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Posted by rzk 11/9/2025

Metabolic and cellular differences between sedentary and active individuals(howardluksmd.substack.com)
Study: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2024.08.19.608601v1....
155 points | 153 commentspage 2
storus 11/10/2025|
How about boosting mitochondria via supplements? Would that be something to look at? I climbed out of ME/CFS-like neurocovid mainly thanks to boosting mitochondria as much as I could and am wondering if the same lesson could be applied here?
justinator 11/10/2025|
How about just moving around for 30 minutes most days?

Supplements aren't going to help you mentally as a nice walk in the park.

storus 11/10/2025||
The point was that in ME/CFS you are essentially a conscious vegetable where drinking a glass of water or crawling to the toilet feels like a massive achievement. That mitochondrial supplements allowed pushing the limit every day a bit further in that state could have implications for regular folks as well who for whatever reasons can't move (imagine injury, lack of energy after a stressful day etc.).
justinator 11/10/2025||
I'm going to set aside the "you're a vegetable" use case, because that's wholly beyond of the pale of this discussion.

The "lack of energy after a stressful day" is a lifestyle issue, and not something that I would suggest taking a drug to overcome. I would suggest taking a walk. You need to take responsibility for your well being, no one else should care about it more than you.

frmersdog 11/10/2025||
Sumo wrestlers generally don't develop metabolic disease until after they retire, which comes with the cessation of their grueling, multi-hour daily training regimens. I wish I could find the NHK report on a group of scientists that were researching how metabolically-undesirable substances build up in muscles after as little as 20 minutes of inactivity.

This is the one thing that makes me so angry about the state of AR/VR/XR. Human bodies are made to move when we work - not strenuously, not non-stop, but consistently and with some amount of vigor. Spatial software design represents an AMAZING opportunity to re-tune digital work processes to be movement-oriented, while still productive and efficient. Compare digital sculpting in ZBrush and Media Molecule's Dreams.

It's maybe harder to envision a similar transformation for people dealing with data or communication for a living, but is it out of the realm of possibility? It shouldn't be, for anyone who who might compare common GUIs to interfaces like VIM and Emacs. The former are the unhappy compromise between the latter and the as-yet-to-be-created spatial interfaces that would be coming if the Bigs would stop trying to outmaneuver each other, and just create them.

I am tired of trying to manage my photo library on a small laptop screen or monitor, with a single pointer. Let me summon them to my physical space and manipulate, stack, sort them, and more, with split controllers or my actual hands. I promise that my brain and body and your wallet will be much, much happier.

skeledrew 11/10/2025|
I like the reenvisioning thoughts here. We're well overdue a Minority Report style upgrade to our I/O peripherals, with keyboard and mouse being relegated to backup use.

We have/had a few things which could help (Leap Motion controller, Kinect, etc), but it's really hard to imagine how to generalize interfaces for these new device forms so they're at least on par with the old from a productivity perspective. Otherwise, people outside of research and maybe gaming won't really be sold on it.

storus 11/10/2025||
Would 8 minute HIIT a few times a week do the job?
YZF 11/10/2025||
It's better than nothing. It's better than likely some multiple of that in lower effort activities. But you probably want to round it out a little bit.

It almost certainly will improve your VO2MAX.

ifwinterco 11/10/2025|||
Maybe but if that's literally all you do then your joints are going to be wallpaper paste by the time you're middle aged
solraph 11/10/2025||
tl;dr; Nope.

Assuming that HIIT workouts are 100% vigorous activity (unlikely), then a "few" instances would only add up to around 24 minutes of vigorous activity, which is far short of the minimum recommended 75 minutes of vigorous activity.

If you are short on time then performing HIIT for 15 minutes five days a week will get you much closer to the minimum requirements.

storus 11/10/2025|||
4-minute HIIT run (30s full/5s walk, repeat) makes you vomit and not feel your legs. 15 minutes of HIIT 5-times a week is a wishful thinking. It's not your typical "vigorous" activity. At my athletic very best I could at most chain 3 HIITs in a row and be destroyed for a few days.
solraph 11/10/2025||
Fair enough, I don't think it changes my the conclusion though.

On that basis, I would say that someone whose entire exercise regime is doing HIIT a few times a week for 8 minutes (24 minutes in total) is not going to be hitting the 6x multipler required for an equivalent of regular 150 minutes of exercise.

storus 11/10/2025||
Look up Tabata intervals, used to train speed-skating Olympians.
solraph 11/10/2025||
If that is the entirety of their training regime, I will simultaneously be amazed and change my opinion.

However, I still maintain that if someone is _only_ doing 8 minutes of HIIT 3x times a week, it is not equivalent of a getting 150 minutes of regular exercise per week.

Without further context, it's impossible to comment further.

generalenvelope 11/10/2025|||
Vigorous activity is defined as something like > 75-80% max heart rate, or > 6.0 METS, not as an absolute, all out sprint. It's actually quite far from what you expect