Comments on: Rush Limbaugh, Exercise and Health Care

By: numbersguy

numbersguy — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:48:05 +0000

Excellent info Brian. Spot on target. It reminds me of an episode of Penn and Teller’s “Bull Shit” where they basically compared “fat and unfit”, “fat and fit”, “thin and fit” and “thin and unfit”. As I recall the unfit’s were the worse in their adhoc comparison, the big surprise was how unfit the “thin and unfit” person was. BS is not really scientific by any means, but it does underscore your observations about how unhealthy even “thin and unfit” can be, and of course, how wrong Rush was.

By: Brian

Brian — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:48:42 +0000

Mr. Limbaugh’s exercise freaks have been proven to learn and work better than their sedentary counterparts. Univ. of Ill. Researchers Dr. C. Hillman, Dr. D. Castelli, & Dr. Buck analyzed hundreds of elementary school age children. They initially performed a regression analysis to look for correlations between academic performance and a host of other attributes. They found aerobic fitness the clearest indicator of academic performance. Surprised by the result, they wanted to determine whether this was a cause, effect, or simultaneous unrelated phenomena. They broke a group of kids into two groups, fat and fit. Using EEG brain mapping they found that exercise not only ties directly to higher cognitive functioning, but also enabled better learning. (See e.g. Effects of Aerobic Exercise on Overweight Children’s Cognitive Functioning: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Dec. 1, 2007. Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport).
As far as Robert’s analysis regarding fully considering the net present value of future consequent health care costs stemming from a current sports injury, that is only, and I would posit, looking at far less than half of the equation. Harvard’s long running (began in 1976) study on the long term health habits of nurses found that those who were or became overweight were the least likely to survive breast cancer; those over 70 who merely walked 90 minutes a week had cognitive functioning of someone 1.5 years younger. In short, the health care costs of not being an exercise freak and staggering and pervasive.

By: numbersguy

numbersguy — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 15:40:14 +0000

Hi Robert:

You raise a fair point. Unfortunately there’s no easy way to get at the statistics you suggest. And indeed I’m a little concerned about the smoking statistic coming from the anti-smoking advocacy groups and their being more liberal in attributing health problems to smoking than the mechanism for attributing health costs to sports injuries.

However, the stories I aim for in this blog are those where one aspect of the data stands out like a sore thumb. Such examples ideally are so glaring that even if you find other ways to collect the data the underlying conclusion remains unchanged.

For example, one way to ball-park estimate the effect you suggest is to double or even triple the current sports health care cost. The justification for this might be that people return for similar treatment an average of 2 or 3 times during remainder of their lives for the original injury (and these treatments would not be classified as sports related in the data I used earlier). Such an assumption can be argued to be an over-count for a whole bunch of reasons, but even at that we get a 6% vs 10% split between sports and smoking. And (IMHO) Rush’s conclusion that sports alone is putting stress on the system is still incorrect.

By: Robert

Robert — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 05:02:46 +0000

I see that exercise related injuries were just 2%. What about the long term effects of these injuries. Such as a young guy may tear his ACL in soccer have it fixed but some 4-5 years later it tear again not related to a sport or exercise. It will now not be counted as an exercise related injury. Then later on down the road he has premature arthritis and ends up with a total knee replacement. All of this can be directly related to his injury. Also all athletes where something out very early. Like a baseball players shoulder. He will end up having to have an arthroscopy sooner or later. This is not a direct injury but a indirect occurrence of what is to come. None of these are thought about in these types of studies. Every little hospital visit from a smoker is counted. I have been interested in this because I work at a sports medicine clinic and I see tons of things. I dont smoke and I definitively will not play sports. There are many repeats and chronic patients. This is just food for thought.

Thanks for your time,
Robert

By: numbersguy

numbersguy — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:31:11 +0000

I would too, but new research on various benefits of exercise are still being revealed so unambiguous numbers are hard to come by.

Regardless I still believe part of Rush’s point was to compare “extreme” exercise fitness practices (eg skiing) to “safe” fitness practices (eg walking). He said “sedentary” but on re-examination I’m sure he’d revise to include something like walking.

But yea, I suspect a comparison of the costs between “extreme” and “weight under control but sedentary” would reveal that the costs of these 2 groups may be similar for the adverse effects of a sedentary lifestyle you cite.

By: Rob Mathewson

Rob Mathewson — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 23:40:39 +0000

I’d be curious to see the cost impact of sedentary people who “keep their weight relatively under control”. I would suspect that this population places a substantial burden on the health care system due to a higher incidence of type II diabetes and heart disease. Both of which, require continued long term treatment, as opposed to sports injuries from which most patients fully recover.