Spring training

Since I train year round, I cannot help but notice the huge increase in people on “my” trails and “my” equipment, at the gym.  I have been spoiled by having them all to myself. While it’s been 5 years since I wrote “Six Weeks to Super Fitness” and 2 years since our last fitness boot camp, the questions never cease to come in.

Lots of people want to know what the best way to get in shape fast is. The danger in answering that lies in the question: what do you mean by getting in shape?

I am going to assume you want some combination of improved leanness and muscle mass, with more energy and more ability to move through life, doing what you want to do.  I am also going to assume you want to improve your health in the process.  In truth, “in shape” for most people, means losing weight, particularly, in the form of body fat.

So what is “best”?

In terms of aesthetics, I think the gymnast’s body says it all and that body is gotten primarily by moving body weight through land, sea and air in just about every angle possible.  Body weight exercises are also easy to do on the road and unless you are on the rings or bars, they tend to be safer than trying to move weights at odd angles, in weird directions.  A great modern variation on the theme, that integrates weights as well, is Cross Fit. A 6 to 8 week course, coupled with improved diet, will do wonders.

This is great circuit training, but there are a lot of people who would not hold up to that kind of stress. Not doing an exercise is the best way to not get in shape!

So, here is a milder alternative.  Walking. Walking, particularly up hills and really, particularly with a weighted pack, or vest, or belt, up hills, is a great low impact way to get cardio and burn calories. Couple that with deep water sprints and water bell resistance exercises and you’ve got something most people can do without harm.

So, climb, my friend! Up a tree, a bar, or a rope if you are up to it.  If not, a hill will do!  And into a pool, for the stuff that would be too high impact on the land.

Doc

Fighting a losing battle with cancer

The ink had barely dried on the blog below when the following article came out by Dr Ron DePinho, a seminal researcher in the field of telomeres and telomerase.  Dr DePinho helped put the nail in the coffin of the “Mitochondrial Theory of Aging” a year or so ago, when he showed that telomere length pretty much controlled mitochondria function and fate.

This most recent article at http://bit.ly/wj6ylv shows how cancer outsmarts telomerase inhibitors. I have been writing this kind of thing for about a year now, based on what I know, but this study confirms it.

Cancer is a sneaky bastxxd and does a lot of things to outsmart regular cells.  Its association with increased telomerase has posed endless questions for people like me, who take, sell and research telomerase activators.  Simply put, I get asked over and over again, doesn’t turning on telomerase cause cancer.  A thousand times NO and of course I have gone into the reasons (see the blog below!) ad nauseum so I won’t do it again here.  But, I will tell you my prediction that turning off telomerase in cancer will do the same thing chemo and radiation often does- make the cancer stronger and more resistant, as shown by this article.

It is my hope that by proving this, we will once and for all understand that cancer hijacks telomerase and lots of other things for its own good.  Turning on telomerase does not cause cancer; it is merely a byproduct of the process that has nothing to do with telomerase activators like TA-65!  Here is another example. People out there are claiming oxygen kills cancer and alkalinity does as well. Sorry, this is also wrong.  Cancer hijacks surrounding cells and makes new blood vessels, so it can support its preferred acidic environment and survive in a low oxygen tension, without having the associated toxicity and accumulation of waste products kill it.  Dumping in oxygen, ozone and alkalinity will not penetrate this environmental wall that cancer creates. It will not touch the cancer.  Changing the genetics of the cancer and restoring its sensitivity to low oxygen and the acidic toxins will, but the two are completely unrelated.

I hope we can once and for all understand that, just because something happens as one of the steps in cancer, does not mean it causes cancer.  Cancer is a very tough and sneaky opponent and ultimately preventing it will be the best treatment.  Last year JAMA published an article associating shorter telomeres with more and more virulent cancers, and longer telomeres with markedly less cancer risk.   Last week, a Danish study showed short telomeres were associated with early death and longer telomeres with longer life. I can assure you having longer telomeres will be part of treating aging cancer and most, if not all, the disease we associate with old age.  Until we institute that treatment, we will be fighting a losing battle!

The missing BS detector

I have never been accused of adopting the “Popular Opinion”. Moreover, I make it a point to try to disabuse people of false notions.  The problem is of course touched upon in the blog below, “The Connectivity Trap”, because we have created a totally open forum for human interaction. We have also created a totally open forum for BS.

No one is policing the comments, or stopping the nonsense. For better or worse, I occasionally try.  I thought you might enjoy a week in the life of Dr Dave, as he battles misconceptions and untruths, especially those that smack of “agendas”.  Agendas are fine, if they are based on fact, but otherwise…

The following was a response to what seems to come up endlessly on the internet.  ‘Turning on telomerase increases your cancer risk so TA-65 is dangerous.’  Simply put, this is nonsense.  Here is why:

Randall! Please stop automatically associating cancer with telomerase activation. The only time that has ever happened is when viral vectors are used to insert the telomerase gene into genomes, where it is not present, as in certain genetically engineered forms of mice. Long telomeres reduce cancer risk (JAMA Dec 2010).  Because cancer hijacks telomerase for its own purposes, people mistake telomerase activation as a de facto cancer risk.  It is not.  Studies with TA-65 and other non-commercial telomerase activators have not shown any increase in cancer. People are misconstruing the fact that cancer hijacks telomerase as a risk for cancer, when turning it on in non-cancer cells.  First off, cancer turns on telomerase by gene amplification, mutation, recombination and other methods that do not involve TA-65 or other “derepressors”.  Adding TA-65 to pre-malignant cells, or cancer xenografts (Perry, et. al), does not increase the speed or toxicity of the cancer. Basically, cancer is cancer and adding telomerase activation does not make it more cancerous.  In pre-malignant villous adenoma cultures, the same thing was found – no increase in the rate of cancerous transformation.  TA-65 does things no other single supplement can and has been proven in human trials, as well as cell cultures and animal studies (See Blasco, Maria in pub med). Is it expensive? What are your life and your health worth?  Has anyone else taken anything that can reduce hair loss, gray hair, improve the immune system, bone density, sex drive, eyesight, reduce skin damage, blood pressure, insulin and glucose levels and do so in a proven clinical human trial, not just someone out there claiming it does, in “their experience”. We look forward to even more potent telomerase activators in the future.  After 3+ years of taking TA-65, I will be in the line for the next one, and the next one etc., etc. I wish I could find a way to get people to do more research, before they volunteer their expert opinions on internet forums.  Dave Woynarowski MD, author The Immortality Edge

Next, we have a corollary statement: If turning on telomerase causes cancer (which of course it does not!) then short telomeres must be good.  This statement was extracted by someone who knows nothing about telomeres and is based on an internet hit citing anti-cancer therapy with telomerase inhibitors.  This was a real case of true, true and unrelated!

Statement: Short telomeres protect against cancer.

Short telomeres do not protect against cancer.  Nor do long telomeres or telomerase expression, when turned on in non-cancer cells, promote cancer. Telomeres shorten with each cell replication. Cancer cells are replicating at rates far above most non-cancer cells. They start with short telomeres and their telomeres get shorter as the cancer advances. Cancer hijacks telomerase to lengthen its own, already short telomeres, out of necessity.  Cancer cells would essentially commit suicide, if they were not able to recruit telomerase to maintain enough telomere length, to continue to survive and replicate. Studies have shown (JAMA Dec 2010) that long telomeres are protective against cancer and short telomeres are correlated both with incidence and severity of cancer.

The cancer telomere/telomerase association stems from the fact that 80+% of human cancers do hijack telomerase and use it for their own viability.  The other 15+% use a recombination known as ALT. Cancers can also use both, so the current research into telomerase inhibition as an “anti-cancer” therapy will likely be a temporizing measure at best. The effects of telomerase inhibition on the immune system and stem cell health are also issues.

Bottom line, long telomeres appear to protect against cancer, short telomeres appear to promote it. Shortening telomeres in pre-existing cancers may buy the victim some time but the consequences are not yet clear.  So far, telomerase activation (in the absence of viral vectors, which are known to increase cancer incidence on their own) has not shown any increase in cancer in cell culture animal studies and human studies (Rejuvenation Research Sept 2010). This does not stop people from propagating that myth, however.  Dave Woynarowski MD, author The Immortality Edge

And finally, an erudite internet doc has posted his attack on the Paleo diet while promoting, guess which agenda. His article is entitled “Epigenetics- the Death of the Paleolithic Human” and shows lack of even a basic understanding of the word epigenetics.  Personally, given this individual’s stature, I find that hard to believe and wonder if it was not deliberate! Perhaps this was the result of the infamous “copywriter intervention” that is so prevalent when people become internet superstars.

Epigenetics is the de facto reason for many papers and speculations. It is not, however, the creation of new genes. It is not the creation of altered pathways to handle the high loads of Omega 6 fatty acids in pure vegetarian vegan diets, as an example.  I recently tested Omega 6 to 3 ratios on 60 Vegans and found all were abysmally low on Omega 3 – dangerously so, if one believes Dr Land’s and Dr Simopoulos’  data. The gene for lactase persists a few months longer now than it did thousands of years ago. We have blue eyes in the population, as well as several blood dyscrasias thought to prevent death from malaria past reproductive age.

That is about it as far as mutations that could be cited as evolution. If there are not genes for altering fatty acid metabolism, processing phytic acid, keeping lactase far into adulthood and genetically controlled immune responses to the presence of gluten, then no manner of epigenetic silencing or expression shifting will make these healthy foods for humans.

Perhaps Dr Bland knows of these mutations and the rest of us do not. That would lend a lot more credulity to his “epigenetic” argument. These genes have not yet been sequenced in the human genome, so far as I know.  Interestingly, short term, both Paleo and Vegan style diets yield similar reductions in what are routinely considered unhealthy biomarkers and there are no conclusive long term studies to define the most “healthy” human diet. Ron Rosedale’s data was based on Paleo style eating, but his study was short term.
If one uses the epigenetics argument, then any information from the “China Study” is suspect, as is most population-based information, including that used to justify Paleo, since our American population clearly has different epigenetic expression than rural China or Kitaava for that matter.

We can toss the term epigenetics around to justify our agendas as much as we like, until we understand it better. These days, merely saying the words epigenetics, telomerase, stem cells and so forth, creates a “WOW” factor among the lay public and garners attention. I wish, before saying these words, we would be more cognizant of what we do and don’t know and admit that to the public. I suspect Dr Bland is very clear on what epigenetics really is. Personally, I am willing to admit I was not around 50,000 or 100,000 years ago, so there is still room for new information. Just because an argument sounds smart doesn’t mean it is.  Where are those new genes, Doc?  David Woynarowski MD

I want to personally thank Dr Mehment Oz’s research team for calling attention to things I have done for the past decade. Their attendance to raspberry ketone, Omega 3 testing and L Carnosine in the past few weeks and touting them as “new discoveries” has lent credence to my work!

Dr Dave

The connectivity trap

We were in the middle of an important conversation when the call came in.  Jack, I will call him, was a middle aged business man, who had a proposition for me that was supposed to revolutionize my business and my life.  The call interrupted his presentation for about 2 minutes, but in that time I found myself pondering the purpose of the endless demands on our time and our seemingly endless connectivity with our fellow man.

As it turns out, the call was not as important as Jack had originally supposed.  As a matter of fact, I caught him in idle chit chat and shot him a glance that said, “Come on, Pal!”  At that point, he ended his call, but over the next 10 minutes there was a seemingly endless array of tones signifying texts coming in.  With each tone Jack flinched a little, unable to completely ignore the tugging of the sound on his brain.

He concluded his presentation by letting me know he had another call he had to attend.  Needless to say, Jack did not get my business nor did he get any more of my attention.  Nor will he…ever!

What was most disturbing was that Jack, like me, was in his mid 50’s. He, like me, had spent several decades in the dark ages of limited and purposeful communication, which required some forethought and action, other than pushing speed dial.  Unlike me, he had modernized his life and was attended by all of the bells and whistles that the continuing array of communications devices provides.  Out of curiosity, I checked his Facebook account.  There, in too much detail, were the details of his business day, his clients and all of the nonsensical and unimportant things he did during that day.  None of them seemed to hold any priority in his vapid endless stream of consciousness babble that masqueraded as communication.

The parallels to the minds of so many people I meet are inescapable!

I began to wonder if Jack was actually a participant in his own life or merely a scribe, jumping between texts, tweets and Facebook commentary.  The latter has managed to change the meaning of the word “like” forever.  How stupid!

I am sure Jack’s children had all of the newest devices for said endless communication.  I am sure Jack lamented the cost of many things in his life, including things that would improve his health. But he did not bat an eye at how much time/money he spent lining the pockets of the telecommunications giants with his money.  I am sure his children would not think of using anything but the latest piece of equipment and felt deprived if it was not on their doorstep within 24 hours of its release. Perhaps Facebook can create a new word for that kind of addiction.

Today, our children have an endless array of freedom, information and choices. And a deficit of facts and attention. If it is said on the internet, it must be true and everyone is an expert on anything.  I wonder if they will ever realize someone is getting very rich from their addictions, while they buy into one world saving agenda after another, all spread and hyped by the information “revolution”.

To me Verizon and T Mobile are just as evil as Monsanto.

Ten years ago, I made some huge changes in my life.  One of them was to reduce the size of my medical practice by about 90%. In the process, I got rid of what I euphemistically called, my “electronic leashes”.

They were my pager and my portable phone. My pager was a one way leash.  They called and I had to answer, no matter what, when or where.  And for 18 years I did so, dutifully. My portable phone was not a cell phone. It was a 3 watt semi portable thing that ran about 1 hour on battery and weighed about 5 pounds. It was the size of an encyclopedia, a book that is, not a digital version!

So, in a very real sense, I embraced technology and was probably among the first 5% in the world to have a mobile phone.  Even then, I knew the line between tool and obsession would be blurred by too many people.

I could not have been happier to get rid of these leashes, because I discovered then, what has since been the topic of much research and writing.

Much like the human body has not adapted well to Modern foods, the human brain is not adept at handling the extended tribe that today’s modern communication devices have forced on people.

It has been said and I believe that we are geared for social circles of no larger than 150. And yet, we need to know everything about everyone, everywhere.

Do we really!?  Can it really be important or even healthy to “know everything” with no discernment of importance?

One of the other changes I made 10 years ago, was to stop watching the “news”. In the process, I cut my TV time down to about 2 hours a week, which opened up time to read about things that were related to my interests and my field.  Since then, I have not once missed a meaningful world event. And I have become a true expert, not a phony internet one, on at least 3 things: longevity, Omega 3 fatty acids and telomeres.

I am sure it is too late to stop the endless addiction to connectivity that our society has so rapidly embraced. Just like it is too late to stop the endless flow of pseudo experts on the internet. I am also sure no real good can come of it. And the saddest thing is people my age should know better. Kids I can understand- when one has it, they all have to have it. But I really don’t care how many hamburgers fit on your grill.

And trust me, neither do you!  Then again, you might miss the Groupon special on brand name popcorn that is going on within a 20 mile radius of your home.

And that missed opportunity could alter your life forever!

lol

Myths and facts about weight loss – the current thinking

As you may have guessed from the phrase “the current thinking”, this stuff is subject to change.  Much like diets, the actual testing of exercise routines is based far more on “personal experience”, than science.  Even when science gets involved, it gets difficult to find a series of studies that support one thing or another, repeatedly. People basically cherry pick the study that suits their inclination and use that, to the exclusion of anything that refutes that study. I read everything and I try just about everything!

Two years ago, we released our wonderful book, The Immortality Edge.   In that book, we spent a lot of time detailing the effects of interval training and EPOC (excess post exercise oxygen consumption or calorie burn). Interval training, invented back in the 1930’s, enjoyed a significant resurgence and became the routine of the day, in many lay press publications as well.

While I stand by what we said in the book – interval training is the MOST EFFICIENT use of one’s time in exercise – it appears that the whole EPOC equation may have been way overblown, in terms of actual extra calorie burn. This has not stopped the big guns of the MD internet marketing, from launching books, courses and entire web sites devoted to this form of exercise. Not to worry though, it still has huge metabolic and health benefits.

But before we launch into that, let’s look at what else has had its day in the sun.  Basically, that is weight training and “cardio” also known as Aerobics or LSD (long slow distance at low to moderate intensity).

For a while, weight training also enjoyed a heyday, with muscle mags and fitness rags touting its benefits as a primary weight loss tool.  The main reason for the attention was, the “fat burns in the muscle” concept, and of course that it was good for business! The more muscle you have, the more fat you burn when you are at rest or exercising.  Once again, it sounds simple, but it appears the estimates of just how much more fat you burn were grossly exaggerated. Add to that, most hard core weight lifters also set aside days for “cardio”, purely for the health benefits.

Perhaps the longest reigning champion of fitness and weight loss was aerobics, defined as any exercise that gets your heart rate into the 65 to 72% range of your maximum and keeps it there for a minimum of 30 minutes.  Notably, most cardio routines are 60 minutes to give you the extra calorie burn.

Now comes the fun part. What is real and what isn’t, what should you do, and what has been my personal experience after 25 years of medical practice and a certificate as a personal trainer?

Here it is:

1)      Interval type training is the most efficient use of your time.  If you only have 30 minutes a day, this is what you should do.  But, you can’t do it every day or you’ll burn out fast! In addition, I have seen far more disabling injuries from high intensity interval training, especially in middle aged people who are not starting out in good shape.  The safest way to do it is deep water sprinting with a flotation vest.  This is the lowest impact and should spare your joints as well as giving you some of the much touted “Michael Phelps Effect” e.g. you burn more calories in water because you lose calories as body heat, in addition to your exercise.

2)      That said, I have never personally had any success losing weight with ONLY this type of training, unless I do it in circuit fashion with minimal rest (30 to 60 seconds) in between and do it for a full hour.  This is a real grind and here you are again with a one hour time commitment, at least 2-3 times a week, so in many ways it defeats the purpose.

3)      As far as EPOC is concerned, I only ever documented it using a Bodygem device, while taking my Ultra Strength Fat Furnace.  In this case, I was able to show 300 to 500 calories extra fat burn per day, but again much of this could have been from the supplement, not the exercise-induced EPOC.

4)      Weight training or some type of strength training is essential.  It could be with bands, body weight or weights, but in terms of safety and portability I love bands.  That said, I still do traditional weight lifting 2x a week for an hour. For many, it was a huge disappointment to see the lack of calorie burn from extra muscle. Estimates of hundreds of calories a day, for 10 pounds of muscle gain, appear to be completely unfounded. That said, there are all kinds of hormonal reasons why progressive resistance exercise is essential to your health, hormones and metabolism.  The other thing is, it’s probably the ONLY way to preserve fat free mass, while you are losing weight. In other words, it’s the only way to ensure you don’t become what I called “skinny fat”, in my emails a decade ago.

On a personal note, this type of training is also the only way I have personally been able to get the last few pounds off!

5)      Long slow distance aerobics or cardio, seems to be making a return as the best way to burn calories, now that we know that there is no free lunch with exercise. In other words, you still burn the bulk of your calories while you exercise, not while you recover. As you know, I am a sometime ultra runner.  Spending hours in the woods and dales and mud bogs running and struggling, burns a huge amount of calories. But few have, or are even willing to commit the time investment. The other thing, and this is a personal observation, is this kind of exercise tends to create a mountainous appetite when it exceeds one hour in duration.

6)      The fact that it often takes more than an hour of this type of exercise to really burn a significant amount of calories and it is not a free pass to eat whatever you want, led to the misconception best stated as follows.

“For years we have been telling people to exercise like this and all those years we have been watching them get fatter and fatter! So, it must be wrong!”

Um, what you put in your mouth still counts, people!

Confusing, isn’t it!  Actually, no! Where the confusion comes in is when we try to “mix metaphors” by losing sight of our goals.  As the title of this blog implies, the goal is weight loss and if you keep that in mind, the path becomes clear.

The first 6 to 12 weeks of any weight loss program should be spent in circuit training that uses body weight, iron weights, bands, etc in an interval fashion — 30 reps, 1 minute, whatever way you want to define the endpoint, followed by a similar rest period.  You should be breathless most of the time you are exercising and partially recovered when you are in between your sets. You should do this for 1 hour 2 to 3 times a week. You should feel exhausted and unable to think about any other form of exercise when you are done. As you progress through the weeks, you will notice just how fast you get into shape and how much harder you are capable of working out.  And of course, your body will change!

The main caveats are: don’t work out so hard you hurt yourself or cannot get “up” for the next session, and you still have to reduce your calorie intake.  That, my friend, is the hard part.  That is why I make all those supplements!

Doc

P.S.  No matter how many times I say it, someone always writes in and says “you neglected to mention the benefits of my favorite exercise”!  The above is not necessarily the best lifelong exercise plan, it may not have the most health benefits and it may not make you look ripped and shredded! But based on the current literature and my considerable experience, it is the most effective at weight loss.  For the best “anti-aging” effects, keep in mind a program that addresses our weaknesses as we age, such as loss of power and strength, is very important, and we should try to use all of our muscle fibers, fast, slow and medium twitch.