Episódios
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Hippocrates was soaking in the Grecian hot baths and advocating their health benefits about 2,500 years before scientists began studying heat therapy in the lab. In the last few decades, the body of evidence has grown exponentially, with dozens of reviews and meta-analyses agreeing that saunas, in particular, confer cardiovascular and molecular benefits. In this month’s column, I won’t dispute the abundance of studies on the health benefits of saunas, nor will I debunk the commercial claims; there are too many of both. Instead, I’ll draw attention to a problematic subset of the literature that may be biasing the conclusions and undermining the belief that saunas are good for one’s health. I’ll also provide some much-needed context on the benefits of sauna, context that’s conspicuously absent from the mainstream coverage.
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Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/are-saunas-good-for-you-yes-but/
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I dislocated my shoulder during wrestling practice in 2015. The nature of this type of injury leaves an indelible mark, and I can still recall it vividly nearly a decade later. I’d toppled backward, arm outstretched and externally rotated to break my fall—an amateur mistake. The pain was instant and searing. I felt a “fizzing” sensation up and down my arm from the nerve damage, and my ligaments screamed at being forced beyond their natural range of motion. My shoulder felt “out of place.” Because it was. Despite it being my first dislocation, I knew immediately what I’d done.
“Can someone find me a doctor,” I said calmly, as though asking to borrow a pen, “and tell them I’ve dislocated my shoulder.” I lay motionless until the paramedics arrived, fearing that any movement would distend my shoulder from its socket like a life-size Stretch Armstrong.
Most traumatic musculoskeletal injuries can be described with similar precision. But if you ask someone with a concussion to recall their experiences, you get something less exact. Some American football players describe how the world was spinning, like being drunk but without the fun part. Others report seeing stars, feeling like their legs were “independent of their bodies,” or feeling “distant” and watching the remainder of the game through a dense, unrelenting fog.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/woodpeckers-dont-play-football-the-concussion-repercussion/
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“It hurt like hell,” said Italy’s Angela Carini to her cornermen. Her welterweight contest against Algeria’s Imane Khelif lasted just forty-six seconds. The pugilists were squaring off in the preliminary rounds of the Olympic boxing competition in Paris. After absorbing a few solid right hands and fearing her nose was broken, the Italian retreated to her corner, and the referee waved off the contest. “I am heartbroken,” said Carini after the fight. “I went to the ring to honor my father. I was told I was a warrior, but I preferred to stop for my health. I have never felt a punch like this.” The official ruling of abandonment (ABD) progressed Khelif to the next round, and she went on to win the gold medal. Carini later apologized for her comments.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-boxer-who-sparked-a-transgender-debate-without-being-transgender/
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The United States has twice as many supplement brands as it does McDonald’s restaurants. That’s a lot of supplements. Of those 30,000 or so, only a handful have robust evidence for efficacy. Prominent among them are carbohydrate supplements—the drinks and gels of concentrated sugar that cyclists, triathletes, and marathon runners chug throughout their races (over 1,500 carb gels were consumed during each stage of the recent Tour de France). Carb gels are ubiquitous in sports because carbohydrates are the body’s primary fuel for intense exercise. Although our bodies retain a stockpile of carbohydrates as glycogen in the muscles, we burn through it during exercise like a steam engine burns through coal. We must refuel on the go to prevent early fatigue. The supplement manufacturers have one task: to deliver the calories and nutrients they promise on the product labels. In this month’s column, I’ll tell the story of one supplement company that failed in this basic duty and the group of athletes who exposed the fact by exercising their critical faculties.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/spring-energy-the-supplement-exposed-by-skeptical-athletes/
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The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is to professional mixed martial arts what the NFL is to American football, the NBA is to basketball, and the MLE is to hot-dog eating: the world’s premier organization for hosting and promoting the sport. In fact, in the past three decades, the UFC has had more influence on the evolution of mixed martial arts than any other organization. In an article I wrote for Skeptical Inquirer last year (an article that got me Twitter-blocked by UFC President Dana White), I explored the organization’s penchant for alternative therapies— specifically how cupping, cryotherapy, and acupuncture found their way into the UFC’s Las Vegas performance institute. Like a father dealing with his kid’s night terrors, I thought I’d put it to bed. I was wrong. Alternative therapies are just the tip of the UFC’s pseudoscience iceberg.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/back-inside-the-ufcs-pseudoscience-crisis/
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Bryan Johnson has spent tens of millions of dollars on a highly publicized quest to reverse the aging process. The tech millionaire follows a strict diet and fitness regimen, stacks multiple dietary supplements, obsesses over sleep hygiene, and subjects himself to a litany of medical tests to track his biological data. Harnessing his newfound celebrity, Johnson has become a false authority in the wellness space, touting supplements and alternative therapies and selling his own brand of olive oil.
This article isn’t about Bryan Johnson. Rather, it’s about how Johnson could easily have been the muse for a new longevity initiative recently launched by luxury fitness chain Equinox. Their Optimize program, a lite version of Johnson’s vision, harvests biological data from its clients (via blood tests, fitness and strength assessments, and wearable sensors) and uses it to create personalized fitness and nutrition programs. The program has been described by Equinox as “the definitive approach to health optimization” that’ll “unlock the peaks of human potential.” But priced at $42,000 a year, the program is making headlines for the wrong reasons. Is Equinox’s ultra-premium service worth the membership fee, or is it another cash grab in a wellness industry that’s made longevity its latest plaything?
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/health-club-equinox-puts-a-price-on-longevity-just-42000-a-year/
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I was contacted in 2023 by a journalist writing for a major news outlet. In her email—which was written with the terseness that only journalists and famous people seem to get away with—she asked me to comment on a new study that had made a “major breakthrough” in the best time of day to exercise to elicit optimal health. It’s a subject that resurfaces periodically whenever the well of fashionable supplements or celebrity fitness trends runs dry, which it rarely does. I obliged and offered the kind of dispassionate and understated interpretation that scientists love and journalists hate. She didn’t print my response; she didn’t even reply to say thanks. I’ll tell you what I told her.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-best-time-of-day-to-exercise-another-media-fail/
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“If you don’t tell your own story, someone else will tell it for you, and you probably won’t like how they do it.” —Shirley Malcolm, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
We know that complex life likely evolved from single-celled organisms. As soon as microbes emerged from the primordial soup, they were shaped by natural selection, ensuring survival of the fittest. Eventually, though not inevitably, evolution would lead to great complexity. After microbes came the Cambrian explosion—a rapid diversification of complex life. The seas became populated with soft-bodied fish, and after a few billion years, the vertebrates emerged. Bony fish eventually found the sand from the sea. Through intermediate forms, fins produced limbs. Hominids eventually came to rule the Earth with color vision, grasping hands, and brains able to fashion tools such as typewriters and laptops we could use to oversimplify complex scientific phenomena.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/from-the-lab-to-the-layperson-a-pioneering-initiative-to-improve-the-translation-of-science/
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David had always found ice bathing after exercise to be intuitive. After all, people had been putting ice on their injuries for decades, and the RICE principle—rest, ice, compression, and elevation—had been a mainstay in the management of injuries since he’d learned it at school (despite questionable supporting evidence for efficacy). He’d also seen athletes on social media lowering their lean, muscular bodies into tubs of cold water and claiming miraculous benefits. If it was good enough for them, it was good enough for him. Soon he’d be sharing his own #icebath stories on social media.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/why-are-we-still-ice-bathing/
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Most readers won’t be familiar with Clark Stanley. And yet, to those who lived in the Old West, he was a household name. In the aging half of the nineteenth century, Stanley’s theater company was one of several that toured rural towns selling magical health elixirs. For the townsfolk, seeing a Clark Stanley convoy kicking up dust on the horizon would have been an exhilarating sight. After unloading their carts and setting up their makeshift stage, Stanley and his crew treated the crowd to a thrilling show. Acrobats flipped, magicians tricked, and mustachioed musclemen bent bars and rods. Their only job was to whip the audience into a frenzy for the main event: the medicine man. And Clark Stanley was the most famous and revered of them all.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/telling-true-stories-what-can-the-anti-science-community-teach-us-about-sci-comm/
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Christmas is a time for giving. For the snake oil salesmen of the world, however, it’s a time for taking. The holiday sees capitalism, the pressures of gift-giving, and dietary excesses coalesce, creating the perfect storm for consumer exploitation. The commercial world swells with baseless claims and pseudoscience. After a year covering political ideologies in professional sports, the health consequences of smartphone addiction, and my skepticism of anti-obesity drugs, I opted for a lighthearted transition into 2024. In this month’s column, your resident pseudoscience Grinch brings you some festive fitness fads to look out for this holiday. And wouldn’t you know it, there are five of them.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/festive-fitness-fads-to-know-about-this-holiday/
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I wasn’t expecting the New York Jets vs. the New York Giants game last month to trigger a traumatic flashback. A commercial for Nugenix’s “total testosterone-boosting formula” appeared during half-time, sending me spiraling through space-time to April 2022. It was the day Tucker Carlson’s documentary The End of Men received its inaugural trailer. The Fox Nation special, written and starring the network’s former news host, is a homoerotic jaunt through an alternative reality where low testosterone is the cause of America’s imminent decline and testicle tanning with infrared light is the solution.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/testosterone-supplements-summoning-the-specter-of-tucker-carlson/
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The world watched in awe as Michael Phelps—the most decorated Olympian in history—added another five gold medals to his record-breaking tally at the Rio Games in 2016. This he did with conspicuous purple bruises across his back and shoulders, caused by cupping therapy. Today, it’s so common for an elite athlete to fraternize with pseudoscience, it gets lost in the small print of the back page news. But Phelps is no ordinary athlete. He’s won more gold medals than anyone in history. He has over five million followers on social media. His views on training and recovery hold tremendous sway, and his unwitting endorsement of cupping thrust the ancient Chinese therapy into the modern spotlight.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/phelps-dives-deeper-into-the-pseudoscience-of-cupping/
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The Gila Monster is North America’s only venomous Lizard. The reptile can grow to twenty-two inches and has a vicious bite that’s as toxic as that of the western diamondback rattlesnake. While studying the lizard’s venom in the 1990s, Dr. John Eng—an endocrinologist at the Veterans Administration Center in New York—discovered a compound with a similar molecular structure to a protein called GLP-1, which regulates blood glucose in humans. But while GLP-1 had a half-life of just a few minutes, the lizard protein, which Eng called Exendin-4, had a half-life of several hours. Seeing its potential to treat metabolic disease, Eng began experimenting with Exendin-4 and later licensed his discovery to Amylin Pharmaceuticals of San Diego. After a decade of research, Exenatide was approved by the FDA as the world’s first “GLP-1 receptor agonist.” It forever changed the management of Type 2 diabetes and may prove to be our most powerful weapon in the ongoing war on obesity.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.com
Skeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.org
Original article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/my-healthy-but-waning-skepticism-of-weight-loss-drugs/
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When it comes to Grand Slam titles, Novak Djokovic has eclipsed every other male tennis player in history. He’s the only man to be the reigning champion of all four majors simultaneously across three surfaces, and by securing his 23rd trophy at the French Open 2023, the Serbian national perhaps cemented his place as the greatest player of all time. Such prominence invites scrutiny, and in several competitions this past year, it was difficult to overlook a conspicuous device taped to Djokovic’s chest. The Italian manufacturer of TaoPatch claims their device uses nanotechnology to “convert natural body heat into microscopic beams of light to stimulate the nervous system.” They maintain that the device is supported by thousands of physicians and over 50 clinical studies, but of the eight studies cited on their website, only four were related to the device and only one was placebo-controlled. Djokovic has called TaoPatch the biggest secret of his career. Scientists have called it nonsense. For Djokovic, it’s just the tip of a pseudoscience iceberg which, due to his notoriety, is creating a ripple effect throughout the sporting world.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.comSkeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.orgOriginal article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/novak-djokovic-and-the-pseudoscience-grand-slam/Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The plot for the epic fantasy series Lord of The Rings centered on, well, a ring. Not just any ring, but a magic ring. The “one ring to rule them all” bestowed immense power on its owner: the power of invisibility, the power to dominate the wills of others, and power over the bearers of subservient rings. But in this month’s column, I discuss jewelry with such extraordinary properties, it’d make even Bilbo Baggins envious. These charms and trinkets can harness quantum energy fields, resonate with the body’s intrinsic frequencies, emit magnetic pulses, and surround the owner with protective and healing energies. From sports performance to health and healing, there are earrings, necklaces, bracelets, and rings for every desire. And, unlike “The One Ring” that was forged in the fires of Mount Doom, these knickknacks can be found at your local pharmacy.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.comSkeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.orgOriginal article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/magic-jewelry-and-the-irony-of-ignorance/Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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How desperate to lose weight would you have to be before you’d let a surgeon slice a hole in your abdomen and remove three-quarters of your stomach? This is “sleeve gastrectomy,” a common bariatric surgery that reduces stomach size and decreases appetite by blunting the release of ghrelin—a hormone that stimulates hunger. More than 1.5 million Americans have elected for bariatric surgery in the last 10 years, having repeatedly tried and failed to lose weight via conventional means. All bariatric surgeries carry significant risk, including bleeding, infection, gastrointestinal leaks, and even death. They’re also expensive and met with varying degrees of success. Even so, the benefits are often deemed to outweigh the risks, and for years surgery has been the last bastion of hope for sections of an obese population that are otherwise hopeless. What’s more, the number of bariatric surgeries performed is rising year on year. Now, promising new drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, therapies for type II diabetes and obesity, respectively, are showing documented success in clinical trials. Lauded by some as “breakthrough weight loss treatments” that will reduce dependence on surgery, yet vilified by others for promoting drug dependency, Ozempic and Wegovy are now making the predictable transition from clinical therapy to commercial shortcut. The implications could be disastrous for population health.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.comSkeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.orgOriginal article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/ozempic-and-wegovy-for-obesity-landmark-therapies-with-forgotten-flaws/Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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It’s hard work beating people up for a living. A professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter typically trains year-round, fusing fighting disciplines such as boxing, kickboxing, wrestling, and Brazilian Ju Jitsu with concurrent resistance and endurance training. They must carefully balance stress and recovery to bring improvements rather than injuries and infections, and then, during fight camp, they complete an intensive eight- to twelve-week training program that culminates in a grueling weight cut to shed 10 percent of their body weight (approximately fifteen pounds for a lightweight fighter). And that’s just to get ready for the contest. They must then enter the cage to trade punches, kicks, elbows, knees, throws, holds, and submissions with another professional fighter while an adoring crowd bays for blood. The two continue until someone gives up, loses on points, or loses their consciousness. Given the clear imperative to perform and recover, why is it that so many fighters use products and services that, by modern scientific standards, are so patently useless?
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science BOOK: https://www.nbtiller.comSkeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.orgOriginal article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/inside-the-ufcs-pseudoscience-crisis/Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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I used to be obsessed with martial arts superstar Bruce Lee. I watched all his movies, read his books, and studied his moves (quite ineffectually). Aside from his martial arts skills and philosophies, it was Lee’s physique that distinguished him from other action heroes of the time. Standing five feet seven inches (172 cm) tall, his compact, muscular frame was perfectly suited to his explosive style of combat. And when Lee punched and kicked through his enemies with unmatched speed and dexterity, his every muscle and sinew leapt off the screen. It was quite a statement, therefore, when Lee was pictured in Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (played by Jason Scott Lee, no relation) using an electric stimulator to train his muscles.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.comSkeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.orgOriginal article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/electric-muscle-stimulation-the-devil-is-in-the-detailHosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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The least-used app on my phone is “phone.” The diverse functionality of the smartphone—texting, talking, video streaming, gaming, social networking—has changed the way we work, play, and communicate. I still wonder if Steve Jobs, when he introduced the iPhone at the Macworld San Francisco Keynote Address in 2007, anticipated the influence Apple’s revolutionary creation would have on human behavior. He probably did. Just fifteen years after its release, numerous copycat devices have made the smartphone nearly ubiquitous.
The Skeptic's Guide to Sports Science book: https://www.nbtiller.comSkeptical Inquirer magazine: https://www.skepticalinquirer.orgOriginal article & references: https://skepticalinquirer.org/exclusive/the-physical-toll-of-your-smartphone-addiction/Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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