Fructose in endurance athletes
Peter, You've had a lot of content related to the ills of fructose and how the body deals with it differently, and detrimentally, esp. in pure liquid form. My question relates to its impact for endurance athletes. As you may be aware, there's been a radical change in how endurance athletes (I'm most familiar with competitive cyclists) fuel during races. Bike racers can be consuming up to 100-120g of Carbs per hour in events. In order to facilitate this, most of the modern crop of gels and sports drinks today include a mix of maltodextrin and fructose in a ratio of something like 1: .8. What I'm curious about is, for athletes that aren't racing the Tour de France for 3 weeks, is approximating this newer fueling strategy as an amateur athlete doing events of 3-5 hours long detrimental due to this much consumption of pure fructose? What is the downside of taking fructose this way during intense aerobic activity, if any, for us mortals that don't make a living in sport? I'm especially interested in the answer for those of us that are older athletes. Thanks!
Centenarian Decathlon list
In your book you talk about presenting your patients with a long list of physical activities (I believe more than 50 items) to read and then have them select which of these tasks they want to be able to perform in their eighth, ninth or tenth decade of life. Although I have looked I haven't been able to locate this list. Would it be possible to get a copy of the list or a link to the location? Many thanks!
Challenging the assertion that there isnt a J shaped curve wrt the volume of training and health / longevity benefits
Firstly, Peter is my hero. I pretty much now listen exclusively to Peter as i appreciate his rigour and evidence based approach to health and longevity. No one else comes close. I have a lot in common. Similar age, just turned 50, have done a life time of endurance sports, have a family and demand job. Peter has mentioned that there is no "J" shaped curse when it comes to exercise volume and essentially debunked articles suggesting there is. Although i dont have RCTs or data to challenge this my observations of 100s of elite amateurs and professional athletes suggest there could be a J shaped curve due to not only the likelihood of heart issues, especially arythmias, but also orthopedic / repretitive strain injuries from too much load. However, i want to focus on the heart issues here; if you have read the book Haywire or the numerous articles written about endurance related heart issues including in Velo news it is no longer a coincidence and their is highly likely a causal relationship between long term arduous exercise and heart issues. My best friend Julian Jenkinson who held the UK Ironman record for many years died whilst on a training ride with my group of friends in his 40s due to heart issues. Dave Scott, 7 x Ironman Kona winner who used to coach me as been very vocal of his exercise induced health issues. He is about to have major open heart surgery. He has also made is clear that he believes that tempo type training is more problematic than V02 intervals and Z1 training for the heart. The recent wave of Zone 2 verus Zone 1 could perhaps cause those athletes who are already prone to heart issues to incur further heart related stress? I have personally adopted for 3 decades the Seiler polarised model as i believe it is best for enjoyment, performance and health. I have won 9 World duathlon championships, have an FTP of approx 380w (currently), won numerous time trials, ran a 2:32 marathon at 47 and competed both at elite and amateur level for 30 years. I would love you to scour the literature on this topic and hear your thoughts. I recently had an arythmia and an SVT ablation (wich unfortunately failed), like many of my friends who are long term athletes, and i know its due to the exercise i have done over my lifetime. I wonder if the message should be revised or atleast cautioned wrt to the "more is better" assertion with exercise. I think we all have a sweetspot and it will be differ depending on whether your goal is performance related or health/ longevity related and your history of exercise and health etc. I think its not just a case of diminishing returns with doing more exercise when you get to the 1st quadrant of fitness for your age i think that at some point you starting seeing the J shape to your curve. Love to know your thoughts. You are the best