Crossfit Norwest, Raw strength and conditioning and Barefoot Evolution Discussion Forum

[Dan]

My review.
This was taken from a FB note a friend of mine posted here.
http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_i ... 194&ref=nf
I am not sure if you have to be his FB friend to view it or if its publicly viewable.
Diet and exercise, thats all it takes, we are all here at CFNW so exercise isnt a problem.....just need stricter diets (to all those that are not named Rob...)
Its a long, but interesting read.

Health - worth a read

Hey guys,

My Grandfather, a physician, was asked to give a speech to the Catenians at a Ladies Night a couple of years ago. It focuses on men's health but as he states the concepts apply to all. I enjoyed his unpolitically correct style so much that I want to share it with all of you!

Overweightness and Obesity is an epidemic which will not only reduce quality of life but will kill more than 50% people early (at current estimations) and cost the health system billions of dollars while we attempt to keep these people alive. Give it a read, I hope you find as eye opening as I did.


Jim Long.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Men’s Health

Introduction:

This talk is based on a DVD produced by the Freemasons; the details are at the end of the article.

We put this talk on a Ladies Night because men think they are bullet-proof and need their wives to encourage them to have check-ups. Although this is about men’s health there is only about a 1% difference in body structure – although very obvious and desirable – between men and women so with the exception of cancer of the prostate everything else I will say applies to men and women.

One of our sons said that to get the attention of men in Moree the problems were presented as relating to cars. The problems I am going to discuss are:
1. overloading
2. spark plugs
3. insufficient horsepower
4. exhaust problems
5. incorrect fuel mixture

Screening is important but it must be used intelligently. Sadly, many people who know they are doing things which may well impair their health use check-ups to make sure that their bad actions have not caused trouble yet. Now that one’s fellow citizens have to bear most of the cost of ones lifestyle choices it is inappropriate to be doing cardiac investigations on people who are smoking. There should be a three month abstinence period.

Two essential principles to remember:
1. keeping healthy is low tech and depends upon doing the simple things year in and year out.

2. life is eventually a fatal condition so we are interested in quality of life.










The first topic, Overloading, was discussed by

Dietician, Alison Miles.

Get thin while you are still well.

I was going to dilate on fatness but an editorial in the Internal Medicine Journal of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians this month entitled Combating the Obesity Epidemic: Cultural Problems demand Cultural Solutions convinced me that I should give you the facts without much optimism of it making any difference. Less than 5% of people who participate in medical therapies and weight loss programs maintain their weight loss for more than 3 years. However, even a loss of 5-7 kg can make a significant difference to health.

Most of what I am going to say applies to those who have allowed their weight to creep up because of inattention, because helping people with genuine eating disorders is extremely difficult.

In Australia, of people over 18, 2/3 are overweight and 1/3 of them are obese; that is, 9 million overweight, of whom 3.3 million are obese. This is probably the first time since the collapse of the Roman Empire that children will live shorter and less healthy lives than their grandparents.

The population peak for obesity is between 55 and 60 with 25% involved; after this it drops due to the fat people dying.

Difference from nicotine and alcohol addicts: people addicted to food have to continue eating something. It is like telling an alcoholic that they may have only three drinks per day.

Obesity is involved in
1. depression
2. dementia
3. high blood pressure,
4. heart disease,
5. diabetes,
6. lung disease
7. sleep apnoea
8. kidney disease
9. cancer of the prostate
10. cancer of the bowel
11. arthritis and other diseases.

It is also a disease where the patient is their own doctor so that is why I have chosen to commence with it.

Maintaining the correct weight requires a lifetime commitment to a healthier lifestyle, focused on eating healthy foods, decreasing fats and sugars (because they are so easy to take), replacing them with fruits and coloured vegetables, and keeping active in a way that is both sustainable and enjoyable. One chooses healthy, low calorie foods and does not have too much of them.

A calorie is a calorie whatever food it comes from; calorie restriction is a frustrating and demanding undertaking from the point of view of the patient and the physician. Calorie counting is not a worthwhile activity; I am only using calories to give some understanding of the mechanisms at work.

Normal requirement: 27 cal/kg = about 1900 cal/day for a 70 kg person

The energy output for a 70 kg adult with no or various activities is
1. reclining: 1.3 cal/min
2. walking: 5.2 cal/min
3. bicycle riding: 8.2 cal/min
4. swimming: 11.2 cal/min
5. running: 19.4cal/min

1 gram of fat contains 9 cal, twice as much as 1 gram of protein or carbohydrate. This means that to get rid of 1 kg of fat requires an energy expenditure of 9000 calories, about what a Canadian lumberjack used to use in a hard day's work under freezing conditions. On the figures which I quoted that would require running for 7.5 hours or walking, which is more practical for us, for over 28 hours. Therefore, to achieve consistent weight loss over a long period one can only expect to lose about 1 kilogram per month. It is said one can only grow rich slowly with consistent hard work and the same applies to growing thin.

Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram so the normal sized drinks contain about 70 calories. If each member here tonight takes the equivalent of ½ bottle of wine – not that they would – that will be an extra 315 calories requiring an extra walk of one hour to prevent an extra 35 grams of fat settling somewhere. Alcohol contains nothing useful for the body – whatever it does for the spirit - so that unless the calories are used up as energy the energy is stored as fat. It also interferes with the absorption of many vitamins.

Soft drinks:
Lemonade, 1 litre = 425 calories, more than a fifth of the daily requirement for inactive people. How often does one see fat adults and children leaving supermarkets with 1 or 1.25 litre bottles of soft drink.
The next topic is spark plug problems, that is

Depression: this is not on the DVD

Definition:

Depression is a disorder that affects thoughts, moods, feelings, behaviour and even physical health. It is a medical disorder with a biological and chemical basis. It is unfortunate that it naturally came into the province of Psychiatry because that delayed the elucidation of the biochemical mechanisms underlying it.

Incidence:
population: figures are given as more than 10%
all ages and races
heredity: the illness often runs in families
sex: twice as common in women

Precipitating factors:
1. stress
2. medications, e.g. hypotensives, hypnotics and contraceptive pills.
3. chronic illness of all kinds including mildly underactive thyroid gland
4. giving birth
5. alcohol, nicotine and drug abuse although one cannot be sure which comes first

Pathophysiology: there is an imbalance in three neurotransmitters in the brain
1. serotonin,
2. noradrenaline
3. dopamine
and this is why medication works.

Symptoms and signs:
1. loss of interest in normal daily activities
2. depressed mood
3. impaired thinking or concentration
4. changes in weight
5. agitation
6. fatigue or slowing of body movements
7. low self-esteem: one feels worthless and has excessive guilt
8. loss of interest in sex
9. thoughts of death: dying or suicide
10. gastrointestinal disturbances
11. headache
12. muscle aches
13. symptoms of anxiety

Complications:
depression is a serious illness that can take a terrible toll of individuals and families.
Untreated, it can lead to a downward spiral of
1. disability
2. dependency
3. suicide.
Women attempt suicide more often than men but men are four times more likely to succeed.
Men over 70 are the most likely to commit suicide.

Warning signs of suicide:
1. pacing, agitated behaviour, frequent mood changes and sleeplessness over several nights
2. actual threats of assault, physical harm or violence
3. threats or talk of death or suicide
4. withdrawal from activities and relationships
5. putting ones affairs in order
6. sudden brightening of mood after a period of being depressed

Treatment of depression:
1. recognition
2. appropriate medication.


Insufficient horsepower, covered by Professor Wilcox, Cardiologist.

Blood pressure is measured when the heart pumps – systolic – and between contractions – diastolic. The reading is then given as systolic over diastolic e.g. 110/70.

Blood pressure can vary considerably during the 24 hours; the normal is less than 120/80, the grey area is 120-140/80-89 and hypertension is greater than 140/90.

High blood pressure is due to increased resistance in the small arteries and leads to
1. strokes,
2. dementia
3. aneurysm – a stretching and possible eventual rupture of an artery, usually the main one, the aorta
4. heart failure
5. kidney failure.

Controlling blood pressure requires a lifetime effort to get a benefit, like superannuation. 95% of cases of hypertension cannot be cured once present, although they may be controlled.

Reduction in blood pressure is accomplished by
1. weight reduction
2. reduced salt intake
3. substitution of plant salt – potassium chloride rather than sodium chloride
4. reduced alcohol
5. increased physical activity.

Metabolic syndrome: this consists of central obesity, hypertension, diabetes and raised cholesterol and triglycerides. This combination of features is associated with a high incidence of artery disease.

Sleep apnoea: this can occur in all types of people but is much worse for fat people. It causes people to stop breathing at night, which may occur from 100-400 times; each time the blood pressure may jump by 40 mm. Sleep apnoea is involved in 50% of cases of hypertension and 30% of angina.

Screening of asymptomatic patients:
1. checking of heart and blood pressure once per year
2. annual pathology tests
3. ECG every two years after 50
4. more elaborate tests if indicated

We now come to the exhaust system, beginning with Professor Phillip Stringer, Urologist at St. Vincents Hospital .

Cancer of the Prostate: this is quite different to benign prostatic enlargement which will affect all men if they live long enough.

Incidence: one man in 10

Risk factors:
1. increasing age
2. family history:
a. father 20% possibility
b. father and brother 50% possibility .
3. obesity: fat men are 50 per cent more likely to die of cancer of the prostate than those of normal weight.
Prevention:
A. a diet which is healthy for the heart is also healthy for the prostate:
1. low fat
2. high in vegetables
3. lycopenes (the red part of tomatoes)
4. soy protein
5. selenium: 200 micrograms per day
6. vitamin E, no more than 400 international units per day.
B. sunlight, exercise and meditation

Testing:
1. not over 70-75 with other health problems
2. some incurable even if found early
3. prostate specific antigen: (blood test) this arises from the prostate but is not specific for cancer, been also raised with prostate enlargement or inflammation. However, 40% of men with an elevated PSA do have cancer.
4. there is another more specific test being developed at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
5. digital examination: hard areas in the prostate. "If you do not put your finger in you will put your foot in it" (advice to trainee doctors).
6. ultrasound
7. biopsy

Treatment:
1. surgery for those with a 10 year life expectancy
2. radio-active seeds: some patients
3. radio-active wires; some patients
3. radiotherapy
5. sound waves
6. hormone therapy to block the stimulus to the cancer
cells from testosterone
7. surveillance: for slowly growing tumours, especially in older and sicker patients, unless there is evidence of spread


Prognosis:
a. deaths: 2564 men in Australia in a recent year, the same as cancer of the breast. In 2004 there were 2,886,787 men and 3,148,541 women in Australia 50 and over. This gives a frequency of 1 :1100 for men over 50
b. only 1:3 cases found at autopsy are manifest clinically (H)
c. not all cancers of the prostate cause rapid trouble – Friend


The second part of the exhaust system,

Bowel cancer, Phillip Douglas, Prince of Wales.

Incidence:
1. population:1:18 in males, 1:24 in women, 11,000 cases per year in Australia
2. age: more common> 50, the earliest 18
3. familial: incidence doubles with a first-degree relative under
75.
Antecedents:
1. benign bowel polyp
2. obesity

Symptoms and Signs:
1. bleeding
2. change of bowel habit
3. pain
4. tiredness and shortness of breath due to anaemia
Diagnosis:
1. rectal examination: the majority are palpable by the finger
2. sigmoidoscopy
3. colonoscopy
Screening:
1. faecal occult blood finds the majority of cases
2. colonoscopy every three to four years if there is a family history of cancer or polyps
Prevention:
A. diet:
1. high-fibre
2. fruit and vegetables
3. low animal fat
4. low alcohol
B. exercise

Treatment:
1. surgery plus
2. chemotherapy or radiotherapy or both
Permanent colostomy is rarely needed

Prognosis: cure rate:
1. overall: 60%
2. confined to bowel wall: 90%

Incorrect fuel mixture: Diabetes, Marion Marsh, Dietician, from Prince of Wales.

Diabetes is deadly.

Type II is the one which usually comes on in later life and is preventable so I will confine myself to that. It is almost invariably due to being fat, it affects 7.4% of people over 25 and the incidence has doubled since 1981.

Risk factors:
1. heredity: 65-100% have one parent with the disease
2. obesity, which is now extending to children
3. hypertension, which is an independent factor, apart from obesity
Less common
4. pancreatic disease
5. medications
6. other endocrine (hormone) diseases.

Symptoms usually only occur late.

Diagnosis is by blood sugar levels and the glucose tolerance test; the random BS>11.1 or fasting>7. Dr Marsh suggested that people should be screened annually; urine testing is not sensitive enough.

Complications:
• cardiovascular diseases, that is,
1. heart attacks
2. strokes
3. gangrene of the legs
two to four times more common than in the general population, double
that if the cholesterol level is high.
• Kidney failure: the death risk is 10-50 times the non-diabetic risk
• Blindness
• Nerve damage to both big and small nerves

Treatment:
1. lose weight: relatively minor changes can slow progression
2. medication
3. keep the cholesterol below 4





Summary

1. Keeping healthy is low tech and depends on doing the simple things year in and year out

2. screening will not help while one is doing the things one knows are wrong

3. once one is doing one’s part then get the Freemason’s DVD and follow their directions

4. before having a screening test one should decide what one would do if it was positive.


Information:
The internet is very confusing with a lot of wrong information; MayoClinic.com is an excellent, reliable and easy to follow site.
The site of the Dietetic Association is www.daa.asn.au and gives excellent information under Smart Eating for You/ Nutrition A-Z and Smart Eating Tips. Their phone number is 1800 812 942.
The Freemason’s DVD is available free from their website: www.menshealth.org.au/resources.asp. Click Request a Copy Now at the bottom of the Men’s Health DVD box and take it from there.

Professor Barrett, of the School of Public Health at the University of Sydney, says that the question of whether to screen may not be quite so clear cut. She says there is a need for more evidence based medicine. It is not a matter of her opposing screening but it is important that patients should know both sides so that they can decide for themselves what they would like to do. Before having a screening test, decide what you will do if it is positive.

Breast screening: she did a study of breast screening by mammography and found that:
1. it is most effective in women 60 where for every 1000 screened women there were three fewer deaths from breast cancer over 10 years
2. for women aged 40, there was half a death less per thousand women over 10 years






Downsides of screening:

1. inconvenience of regular testing

2. risk of significant anxiety generated by false-positive results, which can be prolonged because of the increasingly invasive procedures undertaken to determine whether cancer is actually present

3. impact of treating inconsequential disease; screening might find cancers that, if left undetected, would never cause any symptoms. Our tests are getting so good that we can detect very small abnormalities that, in years gone by, we would never have known about. It is the case of the harder you look the more you find. For example, there has been a five or six fold increase in the rate of ductal cancer in situ since breast screening began. This is a non-invasive form of cancer that can become invasive but often will not. In fact, studies suggest that as many as four in every 10 middle-aged women show evidence of this disorder if their breasts are examined closely enough by pathologists at autopsy. Because it is not possible to tell which of these cancers will become invasive treatment such as surgery is offered to every woman diagnosed with ductal cancer in situ. The problem is that cancer treatments such as surgery and chemotherapy can bring with them serious side-effects and occasionally even death.

4. dangers associated with invasive follow-up procedures, such as colonoscopy to those recording positive results of faecal occult blood tests. According to overseas figures 5 of every 1000 people undergoing a colonoscopy could suffer bleeding or perforation and five in every 100,000 can die.

Encore information:

Thrifty Gene:
When food was scarce it was essential that there should be a mechanism to store food until one had the opportunity to kill another kangaroo. That is how the body developed the capacity to store energy as fat. Some races with restricted food sources developed the so-called “Thrifty Gene” which improved their ability to store energy as fat e.g. Tongans. This has become a major problem when food is plentiful as it makes them more prone to obesity. Now we can store the energy which we require in the refrigerator so there is no need to carry it around on us.



Bobby Sands: Irish Hunger striker lived for71 days without food

All fat will increase weight but polyunsaturated fats are better as regards heart disease.

Types of depression:
1. major depression
2. dysthymia
3. adjustment disorders
4. bipolar disorder
5. seasonal affective disorder

Wives: do not offer second helpings.

External signals: fat people respond to external signals, e.g. time of day, social setting, smell or taste of food to a greater extent than normal weight people.(H411.29)

Psychological support obtained from eating

Census 2004: 50 years and over: men: 2,890,000 approx
Women: 3,150,000 approx.

The original blood pressure machines pumped up a column of mercury until the pressure exerted by the cuff was sufficient to stop blood flow in the artery and that is why the pressure is given in mms of mercury.

Figures: 180 cm (5'10")
>97.2 kg (15 stones)= obese
> 81 kg (12 stones 10 pounds)= overweight

Correct weight: stand in front of mirror side on. One should go straight down from the lower end of the sternum (breast bone)