Comments for Sweat Science

Comment on The neurochemical reality of placebos by alex

alex — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 19:01:36 +0000

@Scott: I’m not sure I agree that you can draw a neat line between “symptoms” and “underlying causes” in athletic performance. If I’m a 30:00 10K runner, there are fundamental physiological reasons that I don’t run 25:00 for 10K. But the reasons I run 30:00 rather than 29:45 are mediated, at least in part, by my brain.

For example, there was a study back in 2010 in which cyclists rode about 2% faster when they were given Tylenol. The Tylenol didn’t provide more fuel or oxygen for their muscles; it only affected how their brain interpreted the pain signals from the rest of the body. If a placebo can also change the neurochemistry of the brain (as the study I blogged about above suggests), then its performance-enhancing effects are just as “real” as the Tylenol.

Comment on The neurochemical reality of placebos by Scott

Scott — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:46:40 +0000

I don’t think that study is generalizable to all placebos. There’s a difference between using a placebo in pain management, where the goal of treatment is alter symptoms, and a performance supplement, where the goal of treatment is to alter some underlying function. In that case, the placebo is like reducing the mortgage payment for someone who bought a house they couldn’t afford: reducing the payment lessens the pain of the debt, but it doesn’t address the underlying cause of the pain, which is the debt itself.

Comment on The ideal warm-up for swimmers by Colm Colohan

Colm Colohan — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 15:22:31 +0000

My rule of thumb for warming up is “the shorter the event, the longer the warm up”. However, age may play a role aswell. I see some young “whippersnappers” take off in the pool especially during early morning sessions, yet some more “mature” swimmers require several hundred meters to get their feel for the water.

Comment on Muscle biopsies show massage fights inflammation by Will Shoucair

Will Shoucair — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 22:18:14 +0000

This is fantastic!

I train intensely 2-3 times per week and had no idea massage could be so valuable! I’m going to begin scheduling weekly massages and practicing self massage after every workout.

Thanks!

Comment on Less sleep makes food more rewarding by alex

alex — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:11:53 +0000

@Anthony: Yes, that could certainly be a way of looking at it evolutionarily. Of course, we could probably also come up with a reason that evolution would make us eat LESS during sleep deprivation. It may simply be that effects like this aren’t the result of direct selection, but are just byproducts of the fact that the brain uses the same circuitry to respond to different stimuli, so there can be unintended cross-talk between inputs.

@Todd: That’s an interesting question. I guess many of our behaviours could be looked at as controlled by a balance between inhibition (affected by ego depletion) and impulse (reward seeking) — but it’s likely that the two are highly intertwined.

@Anna: Yes, I think you’re right that a full night of sleep deprivation is quite different than chronic sleep shortage — I probably should have emphasized that more in the blog entry. The researchers suggest that this particular study may be relevant to shift workers, who have to totally disrupt sleep patterns.

Comment on Less sleep makes food more rewarding by Anna Tr

Anna Tr — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:58:13 +0000

I didn’t read the full article, but I wonder whether the authors considered a connection with the antidepressant/hypomania-inducing effect of one night’s total sleep deprivation. Increased reward response would seem to be in line with this. On the other hand, most chronically sleep-deprived people would tell you that chronic sleep deprivation doesn’t have such an antidepressant-like effect, but rather, makes you want to eat (especially carbs) because you feel like you need the energy. How this ties in with appetite hormones, I couldn’t say offhand. So it’s interesting, and it’s possible that this study is relevant to weight gain with chronic sleep deprivation, but I would suspect that there might be different mechanisms at work.

Comment on Less sleep makes food more rewarding by Todd Hargrove

Todd Hargrove — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:24:45 +0000

I wonder if this relates in any way to the theory of “ego depletion.” Is increased reward the same as decreased willpower?

I think Stephan Guyenet has mentioned that other forms of stress increase reward seeking behavior. One obvious example – the desire for comfort food and alcohol after a stressful day.

Comment on The “myth” of massage by Muscle biopsies show massage fights inflammation | Get Lifted

Muscle biopsies show massage fights inflammation | Get Lifted — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:04:43 +0000

[...] How and why does this happen? The researchers suggest that “mechanical stretch or strain during massage treatment” activates the relevant signalling pathways. In fact, they suggest, the mechanism may be essentially the same as conventional anti-inflammatory drugs. Which is very cool. They also checked the rate of glycogen restoring and lactate clearance in the muscles; neither were improved by massage (which, in the case of lactate, we already knew). [...]

Comment on Less sleep makes food more rewarding by Anthony

Anthony — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:16:31 +0000

I suppose this makes some sort of evolutionary sense, in that periods of sleep deprivation might be associated with environmental pressures on early humans and therefore pressure to eat to useful?

Not so useful if you are sleep deprived because of LCD screens though…

Comment on Muscle biopsies show massage fights inflammation by Sean

Sean — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 15:57:39 +0000

As Wouter suggested, do you believe that this reduction in inflammation would stifle the adaptation process? Inflammation does some key to signaling process for adaptation, but there are (possibly?) many kinds of inflammation, so maybe different inflammatory mechanisms are being mediated. In school, they tell us that the body over-inflames in response to injury and training; but that makes absolutely no sense to me.

I feel the science behind that question might be lacking, but if you have any suggested resources, that would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks,
.sean