What Does Sugary Water Do To Your Body? Thoughts On Racing With A Water Balloon.

I listened to this podcast interview with David “Wolverine” Smith the other day:

David "Wolverine" Smith – Survivor

It’s a remarkable, if completely infuriating, story about medical malpractice and human resilience.  In short, through a series of gross medical mishaps after a minor procedure, he wound up having his large and small intestines removed, and then replaced with a transplanted large and small intestine.

I discovered Wolverine’s site about 18 months ago, posted a comment, and engaged in a email dialog with him which was most interesting.

Post moved to Substack.

"Shoes For the 'Primal Professional': A Review"

They sound nice.

You Are The Long-Term Test (Part 6): "Scientists Say Sugar At Levels Considered Safe Is Harmful"

No kidding:

"When mice were fed a diet that was 25% added sugars – an amount consumed by many humans – the females died at twice the normal rate and the males were less likely to reproduce and hold territory, scientists said in a study published Tuesday.

The study shows "that added sugar consumed at concentrations currently considered safe exerts dramatic impacts on mammalian health," the researchers said in the study, published in the journal Nature Communications. "Many researchers have already made calls for reevaluation of these safe levels of consumption."...

I've been avoiding sugar for decades. Anything that makes body parts rot away (teeth) can't be good for you. That should go under "Duh". For comic relief, we have the The Corn Refiners Assn., which:

"...questioned the use of mice in the study, saying in a statement that the only way to know the effect in people would be to test people. "Mice do not eat sugar as a part of their normal diet, so the authors are measuring a contrived overload effect that might not be present had the rodents adapted to sugar intake over time," the group said.

People don't eat sugar as part of their normal diet, either. And peoples' teeth don't rot out on their normal diet. But I imagine that the members of the Corn Refiners Assn. will volunteer for a follow-up test. We'll put 50% on the paleo diet, and 50% can eat the high-sugar diet. For a couple of generations. I know where my money is.

"The diet did not affect weight."

At least there's that... Unfortunately, there's also this:

“The mice tell us the level of health degradation is almost identical” from added-sugar and from cousin-level inbreeding.

"The study says the need for a sensitive toxicity test exists not only for components of our diet, but “is particularly strong for both pharmaceutical science, where 73 percent of drugs that pass preclinical trials fail due to safety concerns, and for toxicology, where shockingly few compounds receive critical or long-term toxicity testing.”...

From the press release announcing the study. Terrific.

“You have to ask why we didn’t discover them 20 years ago,” he adds. “The answer is that until now, we haven’t had a functional, broad and sensitive test to screen the potential toxic substances that are being released into the environment or in our drugs or our food supply.”

From Bill Lagakos on Twitter:

Sugar at levels once considered safe is harmful http://t.co/GzWIkZmf95 Science --> http://t.co/8oaLILJy9K Human equivalent: 3 sodas/d

— Bill Lagakos (@CaloriesProper) August 14, 2013

Barefoot Michael Sandler Injured

Just heard about this now:

'Barefoot Running' author Michael Sandler finds meaning in 2nd life-altering injury since 2006

"...Sandler had taken a swim in a natural pool beneath a waterfall, and because it was cold, he had put on leather-soled moccasins.

"All at once, while crossing a creek, Sandler slipped, flew up in the air and went down hard. He landed on a pyramid-shaped rock, causing his right femur to "explode" on impact, in the identical spot his left had shattered seven years earlier...."

"...Hours later, incredulous doctors at a hospital in Lake Tahoe called it a "one-in-infinity chance" of breaking both femurs in such an uncommon way.

"Sandler somehow left the hospital "balanced," according to doctors, with his leg length discrepancy gone and sporting "identical titanium hardware in both legs."..."

I don't know if they've got a fund to help them with the medical and evacuation bills...

Is Science Broken? Part 5: Retractions Of Fraudulent Work Are Near-Impossible

Incredible.

They have the guy on film tampering with lab samples at night, and that's not enough to get a retraction in Nature, supposedly the leading scientific journal. Nineteen years later, a letter retracting the original study gets published.

"The Nature paper has been cited 255 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge."

Careerism is the one universal scientific principle, apparently.

From one of the comments:

"You know what would make things like less a lot less painful? If you could simply publish negative results without all this ‘reluctance’ from journals to accept them. Honestly, if you were to take a survey of how many scientists out there have been unable to replicate experiments in high profile journals, and just ended up keeping that data in a file drawer and thinking to themselves ‘I’ve proven to myself that the findings of paper X are incorrect’, I bet it would be a disturbingly high number. We desperately need to change this!"

That would be bad for people's careers...

Evils of Peer Review

Interesting post:

“The most exciting period in science was, arguably, 1895-1945. It was marked by discoveries that changed the foundations of modern science: X-rays, quantum mechanics, superconductivity, relativity theory and nuclear energy. Then, compare this with the next 50 years in science. Incomparable. Nothing of that scale or impact. Yes, technology has advanced, but fundamental science – has come to a crawl. Have you ever wondered why? What changed as the 20th century grew older? Among other things, research budgets and the number of PhDs increased exponentially. This cannot be bad.

“Well, it can. All depends on the rules of the game. And they have changed. The change went largely unnoticed by the general public. In this article I will try to bring everyone up to speed. I will explain to non-scientists the “business model” of modern science. People may want to know. After all, scientists are burning public money, billions a year. And, I am quite sure, those who get my message will react with “you cannot be serious!” And leaders of organized crime will be pulling their hair out in despair: “why did not we think of this first?”…”

I think blaming all lack of progress in Science on peer review is a little extravagant.  Some fields, like physics, have essentially reached the limits of what we can learn with the technology available to us.  That doesn’t have anything to do with peer review.  In other fields, like human nutrition and climate science, I think the author’s spot-on.  As I recall, Steve Phinney mentioned that this problem was one of the reasons he moved out of academia and into industry in his book.

Master Sgt. Mike Morton: Ketogenic Ultrarunner

There’s been lots of speculation about how suitable a ketogenic diet really is for athletes.  Some folks (Robb Wolf) have gone back and forth, but my understanding of physiology leads me to think that it should be superior most of the time. 

Well, now we’ve got an interesting guinea pig:

• “1994: Old Dominion 100 — 17 hours, 40 minutes — first place
• “1995: Old Dominion 100 — 16 hours, 55 minutes — first place
• “1995: Vermont 100 — 14 hours, 8 minutes — first place
• “1996: Massanutten Mountain 100 — 20 hours, 21minutes — first place
• “1997: Western States 100 — 15 hours, 40 minutes — first place [course record]”

That’s nice, of course, but what’s he done lately?

He won the famed Badwater 135 race, setting the course record last year.

Then he broke Scott Jurek’s record at the International Association of Ultrarunners Ninth Annual 24-Hour World and 18th European Championships, setting a new record for an American.

And now he’s done this:

“I have made some big changes in my fueling plan over the last five months. Prior to the changes, I was a high carb and low fat eater. I was consuming a large volume of food each day. Large volume in, means large volume out! At Badwater and the World 24 hour Championship, I spent too much time with natures [sic] business. Looking for efficiency, and a more stable energy curve, I researched several different options for fueling. Ultimately, I chose a high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet. This was a tough transition, since I rarely ate meat or fatty foods. I had been avoiding cheese and dairy for years... except for cottage cheese.
“I committed to myself and made the switch. After about four weeks of eating a high fat diet I was "keto adapted" meaning that my liver was making Ketones and the body was using them for fuel rather than glucose. Making that change was tough because I was addicted to sugar and grains! By being in Ketosis, I have made myself "bonk" proof  because I'm not using glucose for my primary fuel. Also, on race day, I can use carbs as a high octane fuel. I will list some reference material that explains the science behind a ketogenic diet. Since switching, I have ran two 100's and they went great; recovery is much easier on a high fat diet!”

He won the Rocky Racoon 100 race on a ketogenic diet, and soon he’ll be running Western States again:

“iRunFar: According to your blog, you’ve been honing your diet in the recent year or so, and you now do a very low-carb regimen. What does this actually mean for WS100 fueling? What will you be eating and drinking during the race? 

“Morton: The low-carb diet is working great for me. Really, the diet is more about eating high fat and being in ketosis. That does away with spikes in energy and reduces the volume of food that has to be physically eaten. Less in means less out and that equals efficiency during races. I will eat whatever looks appetizing during the race, including carbs. That is another benefit; I use carbs like a high-octane fuel during races. I’ll drink what is provided as well but avoid consuming huge amounts of sugar drinks to keep the stomach happy. My crew (wife Julie, daughter Bailey, and Eric and Noni) will have some of my favorite stuff so, when I’m feeling sorry for myself, I can cheer up looking forward to something.”

He’s racing against the current course record-holder Tim Olson, who also eats a low-carb paleo diet.
Obviously Morton has had most of his success on a high-carb, low-fat diet.  What’s interesting is if he’s able to continue his success with a high-fat, low carb diet.  He’s already noted that he recovers more quickly, we’ll see if he can set a few more records.

Interesting times.

Thanks to Sean.

P.S.  On the second-hottest Western States on record, Morton finished third, setting the Master's course record, Olson finished first, just failing to break his previous course record.