Good Cholesterol?

In this week's newsletter, hydration gets personal (again), rethinking "good" cholesterol and your weekly recommendations.

Fit Cult is making some changes! Starting with this edition, you’ll see The Rundown and Extra Point combined, so only one newsletter will hit your inbox per week.

The Rundown

Sweat Science. Nix Biosensor, a personalized hydration monitor, is now available to order. (If it sounds familiar, it was mentioned in the Rundown months ago, during its preorder phase). The biosensor consists of a rechargeable pod that clips into a single-use sweat patch that you stick to your skin. It evaluates electrochemical biomarkers in your sweat and quantifies fluid and electrolyte loss moment-by-moment. Integrating with your phone or watch, it then tells you exactly when, what and how much to drink during your workout.

Good Cholesterol? A new study has cast doubt on the heart benefits of “good cholesterol.” Nathalie Pamir, a senior author of the research, says the goal was to understand if the long-established “good cholesterol” label is true for all ethnicities.

Ever since the decades old Framingham Heart Study found a link between increased HDL levels and decreased risk of heart attack, cholesterol has been divided into “bad” or LDL, which blocks arteries and “good” or HDL, which catches LDL in the bloodstream and takes it back to the liver.

To investigate this link and understand its relationship to racial differences, Pamir and colleagues analyzed data from a long-term stroke study that tracked over 20,000 people for a decade. Their findings confirmed the general understanding that high levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol increase a person’s risk for cardiovascular disease, regardless of ethnicity.

But they also found that low levels of “good” HDL cholesterol only correlated with increased heart disease in White adults. In addition, high HDL levels were not associated with less heart attacks in either White or Black study participants.

While it’s unclear why HDL cholesterol would have a different impact on heart disease risk between ethnicities, Pamir suggests that in the future, we may not “get a pat on the back by our doctors for having higher HDL cholesterol levels.”

Extra Point

Watch

The Last Days of Knight. Indiana University basketball coach, Bob Knight led his team to three national titles and earned a reputation as a brilliant leader. Yet, three high school All-Americans left his program in the late 1990’s. A behind-the-scenes investigation, this film chronicles a series of accusations, denials, death threats, a smoking gun video and ultimatley, the fall of a coaching legend. The Last Days of Knight is streaming on ESPN+.

Listen

Podrunner. This is a free, bi-weekly series of workout music mixes. Most are sixty minute fixed-tempo workouts ranging from 100 to 185 BPM (beats per minute). There are no instructions, ads, or interruptions. It also offers training programs for 5K, 8K and 10K and varied-tempo mixes based on training methods including Tabata, High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT), Fartleks (sprints), Ramp, Staircase, and more.

Read

Ronaldo Leaves Manchester United by ‘Mutual Agreement’—Here’s Why He Wasn’t Sacked. In this article from The Conversation, sports law expert Richard Parrish explains why Cristiano Ronaldo’s controversial Piers Morgan interview didn’t get him fired from Manchester United.