19 August 2008

Summarizing the Research on Diet, Exercise and Nutrition

Granted, a rather pedantic blog title, Summarizing the Research on Diet, Exercise and Nutrition. But, this morning, the Diet Blog posted a bit on some summaries of a large number of studies that have been conducted on diet, exercise and nutrition. The summaries are based on the work of The Cochrane Collaboration which...
...is an international, non-profit, independent organisation, established to ensure that up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of healthcare interventions is readily available worldwide. It produces and disseminates systematic reviews of healthcare interventions, and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of the effects of interventions....Cochrane Reviews are systematic assessments of evidence of the effects of healthcare interventions, intended to help people to make informed decisions about health care, their own or someone else's. Cochrane Reviews are needed to help ensure that healthcare decisions throughout the world can be informed by high quality, timely research evidence.

I found Diet Blog's summaries interesting on a couple of levels. First, some of the summaries -- notably Exercise for overweight or obesity and Low glycemic index/Load diets for overweight and obesity -- supported theories with which I already agreed and for which I already had personal anecdotal evidence (a high-falutin' way of saying, They worked for me). Others show evidence that something I'm doing may be a waste of effort and money -- for instance, Omega 3 fatty acids for prevention and treatment of cardiovascular disease (maybe I'm wasting my money on the fish oil capsule I take each day??).

One of these days, maybe I'll get around to actually reading the Cochrane Collaboration's documents for myself. In the meantime, I'm going to think about the advisability of not spending money on fish oil capsules.

What do you think?

Half Marathon weekend coming up. I'm tapering this week -- 4 moderate miles yesterday, 4.4 moderate miles today, 5 easy miles tomorrow, and a 5-mile tempo run on Thursday. I may do a very easy 2 miles on Friday just to keep loose -- but I may not.

Run well, y'all,
Bob