5 Nerdy & Motivational Fitness Facts

This newsletter reviews findings from 5 research papers on the amazing benefits and complexities of exercise. Get your brain pumped!

Real quick, before I get into the meat of this newsletter about exercise, Metabolic Health Summit just released my full in person conference presentation on #OreoVsStatin. Check it out & Share!

Now for exercise…

The reason I love exercise has to do with the fact that I appreciate the complex and multifaceted impact of exercise on my body and overall health, beyond muscles and calorie burning.

I internalize this knowledge and manifest it in an enthusiasm for activity!

In this letter, I want to infect you with some of the love I have for exercise in the form of 5 awesome (very nerdy!) facts that will hopefully motivate you to get moving.

I released a video version of this letter on YouTube just now as well:

*Read to the end to learn about a special offer to help you level up your own metabolism research.

Fact 1: Exercise Can Improve Mental Health

This may be intuitive, but new science shows how exercise can reduce anxiety, in particular high intensity exercise. This form of exercise increases lactate in your body and in your brain.

And lactate in the brain can bind to and modify different proteins.

This modification, in turn, changes “synaptic transmission” - how neurons talk to each other - with a direct impact on brain metabolism, brain function, the human mind, and anxiety.

Fact 2: Exercise Improves Fat Quality

Of course, many people exercise because they want to reduce fat mass and lose weight. But in one recent study, researchers, analyzed the fat quality of chronic exercises versus that of sedentary people matched for body fat percentage and total body fat.

They found that the exercisers had better fat, with more vascularization and less of a particular form of collagen associated with metabolic syndrome.

So, even if your efforts aren’t being reflected on the scale, every day at the gym could be improving the quality of not only your muscle tissue, but your fat tissue as well, to improve your overall health.

Fact 3: Exercise Changes Your Gene Expression… With a Catch

The beneficial effects of exercise are mediated, largely, by changes in gene expression: how your DNA is turned into RNA, which is turned into proteins.

But there’s a catch…

Your baseline metabolic health will influence how the same exercise impacts gene expression.

And in one of my favorite papers, publish and Cell, researchers found a subset of genes that had OPPOSITE expression profiles based on whether people were insulin resistant or insulin sensitive. 

Of course, I still believe exercise benefits almost everyone. But these data make a compelling case that to get the most bang for your buck when it comes to exercise you also want to get your metabolic health in order, which means an appropriate diet and sufficient sleep. 

Fact 4: Exercise and Longevity

The data here are complex, and it certainly isn’t a “more is better” scenario. Human longevity science is notoriously difficult to study since you can’t do randomize trials, among other limitations. However, it’s still interesting to look at proxies. In another recent study researchers looked at an aging biomarker in fat tissue called BMP lipids.

They found that one-hour of intense exercise for 4 days reduced levels of this aging biomarker.

Fact 5: Exercise vs Will Power  

Imagine you are in a situation where you have a treadmill on your right and a beautiful, enticing tower of your favorite donuts on your left, or a chocolate fondue fountain with dippable fruit and cookies.

Which do you choose?

Well, researchers recently discovered a group of neurons in the brain that help to dictate “temptation-resistant voluntary exercise.”

In other words, neurons that help people – or mouse models of people given access to yummy food versus a running wheel – choose exercise over food.

These are called the hypocretin/orexin neurons.

Now, why am I telling you this. Because doesn’t this sort of rob you of free will? If you have weak hypocretin/orexin neurons, are you doomed to choose a bag of chips and a couch over the gym? Is there no free will?

The way I look at it, insight into bodily and brain processes allow you to compensate for them.

Like when I had the chance, at age 19, to drive a sports car on the highway, I felt this urge to hit the gas to the floor – but then the thought occurred to my conscious mind, “Hey man, your prefrontal cortex isn’t fully developed to the point that you can adaptively assess risk-benefit analysis of this situation.” And that thought prevented me from dangerously speeding.

In the same vein, I think imagining this group of hypocretin/orexin neurons in the brain being “sluggish” when you don’t want to work out, and then thinking – “hey, little buddies stop being lazy and rev up… we got work to do” – can be an adaptive, if goofy, thought to change behavior.

Also, typically, the more you use a brain circuit, the stronger it becomes. And we also know that motivation and effort can convert to habit, if you stick with it long enough.

Consensus: A Tool To Support YOUR Research

Now, I have something I want to share with you… a great new tool!

If you’re a science nerd, you need to know about Consensus, a new AI-powered academic search engine that stands above ChatGPT and other search engineers as a tool for accelerating your learning and scientific literature research.

What makes consensus stand out is that, in addition to providing evidence-based topic syntheses, it provides easily traceable citations with paper-level details like the study type (e.g. RCT, systematic review, animal study), journal, number of citations and so on.

It’s a tool built for academics that is now deployed at >5000 universities but is also totally accessible and easy to use for almost anyone, which it why I bring it to you.

I’m teaming up with Consensus because – like me – they’re passionate about democratizing access to the world's scientific research, a mission fiercely in line with my own and in support of N = 1 Science & Citizen Science.

For a 2 Minute Demo of Consensus, click HERE.

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