In a blow to the, “Food is Medicine” crowd the results of a recent study indicate that fruits and vegetables have little, if any, anti-cancer effects.  Despite being told for years about the mystical and magical powers of leafy greens and organic produce of all kinds, after looking at the diets of almost a half-a-million Europeans over an 8-year period researchers from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York found a very weak link between eating two portions of fruits and vegetables a day and the reduced risk of cancer.

When looking at all the statistics and making all kinds of adjustments that are likely too boring and complicated for us to hear about, these researchers figured out that eating fruits and veggies reduced the risk of cancer by a “very weak” 3 percent.  The news is just another illustration of how the healthy eating crowd has totally oversold the benefits of following a healthy diet.

I don’t know about you, but I am sick and tired of people telling me how great fruits and veggies are.  Sure I like all kinds of produce, but stop preaching to me and telling me that you’re going to be healthier because you love kale, pomegranite, blueberries, spinach and all that.  As a matter of fact, I love Brussel Sprouts and escarole and broccoli rabe because they taste great, not because I think they are going to save my life and protect me from cancer.

“Experts” are still claiming that fruits and vegetables are high in anti-oxidants that protect us from a variety of damages and problems despite the reality that there is little proof that this is so.  As a matter of fact, the more studies done on anti-oxidants, the less justification there is to tout these nutrients as vital to good health.

And please, let’s do away with the nonsensical title of, “Superfood,” that has been bestowed upon many a plant-based food over the past several years.

In response to this news esteemed expert Dr. Walter Willet of Harvard writes in an editorial accompanying the study, “A very weak or undetectable association between fruits and vegetables and risk of cancer does not exclude the possibility that one or a small group of fruits or vegetables … has an important protective effect.”  In a comment to the New York Times Willet says, “We now have much more information from prospective studies on intake of fruits and vegetables in relation to risk of cardiovascular disease. Thus the advice should continue, but the benefit will be primarily for heart disease and stroke.”

But this is the same kind of stuff experts have been telling us for the past 20 years ago about how produce would protect us against cancer, and after all we have learned recently about the dubious powers of foods to deliver any kind of protective or health benefits we maintain a healthy skepticism towards such claims.

So the best bet is to enjoy all things in moderation, especially the foods that you love to eat.  Get some exercise and don’t feel guilty about eating or drinking things that give you pleasure, and certainly do not let the “Healthy Eating Police” make you feel guilty for doing so.

The short answer is a resounding, “No!”  New research shows that crunches, and other variation of this abdominal exercise, offer no benefits.

Researchers from Youngstown State University in Ohio determined that, “Performing abdominal exercises 3 or 6 times per week did not improve either concentric or eccentric strength.  These results suggest that the exercises used during this study were not enough of a stimulus to significantly improve concentric or eccentric strength in either group. In addition, there were no significant decreases in waist circumference, body mass index or body fat during the 11 week study.”

In plain English this means that crunches are a waste of time. In more detailed, plain English this means that crunches do not increase abdominal strength, decrease the waist line, body mass index or body fat.  Crunches, and their many, popular variations won’t give you a six-pack.  In general, this study allows you to say many bad things about crunches.

The six exercises featured in this study should be familiar to just about everybody; bent-leg crunches, straight-leg crunches, the bicycle maneuver, elevated leg crunches, vertical leg curl ups (legs straight up with hips at 90 degree angle), long-arm crunches (with arms straight along side of body moving forward with crunch motion), and crunches with legs straight and six-inches of the floor.  The 71 subjects were split into 2 groups that performed the exercises either 3 days or 6 days per week.

The subjects followed a routine based on NSCA guidelines performing 3 sets of 20 repetitions of each exercise with 30 seconds of rest between each set.  Because researchers are incredibly serious and meticulous types, they had the subjects maintain a 25-beat-per-minute pace as set by a metronome.  The was study published in the October 2009 edition of the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.

Top-level personal trainers and strength coaches have known for years that crunches and their relatives are ineffective, but now there is no excuse for fitness professionals and consumers alike, not to be aware of this fact.

So stop wasting your time and effort performing exercises that do nothing for you.

Despite what we’ve been told by the doomsayers masquerading as public health officials, Americans are healthier and living longer than ever before.

According to the numbers provided by the Center for Disease Control National Center for Health Statistics, life expectancy in America is at a record high of 77.9 years.  The dire predictions we’ve heard about today’s kids being so fat that they will be the first generation to have a shorter life span than their parents isn’t supported by facts.

The CDC’s report makes it quite clear that every year children are living longer and are healthier than ever before, and the “early death by fat” and “unhealthy kids” predictions are nonsense.

Here are some highlights of the CDC’s report.

• Life span has increased dramatically
• The mortality rate (deaths per thousand) is half of what it was 60 years ago when there were 15.3 deaths per thousand, versus the current rate of 8
• For the first time ever life expectancy of black males is 70 years
• Three out of every four deaths occur in the elderly
• The most common cause of death among people 15-44 years are from accidents, mostly thanks to motor vehicles
• Under 24 years of age the second leading cause of death is homicide
• When researchers controlled for homicides and accidents, the United States has the highest life expectancy in the world

This report also revealed a decrease in deaths from the traditional common killers by the following percentages.

• Heart disease 4.7%
• Cancer 1.8%
• Strokes 4.6%
• Diabetes 3.9%
• Influenza and pneumonia 8.4%
• Hypertension and hypertensive renal disease 2.7%
• In all 12 of the 15 main causes for death either went down or remained steady

In a related study the Vital Health Statistics of 2008 found that 90% of Americans said they were in good to excellent health, which is a 2% increase from the prior year.

The predictions of public health officials, complete with the sky is falling rhetoric, are demonstrably false.  Fat isn’t the enemy, Americans aren’t dying young, disease isn’t rampant and kids aren’t on an expressway to an early death.

The organic food industry has become a multi-billion dollar industry and organic foods are the fastest growing segment of the food industry.  The organic food movement is based – in part – on the concept that in the past when America was a more agrarian society the people were healthy and the food was more nutritious because our soils were better and filled with the nutrients necessary to produce great foods. As the story goes, this situated existed because food was produced without synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

The Truth About Organic Foods (Volume 1, Series 1)

Alex Avery states quite clearly that this myth is demonstrably false and he does so with reams of data and peer-reviewed studies, but doesn’t rely on technical jargon to make his case. Avery is the director of research and education at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Food Issues (CGFI), and describes the CGFI as not being “anti-organic” but “pro-human,” and states that his group is “the world’s best informed non-believers in the organic religion.”

Avery isn’t trying to make the case that organic food is bad or that it should be banned.  “The Truth About Organic Foods” points out the myths and misconceptions that exist regarding organic foods – many of which have been propagated by the organic industry.  As Dr. Ruth Kava, the Director of Nutrition at the American Council on Science and Health write in the Foreword, Avery, “just may make you think twice before spending more to buy foods that are really no better than conventional ones.

Hook: Very simply, organic food is no better than conventional food and that organic equals healthier is a myth.

Gimmick: If disseminating peer-reviewed research and digging deep into details of these studies is a gimmick, than Avery is a Gimmick Maven.

Inconsistency: None that I can find.  Avery promises to make a compelling, fact-based case for his position that organic a marketing tool and organic foods are no better than food that’s conventionally produced. He delivers on this his opinions do not infringe upon the data.

Glaring Omission: Can’t find one. After reading 231 pages you’ll get a complete picture of the organic versus conventional foods argument.

Annoying Feature: If you’re a pro-organic foodie (or is it, “fooder?”) this book is 231 pages of annoyingness.

Most Outrageous Claim: I hate to keep invoking the length of the book, but the case can be made that there’s an outrageous claim on almost every page in this book. And depending on your feelings on this issue, “outrageous” can be a good thing or a bad thing.  I don’t like to give away a lot of information, but I will leave you a couple of Avery’s Most Outrageous Claims.

• Only 40% of today’s population could be fed via organic farming. Do the math…
• “Biodynamic” or “Demeter” farming and products are based on the premise that invisible cosmic forces make them superior to traditional products.
• Lady Eve Balfour, a British pioneer in the organic movement, stated at a meeting of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM, the main international organic lobby), that after 30 years of research she found no nutritional differences between organic and non-organic foods.
• Organic proponents that claim nutritional content of food has declined due to the advent of synthetic fertilizers are engaged in, “revisionist history that is simply amazing in its audacity.”
• “The notion that organic food is more nutritious or healthful than ‘conventional’ foods is the oldest organic myth.
• Organic farming is not pesticide-free and organic farmers use organic pesticides that are just as toxic, if not more toxic, than synthetics.
• Conventional milk in the United States is 100% free of artificial hormones and 99.999% free of antibiotics and people are paying twice as much for organic milk that is identical to the conventional variety.

Say Something Nice: Buy this book. Read this book.  Now!

Bottom Line: Anyone who is even remotely curious about whether or not organic food lives up to the hype and is worth the extra money must read this book.  True-believers will never be swayed, and Avery is not trying to convert the choir.  Don’t listen to me; I’ll leave you with the words of Norman Borlaug, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Distinguished Professor of International Agriculture at Texas A&M University. Professor Borlaug says, “The book offers scientifically sound evidence that the more affordable conventional foods are healthy for families and also good stewardship of nature.”
The Truth About Organic Foods (Volume 1, Series 1)

A study published in the latest edition of the New England Journal of Medicine weight training can help minimize the effects of lymphedema, a build up of fluids that causes painful swelling in the arms and/or hands. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that regular weight training exercises actually helped minimize this painful swelling and allowed women to cope better with the ramifications from radiation therapy and the removal of lymph nodes.

The findings of this study serve to counter the prevailing wisdom that breast cancer survivors should avoid performing any activity that involves lifting with the affected arm, and even avoid activities like golf and tennis.

Over the course of 13-weeks 141 breast cancer survivors participated in weight training classes two times per week, for 90-minute sessions.  In addition to lifting weights the subjects wore a custom-fitted compression garment – similar to a tight Under Armor shirt – and followed a progressive program that added weight and repetitions.  The subjects continued to exercise on their own for the next 39 weeks.

After a year the researchers found that the women who lifted weights suffered 50% fewer lymphedema flare-ups, reported fewer symptoms and increased their strength.  In addition, the group of women who lifted weights made 60% fewer visits to doctors and physical therapist for lymphedema-related issues.

It’s important to note that the researchers advise breast cancer survivors to seek out the guidance from certified personal trainers and fitness professionals, follow a program that starts slow and progresses gradually and wear a properly fitting compression garment while exercising.

The researchers also looked at whether weight training can prevent a first incidence of lymphedema and will release the results of this part of the study in the near future.

This is yet another feather in the cap of weight training and exercise.  As time goes on, it is clear that weight training and exercise in general, are the best way to insure good health.  From all of the research that has been done on the subject, there is not a segment of the population, young or old, fit or infirm that will not benefit from participating in a regular exercise program and exercise will do more for health and well being than any other intervention, including diet.

A review of research prompts New Zealand-based researchers to conclude WBV training doesn’t increase athlete’s speed.

In a review of existing studies researchers from the Institute of Sport and Recreation Research, Faculty of Health and Environmental Science and Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand conclude that whole body vibration training does not increase speed for trained athletes.  This literature is published in the March 2009 (Volume 23, Number 2) edition of the National Strength and Conditioning Association’s, “Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research.”

According to the NSCA’s Editorial Mission Statement, “The NSCA publishes brief reviews by scientific experts in the field.  The reviews should provide a critical examination of the literature and integrate the results of previous research in an attempt to educate the reader as to the basic and applied aspects of the topic.”  The title of this review is, “Vibration Training: Could it Enhance the Strength, Power or Speed of Athletes?”  Online access to the journal is provided for NSCA members-only.

The authors of this paper conducted a review of WBV research. Due to a variety of problems with the current state of WBV research – small sample size, questionable methodology, lack of long-term studies, prominence of studies featuring untrained subjects and the lack of a standard WBV training protocol – there were only six studies that met the author’s criteria for inclusion in this review.  All of these six studies were underpowered in terms of subjects.

With regard to improving an athlete’s speed the authors found only two studies that met their criteria for inclusion in this review.  According to the authors, “Both studies observed that WBV training produced non-significant and trivial changes in these speed measures.”

Muscle stiffness has been identified as being beneficial to athletes looking to produce high rates of force development or rapid transmission of force, and athletes who perform short sprints, plyometrics (jumping drills), and power movements will benefit from increased muscle stiffness.

One of these WBV studies measured changes in muscle stiffness over a 6-week period and found that squatting on a vibration platform did not change muscle stiffness when compared to the non-vibration group.  This serves to counter the theory that vibration training enhances neural potentiation, and that speed and muscle stiffness should improve more than other performance factors as a result of WBV training.

Many WBV proponents have used short-term studies as the basis for their claims that vibration training enhances muscle potentiation.  The authors of this review point out that short-term effects do not guarantee a performance improvement over the long-term, and that “vibration training does not seem to enhance muscular potentiation in well-trained athletes.”

The authors – scientific experts in the field – conclude, “The practicality of vibration training also should be taken into account in terms of time, cost, and reduction of other training for what we have observed to be a small benefit.”  The words of these researchers from New Zealand are in stark contrast to the hype, “research” and faux-science presented as gospel by WBV hucksters.

Given the exorbitant cost of WBV platforms, the inconvenience of use and the paucity of reliable and legitimate research it’s clear that vibration training is not ready for prime time.