Why do we assume bad health comes from lifestyle, but exceptional health comes from genes?

Maybe you think that, but anyone that actually knows what they are talking about does not think that.

Go ahead and "lifestyle change" yourself to a BMI of 18-19 and tell me genes don't have anything to do with performance.

I'm talking about perceptions and attitudes more than science. Low body fat does not equal good health or even fitness, but doctors advise us to eat fish oil and avoid eggs, to get our BMI to a certain number. On the other side, popular science tends to portay genetics as a linear, "this gene does exactly that" affair, when the reality is that humans are Complex, non-linear systems. Scientists know this, but that disclaimer never appears in the "human genome project discovers gene for running fast" type articles.

I think we in the USA are hyper paranoid about anything that sniffs of "genetic advantage". It's seen as anti-American to assume everyone isn't 100% completely equal. We'll spend millions of dollars to attempt to disprove it, if need be we'll just collectively put our fingers in our ears and say "na na na na na na na I-can't-hear-you" when faced with over whelming data that supports it (genetic advantage.)

I don't have these assumptions at all. I DO say that the major factor in anyone's running ability is their genes, but I don't say it's the only factor, AND I never rule out non-East Africans from excelling.

Flagpole wrote:

I don't have these assumptions at all. I DO say that the major factor in anyone's running ability is their genes, but I don't say it's the only factor, AND I never rule out non-East Africans from excelling.

It's amazing, since genes are so important to running ability, that I can run reasonably well since I come from a family of 3 generations of obese people, with "bad knees", none of whom care about diet/exercise or have run a step since high school.

Also amazing how the five years after college, when I was very sedentary, I gained 30 pounds and was starting to look much less "naturally slim" and bigger boned.

I think lifestyle is much more important than you give it credit for.

This has the potential to be an extraordinary thread combining psychology, anthropology, biochemistry, and a few other disciplines as it does.

Hopefully, the crazies won't be too quick to hijack the thread.

With respect to heart attacks, cancer, and such there almost certainly is a genetic element (and the family health history questionnaires we fill out when going in for a physical exam seem to suggest the same), but our genetic profiles are out of our control. So, physicians and others are quick to emphasize those elements we can control--our lifestyle choices, which would include our diets. And they are right to do that.

When it comes to keeping up with the East Africans, it's much more a matter of pride than survival. And, where pride is at stake, psychology becomes the dominant player among the sciences. We readily make excuses for why we can't keep up when the lifestyle cost of keeping up seems excessive. We manufacture pseudo-scientific reasons to cover for our unwillingness to make the commitments necessary to effectively compete. And, to some extent, by the age we have the desire to compete with the East Africans, many, if not most, of the lifestyle choices that impact our ability to compete have already taken their toll. That produces a veneer that perhaps makes the differences look more genetic than, in fact, they are.

That's not to say East Africans have no genetic advantages, but there are probably genetic disadvantages in their makeup as well. But, it makes no sense to ascribe all the performance differences to the genetic code when there are so many confounding variables in place that we haven't even come close to controlling for by way of a sound experimental design.

In short, the non-negotiables of the Western lifestyle are, for the moment at least, precluding a thorough scientific investigation of the matter.

People love to discredit others' successes and focus on their faults. Its a common way of coping with ones own insecurities and shortcomings.

Lifestyle will allow you to reach your potential, and there are indeed some sub 14 minute 5,000 runners out there somewhere who just like cheeseburgers more than they should, but for those who try, genes are still the number one limiting factor.There was a time in my life when I had the cleanest diet, was obsessed with running and ran up to 140 miles a week. I topped out at 14:58 for 5,000 as my best time at any distance. I could not have worked any harder (though perhaps a tad better). Even with the possibilities of being able to be a little more efficient and everything going right, there's no way I could have run the 5,000 even a minute faster, let alone 2+ minutes faster so as to be world class. I just wasn't THAT gifted as a runner.There's a reason why there are scores of runners out there who LOVE running and ran in college and so on and never run a world class time...and it ain't for lack of trying or for some horrible lifestyle choice...it's because they don't have the genes that would allow them to attain those world class times.

noname wrote:

Flagpole wrote:

I don't have these assumptions at all. I DO say that the major factor in anyone's running ability is their genes, but I don't say it's the only factor, AND I never rule out non-East Africans from excelling.

It's amazing, since genes are so important to running ability, that I can run reasonably well since I come from a family of 3 generations of obese people, with "bad knees", none of whom care about diet/exercise or have run a step since high school.

Also amazing how the five years after college, when I was very sedentary, I gained 30 pounds and was starting to look much less "naturally slim" and bigger boned.

I think lifestyle is much more important than you give it credit for.

The problem with genetics in a nutshell: take a snowflake, I can generate images that look like snowflakes using an interative algorithm. I can make very slight changes to certain parameters in that algorithm and generate an incredibly diverse assortment of uniquely shaped snowflakes. Now suppose that I deem a particulary shaped snowflake as a " perfect fit". I know what values of those parameters created that particular shape, but slight changes generate completely different shapes. In fact I have no way of going backward (because of the non-linearity) and saying that a particular shape is generated from a particular value of a parameter, (unless I actually calculated the shape first.) I may even come across a different algorithm or different set of parameters that get close to that " perfect fit". Saying something is genes just brushes the issue under the rug. It's how those genes interact with eachother and with the environment and even then the results are unpredictable.

Flagpole,

How long did you maintain 140 mpw?

The reality:

A world record is one thing.

But the person who "should" have the world record completely different.

We all know the people who hardly do anything, but perform better than people who work. That's true, across the spectrum. Odds are that the person who is actually working the hardest, the most intelligently, just does not have the right puzzle pieces to have the fastest time or furthest throw.

Genes define our best possible health and performance.

Our lifestyle determines our actual health and performance, which by definition is less than or equal to the "best possible."

As an aside, I don't see being unable to run (say) a sub-2:10 marathon as a "setback." Personally, I'm more interested in long term good health than in youthful peak performances followed by premature death or years of living with sickness or pain, as seems to be disturbingly common among top athletes.

The OP seems to confuse "exceptional health" with "exceptional athletic ability". Nobody looks at skinny muscular people with great cholesterol and low body fat etc, and thinks "god thats just genetics"...UNLESS that person looks like that and doesnt work out at all eats junk food all the time (which is about as rare as a sub 13 5K runner) It is the incredible athletic ability ontop of the exceptional health that is put down to genetics. And some people with exceptional athletic ability are NOT exceptionally healthy. Distance runners tend to actually have worse cholesterol, for example.

Geno Type wrote:

It seems to be a common assumption that heart attacks, high cholesterol, cancer, etc are all because of what we eat (or don't) or that we don't exercise. We look at at cultures like the Japanese and Mediterraneans and try to emulate their diet in hopes that we will improve our health.

But when we look at East Africans producing so many star distance runners, we assume it's all genetics and that no matter what we do as far as lifestyle changes ("we" meaning non-East Africans) we will never match their fitness levels.

So why the double standard?

Easy answer to your question:

You are comparing being generally healthy with being the absolute best on the planet in running, two different levels in two different areas of "achievement." For most people, being "generally healthy" is easy: don't be overweight, exercise, eat lots of fruits, vegetables, etc, limit stress. Of course, even with this there is no guarantee of great health, many will get cancer even following these guidelines, or drop dead like Ryan Shay from a heart problem. And even with a healthy lifestyle, there is very little chance you will live to be 110 while rarely getting sick, and with all of your mental faculties, and feeling physically good. I guess that would be the health equivalent of an east african at distance running, the best of the best. Few people achieve that quality/quantity of life, and for those that do, scientists DO BELIEVE that genetics play as big a role or bigger role than lifestyle. Just like many scientists believe that genetics play a big (or biggest) role in achieving the ultimate in distance running.

Most of can be generally "decent runners" or "generally healthy" with some work at it. But how many can be as good as the east africans at running, or live perfectly healthy to 110 ?? Very few. And genetics play a huge role in each.

I don't see the contradiction.

In Flagpole's case he assumes that it's genes that kept him from advancing, but there is no scientific basis for his belief. Maybe his parents smoked, maybe he has excessive radon in his home maybe he ate too many cheeseburgers when he was young, trained too much, too little, not long enough, who knows? In the case of Ryan Shay, some were quick to ask for toxicology results, etc looking to blame his death on something he did to himself. These assumptions seem deep rooted to me as the you folks are confirming with your comments. I'm not saying anyone can be a world class athlete, but it is not necessarily genes that are preventing you, just as it's not necessarily eating too many eggs that give you high cholesterol.

You are conflating health and distance running abiltiy, which are not the same thing. Health is simply the absence of disease. One can be in excellent health without having any athletic ability to speak of, or be a world-class endurance athlete and still have serious health problems, and even drop dead from a heart atack in the middle of a marathon, like Ryan Shay did. Distance running ability is not the standard of human health, and one's level of health is not measured in terms of his 5K time. The evidence for African genetic superiority in running is that thousands of men of other races have pissed their lives away training, going so far as to emulate every aspect of the African training and lifestyle, and still failed to come anywhere close, as a group, to the success of the Afrians. Trends like that can only be explained by genetics.

Geno Type wrote:

In Flagpole's case he assumes that it's genes that kept him from advancing, but there is no scientific basis for his belief. Maybe his parents smoked, maybe he has excessive radon in his home maybe he ate too many cheeseburgers when he was young, trained too much, too little, not long enough, who knows? In the case of Ryan Shay, some were quick to ask for toxicology results, etc looking to blame his death on something he did to himself. These assumptions seem deep rooted to me as the you folks are confirming with your comments. I'm not saying anyone can be a world class athlete, but it is not necessarily genes that are preventing you, just as it's not necessarily eating too many eggs that give you high cholesterol.

It is self-evidently true that genetics are the primary determinant of running ability. Running is the result of specific physiological processes, and all physiological processes, including adaptations to training, are fundamentally directed by genetics.

Why is it self evident? Even something as simple as height only correlates .5 to parent's height. The true story for both running ability and certain health issues is that genes and environment interact. If you said heart attacks only have a .2 genetic correlation and running ability has a .8, therefore the assumptions are somewhat valid, then you would have a point, but I don't think those numbers are well defined.

However, my observation has little to do with science, it's how these assumptions pervade our society regardless of the facts.