Rhonda Patrick on health: what the evidence says · JRE #1054
“there's been studies showing that people that do strength training like they have a 23 percent% lower all cause mortality and like a 30% lower cancer related mortality independent of any other like, you know, health factors like obesity and all that stuff.”
What the evidence says
Patrick claims strength training lowers all-cause mortality by 23% and cancer mortality by 30%, independent of confounders such as obesity. The largest current synthesis on this topic, a 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis of 16 prospective cohort studies (British Journal of Sports Medicine), found muscle-strengthening activity associated with only a 10-17% lower risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, total cancer, diabetes and lung cancer, independent of aerobic activity, with a J-shaped dose-response curve showing maximum risk reduction (about 10-20%) around 30-60 minutes per week and unclear or attenuated benefit at higher volumes. Because these are observational cohort studies, statistical adjustment for measured confounders (including obesity) reduces but cannot eliminate the possibility of residual confounding or reverse causation (e.g., healthier people being more able to strength train). The general direction of Patrick's claim, that resistance training is associated with lower all-cause and cancer mortality even after adjusting for other health factors, is consistent with the evidence base, but the specific 23%/30% figures she cites are higher than the pooled 10-17% estimates from the largest current meta-analysis and should be treated as approximate rather than precisely established.