Exercise Study

[TylerDurden]

Given past dodgy claims by Gary Taubes that exercise doesn't help re health, here's 1 study that proves the opposite:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6114544/Brisk-daily-walk-can-halve-risk-of-dying-for-elderly-men.html

[goodsamaritan]

My healer friend says plotting to have sex with young women saves dying sick / elderly men and helps them recover from diseases.  Sometimes he uses the sexy nurse treatment.  This way, men are easier to cure than sick women.

Sexercise. Funny but true.

[invisible]

correlation studies like this are not conclusive. Gary Taubes would reply saying that the people who exercise more are more health conscious overall, or exercise because they are healthy, not that they are healthy because they exercise. Take it as you want, but this study won't change many opinions.

IMO exercise can be positive but also negative depending on the type, frequency and intensity you do.

[PaleoPhil]

Given past dodgy claims by Gary Taubes that exercise doesn't help re health, here's 1 study that proves the opposite:-

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6114544/Brisk-daily-walk-can-halve-risk-of-dying-for-elderly-men.html

Taubes didn't claim exercise doesn't help health--he said it doesn't help lose weight. He actually said it DOES help health in other ways in an interview I saw of him. Again, I recommend you read his book, or at least read interviews of him or articles by him to learn what he really does say. I don't agree with all of it myself, but there is some good stuff and the media tend to misrepresent it. Don't rely on the media's interpretations if you want the truth--go to the source.

[TylerDurden]

I'd actually wanted to post a study about losing weight via exercise. Can't remember where I found it, though. Telegraph?

[PaleoPhil]

Good news, Tyler, I think I can help you out with the some evidence that may at least partially prove Taubes wrong on 1) exercise and 2) diet.

1) Taubes on exercise:

While there is evidence supporting Taubes' hypothesis that weight loss may lead to people increasing their exercise activity level more than the other way around, his claim that exercise does not significantly contribute on its own to weight loss is called into question by a recent review.

Taubes talks about using the Cochrane collection of study reviews as a main source:

"Gary Taubes responds"
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/cardiovascular-disease/gary-taubes-responds/

"In this business, you can always find studies that support a particular hypothesis, or at least seem to if you selectively interpret the data. So when I had to make a point about the efficacy of a particular treatment — exercise, for instance, or semi-starvation diets — used meta-analyses or Cochrane Collaboration systematic reviews, which are designed to minimize author bias, to make the general points."

Well, Cochrane came out this year with a review of studies that tested the effect of exercise on weight loss and found that exercise DOES make a small contribution to weight loss--probably less than most people imagine, but not zero, as GCBC suggested.

The Cochrane Library ... have a systematic review of all the 43 trials that have been done on exercise for weight loss. This produces clear evidence that exercise is beneficial, albeit more modestly than you’d hope. “Exercise plus diet” was compared with “diet alone” in 14 trials : both groups lost weight, but 1.1 kg more in the exercise group. High intensity exercise was compared with low intensity in 4 trials, high intensity exercise came out better in all of them, with extra weight loss of 1.5 kg. There are also improvements in blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugars, sense of well-being, and so on. http://www.badscience.net/2009/08/health-warning-exercise-makes-you-fat/

From The Cochrane Library study, "Exercise for overweight or obesity": : When compared with no treatment, exercise resulted in small weight losses across studies. Exercise combined with diet resulted in a greater weight reduction than diet alone (WMD - 1.0 kg; 95% confidence interval (CI) -1.3 to -0.7). Increasing exercise intensity increased the magnitude of weight loss (WMD - 1.5 kg; 95% CI -2.3 to -0.7). [http://mrw.interscience.wiley.com/cochrane/clsysrev/articles/CD003817/frame.html, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 3, 2009]

So while Taubes' general point may be correct about exercise not being as effective in weight loss as people (and running shoe manufacturers) claim, it appears that his claim that exercise does not contribute on its own at all to weight loss is wrong.

2) Taubes on his own arthritis and back pain

OK, this is anecdotal, but many of us have discovered that our own anecdotal experience can sometimes provide better clues than scientific studies. Taubes admits that he still has arthritic knees and back pain. I suspect that this may be due to the dairy products he consumes, and his eating of cooked foods may also contribute.

"It’s not that I don’t think exercise is good for you because, Lord knows, I do enough of it — as my back and my arthritic knees will attest. I’m just not so sure that the causality goes in the direction that you think it does." [Gary Taubes, "Taubes: Is Weight Loss From Exercising Or Are You Exercising Because You Lost Weight?" Posted on September 24th, 2008 by Jimmy Moore, http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/?p=2734]

"Taubes eats two eggs, cheese, bacon and sausage for breakfast every day and a burger for lunch without the bun." [http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/gf/gf081129best_of_good_food_fi]

There have been anecdotal connections made between cheeses and arthritis: "Many Dieters have complained of some cheeses causing arthritic symptoms.  Hence it may be wise to avoid or minimize most cheeses, particularly the sharp cheeses which have labeled paprika or hot pepper added." [Dr. Norman F. Childers, http://noarthritis.com/Cheese.htm]

There have also been some studies identifying cheese as a food that triggers rheumatoid arthritis (O’Banion DR. J Holistic Med 1982; 4: 49-57 and Darlington LG. Rheum Dis North Am 1991; 127: 273-285).


Of course, it would be a logical fallacy to claim that ALL of what Taubes has written must be wrong because some appears to be wrong. GCBC and his articles still provide a valuable contribution to the dietary debate.

[pfw]

Taubes is trying to simplify his message (or having his message simplified) for interviews, and, of course, this makes him wrong when you analyze his simple statement in detail.

In GCBC, the claim is essentially that exercise does not lead to significant, sustainable, long term weight loss.. You might lose some trivial weight, shift your body composition around a little bit, but Taubes couldn't find any rigorous study showing, for example, that obese people could gain a healthy body mass simply through exercise. He cites and acknowledges studies that show minor weight loss, but points out that these studies are actually counter-examples to modern medical advice because they show just how ineffective exercise is. In other words, exercise is NOT the fundamental issue in weight, as we are told so often by the media and health experts. It's a minor one at most, and the focus on it is another example of the harm being done due to bad science in public health.

That is what he's claiming when he says, "Exercise doesn't make you thin" or "Exercise doesn't matter" or "Exercise doesn't lead to weight loss." These are sound bites designed to get your attention and get across the core point, which is that if you want to lose weight you should focus on getting rid of processed food, not exercise. All of these three simplifications are false at face value, because you can easily find counter-examples. His more complete argument, based on his review of the literature, that exercise does not lead to significant, sustainable, long term weight loss, appears far more accurate. As PaleoPhil mentioned, you need to read the whole book to actually get the whole argument, which is far more nuanced than the sound-bites Taubes is forced to give when on the View or whatever.

[PaleoPhil]

you see celebs looking great at any age and you wonder how they do it, but it's all exercise and diet, and www.howcelebritiesloseweight.com has all the stories on that, you should definitely check it out! You cannot seriously think exercise isn't healthy.

No one is saying that exercise is unhealthy, gforcegun. You may have missed Taubes' quote that I listed above:

"It’s not that I don’t think exercise is good for you because, Lord knows, I do enough of it — as my back and my arthritic knees will attest. I’m just not so sure that the causality goes in the direction that you think it does." [Gary Taubes, "Taubes: Is Weight Loss From Exercising Or Are You Exercising Because You Lost Weight?" Posted on September 24th, 2008 by Jimmy Moore, http://livinlavidalowcarb.com/blog/?p=2734]

In other words, Taubes, who claims he exercises quite a bit, thinks that losing weight gives people the energy and motivation to exercise, rather than that exercise causes people to lose weight. The end results are the same, but the direction of causation is different. Taubes has also said in interviews that he exercises for other reasons than weight loss (such as maintaining muscle strength).

Taubes also suggests other healthy reasons to exercise:

<<This is not to say that there aren’t excellent reasons to be physically active, as these reports invariably point out. We might just enjoy exercise. We may increase our overall fitness; we may live longer, perhaps by reducing our risk of heart disease or diabetes; we’ll probably feel better about ourselves.>> --Gary Taubes, "The Scientist and the Stairmaster," Published Sep 24, 2007, http://nymag.com/news/sports/38001/

The overall data does support Taubes' contention that exercise doesn't help high-carb dieters lose more than a little bit of weight, but according to a beef-industry-funded study by the University of Illinois in the August 2005 Journal of Nutrition, exercise did help people eating a diet rich in meat maintain muscle mass (see commentary at "What about exercise?" May 1, 2009 12:00 PM, http://beefmagazine.com/sectors/retail/0501-taubes-book-explains-exercise and the original study at "Dietary Protein and Exercise Have Additive Effects on Body Composition during Weight Loss in Adult Women," http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/abstract/135/8/1903). The funding source is biased, but the conclusion is no shocker to body builders and other exercise enthusiasts.

[djr_81]

No one is saying that exercise is unhealthy, gforcegun. You may have missed Taubes' quote that I listed above:

He's a troll Phil.
If you feed them they keep coming back, like strays.