Study says that vigorous exercise burns fat....

Today's Post: Friday, 5-28-2010

The study found that when fit people exercise they burn fat well and even found the blood biomarkers that are part of the process. And, the most fit burned the most fat.

But, what are fit and very fit people? They are those who began with short and doable spurts of extra effort in some kind of exercise followed by rest or a lower effort and then gradually did more of these each time and gradually increased the extra effort and exercise done each time. The most fit often do such exercise five, six, or seven days a week. They also tend to have done it the longest in the number of years they’ve been doing it.

Recent research has found that even 60 second sessions or even a bit less at first begin to do the job.

We did a blog post on this not long ago. And, well before that research came out, Dr Al Sears, who had seen some of the earlier and similar research, came out with his PACE program that uses this principle. Many people do his PACE program in 10 or 12 minutes a session.

Also research was done showing that as little as two 60 sessions of vigorous exercise improved insulin function enough to lower the very accurate HBA1C measure of blood sugar.

Similarly, the people who have used Dr Sears PACE program or other similar strength training or interval cardio program have reported fat loss and often FAR MORE fat loss than from longer and less vigorous exercise sessions.

This literally means that 10 minute sessions of such vigorous and fitness creating exercise will burn and remove more fat than half an hour sessions of less vigorous or varied exercise!

In addition to that, people who become fit using these methods increase their protective HDL cholesterol and lower their LDL cholesterol and triglycerides. Even better, we recently posted that they have found the longer you do such exercises regularly each week, the more of this effect you get!

These effects prevent or often turn off type 2 diabetes; they prevent heart attacks and strokes & other kinds of cardiovascular disease.

Last, and far from least their resting heartbeat rate goes down. Because we know that people with a low resting heart beat live far longer than those with a high one, that’s also a great benefit.

Now, here’s the recent research that came out this week.:

Yesterday, Thursday, 5-27-2010, HealthDay News online published a story they titled:

“Fit People Release More Fat-Burning Molecules During Exercise.” It was written by Jenifer Goodwin, their “HealthDay Reporter.”

This new study found that: “Fit people have more fat-burning molecules in their blood than less fit people after exercise.

And the very fittest are even more efficient, on a biochemical level, at generating fat-burning molecules that break down and burn up fats and sugars….”

This study went far beyond previous ones due to a much more comprehensive way of measuring these blood biomarkers.

“Previous studies had investigated changes in metabolites generated by exercise, but researchers were limited to viewing a few molecules at a time in hospital laboratories.

But in the new study, a technique developed by the MGH Heart Center in collaboration with MIT and Harvard allowed researchers to see the full spectrum of the fat-burning molecules in action. They used mass spectrometry -- which can analyze blood samples in minute detail -- to develop a "chemical snapshot" of the metabolic effects of exercise.

To trace the fat-burning molecules, the researchers took blood samples from healthy participants before, just following, and after an exercise stress test that was about 10 minutes long. Then they measured the blood levels of 200 different metabolites, which are released into the blood in tiny quantities.

Exercise resulted in changes to levels of more than 20 metabolites that were involved with the metabolism of sugar, fats, amino acids, along with the use of ATP, the primary source of cellular energy, according to the study.

After running on a treadmill for 10 minutes, people who were relatively more fit had a 98 percent increase in the breakdown of stored fat, sugar, and amino acids, while less-fit people had only a 48 percent increase.”

The people they used as their most fit were measured just after a very challenging exercise and had an even larger increase –MUCH larger for some of the biomarkers.

“The researchers also found that exercise boosted levels of niacinamide, a vitamin derivative that enhances insulin release.” (That last part also may mean that taking some extra niacinamide, which is very common in B-complex vitamin supplements, may help turn insulin resistance down or off in addition to the effects of doing the exercises.)

“The study was published in the May 26 issue of Science Translational Medicine.”

Clearly the evidence is in and from many, many sources. Even short sessions of vigorous exercise in which you gradually build up from not being very fit to being quite fit indeed have truly massive health benefits.

Doing such exercises regularly every week makes it MUCH easier to lose excess fat and even removes it directly. They do this in part by overcoming insulin resistance which lowers high blood sugar AND average insulin levels.

And, they protect your heart and cardiovascular system. All this results in both longer life and far more years of healthy life.