Olympic Inspiration

With the London Olympic Games hailed a success it seems that people all over the UK are gaining an interest in sports that they have barely heard of before! And I, previously sports sceptic, am one of them.  The superb performances by sports men and women honed to the peak of physical perfection have encouraging many.  With the Paralympics following hot on the heels of the Olympics there is no doubt that the inspiration that the games has provided in spades is going to be increased as we marvel at the determination and achievements of the para- Olympians.  

There have been many stories of inspiration and of how sport has changed lives .I have been humbled by the punishing training schedules that these elite athletes have to subject themselves to  - hardly surprising when my idea of a training schedule is probably taking the dog on a whistle stop lamppost tour of the immediate neighbourhood.   And I have to admit that I, who never imagined I would give a fig, gasped in horror when, after all that work, Victoria Pendleton and Jessica Varnish were disqualified from the women’s team sprint race on a day of high drama for Team GB in the Olympic velodrome. In contrast, the pure ecstasy on the faces of the medal winners as tears flowed freely down their faces is something we will surely ever forget, and yes I did shed the odd tear too.  

So if this magnificent display of physical endeavour has inspired you, if you know you are in a rut, and that you don’t do enough exercise or you just want to be more active, where do you start?  Come to that where do I start?  Should I buy gym membership? Trot out to the local pool before work?  Take to walking the dog further than just down to the pub and back?  Well all of these would be a good start but the secret is, I believe, not to be too ambitious.  Rushing out to buy a javelin might seem like a good idea but you are going to get some very funny looks in the park!  

There is no doubt that regular exercise is important for our health.  It is recommended that to maintain good health, adults need to do a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity aerobic exercise and youngsters need to do about 60 minute a day. 

I work from home but if I did go to an office I might think of getting off the bus or tube a few stops early to walk the rest of the way.  Maybe leave enough time to ditch the car altogether and make journeys to local shops and even all the way to work, entirely on foot or on a bicycle.  It wont be long till you feel the physical benefit. 

The NHS have a very useful section on their website to help you find the sport or activity that is right for you. Take a look at their interactive tool for matching your ability and interest to a specific sport at:

 http://www.nhs.uk/Tools/Pages/olympics-sport 

So long after the last athlete has gone home, lets hope that the inspiration of the 2012 Olympics will continue and leave a legacy that will see us all improving our fitness and our health!  Oh, and I'll be the one plodding determinedly around a park near you.  But next year, well - just watch this space!

Please note that all information and content on UK Health Radio and this blog are provided by the authors, producers and companies themselves and is only intended as additional information to your general knowledge and does not substitute professional medical advice or treatment. So please do not delay or disregard any medical advice received due to information gathered on the UK Health Radio.

UK Health Radio – the health radio station for the United Kingdom, Europe and beyond at www.ukhealthradio.com – is kindly sponsored by www.1-stop-health-shop.com

Amanda Thomas

SECRET SALE!

Shhhhh.....

I have something verrry special up my sleeve for my newsletter subscribers coming this week. A SECRET SALE that will have an extra special discount in it off of the already reduced prices. For those that haven't yet had their morning coffee, that means 50% PLUS an additional percentage off! Call me crazy, but I want to end this season with a bang and make sure that my extra special customers are able to snag our last little bits of inventory before they are gone forever.

Sign up for my newsletter HERE to get your name on the list! Sale email with special discount and code will go out Wednesday and, pay attention!, will only last for 24 HOURS. Keep an eye on your inbox and act fast! 

                                                   

Why it's important to read "whole life" policy annual statements

Q: I just got the annual statement for my "whole life" insurance policy. Should I just toss this, or do I really need to read this thing?

A: You should read it. Here's why: With whole life insurance, the monthly cost of insurance increases as you get older. If you have a loan against your policy, or if you chose a low premium option, then at some point the current level of premiums won't be enough to keep the policy in effect, and it will end.

By reading your policy's annual statement on a regular basis, you'll be able to increase the amount you're paying in premiums so that you can prevent this from happening.

The 2012 Atherosclerosis egg study: Plaque decreased as LDL increased with consumption of 2.3 eggs per week or more

A new study by David Spence and colleagues, published online in July 2012 in the journal Atherosclerosis (), has been gaining increasing media attention (e.g., ). The article is titled: “Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque”. As the title implies, the study focuses on egg yolk consumption and its association with carotid artery plaque buildup.

The study argues that “regular consumption of egg yolk should be avoided by persons at risk of cardiovascular disease”. It hints at egg yolks being unhealthy in general, possibly even more so than cigarettes. Solid critiques have already been posted on blogs by Mark Sisson, Chris Masterjohn, and Zoe Harcombe (, , ), among others.

These critiques present valid arguments for why the key findings of the study cannot be accepted, especially the finding that eggs are more dangerous to one’s health than cigarettes. This post is a bit different. It uses the data reported in the study to show that it (the data) suggests that egg consumption is actually health-promoting.

I used the numbers in Table 2 of the article to conduct a test that is rarely if ever conducted in health studies – a moderating effect test. I left out the “egg-yolk years” variable used by the authors, and focused on weekly egg consumption (see Chris’s critique). My analysis, using WarpPLS (), had to be done only visually, because using values from Table 2 meant that I had access only to data on a few variables organized in quintiles. That is, my analysis here using aggregate data is an N=5 analysis; a small sample indeed. The full-text article is not available publicly; Zoe was kind enough to include the data from Table 2 in her critique post.

Below is the model that I used for the moderating effect test. It allowed me to look into the effect that the variable EggsWk (number of eggs consumed per week) had on the association between LDL (LDL cholesterol) and Plaque (carotid plaque). This type of effect, namely a moderating effect, is confusing to many people, because it is essentially the effect that a variable has on the effect of another variable on a third. Still, being confusing does not mean being less important. I should note that this type of effect is similar to a type of conditional association tested via Bayesian statistics – if one eats more eggs, what is the association between having a high LDL cholesterol and plaque buildup?

You can see what is happening visually on the graph below. The plot on the left side is for low weekly egg consumption. In it, the association between LDL cholesterol and plaque is positive – eating fewer eggs, plaque and LDL increase together. The plot on the right side is for high weekly egg consumption. In this second plot, the association between LDL cholesterol and plaque is negative – eating more eggs, plaque decreases as LDL increases. And what is the turning point? It is about 2.3 eggs per week.

So the “evil” particle, the LDL, is playing tricks with us; but thankfully the wonderful eggs come to the rescue, right? Well, it looks a bit like it, but maybe other foods would have a similar effect. In part because of the moderating effect discussed above, the multivariate association between LDL cholesterol and plaque was overall negative. This multivariate association was estimated controlling for the moderating effect of weekly egg consumption. You can see this on the plot below.

The highest amount of plaque is at the far left of the plot. It is associated with the lowest LDL cholesterol quintile. (So much for eggs causing plaque via LDL cholesterol eh!?) What is happening here? Maybe egg consumption above a certain level shifts the size of the LDL particles from small to large, making the potentially atherogenic ones harmless. (Saturated fat consumption, in the context of a nutritious diet in lean individuals, seems to have a similar effect.) Maybe eggs contain nutrients that promote overall health, leading LDL particles to "behave" and do what they are supposed to do. Maybe it is a combination of these and other effects.