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."~~ *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. 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From: <timbre_at_best.com> > 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: > If you re-read my post, I mention out-of-shape and fat as well as relatively fit and overweight. I know amateur athletes across the whole spectrum. Doug's comment on my post mentions: > Good points, Mike. My most cold-resistent moments have been during times > of maximum physical conditioning (kayaking specific) combined with a bit > of extra weight I carry around on my relatively stocky frame. I found that as my weight increased over the last couple of decades (slowly, then I met Amie) my ability to handle cold in Nordic skiing improved, as did my overall "toughness" and ability to recover. My earlier "marathon runner" frame (approx 8% body fat - measured) just didn't do it. Fat is necessary for the cold. > One thing > to bear in mind: I have a number of marine mishap reports from the cold > waters of BC, and by far the most incredible stories of survival come > from examples of hugely overweight yet relatively fit fisherman, who > survive for numbers of days, not number of hours, on upturned hulls in > stormy seas. Amazing. The key is that they are relatively fit. This allows the body to develop the ability to control their heat better through controlling blood flow to the outer skin. Under these conditions, the fat _can_ act as an insulator. A true couch potato wouldn't likely have the same survival likelyhood. Blood flow to the outer skin can carry an incredible amount of heat away from the core. Likewise, rescuing a hypothermic person, especially from cold water immersion, means keeping them at rest. Getting their blood flowing in a rescue situation can reverse the heat flow. The now-cold outer layers will result in cold blood being pumped back into the core, which can result in sudden death. Blood in your body can be compared to radiator fluid in your car. Mike *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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