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Is it more important to run faster or run longer?

Alex Hutchinson
Outside
Wed, 14 Aug 2019 00:01 UTC
running
© Scott Markewitz/Gallery Stock
Scientists debate the physiological benefits of ramping up your training intensity or your training volume

Despite the apparent complexity of modern exercise programs, you really have only two options if you want to get fitter: you can train harder than you're currently training, or you can train more. Those two variables, intensity and volume, are the basic levers that all training plans fiddle with in various ways. But let's be honest: two variables is still too many. We all secretly want to know which one is really the master switch that controls our fitness.

That's the debate that showed up in a recent issue of the Journal of Physiology, in which two groups of researchers offered contrasting takes on the claim that "Exercise training intensity is more important than volume to promote increases in human skeletal muscle mitochondrial content." The amount of mitochondria in your muscles is the most important adaptation that occurs in response to endurance training, so the debate was effectively about whether running faster or running longer is the best way to boost your endurance.

Comment: See also:

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Health

Sugary western diets fuel newly evolving superbug

Yasemin Saplakoglu
Live Science
Wed, 14 Aug 2019 00:01 UTC
superbug bacteria
© Shutterstock
And it's becoming increasingly resistant to disinfectants.

A diarrhea-causing bacterium is evolving into a new species, one that thrives on your sugar-rich Western diet, according to a new study.

The Clostridium difficile bacteria produce spores that spread through contact with feces, and so can commonly be found in bathrooms or on surfaces that people touch without properly washing their hands. What's more, this bacterium is becoming increasingly resistant to disinfectants used in hospitals, said study lead author Nitin Kumar, a senior bioinformatician at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.
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Syringe

DTP vaccine associated with increased rate of total mortality in low-income countries - report


PR Newswire
Fri, 16 Aug 2019 09:37 UTC
DPT vaccine
DTP is one of the most common vaccines used in the world. In 2012, SAGE requested that the WHO review the evidence concerning the possible effects of DTP vaccines on mortality1. In a new expert report, Peter C. Gøtzsche, Professor, DrMedSci, MSc analyzed the WHO systematic review as well as any studies published after the WHO report that assessed the effect of DTP vaccine on total mortality. This new expert report concludes that the "evidence tells us that it is likely that the DTP vaccine increases total mortality in low-income countries." 2

This echoes the conclusion by Peter Aaby - a highly acclaimed scientist renowned for studying and promoting vaccines in Africa - that "all currently available evidence suggests that DTP vaccine may kill more children from other causes than it saves from diphtheria, tetanus or pertussis. Though a vaccine protects children against the target disease it may simultaneously increase susceptibility to unrelated infections." 3 Dr. Aaby's recent study, the first ever naturally randomized comparison of mortality between children receiving DTP and those that are unvaccinated, found that children vaccinated with DTP were 10 times more likely to die in the first 6 months of life than the unvaccinated.3

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Hearts

Pig hearts could be used in human transplants 'within just three years' says surgeon who performed first ever op 40 years ago

Neal Baker
The Sun
Sun, 18 Aug 2019 04:04 UTC
piglet doctor
© Getty
Pig hearts could be used for human transplants within just three years, according to the surgeon who performed the first op in Britain 40 years ago.

Sir Terence English said his protege from the UK's first successful heart transplant in 1979 will first try to replace a human kidney with a pig's this year.

And the pioneer believes this could pave the way for more complicated animal-human organ transplants - a process called "xenotransplantation".

Sir Terence, 87, told the Sunday Telegraph: "If the result of xenotransplantation is satisfactory with porcine kidneys to humans then it is likely that hearts would be used with good effects in humans within a few years.
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Water

Triage: What happens when you run life until the tank is empty

Leland Stillman
The Conversation
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 10:52 UTC
SUNLIGHT
© Jasper Boer on Unsplash
AM sunlight is my drug of choice
How do you know you are sick? We call the manifestations of disease "signs and symptoms." We know them by their hallmarks of pain, swelling, redness, and heat. These signs and symptoms are synonymous with what we call "inflammation." The signs and symptoms of disease can be debilitating, and life must quickly recover, or die.

How does life maintain its functions in the face of the stresses of our external environment? Life triages resources to meet threats and counter stress, in order to prevent signs and symptoms of disease from manifesting. Life does this until it exhausts all available resources.

Comment: While it surely is preferable to obtain what we need from nature and to aim for relative equilibrium with our environment, it's simply not possible for the majority of people, which is why supplementation and a number of other health protocols are required in our attempt to alleviate the damage modern life inflicts upon us. With that said, it is still a goal worth working towards: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Health & Wellness Show: Seeing the Light with Dr. Alexander Wunsch

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Brain

Remember the conspiracy theory that fluoride makes you docile and stupid? Well, it's official now

Ben Guarino
The Washington Post
Mon, 19 Aug 2019 11:00 UTC

Comment: We never imagined we'd see this in the WaPo...


pregnant woman drinking water
© iStock
A study of young children in Canada suggests those whose mothers drank fluoridated tap water while pregnant had slightly lower IQ scores than children whose mothers lived in non-fluoridated cities. But don't dash for the nearest bottled water yet. Health experts at the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Dental Association cautioned that public policy and drinking water consumption should not change on the basis of this study.

"I still stand by the weight of the best available evidence, from 70 years of study, that community water fluoridation is safe and effective," said Brittany Seymour, a dentist and spokeswoman for the American Dental Association. "If we're able to replicate findings and continue to see outcomes, that would compel us to revisit our recommendation. We're just not there yet."

The American Academy of Pediatrics, likewise, recommends fluoride in toothpastes and tooth varnishes for children because the mineral prevents tooth decay. In drinking water, "fluoridation has been incredibly protective," said Aparna Bole, a pediatrician who chairs the Council on Environmental Health at the American Academy of Pediatrics. Fluoridation reduces the prevalence of cavities by about one-fourth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC considers water fluoridation one of the 10 top health achievements of the past century, on par with vaccines and antismoking campaigns.

Comment: Perhaps none of the scientists dismissing this study out of hand have heard of the precautionary principle. The fact is that if there is a chance that water fluoridation causes harm and that harm is more detrimental than the benefit provided, water fluoridation should be halted. There are fluoride treatments that can be implemented - there's no reason to think of water fluoridation as the only option. And fluoride itself is a questionable response to tooth decay, ignoring the root cause of the problem. Our ancestors, eating a traditional diet, were not bothered by tooth decay to the extent of modern populations. This is, more than likely, where the solution actually lies.

See also:

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Health

Biologic medications for arthritis and psoriasis have flooded the market — and been linked to 34,000 deaths

John Fauber and Kevin Crowe
Journal Sentinel
Wed, 07 Aug 2019 11:37 UTC
Bev Webber
© Angela Peterson/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Bev Webber holds a family photo album at her Mukwonago home. Her mother, Helen Tschannen, suffered from rheumatoid arthritis for years. She had been taking three other drugs for the condition and then added Remicade. Known as a biologic, the drug tamps down the immune system often leading to substantial improvement in symptoms and even remission, but in doing so the drugs make people more susceptible to a growing number of infections as well as many other serious side effects. Tschannen died of a fungal infection as a result.
With her kidneys and liver failing and a 106-degree temperature that had smoldered for days, Helen Tschannen was being kept alive on a ventilator.

Doctors were not certain what was happening, but the family knew this: Tschannen, 77, did not want to be kept alive by machines. After 21 days in an Illinois hospital, they gathered at her bedside and wrestled with whether they were doing the right thing.

A nurse unhooked the equipment. Tschannen took one breath on her own and died.

It was Oct. 19, 2004.

Comment: Biologics seem to be a class of drug that have largely flown under the radar. But with complications and side effects like these, clearly the drugs need more oversight. Testing for infections before the drug is administered seems like a relatively easy way to mitigate risk, yet it's clearly a step that isn't being taken in many cases.

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Cupcake Choco

Sugary western diets fuel newly evolving superbug - Clostridium difficile

Yasemin Saplakoglu
Live Science
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 10:12 UTC
sugar western diets
And it's becoming increasingly resistant to disinfectants.

A diarrhea-causing bacterium is evolving into a new species, one that thrives on your sugar-rich Western diet, according to a new study.

The Clostridium difficile bacteria produce spores that spread through contact with feces, and so can commonly be found in bathrooms or on surfaces that people touch without properly washing their hands. What's more, this bacterium is becoming increasingly resistant to disinfectants used in hospitals, said study lead author Nitin Kumar, a senior bioinformatician at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

Patients taking antibiotics face the greatest risk of developing diarrhea from C. difficile, because antibiotics clear away healthy gut bacteria that typically fight off the infection, Kumar told Live Science.
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Arrow Down

Controversial study links fluoridated water during pregnancy to lower IQ

Issam AHMED
AFP
Tue, 20 Aug 2019 09:02 UTC
Water study
© AFP Photo/Alastair Pike
The study found an increase in concentration of fluoride in pregnant mother's urine of one milligram per liter was associated with a 4.5-point lower IQ score in boys, but not girls, at age three or four
A study published Monday linked consumption of fluoridated tap water during pregnancy to lower IQ scores in infants, a finding at odds with decades of public health messaging extolling the mineral's benefits in reducing cavities.

Several outside experts expressed concern over the research's methodology and questioned its conclusions, though some found the results compelling enough to merit further investigation.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) named community water fluoridation one of ten great public health achievements of the 20th century because of its contribution to the steep decline in tooth cavities in the United States over several decades.

But although high levels of fluoride have been found to be toxic to rat brains, the concentrations seen in fluoridated tap water are deemed safe.

"We realized that there were major questions about the safety of fluoride, especially for pregnant women and young children," Christine Till, an associate professor at Canada's York University and the paper's senior author told AFP, adding it was important to base decisions on evidence.

The study, published in the influential JAMA Pediatrics journal, analyzed data from 512 mother-child pairs across six Canadian cities, with about 40 percent living in communities supplied with fluoridated municipal water.

Comment: See also:

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Mail

Americans can handle an open discussion about vaccines: RFK. Jr's response to criticism from his family that Politico would not publish

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
childrenshealthdefense.org
Thu, 15 Aug 2019 17:10 UTC
RFK Jr
In early May 2019, Politico Magazine published an article written by three of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s relatives, criticizing his advocacy for safe vaccines. After numerous requests, Politico magazine has refused to publish his response.

Three of my Kennedy relatives recently published an article criticizing my advocacy for safe vaccines. Our contentious family dispute highlights the fierce national donnybrook over vaccinations that has divided communities and raised doubts about the Democratic Party's commitment to some of its defining values: abhorrence of censorship, wariness toward excessive corporate power, support for free speech, religious freedom, and personal sovereignty over our bodies, and the rights of citizens (codified in the Nuremberg Code and other treaties to which we are signatories) to decline unwanted government-mandated medical interventions. The debate has also raised questions about the independence of our press and its role as a champion of free speech, and First Amendment rights as a bulwark against overreaching by government and corporations.

I love my family and sympathize with their anxieties when I call out government officials for corruption. The Kennedy's have a long, close, and continuing relationship with public health agencies so it is understandably difficult for us to believe that powerful regulators would lie about vaccines. "All issues are simple," the saw goes, "until you study them."
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