Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality • Hacker News Board

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#431

Post by thraway3837 » Fri, May 03, 2024, 1:05 PM UTC

rincebrain wrote: post #350

weatherlite wrote: post #163

It's also absolutely amazing for mental health. It's a shame it isn't considered a first line of treatment for mental health because it's super effective (and free).

The problem is that, if you're in a position where you are having serious depression, for example, it doesn't really matter how objectively or subjectively helpful it is, you can't even bother getting motivated to do things you are certain you enjoy, let alone something unknown. This is the same problem with CPAP machines - they nominally have a huge efficacy rate, and a rock-bottom rate of people sticking to them, b…

Can you please elaborate? You’re saying that CPAP is effective but people don’t use it consistently, and insurance monitors its use and if they determine the % of use is lower than 95%, insurance will bill you instead? I thought people who require CPAP have severe enough sleep apnea that they could die from the lack of oxygen.

Also how is this related to depression, you said “this is the same problem” after you mentioned depression.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#432

Post by DevX101 » Fri, May 03, 2024, 1:06 PM UTC

reify wrote: post #324

Not sure about this one. When in my fourties I looked in the mirror one day and thought "my god man you have piled on a few pounds lately". I immediately went out and joined a gym for a bit of indoor running So, I went weekly for an hour or two. I thoroughly enjoyed it. My I'm not sure! I was happily running along on my treadmill one day, hreart rate at a constant 125bpm, whe suddenly there was an almighty commotion…

The data in the linked article from 20 million observations vs your 1 observed incident suggests you should keep going to the gym.

You have no idea what his pre-existing medical conditions were.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#433

Post by agumonkey » Fri, May 03, 2024, 1:14 PM UTC

Fricken wrote: post #243

cycomanic wrote: post #168

Weird that people seem to assert that causality is not established? There are hundreds to thousands of studies that show that pretty much all markers for mortality and morbidity go down with excercise, i.e. put someone regulalrly on a treadmill for a couple of month and pretty much all health markers improve. People implying that the study shows only correlation really don't seem to understand how we establish causal…

Exercise is a four letter word for many on HN. Content posted here touting the various benefits of exercise is always met with mental gymnastics from commenters who would rather do anything but go out and break a sweat.

Tiny side note in case someone is interested: my health crashed in 2014, I used to be a runner, now I can't jog nor reach sweat levels of efforts. But you don't need to reach that level to restore/improve your health tremendously.

    - a tiny step to do small one leg squat
    - a kettle bell or any weight for deadlift

doing 10 repetition at low speed, low intensity[0] of the two abose everytime you get bored, anxious, or lost on a youtube rabbithole will feel like nothing, yet, over the week you'll start to feel muscle grow slowly, less joint pain, better posture, better ability to move, everything will feel easier thus having a better mood too.

once in the morning, once in the evening.. or maybe more as one sees fit, until you feel the drive to do more (usually a month of slow and pleasurable exercise will naturally lead to a desire to try more)

[0] real slow, like taichi slow.. no muscle burn, no fast breathing..

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#434

Post by maksimur » Fri, May 03, 2024, 1:38 PM UTC

DevX101 wrote: post #432

reify wrote: post #324

Not sure about this one. When in my fourties I looked in the mirror one day and thought "my god man you have piled on a few pounds lately". I immediately went out and joined a gym for a bit of indoor running So, I went weekly for an hour or two. I thoroughly enjoyed it. My I'm not sure! I was happily running along on my treadmill one day, hreart rate at a constant 125bpm, whe suddenly there was an almighty commotion…

The data in the linked article from 20 million observations vs your 1 observed incident suggests you should keep going to the gym. You have no idea what his pre-existing medical conditions were.

I don't know about the guy in that specific incident, but in my case he was apparently healthy with no health complications, having had regular checkups on top of the mandatory ones (to be able to frequent a gym). This is the scary part for me.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#435

Post by melicerte » Fri, May 03, 2024, 1:39 PM UTC

bpizzi wrote: post #353

keybored wrote: post #266

Some of my peers are deep into running. I don’t get it. Running is sometimes fun for me but most often painful. Then I overheard one of them (the fittest) say to a budding runner that he [should] do mostly easy sessions. Okay what’s easy to him? He said that so slow that it can feel awkward and unnatural. What? Then I searched around and found out about Zone 2 and how you should do most of your work in that zone when…

There's also value in spending some time in zone 5 [1]: this is where the heart is really trained as a muscle, and where the cardiovascular system is pushed to its limit (the famous vo2max: increasing vo2max is done in zone 5, for ex. with HIIT [2]). Zone 2 is all about giving the mitochondries a chance to get better at providing a steady energy flow over a long time, mainly by optimizing for burning fat as fuel inst…

From my experience about jogging (=regular running for your health, without a specific sport goal):

- get good shoes! this is probably the only piece of equipment you need (with a wind/rain jacket). Go to a shop when you can get advice. For me, flat soles is the way to go but I know there is debate on that question. Change them after 1000km at max (I've seen 500 km recommendation)

- follow the advice above zone 2 / zone 5 training. If unsure, slow down !

- avoid pain as much as possible otherwise your body will associate pain and run and you end up giving up (maybe not today, not tomorrow but one day for sure)

- buy a jumping rope and practice (you'll be amazed on the resulting spring effect while running)

- prefer solo session (group sessions are good if you want to talk but the most important thing is to run at your very own pace). you are better with some music or interesting podcasts

- vary the routes as much as possible. Even if you have only one route, start it from time to time on the other direction. There is no better training than on a route you don't know. Always running the same route is part of the reason you may quit.

- start your chronometer at the beginning of the session and try to forget it.

- find a friend and do some bike and run session from time to time (one run, one on the bike for like 20 minutes and then you change). It allows you to make longer run and recover while on the bike.

/!\ Just an opinion here, I'm not a specialist, just a +/- 20y regular runner

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#436

Post by SwiftyBug » Fri, May 03, 2024, 1:40 PM UTC

TomK32 wrote: post #326

SwiftyBug wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too hate to run. And I do it everyday. To me it's the time I get to be alone with my podcasts for an hour. Now I look forward to it every morning. I'm not sure in what zone I usually run, but my pace is usually around 6min/Km.

6min/km is an average pace, so I do wonder why you still hate it? Have you looked into your cadence? Are you steps too long or the shoes too hard? Or do you have to run through post-apocalyptic ruins?

I'm not sure. It's not that I feel a huge discomfort or that anything hurts. It's just kind of pointless I think. I love martial arts and parkour, though. Maybe because the exercise is not the thing itself, but a byproduct of the activity?

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#437

Post by ubermonkey » Fri, May 03, 2024, 1:51 PM UTC

This is why I keep cycling even in periods when I'm not that into cycling. At 54, I know that if I lose a lot of fitness, it'll be much harder to regain.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#438

Post by caeril » Fri, May 03, 2024, 2:00 PM UTC

bigfudge wrote: post #297

prerok wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I don't doubt that cardio fitness decreases the chance for morbidity and mortality, but in this study they only established correlation. I think that in science we have to be extra careful just what we are saying. And saying that this study proves causality would be wrong. I am sure there are other studies that could (do?) prove it but this statistical analysis can only prove correlation.

We only have correlation for lots of important results. Smoking cigarettes is one example. Experiments are almost always better, and a lot of correlational research is terrible. But knowing something for sure doesn’t always require an experiment.

That's a bit different.

There's no reasonable path to reverse-causality with smoking. "People prone to developing lung cancer are more likely to take up smoking" doesn't really make sense.

On the other hand, "Fat and unhealthy people are more prone not to exercise" is a reasonable reverse-causality position, for all kind of reasons. Your knees hurt, you're self-conscious, it's extremely uncomfortable, your fat jiggles, etc.

I'm not saying direct causality doesn't exist here, I'm just saying that reverse-causality is reasonable, whereas with smoking it is not. Assuming causation from this particular correlation is harder than it is with smoking.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#439

Post by safety1st » Fri, May 03, 2024, 2:01 PM UTC

vasco wrote: post #290

safety1st wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To frame the discussion as one of either/or alternatives is self-defeating, a more productive framing is what are the various strategies we can employ to reduce obesity? There are plenty which are unrelated to self-control or personal discipline. One is a sugar tax (not a huge fan personally but it exists). One I do like is to regulate the advertising and labeling of food. Frankly I'd like to know how many calories I…

> Those cheesecakes are only for special occasions now and it's because C.F. is required to disclose calories, I'd be fatter if not for this simple government intervention. Nothing to do with self control How is eating a cake from a store "nothing to do with self control". It's not like you were buying vegetables and turns out big sugar made the vegetables be worse for you. You not knowing if the cake was 800 calorie…

No, it's much easier to pass on dessert when you know it's 1600 calories as opposed to if you think it's much less. In essence the disclosure of how bad that particular item really is reduces the amount of willpower required to avoid it. If this wasn't true, all these restaurants wouldn't have kept the calorie counts of these dishes secret until the government forced them to share that info.

I mean this is common sense, the more clearly you understand the negatives of an action, the more likely you are to avoid it. And we have plenty of evidence that this works to alter people's behavior through looking at the effects of e.g. cigarette labeling.

Like up until the 1950s we actually didn't have good evidence that cigarettes were bad for you, and doctors actually got on TV and endorsed specific brands, so a lot of people weren't sure. Eventually the studies were produced and doctors started recommending against smoking and smoking started to decline. It didn't decline because people became Badass Willpower Monks, it declined because they were given access to more and better information.

Re: Cardio fitness is a strong, consistent predictor of morbidity and mortality

#440

Post by Grimm665 » Fri, May 03, 2024, 2:04 PM UTC

sahila wrote: post #218

uptownfunk wrote: post #178

Regardless of what it is, if I don’t get my morning run in, I am a very unpleasant person to be around! Running has changed my life in all ways- I am much more calm, tolerant, positive, energetic. If the whole country did a mandated morning run, assuming you’re able, I really think this world would be a much better place!! Start slow, 5 minutes, breathe, go slow, and enjoy the beautiful weather here this time of year…

Your comment just gave me a thought of how cool would it be if society had a mandated activity hour in the morning. I’m imagining loud speakers attached to poles outside making announcements and all businesses closed for that hour, and people all out and about exercising, walking, running, talking. Yes it’s a bit like school but society can be so much better if we prioritized good living!

"Winston sprang to attention in front of the telescreen, upon which the image of a youngish woman, scrawny but muscular, dressed in tunic and gym-shoes, had already appeared.

'Arms bending and stretching!' she rapped out. 'Take your time by me. One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! Come on, comrades, put a bit of life into it! One, two, three, four! One, two, three, four! ...'"