Fitness Pudding - Where The Proof Is

After bursting bubbles that chewing gum is not our next great weight loss answer , I was sent internet articles, such as these. This one even claims that walking and chewing gum, a feat in and of itself, could help men lose weight, apparently just before the next hurricane. They all refer back to this recent research study where 46 adults completed two walking tasks. 1 In the ‘experimental’ task, they walked at a natural pace...

This ad from the 1960s for Vel-X gum, makes some pretty strong claims, regarding chewing gum and fat or weight loss. Fast forward to 2018 we also see some claims regarding gum improving weight loss. Could there be any truth to these claims? Let’s think about how this would even work, assuming regular gum with no additives or stimulants, such as caffeine or nicotine. One possibility is by increasing energy expenditure. In other words, could chewing gum...

Do appetite suppressant lollipops work? As we will see, probably not. However, they have received a recent boom of attention after an endorsement from Mrs. Kim Kardashian, alongside an earlier episode of the Doctor Oz show claiming saffron, the proposed active ingredient in the lollipops, as a “miracle appetite suppressant to kill your hunger.” I wished they had called me first, since the claims are not actually supported by the research. So, Kim, in the future,...

Could cockroach milk be our next superfood? More specifically, milk from Diplotera punctata or the Pacific Beetle Cockroach. Now, cockroaches do not have udders or nipples to milk each morning, so the study behind all the attention is referring to the milky substance that comes out of mother’s brood sac to feed her babies. In the egg, the babies get this nourishing milk that is rich in proteins called lipocalin-like milk proteins or Lili-Mip, which turn...

We have already established that waist trainers, wraps, sauna suits, or hot pants do not help with fat loss. Yet, there is still a persisting idea that the more you sweat the more fat that seeps out of your sweat glands. We do have some 2 to 4 million of these so-called eccrine glands, so that could be a lot of fat lost. But, back when Tone Loc was rocking Funky Cold Medina, some researchers were...

Headlines tease an exercise can improve sexual functioning, because this study survey found that high-intensity cyclists who cycle an average of 25 miles, more than 3 times per week, had a slightly higher mean on each of these sexual function domains than non-cyclists (swimmers and runners).  Before you run out to buy a bike and tights – being a one time survey, we cannot conclude that cycling will improve sexual functioning. Perhaps women with higher sexual...

This video is recirculating, claiming that chocolate cake for breakfast could be good for us. The study cited from Syracuse, was the Maine-Syracuse study, and did NOT find that eating chocolate can improve memory and cognitive function. 1 There was no experiment. Rather, within a cross-section of older adults, the authors reported a mean z-score for two groups. Those who reported eating chocolate once per week were only 0.09 standard deviations above the mean, while those...

Can facial exercise or yoga reduce the appearance of aging? There is thought that exercising the muscles of the face can increase their size, thus reducing the appearance of aging. Claims can be fairly dramatic. But, here’s the study 1 behind recent media attention, looking at the effect of 32 different facial exercises, 30-minutes per day, 3-4 times per week, for 20 weeks. The main outcome was the appearance of aging, as rated by two physicians...

The concept of slow or fast dieting does not refer to how fast one eats, rather to the rate to which one loses weight from dieting. There is the more traditional thought if you can lose weight more slowly (a slow diet), you can keep it off more successfully that if you lose weight too quickly (a fast diet). However, proponents of “fast dieting” are now challenging this theory, claiming it is actually better than “slow...

The amino acid, asparagine, is thought to be “digested” by cancer cells to help metastasize or spread throughout the body. The study of all the recent headlines used mice, who were in-bred to lack immunity, and then injected with cancer cells. 2 The mice were fed a chow with either no, low or high amounts of asparagine. Spread of cancer to the lung was increased in mice on high-asparagine diet. Injecting an enzyme that blocked asparagine...