24 replies to this topic

[Mind]

Calling all paleo dieters!! Tune in to the Sunday Evening Update for an interview with one of the biggest advocates of evolutionary fitness and the paleo diet - Arthur De Vany. Yes THE Arthur De Vany, professor of economics at UC-Irvine and fitness marvel.

5pm Central, 22:00 GMT.

Attached Files

•  Arthur_De_Vany.JPG   38.34KB   187 downloads

[Shannon Vyff]

Oh, I will have to attend this one live to ask questions, I did paleo for a while (ok short while only 3 months 'strict') . Do you know how old he is in that picture?

[Mind]

I don't know the exact age he is in the picture...but from some reading I have done, I am fairly certain he is well over 60 and could be 70.

[Mind]

Professor De Vany's blog. Still under construction.

[Shepard]

Oh, wow. Should I let the claws out or not? Hmm..

DeVany was 68 or 69 in above picture, I think.

Here is a small segment of his CR-IV talk: http://video.google....QFZfA4AKO8fGPCw
You do miss out on some things that he says during other presentations, though. Both good and bad.

The link to his Closer To Truth episode with Walford: http://www.closertot.../108/index.html

Edited by shepard, 19 July 2008 - 02:41 PM.

[Shepard]

The picture of him at 70:

http://www.arthurdev...ture_of_70.html

[Mind]

Oh, wow. Should I let the claws out or not? Hmm..

Why, do you have some criticisms of Evolutionary fitness?

If you can't tune into the program, please list your questions in this forum.

[Shepard]

Why, do you have some criticisms of Evolutionary fitness?

I actually think his approach is quite decent from a long-term perspective. My criticisms are aimed at his (mis)understanding of physiology. And, he thinks steroids are all about recovery and don't significantly affect performance. I'll try to come up with some questions.

I don't want to sound like I'm being negative toward De Vany. No one is correct 100% of the time, and I thought Hollywood Economics was extremely good. I am a member of his private blog, so whatever issues I have with some of what he says...I usually find it interesting or entertaining enough to keep reading.

Edited by shepard, 19 July 2008 - 03:18 PM.

[Mind]

Thanks to google books, you can read a little of Hollywood Economics

I also find that tome quite interesting.

[Shepard]

Question: Dr. De Vany, you've described your approach to diet as Paleo-Med, which included removing excess fat from meats and avoiding too many saturated fats. Has the work of Taubes and others influenced your current thinking about saturated fats or excess fat intake?

Question: You recently mentioned that you have basically removed alcohol from your diet. Considering that evidence has been mounting for a few years that moderate alcohol intake is beneficial, what was your reasoning behind this choice?

[Mind]

Excellent questions Shep! I'll be sure to ask.

[Matt]

I havent listen to the whole video of tonights interview, but did you have any internet bandwidth issues lately, anything downloading in the backround? This can break up audio, decrease quality of audio I think

[mitkat]

Great update, I missed a bit at the beginning but am looking forward to hearing the rest. Kudos Mind, a great job as always!

[Mind]

Professor De Vany was a wonderful interview and had a lot of great advice and tips on living healthy and getting the most out of your exercise. He injected levity into the program as well.

The problem is that the audio was not up to par. I want to officially and publicly apologize to Arthur for the less than optimal audio quality. I haven't had audio trouble for a few weeks now and I am unsure the source of the static and fade that occurred at times.

Ok, I listened to the interview afterward and I guess it was not as bad as I originally thought. The static was definitely annoying, but I could understand most of what De Vany had said.

So De Vany was awesome. I was definitely off my game because of the technical troubles. I apologize.

[Mind]

The program is saved at the Ustream channel and is currently the first video clip.

I am working on getting the videos out to google vids and/or on the Imminst server so that we can have them available here in the forums.

[Mind]

Some interesting points brought up during the interview:

De Vany mentioned that he had heard of some research (soon to be published) by Nassim Taleb (of "black swan" fame), that shows 80% of epidemiological studies cannot be replicated. Therefore, he has become skeptical of many population studies showing benefits from certain dietary/exercise methods.

I asked him about how long he wanted to live and if he was considering any potential new treatments that come along in the future (things besides diet and exercise - such as gene therapy or bioengineering). He didn't seem to hip on the idea, but said he expects to get another 20 healthy years with his current lifestyle...and "then he'll see".

His simple tip for surviving into old age - very practical - work, invest, and try to become wealthy - "just show up to work everyday". I suppose this makes a lot of sense because more resources at your disposal will make it easier to adopt a paleo/organic diet, get emergency care (in countries that have free market medicine anyway), and live a more carefree and less stressful life as you age. Money can't buy happiness but not having much money is often a source of a lot of stress for lengthy periods of time.

[Shepard]

De Vany mentioned that he had heard of some research (soon to be published) by Nassim Taleb (of "black swan" fame), that shows 80% of epidemiological studies cannot be replicated.

I don't think is upcoming, as Taleb has mentioned this previously in interviews. I've lent my copy of The Black Swan out, so I don't have it to reference at the moment. But, Taubes tore into epidemiology, so did Le Fanu in The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine, etc.

[edward]

Darn, I missed this, listening now. Very cool, audio a bit garbled but I can deal with it

Edited by edward, 21 July 2008 - 10:52 PM.

[Matt]

Just listened, the quality wasnt that bad... I could understand most of it quite well and enjoyed the program!

Thanks

[edward]

Excellent job Mind. Very impressed.

[Heliotrope]

Some interesting points brought up during the interview:

De Vany mentioned that he had heard of some research (soon to be published) by Nassim Taleb (of "black swan" fame), that shows 80% of epidemiological studies cannot be replicated. Therefore, he has become skeptical of many population studies showing benefits from certain dietary/exercise methods.

I asked him about how long he wanted to live and if he was considering any potential new treatments that come along in the future (things besides diet and exercise - such as gene therapy or bioengineering). He didn't seem to hip on the idea, but said he expects to get another 20 healthy years with his current lifestyle...and "then he'll see".

His simple tip for surviving into old age - very practical - work, invest, and try to become wealthy - "just show up to work everyday". I suppose this makes a lot of sense because more resources at your disposal will make it easier to adopt a paleo/organic diet, get emergency care (in countries that have free market medicine anyway), and live a more carefree and less stressful life as you age. Money can't buy happiness but not having much money is often a source of a lot of stress for lengthy periods of time.

looking at his picture, art really is a buff prof

his advice is consistent w/ his career, b/c he's an econ professor. it'll be good to be relatively wealthy, since who knows how expensive LE treatments are? There's no way that all 7 billion :(could be 70 billion by the time LE tech matures): humans are gonna get enhanced with longevity. scary thing is: wars may result due to this

Edited by HYP86, 22 July 2008 - 06:19 PM.

[Shepard]

From his blog today:

I am waiting for the link to my interview with the Immortality Institute. I see it got a 5 star rating. It was easy and fun to explore what is a mostly empirical approach to aging that I follow.

Once the link is up on my private blog I will key off some of the points I made in the interview to address the issue of aging. My own view is that it is an event driven process. External events and internal events mix to determine your rate of aging. This make it pretty simple and avoids all these fancy theories and unproven techniques that many are employing to slow their rate of aging.

The link and my thoughts will show up over there on the other, subscription blog.

I guess he just wants the link to the UStream video?

Edited by shepard, 23 July 2008 - 12:45 PM.

[Mind]

Hmmm, I think this link should work

[Mind]

Regular Sprints Boost Metabolism, Might Protect Against Diabetes

I thought I would post this here since De Vany does sprints as part of his exercise routine.

Professor James Timmons worked with a team of researchers from Heriot-Watt University Edinburgh, Scotland, to investigate the effect of ‘high-intensity interval training’ (HIT) on the metabolic prowess of sixteen sedentary male volunteers. He said, “The risk of developing cardiovascular disease and type two diabetes is substantially reduced through regular physical activity. Unfortunately, many people feel they simply don’t have the time to follow current exercise guidelines. What we have found is that doing a few intense muscle exercises, each lasting only about 30 seconds, dramatically improves your metabolism in just two weeks."

Current exercise guidelines suggest that people should perform moderate to vigorous aerobic and resistance exercise for several hours per week. While these guidelines are very worthwhile in principle, Timmons suggests that a lack of compliance indicates the need for an alternative, “Current guidelines, with regards to designing exercise regimes to yield the best health outcomes, may not be optimal and certainly require further discussion. The low volume, high intensity training utilized in our study substantially improved both insulin action and glucose clearance in otherwise sedentary young males and this indicates that we do not yet fully appreciate the traditional connection between exercise and diabetes”.

The subjects in this trial used exercise bikes to perform a quick sprint at their highest possible intensity. In principle, however, any highly vigorous activity carried out a few days per week should achieve the same protective metabolic improvements. Timmons added, “This novel approach may help people to lead a healthier life, improve the future health of the population and save the health service millions of pounds simply by making it easier for people to find the time to exercise”.

Edited by Mind, 01 February 2009 - 02:20 AM.

[Shepard]

I want to put out an endorsement for his EF Seminar DVDs. I broke down and ordered them out of curiosity earlier this year, and they are high quality. While expensive, you get a lot of material. I've been reading his blog for years, but it's still nice to have everything in one package. And, while I still have issues with some of the reasoning behind the ideas, if you subscribe to that belief, the logic and reasoning flows well from there. De Vany has quite a sharp mind, and it comes through well on the DVD.