OVERTRAINING AND DIETING

When people use the term “metabolic damage”, they are usually referring to one of two things. The first, and the one currently creating a big stir in the fitness world, relates to problems supposedly caused by training and dieting for fitness and bodybuilding contests. Some of the most popular contest coaches in the world are now claiming that contest dieting slows down your metabolism and creates all sorts of post-contest problems. Such claims are causing numerous arguments on social media, not to mention threats of violence. Some coaches are adamant that overly harsh dieting and exercise is damaging competitors’ metabolic rates. This, in turn, is leading to the idea of post-contest metabolic repair diets, which is rapidly becoming a new  marketing opportunity. The second meaning of metabolic damage is the potential damage being caused by years of poor food choices. In this instance the “victims” say that years of ingesting the wrong chemicals and products have had a negative impact on their fundamental metabolic pathways. They claim their hormones  and hormonal control have been damaged and this leaves them susceptible to conditions ranging from obesity to hormone-related diseases. This, I believe, is a more responsible use of the term but it PHOTODISC remains fundamentally flawed because the metabolism is  far too vast for these kinds of generalisations. In fact, what people call metabolic damage is an indefinable concept. It’s like saying “age-related damage”. Ageing is a normal process so how can we say age leads to damage? It leads to change, not damage. Yes, it can be argued that environmental factors lead to change. We know, for example, smoking has the potential to result in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and lung cancer. It can lead to definable respiratory disease but do dieting and exercise lead to definable diseases, including metabolic disease? METABOLIC DISEASE A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism.  It is often construed as a medical condition with specific symptoms and signs. There are many definable metabolic diseases that disrupt normal metabolism, i.e. the actual conversion of food to energy. These include: ▪ Acid lipase disease ▪ Barth syndrome ▪ Central pontine myelinolysis ▪  Disorders of amino acid metabolism ▪  Disorders of carbohydrate metabolism ▪ Disorders of lipid metabolism ▪ Farber’s disease ▪ G6PD deficiency ▪ Gangliosidoses ▪ Hunter syndrome ▪ Trimethylaminuria ▪ Lesch-Nyhan syndrome ▪  Metabolic diseases of muscle/ myopathies ▪ Mitochondrial myopathies ▪ Mucolipidoses ▪ Mucopolysaccharidoses ▪ Pompe disease ▪ Type I glycogen storage disease ▪ Urea cycle disorder ▪ Hyperoxaluria/Bird’s disease ▪ Oxalosis.