Edited by thomasanderson2, 07 July 2014 - 01:40 AM.
Existential "Health" Crises: Early Passing of Health Authority
#1
Posted 07 July 2014 - 01:37 AM
#2
Posted 07 July 2014 - 01:50 AM
I'm sorry to hear that a person you knew died at such an early age.
Byron Richards might have done the right things and still died young because he had bad genetics. Or maybe he wasn't really doing the right things. Maybe the things he was doing were right for some, or even most people, but he wasn't one of those people. Until we have a firm grasp on all the important genetic variations, then the best we can do is adopt behaviors that are 'statistically' correct, instead of what is really best for our particular genome.
#3
Posted 07 July 2014 - 04:25 AM
I didn't know Byron very well personally - but he really possessed a tremendous understanding of human physiology and he really was a very decent guy.
I hear you about genetics - but this is all still a bit unsettling.
One of the purported benefits (some might say "promises") of following a healthy lifestyle is that we can avoid diseases and ailments (or substantially mitigate them) despite genetic pre-dispositions.
I'm also unsettled by this because I enjoy running... and always felt it enhanced my health and well-being.
And this has me wondering if running (even modest amounts of running - like 10 to 15 miles per week) is actually healthy.
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#4
Posted 07 July 2014 - 04:54 AM
I don't know anything about Byron but long distance running is bad for your heart:
#5
Posted 07 July 2014 - 05:43 AM
If the material at Wellness Resources represents Mr. Richards views, he seems to have been in the very-high-protein/relatively-high-fat/low-carb camp.
Which frankly requires quite a bit of susceptiblilty to confirmation bias, selective recall, and biased evaluation to justify. I was there 5 years ago, before recognizing how much cherry-picking was going on in the Paleo camp.
No long-lived population consume a 30% protein/40% fat diet. My personal dietary ideal, traditional Okinawans, consume 9% protein/6% fat.
Jogging is a healthy activity, up to about 20 miles a week. Above that and negative effects start overwhelming the positive.
Most importantly, you can't outrun a bad diet. Exercise has a limited capacity to mitigate the effects of excess methionine and the atherosclerotic fats.
Edited by Darryl, 07 July 2014 - 06:31 AM.
#6
Posted 07 July 2014 - 05:48 AM
20 miles jogging a week is 20 miles too much IMO.
#7
Posted 07 July 2014 - 02:32 PM
Attached Files
#8
Posted 07 July 2014 - 02:59 PM
Jim Fixx died at 52.
"James Fuller "Jim" Fixx (April 23, 1932 – July 20, 1984) was the author of the 1977 best-selling book, The Complete Book of Running. He is credited with helping start America's fitness revolution, popularizing the sport of running and demonstrating the health benefits of regular jogging."
I don't, and won't jog. But do chronic low-level exercise -- like walking. I also want to start using a standing desk.
Sprinting -- even on something like a bike -- is meant to be beneficial at the epigenetic level. Something I want to look in to more, and start.
Then there's antioxidants being touted as the "right thing" for many years. Quoting one of reason's posts, from the Bioscience forum:
"It is a myth that dietary antioxidant supplementation can reliably extend life or even reliably do good things for general health. The weight of evidence strongly suggests that the results are either negligible or harmful. Oxidant molecules have many beneficial roles in addition to being damaging in large volumes, and most likely being involved in the progression of aging. They are used as signals in our tissue to spur maintenance processes essential in generating the benefits derived from exercise, for example.
It is possible to reliably extend life with antioxidants, but they have to be carefully designed molecules that target themselves to the mitochondria in our cells, where the most damaging and least necessary oxidants are generated."
MitoQ and C60 are mitochondrial antioxidants. I take MitoQ, and it's been fantastic so far: reversal of an autoimmune disease which I've had for years.
#9
Posted 07 July 2014 - 03:10 PM
Razor444
Jim Fixx is an example of an extreme as described in the video.
Going to the other extreme, and not jogging at all, isn't supported by the evidence.
Here's another data point that would seem to be confounding as well:
Endurance sports correlated with longevity?
"The team observed that in the older age group, the endurance athletes had significantly longer telomeres. Further, in the overall cohort, telomere length was positively associated with VO2max, with the relationship strongest among the endurance athletes."
"Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway) report that endurance training may protect against the effects of aging in older individuals."
http://www.worldheal...rance-exercise/
This stuff just goes on an on...
#10
Posted 07 July 2014 - 04:07 PM
Razor444
Jim Fixx is an example of an extreme as described in the video.
Going to the other extreme, and not jogging at all, isn't supported by the evidence.
Here's another data point that would seem to be confounding as well:
Endurance sports correlated with longevity?
"The team observed that in the older age group, the endurance athletes had significantly longer telomeres. Further, in the overall cohort, telomere length was positively associated with VO2max, with the relationship strongest among the endurance athletes."
"Researchers from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (Norway) report that endurance training may protect against the effects of aging in older individuals."
http://www.worldheal...rance-exercise/
This stuff just goes on an on...
Specifically, I'm sure there isn't any evidence that not jogging is advantageous to longevity.
The Harvard Alumni Health Study, which was a prospective study from circa 1962 to 1988 had the following conclusion:
"These data demonstrate a graded inverse relationship between total physical activity and mortality. Furthermore, vigorous activities but not nonvigorous activities were associated with longevity. These findings pertain only to all-cause mortality; nonvigorous exercise has been shown to benefit other aspects of health."
I do vigorous activity and nonvigorous activity. I just don't jog.
#11
Posted 08 July 2014 - 02:16 AM
Both Byron and Seth Roberts were recommending a large amount of omega 3's and fat for intake (Seth at 3-4 TBSP a day of ala and Byron at 2+ grams of DHA a day). While a lot of Bryon's info on leptin was decent, I still think he probably ate too much fat as in his leptin diet. Also, he sold some questionable supplements on his site in my opinion (shark liver oil etc). Both of their deaths go to show we need better diagnostics and that diet alone is just not enough to stop people from dying. We are on this site to think about those alternative methods to keep us alive.
#12
Posted 09 July 2014 - 10:16 AM
Here is his running regimen (from 2012) - doesn't seem terribly excessive for a 60 year old:
Byron's running tips
During my 30s and 40s I used to run 20 to 25 miles a week. Now, Im simply happy to be out running. I do a five mile run three times a week, and go slower than I used to. However, I get just as good a metabolic response to running as I used to...
He had a habit of taking a cocktail of antioxidants, flavonoids & minerals just prior to exercise - which in hindsight seems a bit odd. Here is the list of things he took prior to going for a jog.
Edited by blood, 09 July 2014 - 10:29 AM.
#13
Posted 10 July 2014 - 06:51 PM
I absolutely adore this site, I often read every word of very long posts. What truly amazes me, astounds me, is the Western fixation on what you eat and supplements over any other understanding. (By the way I love supplements and take a lot of them including some of the more radically new discussed on this site). Though many people in the USA and Europe are very intellectually smart, as well as scientifically knowledgable they are CLUELESS about the the other layers of human existance and how those layers affect helath and well-being. If you are basically angry, full of resentment, or any other chronic negative emotion either consciously or unconsciously, you will die younger than someone who is actively cleasing themselves and looking deeper. In India, many yogis sit for hours and hours in meditation. They do not move around much, which would be considered lethal here, yet they consistantly live into their eighties and noneties with all their faculties intact (and often their hair, too). A human being is multi-leveled. If you ONLY consider the gross physical body, you will miss what truly makes a person happy and healthy. Balance. But here in the West, "balance" often does not include a real relationship with the more esoteric and ethereal realm. Yes, I can hear you all groaning out there, but it is the truth. MAYBE Jim Fixx and Byron Richards were simply TOO fixated on the physical. Their karma, their relationships to something bigger than themselves (and call that whatever the hell you want to call it) left them severely imbalanced. In Eastern medicine, all ailments begin on the etheric energy level long before they manifest on the physical level. I have witnessed this to be true. If you forget the bigger picture, your health will suffer.
#14
Posted 10 July 2014 - 07:10 PM
Thanks for the input Skypp. I don't think anyone disputes that the spiritual / emotional dimensions affect our health. Yet, I would submit that I've seen folks (as we all have, I'm sure) that aren't particularly spiritual, or well-adjusted or balanced (some quite unbalanced) that are living into very advanced years. And conversely, although Mr. Richards was clearly at the cutting edge of dietary supplements - and this was definitely his passion, nothing about Mr. Richards suggested to me that he wasn't happy, content and also living an emotionally balanced life in other domains. He actually seemed to have a very intact family and extended family - and as a genuinely great guy, lots of friends - at least from what I recall. But again, for any us to suggest that the spiritual dimension was or was not relevant here, is speculative because we don't really know.
#15
Posted 10 July 2014 - 08:32 PM
Yes, Mr. Anderson, all that is correct. I was in part supposing that we do not know Mr. Richards's overall fine-tuning, including the emotional/spiritual elements of the equation. Yes, many apparently unhealthy people live long lives. My own father drank gin martinis every day (several). Loved to discuss philosophy and politics and often went on conversing right through dinner until it was over, whereupon he woofed down whatever meat might have been on the plate and ittle else. He also smoked a pipe for 40 years. He lived to be 87 without a single missing brain cell and still very physically active. His mind, conjectures and thoughts clear as a bell until his demise from emphyzema. He also ran, swam, and walked every day. Without the smoking, he would have lived many more years. Jim Fixx I am imagining, ran too much with a strained heart. I must confess, it wasn't lost on me that Richards was VERY vocal against hospitals and conventional medicine. How did he manage to contract another illness while in the hospital? Hmmmmmmm.
#16
Posted 10 July 2014 - 08:47 PM
Both Byron and Seth Roberts were recommending a large amount of omega 3's and fat for intake (Seth at 3-4 TBSP a day of ala and Byron at 2+ grams of DHA a day). While a lot of Bryon's info on leptin was decent, I still think he probably ate too much fat as in his leptin diet. Also, he sold some questionable supplements on his site in my opinion (shark liver oil etc). Both of their deaths go to show we need better diagnostics and that diet alone is just not enough to stop people from dying. We are on this site to think about those alternative methods to keep us alive.
From what I understand, he died of pneumonia, once in the hospital, he supposedly contracted a second illness from which he died. The high fat would not have caused this.
#17
Posted 10 July 2014 - 08:58 PM
"From what I understand, he died of pneumonia, once in the hospital, he supposedly contracted a second illness from which he died. The high fat would not have caused this."
Actually, *Bernie Mac* - and not Byron Richards - is the guy that died from a pneumonia (and secondary illness from the hospital)
http://www.newswithv...rds/byron61.htm
That article that you are reading was written by Byron Richards - one of of many of his editorials on the state of healthcare in the U.S.
#18
Posted 10 July 2014 - 09:14 PM
"From what I understand, he died of pneumonia, once in the hospital, he supposedly contracted a second illness from which he died. The high fat would not have caused this."
Actually, *Bernie Mac* - and not Byron Richards - is the guy that died from a pneumonia (and secondary illness from the hospital)
http://www.newswithv...rds/byron61.htm
That article that you are reading was written by Byron Richards - one of of many of his editorials on the state of healthcare in the U.S.
#19
Posted 10 July 2014 - 09:17 PM
You are correct, so much for hasty research! Anyway, it seems he died jogging although it is not confirmed. FYI I do not think the "Bulletproof" fat-saturated coffee, et al is very good for you either. Must listen to our bodies, not what our intellects say is "healthy".
#20
Posted 04 September 2017 - 09:26 PM
Anyone ever find out more about Byron J. Richards' cause of death? Is it just presumed to have been a heart issue triggered by running?
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