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In 2007, Coca-Cola and its partner, the American College of Sports Medicine, launched Exercise is Medicine (EIM), a referral scheme that encourages physicians to prescribe physical activity to patients, connecting patients with trainers who are willing to work within the bounds of EIM’s physical activity recommendations and limitations on nutrition advice. The companies launched EIM to influence the medical establishment and downplay the importance of proper nutrition in chronic disease prevention. Beyond the tainted history of its founding and ongoing attempts to conceal its true purposes, the Exercise is Medicine scheme is ineffective at best and serves to suppress actually effective fitness training at worst.

The 2020 Open represents a turning point in the CrossFit Games season, for the first time taking place in October instead of February. Also, with 53% of Open participants living outside the U.S., the 2020 Open marks the first time international participants outnumber their U.S.-based counterparts. In this article, the analysts at CrossFit Beyond the Whiteboard highlight interesting statistics from 20.1. Which countries had the most participants? How competitive were participants around the world? What pace did an athlete need to maintain to finish the workout? How far along were most athletes when the 15-minute time cap hit? Here’s a look at 20.1 by the numbers.

Eleven women following a ketogenic diet showed dramatic improvements in diabetes and heart disease markers, experiencing substantial weight loss and dramatically decreased HbA1c, over a period of 90 days. When compared to existing therapies such as insulin secretagogues, this study suggests the ketogenic diet is both more efficacious and has fewer negative side effects than pharmacological alternatives for diabetes treatment.

“Eggs are bad; eggs are good. Fat is bad; fat is good. Meat is bad; meat is … OK? That last food flip-flop made big headlines last week. … How, it was asked, could seemingly bedrock nutrition advice turn on a dime? The answer is that many of the nation’s official nutrition recommendations — including the idea that red meat is a killer — have been based on a type of weak science that experts have unfortunately become accustomed to relying upon. Now that iffy science is being questioned. At stake are deeply entrenched ideas about healthy eating and trustworthy nutrition guidelines.”

Previously in this series, Prof. Tim Noakes argued Dr. Gerald Reaven was on the brink of discovering the optimum treatment for insulin resistance syndrome, a condition he called “Syndrome X.” In this post, Noakes delves further into the scientific literature available to Reaven as he formulated dietary recommendations for patients with the condition. The prevailing theory at the time suggested carbs were an essential part of a healthy diet and cautioned that the consumption of saturated fats would promote heart disease. Tragically, despite the contrary indications of his own research and a growing body of evidence revealing the detrimental effects of carbohydrate ingestion in persons with insulin resistance or Type 2 diabetes, Reaven ultimately bowed to the influence of Keys and other diet-heart hypothesizers and promoted a diet closer to that recommended by the American Heart Association — a diet Noakes argues has caused the rates of obesity and Type 2 diabetes to soar around the world.

The fitness that CrossFitters demonstrate cannot be found without ring training. Gymnastics rings occupy a place in our training that only the barbell can match. Kettlebells and dumbbells, medicine balls and stretch bands, while essential to our practice, are second-tier tools to the rings.

Maryanne Demasi, an investigative journalist with a Ph.D. in rheumatology, shares highlights from her interview with Danish physician Uffe Ravnskov. Ravnskov, a famed cholesterol skeptic, has gained worldwide significance for his persistent fight against the demonization of cholesterol. Though he once believed additional research would “out the absurdity of a narrative that cast saturated fats and cholesterol as dietary villains,” he has since become an active crusader against misinformation and the corruption of science, publishing more than a hundred articles in well-known scientific journals in an effort to set the record straight on cholesterol.

“There seems to be a prevalent idea that cholesterol is a wholly undesirable substance. It should be pointed out that it is an essential constituent of all animal tissues and undoubtedly plays an important role in the normal function of all cells. To eliminate cholesterol from the diet means the elimination of animal foods from the diet — meats, milk, eggs, etc. These are the protective foods which nutritionists have clearly shown are essential for an adequate diet. … The proposition that low cholesterol diets be used as a preventive for the development of atherosclerosis would mean that animal foods be omitted from our diets. This is equivalent to the negation of practically all that nutrition science has taught us in the past. Such a course may well be disastrous.”

The reported links between red and/or processed meat consumption and negative health outcomes (e.g., increased cancer risk, increased mortality, etc.) are largely based on observational evidence. This 2015 review addresses a few of the consistent issues with this evidence.

“A group of 14 researchers just set off a firestorm with a new series of studies that upends years of nutrition advice about meat. Their five systematic reviews, published Monday in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, suggest there’s no health reason to eat less red meat — not even the bacon and salami we’ve been told for years to cut back on. … But what’s really interesting about this new series is the argument that previously published guidelines have been, well, bad science.”

Coca-Cola and its proxies persistently attempt to influence science to shift the blame for obesity away from bad diets. One such proxy — founded by Coke and its loyal partner the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) — is Exercise is Medicine, an initiative designed to influence the medical establishment, cast doubt on the relationship between nutrition and obesity, and muzzle fitness trainers. To conceal this dubious history, ACSM claims it founded Exercise is Medicine with the American Medical Association, ignoring Coke's founding role. ACSM-affiliated scientists continue to repeat this false claim, despite CrossFit's repeated correction.