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Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

howardluksmd.substack.com

51–60 of 159 posts

Re: Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

#51

A lot of people in the comments are expressing curiosity about "ideal" amounts of exercise to avoid these sorts of problems. I have a real-life friend whose hobby is studying this stuff. His recommendations boil down to: - 1/week 20 minutes HIIT: 5 minutes warmup, 3x(2 minutes high intensity + 3 minutes low intensity) blocks. - 1/week strength training focused on large muscle groups. - 12,000 steps per day walking (H…

Isn't 12k steps like 6 miles? I could plausibly jog that much, but to walk it every day seems like a huge time commitment.

Easy when you don't have a car. I average this much daily for the past 30 years.

Re: Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

#52

A lot of people in the comments are expressing curiosity about "ideal" amounts of exercise to avoid these sorts of problems. I have a real-life friend whose hobby is studying this stuff. His recommendations boil down to: - 1/week 20 minutes HIIT: 5 minutes warmup, 3x(2 minutes high intensity + 3 minutes low intensity) blocks. - 1/week strength training focused on large muscle groups. - 12,000 steps per day walking (H…

There's no such thing as "ideal". From what I understand from the research, more fitness is correlated with better health outcomes, even up to advanced to elite level. I recommend trying out a number of different exercise modalities and schedules and seeing what you enjoy, what makes you feel the best, and what fits into your life.

Re: Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

#53

A lot of people in the comments are expressing curiosity about "ideal" amounts of exercise to avoid these sorts of problems. I have a real-life friend whose hobby is studying this stuff. His recommendations boil down to: - 1/week 20 minutes HIIT: 5 minutes warmup, 3x(2 minutes high intensity + 3 minutes low intensity) blocks. - 1/week strength training focused on large muscle groups. - 12,000 steps per day walking (H…

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Re: Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

#54

A lot of people in the comments are expressing curiosity about "ideal" amounts of exercise to avoid these sorts of problems. I have a real-life friend whose hobby is studying this stuff. His recommendations boil down to: - 1/week 20 minutes HIIT: 5 minutes warmup, 3x(2 minutes high intensity + 3 minutes low intensity) blocks. - 1/week strength training focused on large muscle groups. - 12,000 steps per day walking (H…

The 2019 physical activity guidelines for Americans include consensus recommendations including the evidence and some good graphs to visualize the "bang for buck"

For those curious, those (weekly) recommendations are: twice weekly resistance training, and 150-300min moderate intensity aerobic activity, or 75-150min vigorous aerobic activity.

If you want a program to just give you a starting point, I highly recommend Barbell Medicine's (free) "Beginner Prescription"

Re: Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

#55
post #11
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the linked paper [0]: " - Sedentary (SED): Does not perform exercise regularly or elevate heart rate outside of daily tasks - Active (AC): Performs aerobic exercise for at least 150 minutes per week, and has at least a six-month history of doing so " A more comprehensive study that determines the optimal amount of exercise per week to achieve peak cellular function over a population would be quite intere…

I find this a bit confusing. If you're doing an hour of HIIT a week and additionally work as a removalist, a picker in a warehouse, or a white-water rafting instructor, you're sedentary? Or is there some middle group that was excluded from the study?

Seems like there's a middle group: "subjects…were assigned a research arm based upon meeting one of the following criteria related to physical activity" directly precedes these groups.

Re: Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

#56

A lot of people in the comments are expressing curiosity about "ideal" amounts of exercise to avoid these sorts of problems. I have a real-life friend whose hobby is studying this stuff. His recommendations boil down to: - 1/week 20 minutes HIIT: 5 minutes warmup, 3x(2 minutes high intensity + 3 minutes low intensity) blocks. - 1/week strength training focused on large muscle groups. - 12,000 steps per day walking (H…

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> Also, I've found that suggesting 30 minutes of walking vs ??? minutes of walking to get 10k steps is easier for most people to fold into their schedule

And 10K steps is a good bit more walking than 30 minutes. IMO the 10K number might be halfway useful as a high level metric for people who are just judging their own activity throughout a day. As you've pointed out, if you are going for a brisk walk, you don't need 10K steps to get value from it.

Re: Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

#57
post #21
post #17

Would 8 minute HIIT a few times a week do the job?

tl;dr; Nope. Assuming that HIIT workouts are 100% vigorous activity (unlikely), then a "few" instances would only add up to around 24 minutes of vigorous activity, which is far short of the minimum recommended 75 minutes of vigorous activity. If you are short on time then performing HIIT for 15 minutes five days a week will get you much closer to the minimum requirements.

Vigorous activity is defined as something like > 75-80% max heart rate, or > 6.0 METS, not as an absolute, all out sprint. It's actually quite far from what you expect

Re: Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do like the scientific paper, but not everyone wants to read a true paper. Can you point out specific deficiencies in the linked article, aside from it being simplified but more accessible?

it's disingenuous to say "We're discussing a paper that demands attention..." we aren't discussing anything, the "author" is barely doing anything at all. it's not a good summary, it's just a bunch of fact dumps out of context. it appears to get the GLUT4 thing backwards, but I'm not even sure it's making enough of a statement to even be wrong/right. it's blatantly using this paper to promote his brand with the form…

I appreciate that you give actual criticisms! That's IMO much better than saying "I ignore this because it was written by AI", because it doesn't add to the conversation. So with that context, I'd like to point out where I disagree with you:

1. "We aren't discussing anything" -- I don't know, I feel it does give a summary of the paper, which is a kind of discussion

2. "It's not a good summary" -- is it not? I think this section is essentially the correct conclusion:

> Even without high blood sugar or cholesterol, their muscle metabolism was already failing. They were burning less fat, generating more oxidative stress, and clearing lactate poorly—evidence of inefficient, stressed mitochondria. These are likely to be the earliest findings in people who will develop metabolic disease states such as diabetes, fatty liver, hypertension, heart disease, etc.

...

> San Millán puts it bluntly: sedentary people are not the control group. They are already metabolically impaired.

3. I don't think I know enough to comment on the GLUT4 thing, but I do feel that's kindof in the weeds. The main message is still true I think.

4. "it's blatantly using this paper to promote his brand" -- Maybe I just don't mind him building his personal brand. I think that's what the vast majority of blogging is. I don't even see a clear sales pitch on the page, so I'm very happy with this.

Re: Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

#59

Between this and http://myticker.com (posted recently), I want to share a theory of mine: 1) the internet is mostly made up of spaces where the median opinion is vanishingly rare among actual humans. 2) the median internet opinion is that of a person who is deep into the topic they're writing about. The net result is that for most topics, you will feel moderate to severe anxiety about being "behind" about what you sh…

Obesity is an independent risk factor, even if otherwise active/healthy. It's worth getting under control for lifespan and healthspan.

Across the population as a whole, BMI 30 is basically negligible increase in all-cause mortality. For someone otherwise reasonably active I wouldn't stress about the number. Ideal is somewhere around 27.

Re: Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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> Also, I've found that suggesting 30 minutes of walking vs ??? minutes of walking to get 10k steps is easier for most people to fold into their schedule And 10K steps is a good bit more walking than 30 minutes. IMO the 10K number might be halfway useful as a high level metric for people who are just judging their own activity throughout a day. As you've pointed out, if you are going for a brisk walk, you don't need…

I also like the Japanese Walking's focus on time versus number of steps because I can go for a walk with my parents and all three of our phones calculate different numbers that directly correlate with our gait. Mine is often half of theirs.
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