American Morning
TIME: 'Why exercise won't make you thin'
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/07/art.treadmill.gi.jpg caption="Whether because exercise makes us hungry or because we want to reward ourselves, many people eat more — and eat more junk food, like doughnuts — after going to the gym."]
TIME
As I write this, tomorrow is Tuesday, which is a cardio day. I'll spend five minutes warming up on the VersaClimber, a towering machine that requires you to move your arms and legs simultaneously. Then I'll do 30 minutes on a stair mill. On Wednesday a personal trainer will work me like a farm animal for an hour, sometimes to the point that I am dizzy — an abuse for which I pay as much as I spend on groceries in a week. Thursday is "body wedge" class, which involves another exercise contraption, this one a large foam wedge from which I will push myself up in various hateful ways for an hour. Friday will bring a 5.5-mile run, the extra half-mile my grueling expiation of any gastronomical indulgences during the week.
I have exercised like this — obsessively, a bit grimly — for years, but recently I began to wonder: Why am I doing this? Except for a two-year period at the end of an unhappy relationship — a period when I self-medicated with lots of Italian desserts — I have never been overweight. One of the most widely accepted, commonly repeated assumptions in our culture is that if you exercise, you will lose weight. But I exercise all the time, and since I ended that relationship and cut most of those desserts, my weight has returned to the same 163 lb. it has been most of my adult life. I still have gut fat that hangs over my belt when I sit. Why isn't all the exercise wiping it out?
It's a question many of us could ask. More than 45 million Americans now belong to a health club, up from 23 million in 1993. We spend some $19 billion a year on gym memberships. Of course, some people join and never go. Still, as one major study — the Minnesota Heart Survey — found, more of us at least say we exercise regularly. The survey ran from 1980, when only 47% of respondents said they engaged in regular exercise, to 2000, when the figure had grown to 57%.
And yet obesity figures have risen dramatically in the same period: a third of Americans are obese, and another third count as overweight by the Federal Government's definition. Yes, it's entirely possible that those of us who regularly go to the gym would weigh even more if we exercised less. But like many other people, I get hungry after I exercise, so I often eat more on the days I work out than on the days I don't. Could exercise actually be keeping me from losing weight?
Cooling catches on for cardiac arrest patients
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/06/art.cooling.blanket.cnn.jpg caption="Therapeutic hypothermia patients receive a chilled saline solution and are put under a cooling pad or blanket."]
CNN Senior Medical Producer
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (CNN) - Seated on a jetliner, Dr. Mary Gallagher and her husband, Don Dietrich, were about to take off for an anniversary vacation in Puerto Rico. But a glance at her husband of five years set off an alarm - he was gasping for breath. Gallagher, an anesthesiologist, knew the signs: Dietrich was in cardiac arrest.
Gallagher ran to tell the pilot; someone called 911 from a cell phone; another passenger started CPR. Paramedics appeared and then Gallagher made a crucial decision: Even though protocol called for Dietrich to be taken to the nearest hospital, three miles away, she insisted he go twice as far, to the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and its Center for Resuscitation Science.
By the time Dietrich hit the emergency room, he had a weak pulse. At most hospitals, standard treatment is to sit tight and hope for the best. But at UPenn, doctors hooked Dietrich to an intravenous line of chilled saline solution, dropping his body temperature to a cool 91 degrees.
More than 90 percent of people who suffer cardiac arrest, as Dietrich did, end up dying. For more than a decade, there has been evidence that cooling a patient's body - or therapeutic hypothermia - improves those odds. No one quite knows why, but it's thought that the cold reduces the body's need for oxygen and slows the deadly chemical cascade that sets in when oxygen isn't circulating because the heart stopped beating.
Yet, as one 2007 paper put it, "implementation of hypothermia is lousy." In 2006, researchers at the University of Chicago found that just 34 percent of critical care physicians, and just 16 percent of emergency physicians, had ever attempted to use hypothermia to treat cardiac arrest. Makers of cooling equipment say fewer than 300 hospitals, out of more than 6,000 nationwide, have the necessary equipment.
The real cost of obesity?
With all the talk these days about health care reform – a trillion dollars to insure every American – we wondered, could the total cost be lowered if we as a nation spent a little time and energy on prevention?
Take obesity: medical spending on obesity-related conditions has skyrocketed to 147 billion dollars a year. That's nearly 10 percent of all medical spending in the United States. And that's just the beginning.
Health care hecklers: Can we talk – civilly?
[cnn-photo-caption image= http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/08/05/dogget.art.jpg caption="Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett says he was a victim of a health care heckler."]
This August, lawmakers on summer break are holding town hall meetings so voters can ask questions and get answers about health care reform. Except, as some describe it, in some districts those town hall meeting have turned into a kind of town-hell – with lawmakers being met by groups of angry hecklers.
In Texas over the weekend, Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett tried to talk to a constituent about health care reform. He says it was nearly impossible.
"The crowd certainly was angry, I suppose some might have been concerned to see a beautiful full color photo of a marble tombstone with my name on it, or might have had a negative reaction to the poster that said 'Lloyd Doggett, traitor to Texas, devil to all people,'" he says.
"But I found it more amusing than I did something to be fearful of." Doggett adds: "This is not a grass roots, pitchfork operation. If anything, it’s pure Astro turf." He claims local Republicans organized the protests; a Texas GOP spokesman denies that. Max Pappas, of the conservative group Freedomworks, says they encourage members to attend the town halls, "to sit down and talk with the congressmen."
But, some Democrats say Freedomworks doesn't want that at all. Some claim it urges its thousands of members to participate, not in a discussion about health care reform, but a shout down. "You get some instances where people get so passionate," Pappas says. "When they get into discussion they start yelling or chanting. But it's not fake outrage."
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, was shouted down himself in a town hall meeting Sunday. But he appeared to take it in stride. "My preference would be to have it more sedate, but listen, a democracy is robust, it can be rough and tumble. Nothing really surprises me anymore."
What do you think? Is it possible to talk about health care reform and come to some sort of compromise? Or are passions too inflamed for a reasoned debate? Can we talk – civilly?
Dr. Gupta: Send in your health care reform questions
Do the health care reform headlines leave you with more questions than answers? Dr. Gupta is your AM insider – and he wants to hear from you!
Post your questions for Dr. Gupta in the comments below or tweet him @SanjayGuptaCNN.
Programming note: Tune in this week to hear Dr. Gupta answer your health care reform questions LIVE on American Morning – weekdays 6-9 a.m. ET on CNN.
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