 |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 2/5/2013 2:01 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 05/02/2013 8:09 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> but that doesn't make it
>> actually /do/ anything different to what a normal block of lard does...
>
> Au contraire.
> If you believe it does you good then sometimes it can. The mind is a
> very strange thing. You have heard of the placebo effect, I presume.
>
There was a suggestion made a while back to deal with this BS in the
medical community. Define medicines as:
1. Medicine - The stuff that actually works, we know works, and we
bloody know why.
2. Unproven - Some percentage of people think it does, may be, some sort
of mechanism involved, but we really don't know what the F is going on,
or even if anything at all is going on, in many cases, save where the
effects are purely category #3
3. Comfort measures - Everything from fluffing their pillow, to
acupuncture. We know how, and why it works. Its purely a mental process,
but it bloody well doesn't involved unknown mechanisms, untested
theories, etc., nor does it actually 'treat' a condition, save via the
mental state of the individual.
I would add, just to be an ass:
4. Semi-medical. This would be everything from energy drinks to
multivitamins, such as the one I linked to. It has a benefit, to people
that need it, as in real, known effects. Those effects may **not be**
beneficial to everyone, and, more to the point can actually be hazardous
for some people. Yet some people are making #2 type claims for them, or
even #3 types.
Energy drinks are a good example of this mixed nonsense. Yes, the main
ingredient in Red Bull does have some "small" effect of muscle
efficiency, so.. it might be helpful, for some people, though.. in the
doses allowed in the drink... maybe not. Yes, the niacin in most of
these gives a bit of an energy boost, by forcing the body to divorce
itself of some amount of its cholesterol, but the effect is no where
near the same as "medical" doses of niacin, such as you might take if
you couldn't take normal medication for high cholesterol. You probably
get the same from those not actually very useful multivitamins. Yeah,
some of them have some of those very same vitamins in them. If you don't
need more, taking more won't help, and might hurt, if you get too much,
except that there is not likely enough in there to take too much, unless
its all you drink all day, in gallons. And then there is the long list
of, "unproven" stuff, with everything from plausible, to implausible,
mechanisms, like guarana (however it its spelled), or what ever the heck
all the other gibberish random fruits and things are in there.
The only reason its a 4th category is that it basically the equivalent
of putting up a chart on the wall, of every ingredient you can find from
categories 1 and 2, and maybe some of 3, then firing a shot gun at it,
to decide which "miracle" substances to put into the resulting drink. lol
The only ones "known" to have a significant effect are the caffeine and
sugar, and, laughably, many of them now have "sugar free" versions.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 2/6/2013 2:22 PM, Stephen wrote:
> On 05/02/2013 10:14 PM, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>> he placebo effect is strongest on things which are not objectively
>> measurable.
>
> Is it?
> I've seen results from drug tests where the placebo group has better
> results than the control group but not as good as the group that takes
> the actual drug.
> (Andrel's opinion would be of interest.)
>
That is precisely why it has to be measured for. It **does** have an
objective measurable effect, so has to be factored out, as much as
possible, to prevent skewing the results. The worst possible failure of
any test system is accidentally creating conditions where one of the
test groups actually "know" they are taking the actual medication. Its
the whole reason why they use double blind. So the patient doesn't know
that the nurse doesn't know which pill they have, based on the doctor
not telling either one of them. If somehow the researcher, or the person
handing out the pills, figures out which group actually is receiving
either one, it fowls the results, and its all over.
This is in contrast to pseudo-science studies, which either use pure
self reporting, where the people are self medicating, or fail to prevent
people knowing which one they are taking, etc. And, if you compare
medication A to medication B, you still need to use placebo C, to be
sure, so as to remove biases that may arise out of other factors, which
might be distorting the results of one, or both, groups taking A and B,
if you want to really sure. If you don't care, you don't do that, you
use stupid small study sizes, people (or animals) prone to the problem
you are studying, ignore vastly contradictory data, and cherry pick what
fits.
There is a big gripe in the whole anti-GMO bunch over one of those
studies. The study itself isn't "bad" per-say. Its being treated as
definitive, despite being preliminary. The data showed relatively
insignificant results, within margin of error, and certain decisions
about how it was conducted, how the data was analyzed, etc., was..
questionable. At best, it suggest further study, at worst.. it makes
implausible claims, doesn't provide a mechanism, shows anomolies in both
the test and control group data, which suggests its not reliable, and
worse, didn't use enough subjects, or over a long enough period, to rule
out other possibilities.
The anti-GMO people call these conclusions a witch hunt. The rest of the
scientific community are calling it sloppy, premature, unlikely to be
correct, since there is literally no known way that the food in question
might differ chemically from the normal crops, other than the addition
of a protein that "exists" in other foods, albeit not necessarily in the
same amounts. Or, in other words - further study needs to be done, and
an explanation for how/why its causing a problem, if it is, needs to be
come up with.
Anti-GMO's "mechanism" is, of course, that somehow adding a gene to
produce vitamin A in a plant that didn't have it before is the **exact*
logical equivalent of adding a gene to produce a useful quantity of an
insect specific poison (as per the specific thing being testing in this
case), and therefor adding *any* gene, at all, will make you grow extra
limb, turn purple, and explode... or, what ever the frak they think
golden rice (as appose to the slightly more plausible roundup-ready
products) is supposed to do, because its been "genetically engineered by
a mad scientist!"
Sigh...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 2/5/2013 6:02 PM, Francois Labreque wrote:
>> On 05/02/2013 04:09 PM, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>>
>>> Rule #1 - Never say anything that isn't true, but.. never actually say
>>> what **IS** true either.
>>
>> Ah yes, the lies without lying. Gotta love that!
>>
>> Although I have to say, the beauty products with the string of
>> sciency-sounding "technology" names are the ones that really annoy me.
>> You can take a block of lard and call it "Novo(tm) triglyceride
>> formulation with sodium ion technology(r)", but that doesn't make it
>> actually /do/ anything different to what a normal block of lard does...
>
> My all-time favorite is the beauty cream made with extracts (which
> extracts?) from plants that grow under high voltage lines, therefore the
> cream will help (how much?) protect you against EMI.
>
> The runner-up:
> A spokesperson for one of the beauty companies who was asked about the
> cancer-causing products (mainly formaldehyde) used in beauty salons who
> replied that "since skin was impermeable, it was impossible for those
> chemicals to get in your body. To which the reporter retorted: "So
> you're saying all those skin creams that your company makes that are
> supposed to be "deep-penetrating" actually don't work?"
>
> Oops!
>
lol
Don't even get me started on "formaldehyde". Its a bit wacko conspiracy
thing that is supposedly killing us all, and one of the reasons to avoid
"unnatural sweeteners" is that it produces it in the blood stream. And
article in Skeptical Enquirer went over that, pointing out that a) all
sugars, and other "sweet" substances, produces varying amounts of that,
naturally, in the bloodstream, as a byproduct, b) you would have to
drink like 10 diet sodas to get the equivalent "formaldehyde" in your
blood stream from it as a 12 oz glass (equivalent of one can of diet
soda) of tomato juice, and c) the latest "miracle" sweetener, called
truvia, stevia, etc., is processed from the plant leaf it comes out of,
into a sugar like, granulated, form, using... ding... ding... ding...
formaldehyde.
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
> Walking just feels like I'm not achieving anything. I mean, my legs feel
> crippled after half an hour or so,
You're not going to build stamina by running unsustainably fast for 10
minutes at a time. Target longer times at slower speeds, you need to go
at a sustainable pace. Of course your legs will hurt if you're not used
to it. No pain no gain :-)
>> You said you burnt 15 cal/min, that's 900 an hour. Do an hour run after
>> work and you've pretty much earned yourself an additional meal.
>
> If I could actually run for an hour straight and not *die*, that would
> be quite impressive...
Sounds like a reasonable target to aim for (after some amount of
training of course) - aren't there people at the gym to advise you on
stuff like this?
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On Tue, 05 Feb 2013 20:28:31 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> On 05/02/2013 05:11 PM, scott wrote:
>
>> I have a crazy guy who sits next to me in our office (so again training
>> is not his full time job). He's going to run the London marathon this
>> year, but for him that is just a warm up for the iron man triathlon
>> he's doing later in the year. In case you don't know (I didn't until I
>> looked it up) it's 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles cycling and then a
>> full marathon running. That probably will burn a few days worth of
>> calories :-)
>
> Yeah, I'm not saying that nobody can run a marathon. (Clearly quite a
> lot of people can.) I'm saying that normal people don't end up looking
> like Arnold Schwarzenegger - you know, the whole "arms thicker than tree
> trunks" kind of thing. Heck, I'm walking around a public *gym* and
> nobody looks like that!
You seem to think, though, that it's a binary state. Either you go to
the gym full time to look like Schwarzenegger, or you sit on your butt
all day in front of a computer and have the endurance of a half dead
sloth.
Surely you realise there /is/ a middle ground.
Jim
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
>> Yeah, I'm not saying that nobody can run a marathon. (Clearly quite a
>> lot of people can.) I'm saying that normal people don't end up looking
>> like Arnold Schwarzenegger
>
> You seem to think, though, that it's a binary state. Either you go to
> the gym full time to look like Schwarzenegger, or you sit on your butt
> all day in front of a computer and have the endurance of a half dead
> sloth.
>
> Surely you realise there /is/ a middle ground.
Go read what I wrote. I said that visible muscle growth and stamina are
not the same thing. I also said that growing a set of muscles like
Arnold is an unrealistic goal, but improving my stamina *is* a realistic
goal, which is why I'm still going to the gym...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On Fri, 08 Feb 2013 08:37:32 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
>>> Yeah, I'm not saying that nobody can run a marathon. (Clearly quite a
>>> lot of people can.) I'm saying that normal people don't end up looking
>>> like Arnold Schwarzenegger
>>
>> You seem to think, though, that it's a binary state. Either you go to
>> the gym full time to look like Schwarzenegger, or you sit on your butt
>> all day in front of a computer and have the endurance of a half dead
>> sloth.
>>
>> Surely you realise there /is/ a middle ground.
>
> Go read what I wrote. I said that visible muscle growth and stamina are
> not the same thing. I also said that growing a set of muscles like
> Arnold is an unrealistic goal, but improving my stamina *is* a realistic
> goal, which is why I'm still going to the gym...
Which is good - but what you originally wrote seemed to indicate that if
you want to look like Ahnold, that's a full-time job or it's impossible.
I was pointing out that that again was another fallacy of the sort where
you say "this thing that some people obviously do is clearly impossible".
You might not have noticed it (though several of us have pointed it out)
that you have made a bad habit out of making these kinds of wild
assertions in the past.
Jim
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 07/02/2013 08:55 AM, scott wrote:
>> Walking just feels like I'm not achieving anything. I mean, my legs feel
>> crippled after half an hour or so,
>
> You're not going to build stamina by running unsustainably fast for 10
> minutes at a time. Target longer times at slower speeds, you need to go
> at a sustainable pace. Of course your legs will hurt if you're not used
> to it. No pain no gain :-)
I didn't think 10 minutes of continuous, non-stop exercise was all that
bad, but hey.
>> If I could actually run for an hour straight and not *die*, that would
>> be quite impressive...
>
> Sounds like a reasonable target to aim for (after some amount of
> training of course) - aren't there people at the gym to advise you on
> stuff like this?
Yeah, you can pay for a personal trainer. No idea what that costs, but I
am kind of tempted...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On Fri, 08 Feb 2013 21:35:07 +0000, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:
> Yeah, you can pay for a personal trainer. No idea what that costs, but I
> am kind of tempted...
If you do, that's great (I did that for a while, and where I live it
wasn't too expensive), but remember one important thing: They are
actually subject matter experts, and while SMEs do make mistakes from
time to time, don't assume that because your brain tells you that what
they're saying is something it thinks is impossible that your brain is
telling you the truth. ;)
IOW, pay attention to the trainer, and don't disregard what they tell you
because you've always assumed "that's impossible".
Jim
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
On 05/02/2013 04:13 PM, Warp wrote:
> what you need is about 1 hour of aerobic exercise 5 or 6 times a week.
I currently have a cold. But up until then, me and my dad have been
spending one to two hours at the gym every weekday evening. It's nice to
have some company, and I think my dad enjoys it too. I'm doing a mixture
of resistance machines, the treadmill, the rowing machine, and whatever
else takes my fancy.
The gym got *real* popular in January. Apparently it gets quieter as the
year goes on...
Post a reply to this message
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
