For those of you gearing up for yet another lengthy endurance sports season, consider a recently released study about elite marathoners. Researchers at the Minneapolis Heart Institute and Foundation found that these runners faced a greater risk of accumulating plaque in their coronary arteries – despite having less body fat, lower LDL cholesterol levels, and lower heart rates. Per one of the researchers:
You have to consider that these runners may be in a constant state of inflammation, and that may be why we are seeing more plaque.
This is yet another pillar of support for the notion that systemic inflammation plays a much more substantial role in coronary artery disease than dietary fat or cholesterol.
So do you still want to do those three marathons this year?
The irony is that Dave and I were able to get in a full mile yesterday with sunny skies, 68F air temps, and mirror flat swim conditions! So here is winter in Chicago:
Be sure to check out “The Exonoration of Bacon: Saturated Fat Is Healthy,” an excellent piece over at Dan Hubbard’s website. It’s a great primer on how our contemporary “conventional wisdom” has erroneously shaped our attitudes towards saturated fat. Here’s an excerpt:
Animal fat has always been a significant part of human’s diets up until 100 years ago. At that point, food processing developed. The earliest reports of heart disease were in rare cases in the 1920s. Animal fat consumption decreased significantly from 1910-1970 due to the increased prevalence of processed foods and fear of the animal fat’s and cholesterol’s proposed negative relationship with heart disease. Concurrently, processed vegetable oils and processed carbohydrates increased significantly because of cheaper costs and longer shelf-lives.
I took a quick run out to Ladder #1 on Saturday morning to see if swimming was at all a possibility. Unfortunately, the 10-15 mph northeast winds and 35F water temperatures made things a bit too chaotic to get in the water. If the water temperatures were higher – like in the 50F and above range – this would be a good short lap swim day (or a great inner tube day!).
As people worldwide continue to develop the metabolic syndrome in record numbers, scientists are looking at all aspects of the disease state – including the role of obesity. The New Scientist has a rather thought provoking piece which cites recent research that seems to indicate that obesity might actually be the body’s defense mechanism against unhealthy eating. According to one study:
Obesity protects the body from the effects of overeating by providing somewhere safe to deposit the dietary deluge of fat and sugar, which in excess is toxic to many body tissues.
On the surface, this seems pretty evident. Too much of anything is going to cause problems.
But of particular interest is the role of the hormone called plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1). Researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York found that if you inject the amount of fat “typically found in a large beefburger” into the bloodstream of a human test subject, his or her body will respond by producing 3 to 5 times more PAI-1. And here’s the gem:
Kishore’s team was equally surprised to discover that PAI-1 was not produced by fat cells, as had been assumed, but immune cells called macrophages lodged in fat tissue.
In other words, too much of the wrong types of fats and sugars seems to trigger a negative immune system response that could potentially lead to metabolic syndrome.
I’d like to see if the types of fat made any difference in the PAI-1 levels. That wasn’t spelled out in the article, so hopefully the researchers involved with the study can clarify that or make that part of a future study.
Until then, remember what Jack LaLanne says: “If man made it, don’t eat it.” And try not to eat too much of it, either!
Here’s a neat trick that we learned last year. Dave got a tip at a dive shop about how some divers use baby shampoo to keep their masks from fogging up. So we did some experimenting, and here’s my solution.
First, all you need are 1) baby shampoo, 2) tap water, and 3) a mini spray bottle that you can get at most drug stores:
What I do first is remove the spray nozzle unit and dip the plastic stem into the baby shampoo so it gets a very light coating:
I then fill the spray bottle about 7/8 full of tap water, leaving a bit of room at the top:
Finally, I place the shampoo-coated stem into the water-filled bottle and screw on the cap:
Whenever I need an instant defogging solution, all I have to do is shake up the bottle and apply a few sprays to each lens:
I keep the mixture dilute enough so I don’t have to rinse out my goggles or mask before putting them on. But feel free to do so if you just want a very light coating of the mixture.
The great thing about using baby shampoo is that it works unbelievably well as a defogger. Also, it’s specifically designed not to irritate your eyes (i.e. “no more tears’).
So give it a shot the next time you suit up. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at how much more effective it is than the much pricier defoggers at the sports stores. And the nice aroma also makes for a much more blissful swim experience!
As you know, Saturday was a bright, sunny day with air temperatures in the 38F – 40F range. So Dave and I suited up and walked out to Ladder #1 where we had just done a swim the day before.
And the Godforsaken swim area was iced over!
No joke. There was a 2-inch layer of ice covering the entire swim area as far as we could see. So we sullenly trudged over to North Avenue Beach where we luckily found open water along the shore line. We did a mile out-and-back in the 34F water and then horsed around a bit in the iced over area past the iron pilings. So some quick thinking on Dave’s part managed to salvage the morning.
No pics from the swim this time, but below is a shot of the L1 swim area from February that Dave took. It was like this:
