What popular medical or science myths did you believe, and were proven wrong?

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Here was my personal ephiphany...The story (below) about diet and weight loss caught me by surprise. I was always told that:

(1) you needed to exercise to effectively lose weight,
(2) muscle burned more claories than fat,
(3) you could train your way to a smaller behind,
(4) people who worked out had faster metabolisms


Now I think I should just starve myself and the heck with the gym........working out makes me hungry, anyway.



Story:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/1687656...915773?GT1=8921

Diet, exercise take off equal pounds, study finds

Updated: 4:12 p.m. PT Jan 29, 2007
WASHINGTON - Eating less and exercising more are equally good at helping take off the pounds, U.S. researchers said in a study that challenges many of the popular tenets of the multibillion dollar diet and fitness industry.

Tests on overweight people show that a calorie is just a calorie, whether lost by dieting or by running, they said.

They found there is no way to selectively lose belly fat, for instance, or trim thighs. And their carefully controlled study added to evidence that adding muscle mass does not somehow boost metabolism and help dieters take off even more weight.

"It's all about the calories," said Dr. Eric Ravussin of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, part of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.

"So long as the energy deficit is the same, body weight, fat weight and abdominal fat will all decrease in the same way."

Ravussin said the study, published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, is one of the few done under controlled conditions that can actually demonstrate what happens to a human body while dieting and exercising.

Fewer calories for a longer life?
Ravussin's team has been testing volunteers for another reason — to see if taking in fewer calories helps people live longer. Strict diets have been shown to help animals from worms to dogs live longer, but it takes longer to study monkeys and humans.

They tested 24 people, 12 who ate a calorie-restricted diet, and 12 who dieted and also exercised five times a week for six months.

The dieters ate 25 percent less than normal, while the exercisers reduced their calorie intake by 12.5 percent and increased their physical activity to lose an extra 12.5 percent in calories.

Another 10 volunteers acted as controls. All food was provided by the university in carefully measured portions for most of the study.

The volunteers in both groups lost about 10 percent of their body weight, 24 percent of their fat mass and 27 percent of their abdominal visceral fat. Visceral fat is packed in between the internal organs and is considered the most dangerous type of fat, linked with heart disease and diabetes.

The distribution of the fat on the body was not altered by either approach — helping prove that there is no such thing as "spot reducing," Ravussin said in a telephone interview.

This suggests that "individuals are genetically programmed for fat storage in a particular pattern and that this programming cannot easily be overcome," he added.

Exercise is still crucial
Ravussin has published other studies that also dispute the idea that exercise builds muscle that helps people lose weight.

"If anything, highly trained people are highly efficient, so they burn fewer calories at rest," Ravussin said.

Dieting alone also did not appear to cause the volunteers to lose muscle mass along with fat, Ravussin's team found.

"There is a concept that if you exercise, you are going to lose less of your muscle," he said. But his team found no evidence this is true.

Ravussin believes exercise is crucial to health, however.

"For overall health, an appropriate program of diet and exercise is still the best," he said.

His team found some small suggestion that cutting 25 percent of calories by either diet or diet and exercise might extend life.

"We found that two of the biomarkers of aging were improved — core temperature was 0.4 to 0.5 degrees C less," he said. "Insulin, which has been shown to be a biomarker of aging, was reduced," Ravussin said. That finding was published in the Journal of the American Medical Associaton last April.

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Life is too short not to love and be loved....preferably multiple times in one night.

I think men talk to women so they can sleep with them and women sleep with men so they can talk to them. ~ Jay McInerney

Fascinating article. Thanks, osuche.

Hmmmm, I didn't see that listed in your training plan.

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It takes a gutless mouse to play only when the cat's away.

No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever. ~~ Francois Mocuriac

Confucius say, "He who masturbate into cash register come into money."

An optimist looks at the glass and says it's half full. A pessimist looks at the glass and says it's half empty. A Cubs fan looks at the glass and says, "When's it gonna spill?"

Deus Impetitio Esuritori Nullus

I'm not at all surprised by this, although I was unaware of this study. Thanks for the post.

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On the kinkometer, my kink measures as a sine wave.

There is one study that I read, probably about a year or so ago, that claimed that cystic fibrosis patients who lived in areas near high concentrations of salt water would have less respiratory problems than those who lived elsewhere.

Apparently the mist from the salt water supposedly would have a similar effect upon the lungs as receiving breathing treatments. Seemed like a pretty simple theory to me. Their suggestion was that CF patients who live on the coast of New South Wales, Australia would receive more benefits from the air there than probably any place in the world.

So, if any Pixies live down in that area and wouldn't mind me crashing with you for a little bit, I'd love to test out that theory.

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It takes a gutless mouse to play only when the cat's away.

No love, no friendship, can cross the path of our destiny without leaving some mark on it forever. ~~ Francois Mocuriac

Confucius say, "He who masturbate into cash register come into money."

An optimist looks at the glass and says it's half full. A pessimist looks at the glass and says it's half empty. A Cubs fan looks at the glass and says, "When's it gonna spill?"

Deus Impetitio Esuritori Nullus

IowaMan,

We have had borders here in the past. The latest was my brother in law while he recuperated from a shoulder operation. While Baltimore does not, alas, have much sea spray in the air, the Johns Hopkins is near where I live. Should you seek treatment there let me know ahead of time, and I'll dust off the spare bedroom.

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Eudaimonia