The Exercise Paradox [pdf]

exss.unc.edu

4 points·paulpauper··4 comments

"Our data indicate that, contrary to received wisdom, humans tend to burn the same number of calories regardless of how physically active they are."

How is this even remotely compatible with physics. If you're more physically active, it requires expending more energy. You can't perform more work for the same calories.

The article also references papers to back up their claims, but of course there's no citations or links to said papers.

The claim seems to be that exercise adaptation includes shutting down other metabolic activity to keep energy use stable. And that this could explain some of the beneficial effects of exercises because some of those activities that could be down regulated are things like inflammatory processes that are harmful if left over active.

I think the article is poorly written. What it says can't be true for very high activity levels (eg, marathon training or something), but does seem possible for moderate activity increases like the extra steps people get out of casual fit bit use.

It makes it really unclear what level of activity the Hazda it talks about are at, but sort of implies that it is in this moderate range. At one point it describes "moderately active" people as "the kind of folks who get some exercise during the week and make a point to take the stairs" so it seems like the activity level they are describing is not especially high.

If the main point the article brings were true, we would know it for decades. The statement is not hard to prove or disprove with widely available data.

I don't know about decades, but I can do 7 years:

> there are ecological studies in humans and animals showing that more active populations (for example hunter-gatherers in Africa) do not have higher total energy expenditure.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jan/28/study-reveal...

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