant wastage. Nor do I see an adjustment for children versus adults. I’ve seen other calculations of and extra daily 150 calories (women) to 300 calories (men). Even the lower numbers could explain our explosion of overweight and obesity.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Comments Off on Sources of Calories in U.S. Diet Over Last Four Decades

Filed under Dairy Products, Fat in Diet, Grains, Overweight and Obesity, Sugar

Tagged as ,

July 22, 2012 · 10:03 PM

Quote of the Day

Please use the comments to demonstrate your own ignorance, unfamiliarity with empirical data, ability to repeat discredited memes, and lack of respect for scientific knowledge. Also, be sure to create straw men and argue against things I have neither said nor even implied. Any irrelevancies you can mention will also be appreciated. Lastly, kindly forgo all civility in your discourse . . . you are, after all, anonymous.

—Guidelines preceding the comments section at Barry Ritholtz blog

Comments Off on Quote of the Day

Filed under Quote of the Day

Tagged as ,

July 20, 2012 · 2:00 AM

Random Thoughts on Fitness

A couple years ago, I was thinking about putting together a fitness program for myself.  My goals were endurance, strength, less low-back aching, flexibility, longevity, and being able to get on my horse bareback without a mounting block or other cheat.

I spent quite a bit of time at Doug Robb’s HeathHabits site.  He has a post called The “I don’t have time to workout” Workout.  I ran across some paper notes I made during my time there.  Doug recommended some basic moves to incorporate: air squat, Hindu pushup, dragon flag, shuffle of scissor lung, Spiderman lung, hip thrust/bridge, swing snatch, dumbbell press, Siff lunge, jumping Bulgarian squat, band wood chops, leg stiff leg deadlift.  Click the link to see videos of most of these exercises.  The rest you can find on YouTube.

Another post is called “Do you wanna get big and strong? -Phase 1”.  The basic program is lifting weights thrice weekly.  Monday, work the chest and back.  Tuesday, legs and abs/core.  Friday, arms and shoulders.

  • Chest exercises: presses (barbell or dumbell, incline, decline, flat, even pushups with additional resistance  – your choice
  • Back: chins or rows
  • Legs: squats or deadlifts
  • Arms and shoulders: dips, presses, curls

Doug is a personal trainer with a huge amount of experience.  He’s a good writer, too, and gives away a wealth of information at his website.

Around this same time of searching a couple years ago, I ran across Mark Verstegen’s Core Performance, Mark Lauren’s book “You Are Your Own Gym,”  and Mark Sisson’s free fitness ebook that also  features bodyweight exercises.  I did Core Performance religiously for 15 weeks—it’s a good program, requiring 5-6 hours a week.

Lauren is or was a Navy Seal trainer.  His plan involves 30 minutes of work on four days a week and uses minimal equipment.  Lots of good reviews at Amazon.com.

I recently complete a stint with the Hillfit program.  Here’s my current regimen.

Newbies to vigorous exercise should seriously consider using a personal trainer.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Comments Off on Random Thoughts on Fitness

Filed under Exercise

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

July 18, 2012 · 2:36 AM

Exercise Motivation

Stretching actually doesn’t do any good for the average person

My wife, Sunny, decreed April to be Fitness Month.  No joke.  A time to re-dedicate ourselves to eating right and physical activity.  No dining out for the entire month.  No junk food.

In the spirit of Fitness Month, I restarted my exercise efforts, which had been on hold for the previous month.  I’d simply been lazy.

To help me judge effectiveness of my exercise, I measured and recorded my baseline fitness.  I re-measured after six weeks.

Exercise isn’t fun.  You need good reasons to do it.  Here are mine:

  • it keeps you young (fountain of youth)
  • longevity
  • less low back aching
  • injury resistance
  • dementia prevention
  • lowered risk of heart disease and cancer
  • I’m a sheepdog, not a sheep
  • weight management
  • emergency preparedness
  • more energy to enjoy life (hiking, camping, horseback riding, long walks with others, etc.)

If you hope to exercise regularly, you’ll need your own list of reasons.  You’ll have days, weeks, or months when you just don’t want to exercise.  Review your list then.

Steve Parker, M.D.

1 Comment

Filed under Exercise

Tagged as ,

July 16, 2012 · 2:00 AM

Is Heavy Exercise a Reasonable Approach to Obese Diabetes?

Women DO NOT get gross bulky muscles from resistance training

With regards to TV’s “The Biggest Loser” show:

The show’s 24-week regimen consists of approximately 4 hours of daily exercise, including 1 hour of intense resistance, 1 hour of intense aerobic activity, and 2 hours of moderate aerobic activity (for example, walking), along with a caloric  intake of at least 70% of estimated resting daily energy expenditure, explained Dr. [Robert] Huizenga, who is a a former team physician to the L.A. Raiders football team.

This is an excerpt from “The Biggest Loser Pushes Envelope on Diabetes,” in Internal Medicine News, vol. 45, No.11, page 17.

In a previous post about The Biggest Loser, I’d written that I didn’t know how much they exercised.

For purposes of discussion, let’s assume the documented major weight losses of Biggest Loser contestants are not simply due to caloric restriction.

Dr. Huizenga shared some of his experience at the recent annual meeting of the American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists.  In a study of 35 Biggest Loser participants, about half had prediabetes or type 2 diabetes.  Hemoglobin A1c, a measure of blood sugar control, fell significantly in this subset.  Three of the six with diabetes were able to stop metformin early on.  By week 29 of the study, average body mass index for the entire group had fallen from 46 to 29.

Sure, this is a small study, but my clinical intuition is that results are reproducible on a larger scale.  Television exposure and the $250,000 (USD) prize to the winning contestant are major motivators.  Furthermore, I bet there’s also a process for weeding out those who are likely to fail, before they ever get started.

Yes, exercise helps with weight loss.  But most folks aren’t willing or able to exercise vigorously for almost four hour daily.  If I were an obese sedentary diabetic, I’d sure try.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Comments Off on Is Heavy Exercise a Reasonable Approach to Obese Diabetes?

Filed under Exercise, Weight Loss

Tagged as , , , ,

July 14, 2012 · 2:00 AM

Could an Ancestral Diet Cure Pima Diabetes?

Saguaro cactus fruit is edible

I ran across a 1991 New York Times article by Jane Brody discussing the benefits to Pima Indians of returning to their ancestral diet.  The Pima have major problems with obesity and diabetes.  (I frequently treat Pima Indians in the hospital.)  Some quotes:

Studies strongly indicate that people who evolved in these arid lands are metabolically best suited to the feast-and-famine cycles of their forebears who survived on the desert’s unpredictable bounty, both wild and cultivated.

By contrast, the modern North American diet is making them sick. With rich food perpetually available, weights in the high 200’s and 300’s are not uncommon among these once-lean people. As many as half the Pima and Tohono O’odham (formerly Papago) Indians now develop diabetes by the age of 35, an incidence 15 times higher than for Americans as a whole. Yet before World War II, diabetes was rare in this population.

Pima Indians traditionally ate a diet of tepary beans, mesquite seeds, corn, grains, greens, and other high-fiber/low-fat foods.  The switch to a diet high in sugar, refined grains, and other highly processed convenience foods may well be responsible for the current high rates of obesity and diabetes.  Australian aborigines have the same problem.

Steve Parker, M.D.

Comments Off on Could an Ancestral Diet Cure Pima Diabetes?

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , , ,

July 12, 2012 · 2:00 AM

U.S. Spends $83 Billion Yearly on Hospital Care of Diabetes

“Let’s hope this thiazolidinedione doesn’t give you bladder cancer.”

At least according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

-Steve

PS: The article I link to above says diabetes is the fifth leading cause of death in the U.S.  Not so, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which lists diabetes in seventh place.  I suspect it’s not even as high as that.

Comments Off on U.S. Spends $83 Billion Yearly on Hospital Care of Diabetes

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as , ,

July 10, 2012 · 2:00 AM

U.S. Army Physical Fitness Requirements: Are You As Strong As a Soldier?

I’ve written previously how it’s helpful to have some baseline physical fitness measurements on yourself. That post mentioned up to 14 different items you could monitor. In the comment section, I recognized that’s too much for some folks. For them, I suggested just doing the five-item functional testing: 1-mile run/walk (timed), maximum number of push-ups and pull-ups, toe touch, and vertical jump.

A few months ago, I was at a training session for adult Boy Scout leaders. One of the items covered was environmental heat illness: how to avoid, recognize, and treat. One of the risk factors for heat illness is “poor fitness,” defined as taking over 16 minutes to run two miles. Inquiring minds want to know where that number came from. No reference was given.

About.com has an article on fitness requirements for U.S. army soldiers, who are tested at least twice yearly. There are only three components tested:

  • Number of push-ups
  • Number of sit-ups
  • Time to complete a two-mile run

Fortunately, the Army doesn’t expect a 57-year-old man to perform as well as a 17-year-old. For instance, a 17-year-old has to run two miles in 19 minutes and 24 seconds or less; the 57-year-old is allowed up to 23 minutes and 24 seconds. Females and males have different performance standards: a 17-year-old woman has 22 minutes and 24 seconds to run two miles.

(An ex-Ranger a few days ago told me the Rangers have to meet or exceed the standard for 19-year-olds, regardless of age.)

The simplicity of the Army’s approach appeals to me. Check out the APFT tables in the About.com article if you want to see how you compare to Army soldiers.

Steve Parker, M.D.

1 Comment

Filed under Exercise

Tagged as , , , , ,

July 8, 2012 · 4:02 PM

Starting a Fitness Program? Get Baseline Measurements First

Impressive jump!

Before beginning or modifying a fitness program, it’s helpful to take some baseline physical measurements. Re-measure periodically. That way you’ll know whether you’re making progress, holding steady, or regressing. Improving your numbers also helps to maintain motivation.

Not taking measurements would be like starting a weight loss plan without a baseline and subsequent weights.

Eighteen months ago, I finished a home-based, 15-week, six-days-a-week fitness program called Core Performance, designed by Mark Verstegen. I was pleased with the results. The only problem is that it’s very time-consuming, 45-60 minutes a day. Perhaps fitness just has to be that way.

I regret that I didn’t take any fitness measurements before and after starting Core Performance.

For much of the last year, I modified Core Performance to a thrice weekly, then twice weekly program, until a couple months ago when I pretty much abandoned it. I miss the benefits now, but just didn’t want to put in the time to achieve them. In other words, I lost my motivation.

Who needs this much flexibility?

Intellectually, I know that regular exercise is important. I’ve read that you can be fairly fit with as little as 30 minutes of exercise a week. I’m not entirely convinced yet. I’ll be test-driving some of these time-efficient programs over the next 12 months.  One I’ve done already is Hillfit.

This new style of fitness is promoted by the likes of Dr. Doug McGuff, Chris Highcock, Skyler Tanner, Nassim Taleb, and Jonathan Bailor, among others.

What to Measure

  1. Weight
  2. Blood pressure
  3. Resting heart rate (first thing in the AM before getting out of bed)
  4. Waist circumference (upright and supine)
  5. Height
  6. Body mass index
  7. Mid-arm circumference, both arms, hanging relaxed at your sides
  8. Maximal calf circumference, both calves, while standing at ease
  9. Maximum number of consecutive pull-ups
  10. Maximum number of consecutive push-ups
  11. Run/walk one mile as fast as you can
  12. Maximum vertical jump (stand by a tall wall then jump and reach up as high as you can with one arm, noting the highest point above ground your fingers can reach)
  13. Can you touch your toes? Stand up straight, locking knees in extension, then bend over at your waist and touch your toes with your fingertips. If you can touch toes, can you flatten your palms against the floor? If you can’t reach your toes, measure the distance from your fingertips to the floor.
  14. Optional blood work for special situations: fasting blood sugar, hemoglobin A1c, triglycerides, cholesterols (total, HDL, LDL, sub-fractions)

The particular aspects of fitness these measure are strength and endurance in major muscle groups, cardiovascular and pulmonary endurance, a little flexibility, and a hint of body composition.

You may appreciate an assistant to help you measure some of these.

It’a long list.  If too long, just do what you think is important.  Record your numbers. Re-test some or all of these periodically, such as every six weeks after making a change.

If you’re in fairly poor condition at the outset, you’ll see some improved numbers after a couple or three weeks of a good exercise program. It takes months to build significant muscle mass; you’ll see improved strength and endurance before mass.

Am I missing anything?

Steve Parker, M.D.

2 Comments

Filed under Exercise

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , ,