Drink Soda?

Take 12,000 Steps

People who consume the sweetener fructose which is most people nowadays risk
developing a variety of health problems. But the risk drops substantially if those people get up
and move around, even if they dont formally exercise, two new studies found.
Most of us have heard that ingesting fructose, usually in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, is
unhealthy, which few experts would dispute. High-fructose corn syrup is used to sweeten many
processed foods and nearly all soft drinks.
The problem with the sweetener is that, unlike sucrose, the formal name for common table sugar,
fructose is metabolized primarily in the liver. There, much of the fructose is transformed into
fatty acids, some of which remain in the liver, marbling that organ and contributing to
nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.
The rest of the fatty acids migrate into the bloodstream, causing metabolic havoc. Past animal
and human studies have linked the intake of even moderate amounts of fructose with dangerous
gyrations in blood sugar levels, escalating insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes, added fat around
the middle, obesity, poor cholesterol profiles and other metabolic disruptions.
But Amy Bidwell, then a researcher at Syracuse University, noticed that few of these studies had
examined interactions between physical activity and fructose. That was a critical omission, she
thought, because movement and exercise change how the body utilizes fuels, including fructose.
Dr. Bidwell sought out healthy, college-aged men and women who would agree to drink soda in
the pursuit of science. They were easy to find. She gathered 22.
The volunteers showed up at the universitys physiology lab for a series of baseline tests. The
researchers assessed how their bodies responded to a fructose-rich meal, recording their blood
sugar and insulin levels, and other measures of general and metabolic health, including
cholesterol profiles and blood markers of bodily inflammation. The students also completed
questionnaires about their normal diets and activity levels and subsequently wore an activity
monitor for a week to gauge how much they generally moved.
Then half of the volunteers spent two weeks moving about half as much as they had before. The
other 11 volunteers began moving around about twice as much as before, for a daily total of at
least 12,000 steps a day, or about six miles.
After a rest period of a week, the groups switched, so that every volunteer had moved a lot and a
little.
Throughout, they also consumed two fructose-rich servings of a lemon-lime soda, designed to
provide 75 grams of fructose a day, which is about what an average American typically
consumes. The sodas contained about 250 calories each, and the volunteers were asked to reduce
their nonfructose calories by the same amount, to avoid weight gain.
After each two-week session, the volunteers returned to the lab for a repeat of the metabolic and
health tests.
Their results diverged widely, depending on how much theyd moved. As one of two new studies
based on the research, published in May in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, reports,
after two weeks of fructose loading and relative inactivity, these young, healthy volunteers
displayed a notable shift in their cholesterol and health profiles. There was a significant increase
in their blood concentrations of dangerous very-low-density lipoproteins, and a soaring 116-
percent increase in markers of bodily inflammation.
The second study, published this month in The European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, focused
on blood-sugar responses to fructose and activity, and found equally striking changes among the
young people when they didnt move much. Two weeks of extra fructose left them with clear
signs of incipient insulin resistance, which is typically the first step toward Type 2 diabetes.
But in both studies, walking at least 12,000 steps a day effectively wiped out all of the
disagreeable changes wrought by the extra fructose. When the young people moved more, their
cholesterol and blood sugar levels remained normal, even though they were consuming plenty of
fructose every day.
The lesson from these studies is not that we should blithely down huge amounts of fructose and
assume that a long walk will undo all harmful effects, said Dr. Bidwell, who is now an assistant
professor of exercise science at the State University of New York in Oswego. I dont want
people to consider these results as a license to eat badly, she added.
But the data suggests that if you are going to regularly consume fructose, she said, be sure to
get up and move around.
The study did not examine how activity ameliorates some of the worst impacts of fructose, but
its likely, Dr. Bidwell said, that the additional muscular contractions involved in standing and
taking 12,000 steps a day produce a cascade of physiological effects that alter how the body uses
fructose.
Interestingly, the young people in the study did not increase the lengths of their normal workouts
to achieve the requisite step totals, and most did not formally exercise at all, Dr. Bidwell said.
They parked their cars further away from stores; took stairs instead of elevators; strolled the
campus; and generally sat less, moved more, she said. Thats a formula for good health, in
any case, she added, but it appears to be key, if youre determined to have that soda.



Keep our data yours while travelling
Josh Shields, a corporate pilot, spends 180 days a year flying around the world, often to Asia and
Europe. He carries two laptops, an iPad and two iPhones all of which, he realizes, are
vulnerable to data breaches.
For protection, he installs a virtual private network and disk encryption software, avoids doing
any banking while on the road and limits himself to one email account.
Call him paranoid, but he sees it as being realistic.
If youre traveling, be smart about what you are doing, said Mr. Shields, a 36-year-old Illinois
resident, who flies executives throughout the United States, Asia and Europe. Public Wi-Fi
accounts that do not require a password whether they are in a hotel room or lobby, coffee
shop or an airport are particularly vulnerable.
If youre looking at something, theoretically, everyone else can be, too, he said.
Security experts agree that you cannot be too careful. If you are reading your next presentation in
an airplane seat, someone sitting behind you may be, too.
If you are carrying confidential files on your hard drive, they are vulnerable. And if you type a
password into your mobile phone, someone may be capturing those keystrokes.
Security and privacy issues fall into two main categories: those concerning data stored on a
computer, and those related to information emails, attachments that are sent from and
received at a computer. In either form, the data can be vulnerable. But travelers can take some
simple steps to reduce the risks.
TAKE ONLY WHAT YOU NEED The safest way to protect confidential information is to
leave it at home. But if you must take it, carry the data on a memory stick. The more separation
from a computers hard drive, the better, experts say.
As for the computer itself, do not use your regular one. Instead, take a loaner laptop, a
temporary laptop, said Joseph Lorenzo Hall, chief technologist at the Center for Democracy and
Technology, an advocacy group for global online civil liberties. And when you return, especially
from places like China or Russia, which have higher rates of hacking, wipe it before you
connect it to your network or home or anything you care about, Mr. Hall said.
USE ENCRYPTION If you carry your laptop, rely on disk encryption to protect electronic files.
Before you travel, you or your companys information technology expert can install disk
encryption software on your devices. If the entire hard drive is encrypted, a thief would get total
gibberish, Mr. Hall said.
On websites, https:// at the beginning of the address indicates a site is encrypted, but it must be
on each page to prevent vulnerability, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
INSTALL A VIRTUAL PRIVATE NETWORK To protect the data that flows into and out of
a laptop, iPad or iPhone, international travelers like Mr. Shields install a virtual private network.
Internationally it allows me to connect to websites that some countries block, he said. China
is a big one. A lot of U.S. websites are blocked when you are traveling in China Facebook,
Yahoo, Google.
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Recently he has used WiTopia, a V.P.N. that protects data in transit from one computer, mobile
phone or tablet to another by encrypting it. Bill Bullock, chief executive of WiTopia, a personal
privacy and data security services company based in Reston, Va., said, Your data is not secure
in the lobby of a hotel, in an airport, in a hotel room.
GO FOR LAYERS When it comes to security, Gary A. Oster, an executive with the United
States Travel Association, relies on layers to protect himself from digital thieves. These include a
black jacket, with zip-off sleeves and a hood, that has pockets that block RFID radio-
frequency identification he said. He also uses Dropbox to send files, and an iPhone 5S with a
fingerprint sensor to confirm identity and the ability to create a personal hot spot.
Mr. Oster, who travels five to 10 days a month on business within the United States, wants to
protect his credit cards as well as data on his devices. I travel as light as possible light,
connected and fully rechargeable, he said. I am a paperless guy.
PREPARE FOR THE WORST In certain places like China, expect that your data may be
observed by potential adversaries, said Jules Polonetsky, executive director and co-chairman of
the Future of Privacy Forum, a think tank that promotes responsible data practices.
THINK LOW-TECH To prevent a thief from turning on a camera or microphone, place a
sticker over it. Its the low-tech solution for a high-tech problem, said Michelle Dennedy, vice
president and chief privacy officer at McAfee, a security technology company. To prevent over-
the-shoulder snooping, use a privacy screen.
These guidelines are not foolproof, but security experts say every measure can help reduce the
chances of cybertheft.
There are no absolute remedies, said William Evanina, national counterintelligence executive
at the Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive, a government agency.
Know what your competitors would want from you. he said, and aim to safeguard it by leaving
that information at home.