Obesity Panacea: Myth of the Fat Burning Zone
This is something I’ve written about myself, elsewhere, but researcher/blogger Travis Saunders sums it up pretty well – with a graph from a recent lecture, no less, which helps drives the point home. It is absolutely true that in a relative sense, the lower the exercise intensity the greater the reliance on fat as a substrate for energy. As the exercise intensity increases, the relative proportion of fat oxidation...
The Healthy Skeptic on Colon Cleansing Supplements
Chris Woolston ‘s LA Times column on the claims made for two “colon cleansing” products is a pretty good read: The often-repeated claim that most colons are clogged with 10, 20 or even 40 pounds of impacted material is ridiculous, Inadomi says. He notes that people preparing for a colonoscopy have to take a strong laxative that completely cleans out the colon. Even with this total scrubbing, “they only lose a...
Will Biking Prevent Weight Gain? Not Exactly…
I have mixed feelings about reports of a new study just published in Archives of Internal Medicine. On the one hand, there’s some good news: biking for as little as 5 min/day helped to reduce weight gain in premenopausal women over a 16 year period. And 30 min of biking per day was even better. This is good news, as its a good demonstration of the value of regular exercise – not to mention inexpensive, low-impact exercise...
Clash of the Titans
Pepsi – the maker of Gatorade – is still the king of the sports drink market hill – Coca Cola’s Powerade hasn’t even come close to challenging Gatorade’s dominance. But GlaxoSmithKline apparently believes it can succeed where Coke has failed. GlaxoSmithKline is taking on the might of Pepsi’s Gatorade in the US sport beverages market by announcing its intention to launch Lucozade as part of a...
Deceptive Label Claims #1: “No Preservatives”
As implied in the previous post, supplements aren’t the only products that are marketed using deceptive ads and label claims. The food industry often uses similar tactics… it’s just more subtle. The PR people for most food corporations are Jedi Masters when it comes to manipulating images and telling selective truths; so while they don’t actually tell lies, it’s often hard to see the difference. For...
Puttin’ Down the Ritz
I was doing my usual “thing” this morning – checking out my favorite blogs while cracking open pistachios (my fave snack) – when my eye was caught by a blog banner ad for “Ritz Crackerfuls.” In addition to a pic of the cracker on the front of the box, there were also images of a stalk of wheat and a chunk of cheese – which illustrated the “Made with Real Cheese!” and “6g of...
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