Rethink Butts.

For me, and perhaps many of you, no place soothes my soul more than the sea - specifically the shore.  I love the sand, the sun, the sound of the waves and the great, vast, body of water that looms before me.  I am protective of my beautiful place - of the earth in general  - and I most passionately and avidly promote tobacco free beaches, parks and trails.

If I could be responsible for passing one law - it would not be diet related - it would be one that led to Tobacco Free Beaches USA.

Today I heard a public service announcement from a Legacy Foundation and Leave No Trace Center for Outdoor Ethics partnership.  The PSA was launched over a year ago, in honor of Earth Day 2013.  I am sharing the PSA with you so you will consider joining in the effort to rid the earth of toxic cigarette waste.  If you are a smoker, I hope you are like many I see who respect the earth and dispose of their butts responsibly (i.e., not out the car window or on the ground).  {I have to add, if you are a smoker, quitting smoking is hard, but doable and it will change your life! Click here for help.}

Cigarette butts are not readily biodegradable; they don't break down and harmlessly evaporate into the air.  The filters breakdown (after many years) into particles of a harmful plastic compound and the chemical components are absorbed into the soil or worse, children and or animals (dogs, cats, fish, etc) come into contact with the discarded cigarettes and are poisoned by them. 

Please listen to the PSA by clicking on the arrow and to learn more, go to the rethinkbutts website here.

Should smokers exercise?

   Smoking is an independent cause of heart disease.  One possible link between smoking and heart disease is that smokers’ arteries tend to be stiffer than the arteries of non-smokers, even when controlling for other factors that might lead to this condition, e.g., having a family hx of heart disease.  Physical activity is also independently related to heart disease - being active reduces the risk and sitting around increases it - to be clear - sitting around for extended periods of time (independent of how active you are otherwise) is associated with the risk of heart disease.

   New research from a small study of young men¹ suggests that smokers who engage in regular physical activity have less stiffness of large arteries than smokers who do not engage in regular physical activity.  However, the stiffness in active smokers was worse than that of active non-smokers, and clearly the best option is not to smoke.

   When I read the study conclusion, I wondered how they measured smoking?  For instance, did they say, ‘in the last month have you had at least one cigarette’ and then put all the yes's in the smoking group and the no's in the nonsmoking group?  If that were the case, I would discount the validity of the conclusion because a person who is physically active and otherwise healthy, might by chance, have had one cigarette in the last month, whereas a physically inactive smoker might have smoked 2 packs a day. That was not the case; the researchers categorized smokers as those who had at least 8 to 10 cigarettes every day during the past two years.  

   Unfortunately, there were other limitations of the study which give me pause, though they do not diminish my faith in the benefits of exercise.  In this small study, the inactive smokers were different in other ways that could lead to heart disease, i.e., they were older, had higher % body fat and smoked more cigarettes per day than the active smokers.  In addition, the average age of the participants in the study was 22 and artery stiffness and other markers of heart disease usually occur later - even those associated with smoking.

   Still: Physical Activity is the sine qua non of health and experts recommend it for EVERYONE.  Smoking is the sine qua non of disease and experts recommend it for NO ONE.  I pride myself in being pro exercise and anti-smoking; but I am not anti-smoker and so I got my dander up when I read the following facebook post of one of my acquaintances.  

Just saw the most bizarre thing ever. Two older ladies walking through (x) Park at a decent pace (clearly here for exercise) then one of them lights up a cigarette and they keep on walking. Why bother exercising?!? At least she can enjoy her death stick in some pretty scenery I guess

   First,  I one hundred percent agree that the park should be tobacco free and I would be furious and loud mouthed about someone smoking near me as I walked, ran or cycled, but that is not what this facebooker was venting.

   The person who started the post, and most of the people who commented on it, wanted to know why the smoker was bothering to exercise - the people speaking on the thread were clearly anti-smoker - if we followed their line of reasoning that a smoker shouldn’t bother to exercise (because they were killing themselves with the cigarettes), then smokers should also stop wearing seat belts or looking both ways when crossing the street.  Ridiculous, judgmental, nonfactual discourse.

   For goodness sakes - EVERYONE should exercise and not all smokers die from smoking related diseases…. maybe because they are otherwise healthy or genetically protected – still, it is not smart to smoke, but it is even less smart to do all the other reckless things on top of it.

Now, put those cigarettes down and go take a walk.

¹ Park, W., Miyachi, M., & Tanaka, H. (2014). Does Aerobic Exercise Mitigatethe Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Arterial Stiffness? The Journal ofClinical Hypertension.

Brief O&E Update

Throughout the day I pondered over a topic - I thought, I do not want to think so hard tonight. I have begun reading an article that I think might be good for tomorrow, but tonight I am just going to share a couple of thoughts I have had since Sunday when I posted this entry.

I want to say first that I messed up the info on my generation and obesity. I kind of felt like I had it wrong, but by notes were in the car and oh my gosh, I was too lazy to go down and get them - I know, hard to believe. Funny though that the notes were on this little notepad I keep on the visor. Why do I have a pad stuck in my visor? To take notes when I hear a news story that I want to explore further in order to share on the blog!

So what I meant to say was that people born in the 1960s and 1970s tended to gain weight up until their 20s where the numbers peaked. This generation then tended to lose some of that extra weight. One fifth of the them were said to be obese. Now, I can say that I personally weighed more in my twenties than I do in my forties, so there, research experiment of one! I think I did get the second part of the statement correct last Sunday, which is that later generations are obese at higher rates and they do not peak but appear to continue to gain weight indefinitely. Currently we have an obesity rate of 33% in the USA.

Also in the last O&E I mentioned the concept of behavior placement as an extension of product placement. Since then I saw two blatant examples of both - in fact, they both occurred in TV shows that I was watching simultaneously last night! On Damages, (FX Mondays at 10), a character was at a laptop computer and wanted to look something up. VERY clearly the search engine he used was the lesser known Bing. On the show I was really watching, Saving Grace on TNT , the phenomenal Holly Hunter (whose character smokes all the time :() Stomped out a cigarette in the sand and then picked up the butt and either put it in her pocket or in the trash. Either way, she did not LITTER or cause a fire with her discarded smoke. It is against the law to throw out cigarettes in Florida, where I live - If you have ever seen a wilderness on fire, even on the news, you will understand why.

That's all then - tomorrow I will tell you more about brown fat, as I believe I have mentioned it at least once in the past.