CW: mention of articles talking about eating and weight loss.

Nutrition and metabolic scientists are working hard, and they’re working on a really hard problem: what are the effects of eating various foods/beverages on important features of human functioning? I’ve written in detail and with great relish about the swinging research pendulum on the egg question. Tracy has written about coffee and what science has to say about its effects on us. Christine’s even done experimentation on herself in service of our need to know about hydration. Thanks, Christine!

Some of those hard-working scientists came out with results of a study on eating almonds.

They were wondering whether eating some almonds before a meal (vs. eating a snack bar) would provoke what’s called early satiety– feeling full sooner– during the meal. They were going to measure this in three ways:

1. release of appetite-regulating hormones
2. self-reported lowered appetite
3. reduced short-term food consumption, i.e. eating less at the meal

Turns out, despite the fact that 1) happened– the appetite-regulating hormones got released, 2) and 3) didn’t. That is, people didn’t report lowered appetite and they didn’t eat appreciably less at the post-almond-snack meal than they did at the post-snack-bar meal (690 vs. 761 calories on average, which was not statistically significant).

In all seriousness, what they found was pretty interesting. At the metabolic level, the almonds did their job– provoking release of appetite-lowering hormones. But the effect didn’t migrate up to the conscious awareness level or the behavioral level. Which isn’t a bad or a good thing– it’s just a science thing.

And it spurred some good directions for future research like:

1. looking for different appetite-release patterns in people with different BMIs (their test group had BMI 27.5–34.9)
2. looking for longer-term behaviors and weight change and maintenance patterns
3. looking for favorable metabolic effects in diabetic populations

Yes, this research was done in part because nutrition science wants to find ways to bring about weight loss and maintenance of the results of weight loss. We’ve written a lot-a-lot about this, taking issue with the uniform imperative towards lower weights across almost all BMI categories.

Usually when I write these posts about new research, they’re accompanied by sensationalized and distorted media accounts of the results. This study doesn’t disappoint. Here’s what a google search yielded:

So what are we left with? I learned some things about what a nice food almonds are for the body (I mean by reading– I wasn’t in the study!). Also, trying snack selection strategies to distract us from eating by pre-feeding us may not work. Which is okay. Eating is a complex business at every level– from the social to the behavioral to the metabolic.

So, how to decide whether to eat almonds at any given time? I leave you with advice from a 1978 commercial that I remember well from my youth. In short, sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.

Hey readers? Do you like almonds? Do you use them for snacking? For taking the edge off before a meal? Do you remember this commercial. Just curious…

Last week, a new study came out on the effects of high-intensity exercise on metastatic (late stage) cancer. Medical news sites and medical Twitter have been all abuzz about the results. Take a look:

For those of you who know me or have read some of my critiques of medical journalism, you might think I’m about to lower the boom on the journalists and twitterers who are very enthusiastic about the results of the study. I’m not doing that. Not today… But, a little unpacking and clarifying of what we now know (and don’t know) about exercise and cancer is in order.

First of all, what were the researchers looking for in this multi-part study?

Researchers hypothesize that exercise-induced metabolic reprogramming of organs transforms them into metastatic-resistant metabolic micro-environments by limiting nutrient availability to the cancer cells thus creating a metabolic shield.

That is, they were investigating whether the metabolic effects of exercise might increase the likelihood that our organs would consume more glucose than usual, depriving tumors of the nutrients they need to grow and migrate.

Spoiler alert: the results of their study suggest a “yes” answer.

Exercise protects against cancer progression and metastasis by inducing a high nutrient demand in internal organs, indicating that reducing nutrient availability to tumor cells represents a potential strategy to prevent metastasis.

But (and as RuPaul says, it’s a big but), the details of the study show the results to be promising but still preliminary.

from the study:

Epidemiologic data from a 20-year prospective study of a large human cohort of initially cancer-free participants revealed that exercise prior to cancer initiation had a modest impact on cancer incidence in low metastatic stages but significantly reduced the likelihood of highly metastatic cancer.

In a 20-year prospective study of 2734 men and women in Israel, researchers found that high-intensity exercise lowered the relative risk for more advanced/metastatic stages of cancer (e.g. spreading to other sites in the body) 72%, compared to low-moderate exercise. Note, this is relative risk, not absolute risk. And, this is population-level, not taking into account other factors that strongly influence individual baseline risk. One more and: the researchers say that much more research is needed to know more about which particular cancers respond to increased exercise. All of this is TBD, if incredibly promising.

The study also included an analysis of this effect in mice.

In three models of melanoma in mice, exercise prior to cancer injection significantly protected against metastases in distant organs. 

Note, this experiment was done with melanoma, one form of cancer. It’s well known that different cancers set up shop, as it were, in the body in very different ways. Again, the effects of increased exercise on other cancers is still TBD.

There were other analyses done, and if you’re up to the task, you can access the whole paper here.

The authors themselves issues a bunch of caveats at the end of the article. For instance, the literature doesn’t show how long the tumor-starving effects of intense exercise last. They also point out that high-intensity exercisers, like Olympic athletes, are not themselves immune to various cancers. This suggests to them that “a personalized exercise regime for each patient might provide better clinical outcomes.”

Yes, I fully concur. Until we know more– a lot more– we can conclude that all forms and intensities of exercise are, in many ways, good for health ad longevity. A Healthline article on this study agrees:

High intensity also might not be possible depending on age and other factors. For these people, even moderate exercise still has a protective effect against cancer, Hicks said.

“Hundreds of epidemiological studies, comprised of millions of participants, provide strong evidence that regular, daily activities like brisk walking significantly reduce the risks of many cancers,” he said. “These results show 10 to 20 percent risk reductions for bladder, breast, colon, endometrial, esophageal adenocarcinoma, and renal and gastric cancers.

Well, yay for that! Reading those words has given me enough energy to maybe do this high-intensity move:

In case you’ve been outside or busy with other things non-internet this weekend, a) good for you; and b) a dense but very interesting research article came out; and c) this article has made otherwise sensible science journalists go hog wild. Researchers Mark and Deborah Hamilton and Theodore Zderic found:

…the human soleus muscle could raise local oxidative metabolism to high levels for hours without fatigue, during a type of soleus-dominant activity while sitting, even in unfit volunteers. Muscle biopsies revealed there was minimal glycogen use. Magnifying the otherwise negligible local energy expenditure with isolated contractions improved systemic VLDL-triglyceride and glucose homeostasis by a large magnitude, e.g., 52% less postprandial glucose excursion (∼50 mg/dL less between ∼1 and 2 h) with 60% less hyperinsulinemia. 

Very roughly, this means:

• Our big calf muscle can work continuously for long periods, without fatigue
• This process doesn’t use much glycogen, as it’s not intense muscular activity
• But, it has some surprising beneficial effects (insert technical stuff here about V-LDL triglyceride levels, glucose release after meals, and insulin levels related to insulin resistance, a condition that is considered a precursor to type-2 diabetes).
• Also, this is a surprising result, which is cool.

They were also nice enough to provide an illustration. So, if you like pictures:

But of course, the internet wasn’t satisfied with my explanation from above. Oh, no, that boring information won’t do at all. Here’s what they had to say instead:

The producers of the second article also got a little confused about where the “special muscle” was:

To be clear, the researchers tried very hard to stave off a new Tik-Tok calf-raise-at-the-desk craze. They say in the article:

This study was not a clinical trial. This was an experimental physiological study, conducted in highly controlled laboratory conditions. This study also did not test effectiveness of a free-living lifestyle intervention. 

And this:

One should be cautious when interpreting the relative effectiveness in subcategories until follow-up studies with a large sample size are performed. The practicality will also depend on implementation in large parts of the population. The practicality will depend in part on evidence that people are capable of successfully performing SPU contractions outside of a laboratory without EMG feedback. There is a need to test when this could be integrated within the lifestyle without disrupting various seated behaviors.

But the science journalists ignored all this. All they saw was that maybe this– the fancy lab-telemetry-enabled calf raise– could potentially reverse the death-encroaching effects of sitting for too long. So they wasted no time in putting that message out to the public. Even though one of the articles showed the illustration below, it still trumpeted the result as instantly available to office workers everywhere.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with calf raises. I do them on airplanes to help circulation (and also pass the time). But the soleus is not the “special muscle” that the internet is all in a swoon over. It’s just another one of our hard working body parts that help us get through our day.

Readers, did you see the calf-muscle-fever articles this weekend? Were you swayed for even a minute? I didn’t think so….

On Saturday I posted about a new study investigating whether morning or evening exercise is better (in what sense? they don’t say) for us. Spoiler: it doesn’t matter, at least as far as they know.

The investigators did their study using mice– male mice in particular. This did not go unnoticed by me, and certainly was noted plenty in the comments section.

Some made inquiries about where the female mice might be, along with plausible explanations:

Someone suggested they (the female mice) were tied up with other duties.

There were commenters who tried to defend the use of male-only mouse subjects on grounds of it-being-too-hard-to-do-science-on-female-organisms. Yeah, we’ve heard that before.

You didn’t think I was going to let that one get by me, did you?

Another attempted defense of the men-mice-only research plan came from this comment:

There’s a lot here, but let me just say that the mice could be held in separate cages, which would provide a low-tech solution. Am I missing something here?

In response to the male-mice-only defenders, someone suggested maybe doing more and better science might solve the air of mystery surrounding the ovulation cycles of female mice.

And I’m sure this person was trying to help, but…

Finally, someone got to the heart of the matter, pointing out what scientifically aware readers want to know:

Readers, what do you think? Do you personally know any female mice who’ve been turned down for science experiments? Have you metabolized cheese after-hours or only during daylight? Is ovulation too mind-blowing even to think about, much less study in a scientific fashion? I’m hoping that future comments sections will enlighten me as much as this one opened up a host of new questions…

This week, the NY Times published an article with the headline “Is is better to exercise in the morning or evening?” The answer, when I dug into their article and the original research paper, was this: we learned many groovy facts about male mouse metabolism this week, but we still don’t know what time of day is best for you (a human) to exercise. Or even them (the mice), really.

Huh. You might be wondering why, after the NYT went to all the trouble to write this headline, that they don’t have an answer for us. And then there are those scientific researchers, who published this paper that shows a lot of results and many beautiful multicolored charts and graphs.

And yet. I maintain that we still don’t know what time of day is better for exercising. Why not? Here are some reasons.

No one has worked out and gotten other people to agree about what counts as a “better” or “best” time to exercise. Better in what sense? Feels best? Burns the most calories? Burns the least calories? Results in quickest muscle recovery? Contributes most efficiently to this or that training goal?

These are all really different ways to optimize on an exercise session. The researchers do mention time-dependent metabolic processes and effects on the mice-bros, but don’t offer general recommendations. The NYT article cites some studies (here and here) done on type-2 diabetic dudes (always and only the dudes… sigh) that show preferential effects from afternoon exercise. But that’s a particular sub-group, so the results don’t apply to everyone.

This study was done ON MICE. So, any effects they found, they found IN MICE. Yes, animal studies are common and often helpful in directing further investigation. But these results don’t tell us much of anything about humans. Which is no one’s fault, because the research subjects were MICE.

The study used only male subjects. In this case, it was male mice. Argh. So, if you’re a non-male person reading this, then you can’t know if the study results (if they had something even approaching advisory, which they don’t) apply to you. This is not a one-off case. Recall the research articles the NYT cited testing the metabolic effects of different exercise times on type-2 diabetes. They only used male subjects, too.

What the research article never mentions and what the NYT saves until the end of their piece is the number one reason why it doesn’t matter whether I exercise in the morning or evening: the best time to exercise is the time I actually can and will and do exercise; it doesn’t matter when I move; it matters THAT I move. Here’s what the NYT said:

…as additional studies build on this one’s results, we may become better able to time our workouts to achieve specific health goals. Follow-up studies likely will tell us, for instance, if an evening bike ride or run might stave off diabetes more effectively than a morning brisk walk or swim.

But for now, Dr. Chow said, “the best time for people to exercise would be whenever they can get a chance to exercise.”

Yes, I can fully endorse that recommendation.

Readers, do you need to know what ways you can optimize on your physical activity? Do these results matter to you? Do you have your own optimal times, or do you mix it up in your workout schedule? I’d love to hear from you.

Instead of opening my post by chatting and eventually getting around to my topic, let me make like a journalist and offer an actual lede. Here goes:

The main research center for food policy and weight discrimination research, the Rudd Center, just changed its name this week.

You may be thinking, okay, thanks for the info. Now onto the next thing.

Hang on a sec! I forgot the most important part of the name change. The Rudd Center used to be called The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity.

As of Monday (that’s when I got the email), the Rudd Center had changed its name to The Rudd Center for Food Policy and Health.

Wow.

This is big. No longer using the word “obesity” which I really dislike (read more about why in my post here) represents a shift in the ways a major research and policy center thinks and acts about food practices and population health. Here’s what the Rudd folks have to say about it:

This change reflects how our work has evolved over the past 15 years. When the Rudd Center was founded, the majority of our research focused on strategies to reduce obesity rates. Although many of our current initiatives remain grounded in the idea that improving the food environment will promote better nutrition, we now study a range of health outcomes, and focus on several specific populations. Among our newer areas of work are: food insecurity; the whole school, whole community, whole child model; minimum wage policies; and LGBTQ youth.  

We remain dedicated to using research to inform policy; fighting weight bias and discrimination through research, education, and advocacy; studying the social, economic, and structural drivers of diet quality and health equity; and reducing the harm of food marketing to youth. 

For years, the Rudd Center has been at the vanguard of research into ways our industrial food system and flawed healthcare system harms children, exacerbates health disparities and discriminates against fatter people. But this conscious and very public shift away from research on obesity rates, including getting rid of that word (ob*sity), sends a clear message: we’re not interested in researching about body weight. We’re interested in researching about food policy, access and discrimination. Here’s what they’re focusing on these days:

• early care and education
• food marketing
• food policy
• food security
• schools
• weight bias and stigma

Name changes are powerful. They signify changes in identity, changes in the ways we view the world and changes in the ways we view ourselves. This name change is one that I welcome with open arms.

If you are interested in learning more about the work the Rudd Center does, check out their website here.

Readers, does this seem like good news to you? Do you dislike the word ob*sity as much as I do? Any thoughts you have are most welcome.