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Increasing Exercise after Age 50 Prolongs Lives

Men who start or increase their exercise programs after
age fifty live longer than those who remain at their present
activity levels, according to a study in the British Medical Journal
(March 2009).

More than 2200 men were checked at ages 60, 60, 70, 77 and 82 years.

The greater the increase in exercise duration over that span,
the longer their lives were extended. The reduction in early death
from increasing exercise was the same as for men who stopped smoking.

Lack of exercise is associated with obesity, diabetes,
heart attacks, strokes, osteoporosis, and cancer. Exercising
regularly more than halves your chance of dying prematurely
(Archives of Internal Medicine, December 2007).

Yet more than 50 percent of North Americans do not exercise.

Exercise prevents disease and increases life span by
many mechanisms. The major benefit probably comes from the
contracting muscles themselves.

A high rise in blood sugars and fats after meals damages cells.
When blood sugar levels rise too high, sugar sticks to the surface
of cell membranes.

Once there, it can never get off, eventually killing the cells
and leading to blindness, heart attacks, strokes and the other
consequences of uncontrolled diabetes.

Contracting muscles draw sugar and fat so rapidly from the
bloodstream that they usually prevent blood sugar levels from
rising too high. This effect is maximized during exercise.

The effect is maintained for about half hour after you stop
exercising and gradually tapers off until it disappears after
about 18 hours. That explains why you get maximum benefit by
exercising every day (rather than three times a week), and why
greater benefit is gained by exercising more intensely for longer
durations.

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Reports from DrMirkin.com

Belly fat
http://www.drmirkin.com/diabetes/1127.html

Peyronie's disease
http://www.drmirkin.com/men/1241.html

Monoglycerides and diglycerides
http://www.drmirkin.com/archive/6221.html

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Dear Dr. Mirkin: Since I started to train seriously for marathons,
my wife has complained that I have markedly reduced my interest
in making love. What can I do to keep running and satisfy my
wife?

Get a medical check-up. If your doctor finds nothing
wrong with you, you may be training too much. Most endurance
athletes have normal blood levels of the male hormones,
testosterone and dihydro-testosterone, and lose neither sexual
desire nor sexual performance (Journal of Endocrinological
Investigation, October 2008).

Endurance athletes who have low levels of testosterone
usually have normal blood levels of LH and FSH, the brain
hormones that control testicular production of testosterone.
Defective testicular production of testosterone is usually
associated with very high levels of brain hormones. That means
that reduced sexual desire associated with endurance training is
governed by the brain, not testicular damage, and is often part
of an overtraining syndrome.

Training for competition is done by taking an intense
workout on one day, feeling sore on the next, and going at
reduced intensity for as long as it takes for the soreness to go
away. Taking intense workouts when you feel soreness causes
muscle injuries and fatigue that affects all your organ systems,
including your sexuality.

Once you develop an overtraining syndrome, it can take a very
long time to recover. If this has happened to you, I recommend
jogging slowly each day and stopping each workout immediately
when your legs feel heavy or sore. When you feel better, you
can start to train intensely again, but be sure to include slow
recovery days in your training program.

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Dear Dr. Mirkin: Is it true that diet sodas cause diabetes?

I do not think so, even though three major studies show
that people who drink diet sodas daily have a 67 percent greater
risk for diabetes and a 36 percent greater risk for metabolic
syndrome (low good HDL cholesterol, high triglycerides and
abdominal obesity) which usually leads to diabetes (Diabetes
Care,. January 2009).

An earlier study found that diabetics who drank one or more
diet sodas per day had hemoglobin A1C levels 0.7 percent higher
than those who drank none (Annals of Epidemiology, September 2006).
Hemoglobin A1C (HBA1c) measures blood sugar control.

These studies show an association but do not prove cause-and-effect.
If diet sodas do cause diabetes, no one has yet found a reasonable
explanation.

Diet sodas do not raise blood sugar levels significantly. The
association between diet sodas and diabetes may be that people
who drink diet sodas are more likely to be overweight and struggling
to control their weight, not exercising, and not avoiding refined
carbohydrates in other foods (sugar and flour).

Diabetes is an environmental disease caused by these factors
plus lack of vitamin D.

The same factors that cause diabetes appear to lead people to choose
diet sodas.

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Recipe of the Week:

Spaghetti Squash Pad Thai
http://www.drmirkin.com/recipes/spagthai.html

You'll find lots of recipes and helpful tips in
The Good Food Book - FREE at
http://www.drmirkin.com/goodfood/index.html

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