The Life Ledger

Fitness is a way of life.

Eating trans fats may increase infertility risk (@ topix.net, citing reuters)

The more I learn about trans fats, the less I want to eat processed foods.  I’m definitely going to start looking at all the labels of what I buy - it’s worth the extra money I spend to cut trans fats from our diet.  Here’s an excerpt from the article:

For every 2 percent increase in the amount of calories a woman got from trans fats instead of carbohydrates, the researchers found, her risk of infertility increased by 73 percent. The risk rose by 79 percent for every 2 percent of energy in trans fats if they replaced omega-6 polyunsaturated fats. And for every 2 percent of calories derived from trans fats instead of monounsaturated fats, the risk of infertility more than doubled.

For a woman eating 1,800 calories a day, 2 percent of energy intake in trans fats equals 4 grams, Chavarro noted. “It’s not very hard to get 4 grams of trans fatty acids every day,” he said. “It’s really a small amount of trans fatty acids that we observe having a significant effect on infertility.”

So, 4 grams of trans fats equals a 73% increase in infertility.  The food industry is killing us.  I just hope the effects are reversible once we stop eating trans fats.

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Keeping pace: Do TVs, iPods help or hurt your workout? (@ cnn.com)
Here’s the gist of this article:

“If you want to maintain a high level of intensity, you pretty much have to focus on your body,” he said.

This is related to the belief that noisy gadgets interfere with the intensely focused mental state many athletes refer to as “flow.” For instance, visitors to the Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health, in Stockbridge, Massachusetts, are encouraged to leave the headphones behind. Jennifer Young, director of healthy living programs, said she wants to keep visitors’ mind-body connections strong.

“Don’t turn out and turn off,” Young said, “because then there’s that underlying signal, ‘Oh, working out is something I don’t want to do. I’m escaping it by doing this.”‘

My personal opinion - isn’t it fascinating what we study?  I wonder who funded this research.  At any rate, I love listening to music or podcasts as I bike ride, walk or otherwise exercise, and I think whatever makes it easier or more fun to exercise is worth doing.  This “be in the flow” stuff is for the people who get a kick out of exercising, and you’re not going to force that enjoyment on people who don’t naturally like running marathons.

Hope over ‘obesity busting gum’ (@ bbc.co.uk)
Still looking for the magic bullet.  Still not going to find it - the more unnatural crap you add to your body, the less healthy you are.  This gum is supposed to work by adding levels of pancreatic polypeptide, a hormone your body naturally makes that induces the feeling of being full.  I say, eat less and move around more instead of messing around with your body’s chemistry.

Cancer Deaths Drop for Second Year (@ cnn.com)
Here’s CNN’s story highlights for this article:

• U.S. cancer deaths dropped by 3,014 in 2003-2004
• Second straight year of declines, Cancer Society says
• Early detection and improved treatment credited for drop

The numbers focus on the amount of people dying of cancer, and are derived by studying death certificates.  Shouldn’t we also be looking at the cancer death rate, and look for correlating trends in the number of elderly people or other groups of people with a higher-than-normal rate of cancer?  Personally, I suspect this number will go back up as the baby boomer generation ages, and can’t help but think this number may be somewhat misleading.  I don’t discount the work being done on cancer research, but I can’t help think the buzz about these numbers is somewhat overstated.  On the other hand, it is nice to see good news about cancer.

Low-stress Life May Be Best Way to Prevent Colds (@ npr.org)
The article talks about an untested product called Airborne that multitudes of people buy to treat the common cold.  There must be some psychological reason people turn to medication rather than make lifestyle changes that actually do help.  Is marketing and advertising really that effective?  It sure has created an entire culture and industry around diamonds.  Whatever it is, it’s unhealthy.

Doughnut shops next front in trans-fat war (@ cnn.com)

This excerpt pretty much sums up my reaction to the trans-fat movement:

Consumers should not assume, however, that a trans-fat-free doughnut is necessarily healthy, said Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University.

“My feeling is that the whole trans fat issue is a calorie distraction,” Nestle said. “You think that because it’s trans-fat-free, it doesn’t have any calories. And whatever the substitute is going to be, it’s going to have just as many calories.”

As I discovered yesterday, what the food industry is using to replace trans-fats may very well be as bad, or worse, for our bodies.  Much better to just start cutting those foods out of my diet altogether, either by not eating them anymore or finding organic/natural alternatives.

So, doughnuts are easy to cut - I don’t like them anyway.  But if I were to cut out all foods that contained unpronouncable stuff in the ingredients list, I would have to start growing and raising all my own foods.  The best I can do is start paying attention to the stuff and start getting more educated about what those alien-looking ingredients actually are.  My guess - at least 7/10’s of them are corn-derived.

Corn?  More about that later.