Pedaling or Not, Never Dismiss Cause and Effect

By Kevin Kolodziejski 

Ask AI if your immune system will weaken with age and its answer is “yes.”

Scroll a bit after that, and you’ll learn that the weakening begins after adolescence and gradually continues until you reach the age of 50 or so. At which time Slow flies out the window and Faster walks through the door. This faster weakening is called immunosenescence, and as a result, you’re more likely to get infections, cancers, autoimmune diseases, and less protection from vaccines.

Unless, that is, you’re a cyclist.

But since you didn’t tell AI this, it didn’t include in its response a 2018 study Dr. Gabe Mirkin mentions in an article published here two weeks ago. In “Cyclists Age Better,” Mirkin explains the study found older amateur cyclists showed none of the immunity deterioration expected with aging. He calls that incredible as I presume you do too, and I thought so as well.

Until I recalled the key line in something I just wrote for another publication. At which time Incredible flew out the window and Cause and Effect walked through the door.  Before I share that sentence with you, let me warn you. I bet you say, “Duh,” afterwards. Because it’s far from incredible, certainly not original, and missing two expected modifiers.  It’s just true.

For Every Action There Is a Reaction

Despite their inclusion in the common saying that doubles as Sir Issac Newton’s third law of motion, “equal” and “opposite” have been omitted because this is not in reference to the conservation of momentum but the pursuit of better health and fitness, something that is, since you’re a cyclist, probably a pursuit of yours. And the point to what I penned in my other column is that this pursuit sometimes defies not only physics but also basic math. If you’ve ever attempted to lose a specific amount of weight by reducing the number of calories you consume and/or increasing the number you burn, you know that. Even the simplest number crunching during a diet can’t be trusted.

A Time When Math Goes Awry

One reason for that is your basal metabolic rate — how much energy you burn at rest — is determined by more than how much muscle and fat you possess and how much energy is required to digest your foods’ macronutrients. Dieting itself lowers your BMR, even if you’re eating mostly the macros that require the most energy to burn, protein and complex carbs. Moreover, the more weight you lose, the lower your BMR goes. In addition, weight loss also affects the secretion of certain hormones that determine whether fat gets stored or burned.

So what seems to be a matter of simple subtraction simply doesn’t work. You take away two from six, so to speak, only to find the answer is five. But only if you’re lucky. If not, the answer’s six. And if you’re unlucky as well as genetically cursed, you do the same subtraction problem later and find it’s somehow become an addition problem — and a real problem at that — for the new answer’s seven.

All this exemplifies why I wrote what I wrote in my health and fitness column. For it may not be equal or opposite, and it may be very subtle or even minuscule, but every health and fitness action creates some sort of a bodily reaction that adds or subtracts from your health and fitness.

Getting Back to Dieting

For instance, a recent study found a potential link between colorectal cancer and the diet many people find allows them to lose weight quickly: the low-carb diet.

The science world has long maintained the dietary choices you make either increase or decrease your risk of colorectal cancer, a cancer that’s been making news for another reason. Once seen as a cancer afflicting people aged 50 and over, its incidence has increased in children, teens, young adults — and markedly so in those in their early 30s. In a 21-year span starting in 1999, for instance, the incidence of colorectal cancer increased 71 percent in those between the ages of 30 and 34.

So researchers at the University of Toronto decided to feed mice one of three diets along with three specific types of bacterial strains linked to the sort of DNA damage and inflammation that can lead to colorectal cancer. They did so for 16 weeks and presumably because of something else making news as of late: the connection between a healthy gut and overall good health. One of the bacterium used in the study published in the March 3 issue of Nature Microbiology you know, but not by its full name. Escherichia coli is almost always referred to as E. coli and is notorious because some strains cause severe food poisoning.

When that occurs on a widespread basis because hundreds of people have consumed mass-produced processed food gone bad, it becomes big news. And in this study, E. coli created big news, too.

Another Way E. Coli Makes News

Out of all the combinations of diets and bacteria fed to the mice, the only one that lead to a higher number of polyps and tumors in the colon and the rectum was the low-carb and E. coli combo. Big news because about 60 percent of the time colorectal cancer occurs in humans, high amounts of E. coli are found as well. What’s nearly as noteworthy is that this study serves as a fine example of how every action creates a reaction, albeit in this case an unexpected one.

Another unexpected reaction occurred when E. coli was added to the diet generally regarded as unhealthy due to the prevalence of ultraprocessed foods in it, the Western diet. No significant increase in polyps and tumors was detected.

Yet the most significant takeaway from this study may be the confirmation of the good ingesting dietary fiber does. For whether the diet was low carb or Western, adding fiber to each reduced tumor formation and the inflammation associated with adding harmful strains of bacteria to the gut.

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Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.