To Health Advocates—
I hope you all were able to take the time to enjoy the last month of summer. In some ways, this felt like the first relatively normal summer season in quite some time. Locals of NYC seemed mostly out of the city for the month, and tourism replaced their presence. This is great for the overall mood of the city, but bad if you are a fast walker.
As for the coming months, September is the ultimate month to get locked in on your goals, at least in my opinion. I tend to think this is an excellent time of year to re-establish what our goals are and reset ourselves into a nice routine. Not only that, but the weather usually cooperates to assist us with this. The extreme heat is not always motivating, plus it potentially raises the intensity level of outdoor activity to a place we didn’t intend it to be. With more seasonal temperatures coming, we should be geared up for longer outdoor walks/hikes, bike rides, or runs and loads of unstructured activity without having to fight the heat during daylight hours.
If you’re new to this newsletter, what I am mostly referencing is that during extreme heat, it’s hard for us to stay in our optimal cardiovascular zone for metabolic health and longevity. The best primer on this topic can be found here from Dr. Howard Luks. With that being said, it’s not impossible to find that zone in the heat, it just usually requires more discipline in slowing down and working at slower paces than we might be used to (an irrelevant point if your main form of cardiovascular training is walking, though still worthy of your time due to its impact on your lifespan). Overall, the fall should be slightly more conducive to our health goals if we like to take our fitness outside.
Anyway, below you will see a collection of interesting articles and research that I came across this month. I break down each article in my own words, plus provide the link if you wish to follow up on your own.
I hope you find these articles as useful for you as they were for me. Enjoy your Septembers and perfect fitness weather.
As always, thank you so much for supporting my work and subscribing. One unintended consequence of writing this newsletter is that it has significantly helped me improve my ability to communicate my points in person. I guess that’s what happens when you practice writing something eleven different ways before you are satisfied. Anyway, if you know someone who may be interested in this newsletter, please forward it to them. If you are one of those people, you can subscribe right here. Thank you!
Seven actors paid to live like early Australian settlers to estimate the decline in physical activity level over time
A group of seven paid actors were asked to emulate the lifestyles of early Australian settlers dating back 150 years and had their movement tracked. A second group of seven, more indicative of modern day workers (accountants, doctors, etc), were told to continue living their normal lifestyles. Activity levels were tracked in both groups.
The group of seven that mirrored the life of those who lived 150 years ago were up to 2.3 times more active than the control group. This equated to about nine more miles of total walking per day (for reference, 10,000 steps would be equal to about five miles). This study noted a nine mile difference each day between groups.
What I personally found to be interesting about this study was that it was completed in 2000. That is a drastically different time period than the one we are living in now, and one much less corrupted by the conveniences that modern technology has given us. Last week I briefly touched on the 150 minutes of activity that the Department of Health and Human Services recommends for American adults, but after reading a study like this, does that actually move the needle? Or are they trying to meet Americans where they are at?
The researchers were seeking to understand a potential trend that the modern obesity epidemic is fueled just as much by being sedentary as it is by being over-indulgent. The researchers did also conclude that modern physical activity recommendations may be inadequate.
Estimating historical changes in physical activity by Australian Researchers
Poor social health is comparable to smoking on overall mortality risk
Modern health dystopia: replace all in person social interactions with web based social engagement and technology based work. That’s probably a bit extreme, but this study is worth pointing out for people genuinely seeking to understand the health impact of having great social connections.
A meta-analysis which ended up including 148 studies, and over 300,000 people concluded that those with the weakest social relationships had an increased likelihood of all-cause mortality. Actually, to drive the point home:
Having poor social relationships is worse for your health than being sedentary on your overall mortality risk.
Having poor social relationships is just as bad for you as smoking.
Now, to be fair, this study wasn’t really about technology, but it is easy to see the connection of modern trends in tech and becoming more isolated as a society.
The researchers were quick to conclude that health professionals should take social relationships as serious as other risk factors on someones health, while more research is being done to better understand the link. Even more so, despite how extreme the results of the study seemed, they believed the results to be underestimating the impact of social relationships on overall health.
Social relationships and mortality risk
Unhappiness hits all time high in America with singles and non-religious Americans heading the list
Doubling down on the social health theme. The Institute of Family Studies (IFS) has polled Americans each year since 1972 to gauge their overall happiness or unhappiness level. In 2021, IFS had their highest ever recording of unhappiness. Across all groups, unhappiness levels rose. This can be attributed to obvious factors like Covid-19 and economic stresses, however, the largest increase in unhappiness by any group were single Americans, and non-religious Americans.
Family life has always been at the core of social health, as well as different religious communities and the sense of belonging associated with them. This research further amplified the need to have a strong social system to support your health. I wanted to point this out right after the study on mortality risk as I believe the future of fitness and health will involve connecting with others in a genuine way.
We have seen a rise in technology companies looking to crack into the fitness space, most of which, involve making exercise more accessible to users at home. There will of course be value in some of those solutions, but if you read this newsletter you know that exercise is accessible, period. As exercise physiologists and data scientists learn more about human health, I believe we will see an advancement in fitness wearables that make the data more understandable to the user. This is where the innovation will come. On the other hand, I question how much more innovation can be had by creating at home fitness products or services that further isolate Americans.
Cardiorespiratory fitness and associated mortality risk of 750,000+ US veterans
I’ll keep it short and sweet as studies like this pop up all the time and further solidify the point to be made. Fresh from August 2022:
750,000 veterans aged from 30 to 95 years old were examined through an average time period of 10 years. Their cardiovascular fitness (CVF) levels were measured on the basis of peak METs. Basically, on a treadmill test, they assessed their CVF level (compared to their own demographic) by how much output they could work up to as time increased and treadmill speed increased. Those that were able to achieve the highest levels of work on the treadmill had the lowest rates of mortality, while those with the lowest levels of CVF fitness had a 4-fold higher likelihood of mortality.
Those with abnormally high levels of CVF also saw no upper limit to the benefit of being this fit, countering any argument to be made that extreme fitness is potentially dangerous to one’s health.
If you want to live a long and healthy life, your cardiovascular fitness has to be a daily priority. Approach this in the form of a daily habit, and less as a daunting task that needs to be done.
Cardiorespiratory fitness and mortality risk
On-sites are the new off-sites
Rounding out this month’s roundup, I wanted to point out an article that published in the Harvard Business Review about companies looking at “on-sites” the same way they used to look at “off-sites.”
I found this article memorable as the author believes in the hybrid work era, that companies should go out of their way to prioritize their in-person days as days where they can really socially connect with their colleagues.
I would take it one step further, and say that companies in the future that want to develop excellent culture will prioritize the health of their workforce. There is a lot of data suggesting that younger generations all the way up to current C-Suites want to work for companies that see their employee’s health as something that they contribute to helping.
I believe in order to reverse the horrible health trends that we are seeing from our society, the solution requires more than just individuals learning about their health. The reality is, is that advancements in technology and education of one’s health have not led to better health outcomes for the greater population. To fix this in the masses, would require input from large institutions, like people’s companies, to help them prioritize self-health. The first one’s in each sector to lead this charge will reap the culture benefits and competitive advantages that come with that for years to come.