Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 140 posts

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#61

Post by keiferski »

fire_lake wrote: post #54
keiferski wrote: post #4

I am no expert on the public health system and so I'm more than willing to be educated/corrected here, but I have the following impression: There is more money to be made by stakeholders treating health problems than there is in preventing them. And so there is a lot more money and effort invested in developing pharmaceutical and treatment solutions than there is in preventing the problems they treat – even though th…

The issue is simple really. We evolved in an environment where resources are scarce and energy conservation is critical. These instincts applied to the industrialized society lead to overeating and inactivity. Very few possess the willpower to overcome this on their own.

But there are plenty of industrialized societies where obesity is less of a problem.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r...

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#62

Post by nabla9 »

Difference is just 5.8 per 1000 person-years.

The effect size is very modest. You spend more time in exercising than increase your lifespan. The metaphor is literal, you are running from death and disease, and death is running faster.

What we need is review studies ranking lifestyle and health regimes by their effect size and combined effect sizes. Almost certainly combining two effective regimes increases the life- and healthspan more than their sum.

Whatever you do, the effect likely is probably just 5 years of healthspan (relative to your generation).

Wild guess: Body weight, proper nutrition, exercise, no stress, no smoking or alcohol and controlling inflammation in the body other ways, like dental hygiene[1] is the best you can do.

[1]: Patients with periodontitis have a doubled risk of stroke already before age 50 https://www.helsinki.fi/en/news/brain/patients-periodontitis...

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#63

Post by alephnerd »

thefz wrote: post #50
isaacfrond wrote: post #29

Let's do it one more time. Correlation != Causation Could the causation conceivably run the other direction? People with beginning dementia exercise less? Yes, that is quite conceivable actually. Could there be a common cause explaining both? Yes, if you are in good health, with good genes, a good job, leisure time and money, then probably you are the type of person who'll live longer, sport more, and be cognitively…

Sometimes I wonder if commenters in this forum will do anything to try to disprove that exercise is good for health.

There is an undercurrent of skepticism and contrarianism bordering on anti-intellectualism on this forum - especially with those accounts started after the pandemic.

This is just one of dozens of studies that have shown that good cardiovascular health (a side effect of "vigorous" exercise) has a downstream positive effect on health.

And I personally can attest to that - the days I don't vigorously exercise (run, swim, BJJ, MT) are also the days I see the biggest cognitive declines - and I'm fairly young.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#64

Post by guerrilla »

fire_lake wrote: post #54
keiferski wrote: post #4

I am no expert on the public health system and so I'm more than willing to be educated/corrected here, but I have the following impression: There is more money to be made by stakeholders treating health problems than there is in preventing them. And so there is a lot more money and effort invested in developing pharmaceutical and treatment solutions than there is in preventing the problems they treat – even though th…

The issue is simple really. We evolved in an environment where resources are scarce and energy conservation is critical. These instincts applied to the industrialized society lead to overeating and inactivity. Very few possess the willpower to overcome this on their own.

This fact is being used as an excuse that to ignore two other enormous problems: people refuse to grow up and take responsability on the one hand and on the other hand they are completly drowned in a sea of manipulation that does everything it can to make sure they consume as much as possible. Ban all advertising and foster a culture of maturity.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#65

Post by simonbarker87 »

graemep wrote: post #22
keiferski wrote: post #4

I am no expert on the public health system and so I'm more than willing to be educated/corrected here, but I have the following impression: There is more money to be made by stakeholders treating health problems than there is in preventing them. And so there is a lot more money and effort invested in developing pharmaceutical and treatment solutions than there is in preventing the problems they treat – even though th…

Treating long term is a lot more profitable than curing too. One of the worst things that ever happened to pharmaceutical industry profits was the the discovery that most ulcers can be cheaply cured with antibiotics (which won the discovers a well deserved Nobel prize). Even after this ulcer drugs were hugely profitable. I cannot remember the numbers from when I was an analyst covering them (more than 20 years ago!),…

On the topic of time.

I’m a fitness person, I love it and have made it large part of my none professional life. One of the most annoying things I hear fitness people say is:

We all have the same 24 hours.

Yeh no, people don’t and telling them that isn’t helping. What’s better is to accept people have different lived and see how exercise can be snuck in.

Getting off the bus two stops early to get a 10 minute walk for example is a pretty manageable one.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#66

Post by TheRoque »

keiferski wrote: post #4

I am no expert on the public health system and so I'm more than willing to be educated/corrected here, but I have the following impression: There is more money to be made by stakeholders treating health problems than there is in preventing them. And so there is a lot more money and effort invested in developing pharmaceutical and treatment solutions than there is in preventing the problems they treat – even though th…

Maybe, just maybe, sometimes a free market is not the solution ? The US people have the lowest life expectancy and the most money spent amongst rich countries [1]. I am not 100% sure, but it seems to me that all the other rich countries have a more government-controlled healthcare ?

[1]: https://www.kff.org/other/slide/the-u-s-has-the-lowest-life-...

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#67

Post by nicopappl »

globular-toast wrote: post #28
keiferski wrote: post #4

I am no expert on the public health system and so I'm more than willing to be educated/corrected here, but I have the following impression: There is more money to be made by stakeholders treating health problems than there is in preventing them. And so there is a lot more money and effort invested in developing pharmaceutical and treatment solutions than there is in preventing the problems they treat – even though th…

Gyms aren't the solution. Gyms also make most of their money treating the problem. They are massively oversubscribed because they know most of their members don't actually go. Most of their members are on the "forever diet". You know, the one where you're always trying to "lose weight" but never actually do (usually the opposite). The actual problems are things like food addiction and forced sedentary lifestyles. The…

To go in your direction, a few countries in South American did ban advertising for junk food. In addition to education in schools, it dramatically helped reduce overweight-related sickness.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#68

Post by sgt101 »

I have only had a quick look, but I think that this is suss because of the VPA definition. The authors could show us the data vs. response to the questionnaire, in particular the columns for folks doing >5 episodes of high intensity exercise per week... but they don't and instead simply show the categories >1per week and This smells bad.

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#69

Post by lurking_swe »

pif wrote: post #20

If you want slimmer people, invest in hunger-stopping pills. Have a lettuce satiate you like two ham and cheese baguettes, and the obesity problem will disappear overnight.

sure, then you have a society deficient in nutrition because they got full on french fries lol.

The problem is cultural, and also because of GREED. Companies make so much money off of selling you junk food, pharma makes a lot selling you pills, etc. It’s not a biological problem 99% of the time. You really want to solve this overnight?

Simple:

• force free healthy and delicious meals in public schools. regardless of cost. Home cooked meals on site like in japan. CARE ABOUT THE KIDS america! We feed them shit, it’s sad.

• ban food advertising in all mediums.

• Some kind of incentive for adults to walk/bike to work if possible, and drive less. Would need to think about this more…

• mandatory school subject: teach how unhealthy it is to be overweight. Explain cardiovascular disease and what happens to the body in detail. Explain how lifestyle will differ at 60 yrs and 70 yrs of age for a fat diabetic vs a slim person that exercises weekly. Take a field trip to a nursing home. This SHOWS kids the negative consequences while maybe benefiting nursing home residents with possibly free volunteer help.

• mandatory school subject: Cooking class. Also explain that you should eat for FUEL first, pleasure second.

I could go on…

Re: Vigorous Exercise, Cognitive Decline, and High Blood Pressure

#70

Post by badpun »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #6
keiferski wrote: post #4

I am no expert on the public health system and so I'm more than willing to be educated/corrected here, but I have the following impression: There is more money to be made by stakeholders treating health problems than there is in preventing them. And so there is a lot more money and effort invested in developing pharmaceutical and treatment solutions than there is in preventing the problems they treat – even though th…

The barrier to exercise isn’t money in most cases. It is that exercise is misery. Exercise sucks. I am overweight. I much prefer Ozempic (and pay a substantial premium for it) vs lifestyle change. So do millions of other Americans who are shelling out for it. You would basically need to economically torture fat people to the point that exercise is less horrible than your incentives. I’m paying 8K a year to avoid exer…

Have you tried walking? Just by walking one or two hours every day, you should burn enough calories to steadily lose weight. The health benefits of just walking are numerous: staving off musculosceletal degeneration (it will get to you quite quickly if you don't exercise at all - just look at astronauts), better sleep, improved mood and mental clarity. If you can walk in nature or at least peaceful and green urban environment, your mental health will benefit as well. There's a reason so many great thinkers in history were proponents of long walks in nature.
Post reply on HN