The University of Sydney led study found participants who had both high levels of physical activity and a high-quality diet had the lowest risk of death, showing that you cannot "outrun" a poor diet.
[...] High quality diets included at least five portions of fruit and vegetables every day,two portions of fish per week and lower consumption of red meat, particularly processed meat.
The study revealed that for those who had high levels of physical activity and a high-quality diet, their mortality risk was reduced by 17 percent from all causes, 19 percent from cardiovascular disease and 27 percent from selected cancers, as compared with those with the worst diet who were physically inactive.
[...] "Both regular physical activity and a healthy diet play an important role in promoting health and longevity.
"Some people may think they could offset the impacts of a poor diet with high levels of exercise or offset the impacts of low physical activity with a high-quality diet, but the data shows that unfortunately this is not the case."
"Adhering to both a quality diet and sufficient physical activity is important for optimally reducing the risk of death from all causes, cardiovascular disease and cancers," says co-author Joe Van Buskirk, from the School of Public Health, Faculty of Medicine and Health.
Journal Reference:
Ding Ding, Joe Van Buskirk1, Binh Nguyen, et al., Physical activity, diet quality and all-cause cardiovascular disease and cancer mortality: a prospective study of 346 627 UK Biobank participants, Brit J Sport Med, 2022. DOI: 10.1136/bjsports-2021-105195
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Opportunist on Tuesday July 19 2022, @05:51AM (1 child)
You can stop with that ridiculous jogging and "sports", it's moot anyway.
Now if you excuse me, I'll be on my couch.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 20 2022, @07:38PM
I suspect you're going for "funny", but last year I got a checkup and my blood pressure was high, so I looked it up and the only lifestyle indicator was a sedentary lifestyle (I've always eaten healthily, one of the reasons I'm not a fatass) so I bought a bicycle and an automated blood pressure tester.
The bicycle runs on electricity, but when it won't go, pedaling that hundred pound bicycle with its fat tires wears me out. I've notice that my age-related brain fog (I'm 70, the Facebook joke is "I actually walked into a room and remembered why I went. It was the bathroom, but still...") was far less than when I started getting a little exercise. My blood pressure is normal now, too.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RamiK on Tuesday July 19 2022, @10:29AM (4 children)
While the study is pay-walled, you can read most of the findings in the supplementary material's pdf: https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/early/2022/07/08/bjsports-2021-105195/DC1/embed/inline-supplementary-material-1.pdf?download=true [bmj.com]
Anyhow, there's a couple of issues with the paper (supp):
1. It's a pay-walled Sports Medicine study from Sydney working on a general population closed UK data-set...
2. The exclusions (p.3 500k -> 350k participants) didn't take out diabetes and high-obesity but still took out low BMIs. This obviously skews the PDAR(=physical activity, diet and adipose) cancer category. But, it also messes with the vigorous and even the moderate physical activity categories due to just how thin many long distance runners get at the high ends. The PDAR problem gets even worse when you consider PDAR vs. non-PDAR (p.26 supp) offsetting clear benefits from higher training volumes which was not the case for, say, CVD mortality (p.25 supp).
3. The level of physical activity is self-reported. i.e. Grandpa "running" their 5km x 3 times a week for a 15km/120min weekly without any progression over 10years will often self-report as vigorous while a sprint runner doing block periodization year-round, decade long will report doing high-intensity for a few weeks of the year but at far lower weekly volumes (and mins) and the rest of the year at about the same volume as grandpa but for far less time so they'll end up at the bottom of the moderate activity range.
4. Calorie intake? Micros?...
On the more usable findings, there's a lot of intricate details. e.g. The amount of vigorous physical activity you do (if at all) doesn't help with cancer but does help with all-cause and cardio-vascular mortality(p.14 supp). However,, if looking at moderate-physical-activity, you actually see negative returns in cardio-vascular mortality(p.13 supp) which I'm assuming had do do with air pollution (other studies already touched on that)...
All-in-all, there's a lot of problems and a lot of small "insights" you can find in the study. But the thing about not being able to "Outrun a Poor Diet" isn't conclusive since there's too much skewing on the factors that determine the very definition of what is a poor diet and just how much running are we talking about when looking at the data...
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday July 19 2022, @03:35PM (2 children)
It seems reasonable that someone eating healthy and exercising will be healthier.
It's kind of nuts that they didn't do comparisons.
I.E.
Bad Diet + Exercise
Good Diet + No/Very Little Exercise
Bad Diet + No/Very Little Exercise
Surprise! If you do all the good things, you will live longer. If you do all the bad things, you won't. How about, the in between, not good diet (sometimes very hard to get a "good" diet, if you are poor), but at least moderate exercise.
The article and excerpt make it sound like you have no hope, if you don't have a good diet. In the event that is the case, that sucks for a lot of people.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Tuesday July 19 2022, @05:28PM
They did: MVPA quartile 1 is 0-210 min/wk.
For reference, Q4 is 921-5040 min/wk which is 2-12hours daily. Note the study ruled out people doing intense physical jobs for a living. So, I'm assuming, this is basically people working on their feet in stuff like delivery, waiting tables and the likes...
Btw, Q4 is such a huge range that, assuming the quartiles were made over statistical significant based on how the groupings happened to cluster, that alone is one of those "insights" since it suggests doing more than 2hours of moderate physical activity a day doesn't contribute to one's health significantly enough to be statistically notable. However, it would also suggest there's no statistical difference between 0 and 210min a week of MPVA so I'm not sure how good of a news it actually is to most folks...
Also worth pointing out the vigorous physical activity's quartile 1 is 0 min/wk while the q4 is >150 min/wk which probably refers to the typical 2-3 times a week gym trainee. So, assuming statistical significance quartile division was applied, you probably don't have to be a complete gym rat to gain most of the available medicinal benefits from resistance training.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 20 2022, @07:42PM
Sometimes the science shows results nobody expects, but once again it proved common sense correct (although in 1962 the cartoon character Pogo said "common sense ain't so common no more.")
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by cykros on Sunday July 24 2022, @02:05AM
I eat fish twice a week, have almost TOO much fiber in my diet, have red meat 2-3 times a month if that, but personally blame my spare tire on the fact that I only get 12000-15000 steps a day these days.
The amount of variables not being controlled for here is ridiculous, never mind self reporting exercise levels. My statement above is quite true, and I am a good 30+ lbs outside my ideal range...turns out, you can eat all the right things, get the recommended exercise, and still eat too much in general. You absolutely can out run a bad diet if all you want is to be in a certain weight range, as even a 6000 calorie diet can be beaten if you spend your whole day climbing mountains with a 50 lb pack on your back. If it's health you're after, then things like nitrates, preservatives, artificial sweeteners, alcohol, etc will all catch up with you, even if you are burning more than you take in.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday July 19 2022, @12:34PM (2 children)
No, but chances are you can outrun the researchers attempting to test you. They're a portly lot.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday July 19 2022, @01:32PM
In my red Ferrari I can Outrun anything ... I'll be at the arcades all week ...
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 20 2022, @07:45PM
Red Barchetta [soylentnews.org]
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 19 2022, @03:17PM (5 children)
Operating your car properly extends its life; but if you use the cheapest fuels and fluids that could negate your other actions.
Take it to extremes. Giving poison to the a top athlete will kill them in less than a day. It doesn't matter that they're an athlete. Bad food is like low grade poison to the body, low-test gas to a high performance engine.
(Score: 2) by Username on Tuesday July 19 2022, @04:03PM (1 child)
Athletics is more about genetics than diet. Like the mountain making those world record lifts. Pretty sure a big mac or three wouldn't faze him.
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 20 2022, @07:55PM
Yes, eating right and exercising won't make you an athlete, but if an athlete starts eating only junk food and stops exercising, he won't be an athlete for very long.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday July 19 2022, @10:02PM (1 child)
My wife and I lost weight in the last few years as we stayed at home, got groceries delivered to our door, ate better food and did not go out -- including to go out to eat.
We didn't exercise. Just ate better quality food and reasonable portions. We did not completely eliminate things like chips and candy, just reduced them significantly.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 20 2022, @03:17AM
I'm pretty sure the study would consider a diet that high in fat to be "poor".
(Score: 2) by mcgrew on Wednesday July 20 2022, @07:53PM
Operating your car properly extends its life; but if you use the cheapest fuels and fluids that could negate your other actions.
What if you drive a Tesla? It has no fuel per se, and its only fluids are windshield wiper fluid and whatever is used for freon in ACs these days. The internal combustion engine is an obsolete, over a century old Rube Goldberg device with thousands of moving parts, an electric motor has only one. No routine maintenance and little maintenance at all (like wheel bearings, wiper blades, etc).
As to "cheaper fuels" in an ICE, running the expensive high test in a car without a high compression engine will burn your exhaust valves. Mechanics love people like you who give terrible advice.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience