(no subject)

At 08:10 PM 1/2/01 -0800, you wrote:
>Those who are
>out of shape and overweight do not control their blood vessel dilation 
>very well.


wait a minute there, sparky.  you aren't saying, are you, that all 
overweight people are out of shape???  now, THAT is a myth!  there are 
plenty of fat and fit people out there, to wit:

from "frontline" about 2 weeks ago:

Today more and more people are beginning to see medical charts as 
unscientific, impersonal, even dangerous. David Alexander is in peak 
condition. He is 5 foot 8 and weighs 250 pounds, 100 pounds more than the 
recommended "ideal" for someone his height, and yet he is training for one 
of the most grueling competitive sports, the triathlon.
In a typical week, Dave will swim 5 miles, run 30 and cycle 200. He has 
completed 264 triathlons, everywhere from tropical Jamaica to northern 
China. Yet in spite of this record, David's weight supposedly puts him in a 
life-threatening category known to doctors as "morbid obesity." Their 
recommended ideal for someone Dave's height is a weight range between 130 
and 165 pounds.
DAVE ALEXANDER: That would be impossible for my body type, the size of my 
bone structure. My total lean body mass weighs more than that.
INTERVIEWER: Where have the medical doctors perhaps got it wrong?
DAVE ALEXANDER: Everyone's different, and I think the range is much broader 
than they will admit. I've had problems with insurance companies wanting to 
rate me in high risk, and yet I can get up and run a marathon right now, 
and I'm sure the man giving me the physical can't do that.
Dr. CRAIG PHELPS, Dir. Phoenix Sports Center: Dave is overweight, but he's 
fit. It seems that there's a population out there demanding to be heard. 
"I'm overweight, but I'm exercising, and I'm fit."
NARRATOR: Craig Phelps has been Dave Alexander's doctor for 12 years.
Dr. CRAIG PHELPS: Dave's resting pulse is in the 60s, like a trained 
athlete. His blood pressure is usually in the 120s over 80s, which, once 
again, for most people is a very normal blood pressure. We've exercised him 
to the point of exhaustion on the treadmill many times to check and make 
sure there's no risk of any obvious cardiovascular disease, and that has 
turned out normal. So we have to kind of say that Dave is fit.
NARRATOR: The case of David Alexander may not be as unique as it seems. 
Professor Steven Blair is also clinically obese. He runs 35 miles a week 
and is in perfect health at the age of 59. As a scientist, he understands 
his place in the evolutionary scheme.
STEVEN BLAIR, Cooper Institute of Aerobic Research, Dallas: I think I'm 
probably very well suited to a life as a serf on the Russian steppes. I am 
strong. I can work hard. I conserve body mass. I could probably make it 
through the famine. I'm not quite so well suited to be a scientist leading 
an essentially sedentary life onto which I graft this kind of artificial 
dose of exercise every day.
NARRATOR: Since 1970, 25,000 people of all shapes and sizes have passed 
through Professor Blair's Dallas laboratory. Their fitness levels were 
measured and their subsequent medical histories closely followed for the 
next eight years. The results fly in the face of medical orthodoxy.
STEVEN BLAIR: Surprisingly, we found that the men who were fat, but who 
were also fit, actually had no increased mortality rate. In fact, the fat 
fit men had far lower death rates than the normal-weight men who were unfit.
So the bottom line in this research, at least in this set of observations, 
is that lack of fitness seems to be much more important than fatness as a 
predicator of which men were going to die during this eight-year follow-up.
INTERVIEWER: So maybe the medical profession has been a little bit too 
rigid in telling us what is the ideal range of weight for a certain height?
STEVEN BLAIR: I don't like the term "ideal weight." I don't think we know 
what any person's ideal weight is. Human beings come in different sizes and 
shapes. On any characteristic you care to name, there's tremendous 
variation, from eye color to hair color, for those who have hair and those 
who don't have hair, and we vary. Some of us are short and stocky. Some are 
tall and skinny. So to claim that some formula can produce a so-called 
"ideal weight" that we can then apply to an individual I think is faulty logic.
INTERVIEWER: That's a revolutionary idea that it's perfectly possible to be 
fat and fit.
STEVEN BLAIR: I think it's a good-news public health message.

just my personal rant,


kcd




kathleen comalli dillon~friend, mom, wife, musician, violinist, writer, 
ailurophile extraordinaire
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"We can do no great things; we can only do small things with great 
love."-Mother Teresa~~"I find a lot of people like chubby 67-year-old 
girls."-Beverly Sills~~"I care not for a man's religion whose dog and cat 
are not the better for it."-Abraham Lincoln~~"Prepare to be 
assimila-----OOOOOoooooo, jelly donuts!"-Homer of Borg~~"I am Boris of 
Borg. Moose and Squirrel are irrelevant."~~


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