SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

It is becoming common knowledge that consuming a diet (relatively) high in proteins conserves muscle mass. Thus, a recent study by Case & Haub ( Case. 2010 ) only confirms what regular visitors of the SuppVersity obviously knew. The scientists investigated the effect of either a high carbohydrate (CHO;  65% carbohydrates, 15% protein and 20% fats), a "high protein" (PRO; 40% carbohydrates, 30% protein and 30%) and a non-restricted (Control) diet on body composition and weight of 30 active, military males (age=25 ± 4 yr, body fat=15 ± 7%): Control and PRO group increased FFM , 1.7±1.2 kg and 0.8±1.5 kg, respectively. CHO group lost -0.2±3.8 kg FFM. PRO and CHO groups lost 1.0±1.0 kg and 1.0±1.8 kg of FM, respectively. Control group lost 0.7±0.7 kg FM. Although, judged by a bodybuilders standard, for example, the "PRO"-Diet was not really "high protein" in the sense that it still had 40% carbs and thus more carbs than protein, it was exceptionall...

While Phosphatidylserine is marketed mainly for its purportedly beneficial effect on exercise recovery and cortisol levels, a recent study by Parker et al. ( Parker .2010 ) showed that supplementation with 400 mg/day Phosphatidylserine (SerinAid, Chemi Nutra) for 14 days before testing, significantly reduced the time needed for a correct calculation by 19.8% (1.27 s per calculation; Placebo: 6.4 s, PS 5.13 s; p = 0.001), and reduced the total amount of errors by 33% (PRE: Placebo: 27, PS: 18, p = 0.18) at PRE compared to placebo. Exercise significantly improved SST time (p = 0.03). PS did not improve SST compared to placebo post exercise. So, wheter you have your math test before or after your workout, do not forget to get your daily dose of phosphatidylserine in ;o)

Regular visitors of the SuppVersity will remember the study on Size On Maximum Performance , which - despite being financed by Gaspari - showed, from an objective perspective, only marginal effects on exercise performance. MRI was not so lucky to sponsor Reid et al. (Reid. 2010) who studied the effect of their pre-workout product, NO2 Platinum exercise induced increases of nitric oxide: From the pre-exercise blood samples at each exercise session, L-argninine decreased 0.89% in the placebo group after supplementation, whereas the NO2 group significantly increased 84.67% (p = 0.001). Brachial artery blood flow was significantly increased in both groups (p = 0.001) immediately post-exercise, but was not different between groups . Nitric oxide was shown to significantly increase in both groups (p = 0.001) immediately post and at 30 min post-exercise, but was not different between groups. eNOS was significantly increased in both groups (p = 0.028) immediately post and at 30 ...

The initial hype around Whey Protein Hydrosolates (WPH) has ended and everybody returned to his favorite whey protein or one of the hundreds of BCAA products on the market. A new study by Kanda et al. ( Kanda. 2010 ) does however suggest that this might be a mistake. In their study (unfortunately done on rats) they compared the immediate effect of supplementation with carbs + either WPH, Whey, BCAA or Casein and found: WPH caused significant increases ( p < 0.05) in skeletal muscle glycogen level (5.01+/-0.24 mg/g), compared with whey protein (4.23+/-0.24 mg/g), BCAA (3.92+/-0.18 mg/g) or casein hydrolysates (2.73+/-0.22 mg/g). Post-exercise ingestion of glucose plus WPH caused significant increases ( p < 0.05) in both phosphorylated Akt/PKB (131%) and phosphorylated PKC ζ (154%) levels compared with glucose only. There was a significant positive correlation between skeletal muscle glycogen content and phosphorylated Akt/PKB ( r = 0.674, p < 0.001) and PKC ζ ( ...

Sometimes, I am not really sure whether I shall thank Rich Gaspari or condemn him for financing studies on the effectiveness of his supplements. Anyways, you better take the results of the most recent study ( Hofheins . 2010 ) on Gaspari 's Size On Maximum Performance with a grain of scepticism. In a  randomized, double-blind design study 20 healthy men (mean ± SD age, height, weight, % body fat: 22.9 ± 2.6 y, 178.4 ± 5.7 cm, 80.5 ± 6.6 kg, 16.6 ± 4.0 %) were matched for age, body weight, resistance training history, bench press strength, bench press endurance, and percent body fat and then randomly assignedto ingest ½ scoop (dissolved in 15 oz water) of Size On Maximum Performance [SOmaxP] or competitive product [CP] prior to, and another ½ scoop (dissolved in 15 oz water) during resistance exercise. The scientists measure body composition (DEXA), muscular performance (1-RM bench press and repetitions to failure [RTF: 3 sets x baseline body weight, 60-sec rest between...

In a study published in the most recent issue of the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition of Morenga et al. ( Morenga. 2010 ) report the beneficial outcome of an ad-libitum (i.e. not energy-restricted) high protein (up to 30 % of energy), high fiber (>35   g per day; HPHF) diet on weight and body composition in overweight women: Participants on the HPHF [high protein, high fiber] diet lost more body weight (1.3   kg; 95 % CI, 0.7, 1.9; P <0.0001), total fat (1.0   kg; 95 % CI, 0.2, 1.8; P <0.0001) and truncal fat (0.7   kg; 95 % CI, 0.1, 1.3; P = 0.034) than participants on the standard diet. Total cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol were also significantly lower after the HPHF diet. What distinguishes these results from previous investigations showing beneficial effects (cf. table 1) of a high protein diet is the lack of an energy restriction. Table 1: Baseline, week 4 and week 10 measures for body composition variables for the standard ...

The latest research on obesity and the metabolic syndrome always focused on the negative effects of visceral fat and almost neglected the subcutaneous fat deposits, most of us find even more bothersome (due to their impact on our physical appeal). A recent study by Liu et al. ( Liu. 2010 ) investigated whether the focus on visceral fat was scientifically verifiable and found that subcutaneous fat is by far not the passive and unattractive ballast some scientists make it appear: Per 1-SD increment in either VAT or SAT , we observed elevated levels of fasting plasma glucose and triglyceride, lower levels of high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, and increased odds ratios for hypertension, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome. Bottom line: You better get rid (or ripped ;-) of both, to get on the safe and sexy side!

Doing your cardio sessions on an empty stomach (mostly first thing in the morning) may be debatable, if you are already lean and eat a clean and healthy calorie-restriced diet. If you gorge yourself of fatty high-energy foods, on the other hand, you may be happy to hear that K. Van Proeyen et al. ( Proeyen. 2010 ) found " fasted training is more potent than fed training to facilitate adaptations in muscle and to improve whole-body glucose tolerance and insulin sensitivity during hyper-caloric fat-rich diet ". The scientists had a group of healthy male volunteers (18-25y) consume a hyper-caloric (~+30% kcal/day) fat-rich (50% of kcal) diet for 6 weeks. Part of the subjects performed endurance exercise training (4d/week) in the fasted state (F; n=10), whilst the others ingested carbohydrates before and during the training sessions (CHO; n=10). With regard to the effects of this interve...

Many of you, as well as many professional bodybuilders, do it: train antagonists (e.g. biceps vs. trips) in a single workout. A group of international scientists ( Robbinson. 2010 ) have now published the result of a study that investigated the effect of an upper-body agonist-antagonist resistance training protocol on volume load and efficiency in the September issue of the J Strength Cond Re. 16 trained men performed 2 testing protocols using 4 repetition maximum loads: TS (3 sets of bench pull followed by 3 sets of bench press performed in approximately 10 minutes) or PS (3 sets of bench pull and 3 sets of bench press performed in an alternating manner in approximately 10 minutes). Bench pull and bench press VL decreased significantly from set 1 to set 2 and from set 2 to set 3 under both the PS and TS conditions (p < 0.05). Bench pull and bench press VL per set were significantly less under TS as compared to PS over all sets , with the exception of the first set (bench...

In a review ( Wallimann. 2010 ) of the effects of creatine on muscle function, Prof. Dr. Theo Wallimann suggests that in view of the results of rat studies, the old hypothesis that creatine has to be cycled to be effective, needs further investigation before it may eventually be discarded: [...] we have found that chronic creatine supplementation of rats, at very high dosage, down-regulates in vivo the expression and/or accumulation of the CreaT in skeletal muscle , but not in brain and heart [58]. Although the amounts of creatine taken by athletes, 20 grams / day during a 10 days loading phase and 5 grams as a maintenance dose during the following three months (amounting to approximately 0.1 gram of Cr /kg body weight/ day), is significantly lower than the amounts given in the above experiments to the rats (approximately 0.5 grams /kg body weight /day), the finding made with laboratory animals nevertheless may have consequences with respect to creatine supplementation sche...

While Creatine is what everyone talks about, sodium bicarbonate, or baking soda, is an ergogenic secret only regular readers of the SuppVersity will know about ;o) All jokes aside, it is of probably of general interest that JJ Barber ( Barber. 2010 ) found in his recently published dissertation that coingestion of creatine and sodium bicarbonate at 5g Creatine + 0.5 g/kg sodium bicarbonate per day may improve peak power and exercise performance in repeated sprinting above that of placebo and creatine supplementation, alone (cf. fig.1). Figure 1: Pilot study data. Relative Peak Power values during the 6 repeated sprints in sample subject #1. The two conditions were Cr+Sb = Creatine combined with sodium bicarbonate and Cr = Creatine alone. Values are in means. W/kg = Watts per kilogram. The main findings of his investigations were, Cr+Sb produced 7% greater relative peak power and 4.6% greater peak power values than placebo, and Cr+Sb demonstrated the greatest attenuation of decl...

Figure 2: Fried wasp larvae and pupae, Ruili, Yunnan (Courtesy Feng Ying) "Eat your insects", what certainly sounds gross, could turn out to be a wise advise. In a recently published eBook Durst et al. ( Durst . 2010) write about the nutritional value of insects from various parts of the world. The practice of eating insects goes back thousands of years and has been documented in nearly every part of the world. In modern times, however, consumption of insects has declined in many societies and is sometimes ridiculed as old-fashioned and unhealthy. Yet, it would be prudent to carefully consider the value of customary knowledge before discarding it too readily. Scientific analysis confirms, for example, the exceptional nutritional benefits of many forest insects , and studies point to the potential to produce insects for food with far fewer negative environmental impacts than for many mainstream foods consumed today. Before you close your web-browser in disgust, have a loo...

On the northern hemisphere, the days get shorter and the temperatures are falling. I hope you have not turned up your heatings, yet. It is not only the environment that may benefit from a more conscious management of the room temperature. As scientists from the Clinical Endocrinology Branch, NIDDK-NIH, Bethesda have found, reducing room temperature by 6°C (from 24°C to 19°C) will increase human energy expenditure (EE) be 6%! Exposure to 19° C resulted in an increase in plasma and urine norepinephrine levels (p<0.0001), and a 5.96 % (p<0.001) increase in energy expenditure without significant changes in spontaneous physical activity . Exposure to the lower temperature resulted in a significant increase in free fatty acid levels (p<0.01), fasting insulin levels (p<0.05), and a marginal decrease in postprandial glucose levels. A small but significant (p<0.002) increase in serum free T4 and urinary free cortisol (p<0.05) were observed at 19° C. This is of part...

The intention of a review by Shikany et al. ( Shikany. 2010 ) was to answer a bunch of questions surrounding the "war" that has been raging between low and high fat dieters in the past months, even years. Let me anticipate the result: there is no conclusive answer to the question, whether fat will make you fat. Not yet...!? A comprehensive review of electronic citation databases was conducted to identify studies related to  the following questions: What are the effects on body weight and body fat if the prescribed proportion of ingested energy from fat under isoenergetic conditions is altered?  What are the effects on body weight and body fat if the prescribed proportion of ingested energy from fat under ad libitum but confined conditions is altered? What are the effects on body weight and body fat if the prescribed proportion of ingested energy from fat under ad libitum, non-confined conditions is altered? What are the effects on body weight and body fat if the p...

It's a long standing urban myth (or should I say "gym myth") that by eating more protein you will burn off more fat. While it has in fact been established that a high protein diet helps to prevent loss of lean mass, the results a group of scientists from the Netherlands published in Physiology & Behavior indicate that a high protein intake per se stimulates exercise induced fat oxidation even if you consume a diet that is overall adequate in calories. Soenen et al. ( Soenen. 2010 ) investigated the effects a 3 month on a protein-rich vs. normal diet had on body composition of weight stable, healthy subjects (BMI 22 ± 2 kg/m2, age 25 ± 8y) : The protein group (n = 12) increased protein intake (11 ± 14 g, P < 0.05) and had significantly higher daily protein intake vs. control (n = 4) (80 ± 21 vs.59 ± 11 g, P < 0.05). Fat max increased significantly in the protein group (0.08 ± 0.08...

The debate about whether or not dairy consumption facilitates weight loss was among the first of several ongoing conflicts about what to eat and what not to eat to lose weight. While many more recent studies did not find statistically significant effects of dairy consumption on body composition and weight loss, a new study by Shahar et al. ( Shahar. 2010 ) reminds us of the dream to just have our daily glass of milk to get slim and healthy. Figure 1: 1. Weight change across 6-mo tertiles. A: Weight change by tertiles of dairy calcium intake during the first 6 mo (n = 322). B: Weight change by tertiles of serum 25(OH)D at 6 mo (n = 126) Other than many previous studies, the scientists did not provide their 332 overweight subjects with a certain amount of dairy in the 2-years intervention period, but monitored calcium and vitamin D levels in 6-months intervals. in repeated-measures models adjusted for age, sex, baseline BMI, total fat intake, and diet group assignment, higher 6-m...

While most green tea products are advertised as "fat-burner" or "weight loss supplements" a recent study by  Stendall-Hollins et al. ( Stendall-Hollins. 2010 ) confirmed, what attentive readers of the SuppVersity will already know: Green Tea certainly is healthy, but consumption of the brew or capped extracts, alone, won't make you lose weight: The effect of daily decaffeinated green tea intake on weight, body composition and changes in resting metabolic rate, energy intake, glucose, insulin, homeostasis model assessment - insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) and lipids was evaluated in overweight breast cancer survivors. Participants had a mean weight of 80.2 kg; body mass index (BMI) 30.1 kg m(-2); and body fat 46.4%. Participants (n = 54) were randomised to 960 mL of decaffeinated green or placebo tea daily for 6 months . Results: Mean (SD) tea intake among study completers (n = 39) was 5952 (1176) mL week(-1) and was associated with a significant reductio...

In the ongoing debate on the optimal training intensity, it seemed that the advocates of shorter high intensity training and/or high intensity interval training were close to gaining the overhand. A new study in the J Endocrinol Invest. ( Lazza. 2010 ), on the other hand, confirmed conventional wisdom that percentual fat-loss is higher with low intensity exercise, i.e. 40% VO2Max (LI), than with training at high intensities, i.e. 70% of the VO2max (HI) threshold. The scientists had a group of twenty obese adolescents, aged 15-17 years (BMI: 37.5 kg/m2 ; 38.2 % fat mass) participate in a custom made exercise regime: Before starting (week 0, W0) and at the end of the weight-management period (week 3, W3), body composition was assessed by a multifrequency tetrapolar impedancemeter (BIA); basal metabolic rate (BMR), energy expenditure and substrate oxidation rate during exercise and post exercise recovery by indirect calorimetry. At W3, body mass and fat mass decreased significan...

We all know that intense exercise is the way to trigger hormonal responses and muscle hypertrophy in the gym. Now a study by Fry & Lohnes ( Fry. 2010 ) quantified this effect to +60% increase in testosterone. The scientists had four weight trained men perform 10 x 5 speed squats at 70% of system mass (1 RM +/- BW) with 2 min inter-set rest intervals . Five minutes upon completion of the workout blood was drawn and cortisol and testosterone levels were analyzed: Post-exercise Tes exhibited a very large effect size (nmol x L-1 pre = 12.5 +/- 2.9, post = 20.0 +/- 3.9; Cohen's D = 1.27). What is confusing, however, is that the scientists state that while cortisol did not change the cortisol/testosterone ratio would not be influenced, only to conclude: The acute increase for Tes is in agreement with previous reports that high power activities can elicit a Tes response. High power resistance exercise protocols such as the one used in the present study produce acute increases of ...

Calcium is one of the main minerals in the human body. It is not only necessary for teeth and bone health, but is also critically involved in muscular force production. Astongishingly there are relatively few studies investigating the immediate effect of calcium supplementation on exercise performance in athletes. A recent study by Barry et al. (Barry. 2010) is among the few which investigate the immediate (pre/during exercise supplemtation) on para-tyhroid hormone (PTH) and thus calcium resorption from bone: Male endurance athletes (n=20) completed three 35-km cycling time trials under differing calcium supplementation conditions: 1) 1000 mg calcium 20 minutes before exercise and placebo during, 2) placebo before and 250 mg calcium every 15 minutes during exercise (1000 mg total), or 3) placebo before and during exercise. [...] When compared to placebo, calcium supplementation before exercise attenuated the increase in PTH (55.8 +/- 15.0 vs. 74.0 +/- 14.2; mean +/- SE; p=0.0...

I know, you think you can hardly get enough Zinc and have to supplement 30mg+ of zinc in the form of highly bio-available (and expensive) supplements. Right? Have you ever thought about side effects besides reducing estrogen? No? Then you should have a look at a recent study by Brazilian scientists (Marques. 2010). Figure 1: Zinc supplements are a bodybuilder's favorites By supplementing only 22mg zinc-gluconate per day over 30 days, the plasma copper levels of 7 trained cyclists decreased and remained low 30 days after cessation. While supplementation had no effect on thyroid metabolism, the scientists made another disquieting discovery: Fasting serum insulin and HOMA2-IR increased (27% and 47%, respectively) on day 60 compared to baseline (p = 0.03), suggesting a delayed effect of zinc supplementation. Moreover, plasma zinc was positively associated with serum insulin (r = 0.87, p = 0.009) and HOMA2-IR (r = 0.81, p = 0.03) after zinc supplementation (day 30), indica...

They keep coming, and I keep repeating myself: vitamin D is the most interesting "novel" supplement out there. A recent study Mohsen et al. ( Mohsen. 2010 ) found that vitamin D deficiency, apart from increasing risk of fractures and metabolic diseases, also impairs learning. Investigating the learning process of water maze the scientists found: The C-D [vitamin D deficient] group needed a longer time to reach the platform than the control and C+D [vitamin D repleted] animals (P<0.0001), demonstrating that vitamin D deficiency negatively affected the maze learning. On the other hand, calcitriol supplementation did not significantly influence the spatial learning. In view of these facts: If you do not notice that I posted the following only a few days ago,  "So, do your heart, your pancreas and, not to forget, your bones a favor and grab some vitamin D supplements ." ( Vitamin D: 1 Billion People Worldwide Are Vitamin D Deficient or Insufficient ) you either did...

A recent study by Shin et al. ( Shin. 2010 ) identified another potential weight loss drug: The Coumarins from the stem barks of Fraxinus rhynchophylla inhibited adipocyte differentiation and thus the basic mechanism of irreversible fat gain. Figure 1: Effects of Coumarins from F. rhynchophylla on Adipocyte Differentiation in 3T3-L1 Cells on days 1-6 ( Shin. 2010 ) As figure 1 shows, Esculetin a Coumarin from Fraxinus rhynchophylla is highly effective in inhibiting early adipocyte differentiation (day 1). With regard to the underlying mechanism of action, the scientists speculate: Esculetin (1) significantly blocked induction of PPARg expression in differentiated adipocytes, as measured by Western blot analysis (Fig. 4). In addition, esculetin (1) significantly inhibited adipocyte differentiation induced by troglitazone, a PPARg agonist (Fig. 5). These results suggest that esculetin (1) inhibited adipogenic differentiation, in part, via inhibition of PPARg -dependent pathway ....

Next to plain testosterone GH and IGF-1 doping has attracted more and more attentions from bodybuilders and athletes all over the world. Being propagated as recompositioning agents, the injection of growth hormone (GH) or peptides triggering the release thereof is already common practice among juicers, who might have a genuine interest in the results of a recent study by Marino et al. (Marino. 2010). The scientists investigated the effect of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) in a mouse-model of human premature aging, whose main characteristic is a high GH/IGF1-quotient - something you would also expect in bodybuilders injecting exegenous growth hormone. The scientists found: IGF-1 treatment restores the proper balance between IGF-1 and GH in Zmpste24 -/ − mice, delays the onset of many progeroid features, and significantly extends the lifespan of these progeroid animals. Although the scientists investigated a pathological model, chances are that doping induced changes in the IG...

Arnold already knew: "If you want to grow, go for the pump!" A recent study by Soltow et al. ( Soltow. 2010 ) expands on Arnold's hypothesis - what you need is pump and stretch . The scientists studied the effect of nitric oxide (NO) on C2C12 myoblasts and found: NO, COX-2, and NF-kappaB are necessary for stretch-induced proliferation of myoblasts. Although COX-2 and NF-kappaB are both involved in basal proliferation, NO does not affect basal growth. Thus, NO requires the synergistic effect of stretch in order to induce muscle cell proliferation. So, more NO, some stretch and / or skin bursting pumps? That reminds me of the good old first generation pump supplements with arginine, of which I can only repeat do not dump your good old NO Xplode , White Flood , Super Pump 250 , VPX Shotgun , etc. down the toilette. It is not for nothing that they have been around for years! What's more, Arginine and Ornithine (ingredients of the first generation Pump Supps) ha...

What bodybuilder already knew, has now been confirmed by a group of scientists from the University of Texas ( Ferguson-Stegall, 2010 ): Carbs alone won't do the trick ! In their study Ferguson-Stegall and collegues investigated the effect of a low carbohydrate beverage (50% less total carbohydrate than a carbohydrate-only supplement) with added protein on cycling endurance performance in 15 trained athletes: [The subjects cycled] on 2 separate occasions  at intensities alternating between 45 and 70% VO2max for 3 hours, after which the workload increased to approximately 74-85% VO2max until exhaustion. Supplements (275 mL) were provided every 20 minutes during exercise, and these consisted of a 3% carbohydrate/1.2% protein supplement (MCP) and a 6% carbohydrate supplement (CHO) .[...] for subjects cycling at or below ventilatory threshold (VT) time to exhaustion (TTE) in MCP was significantly greater than for CHO (45.64 +/- 7.38 vs. 35.47 +/- 5.94 minutes, respectively,...

Actually, I must say that I am surprised: It has been days, almost weeks since my last blogpost on Vitamin D. After all the individual findings of the last weeks, the review Hollick published in Current Drug Targets ( Hollick. 2010 ) offers a comprehensive summary of some of the main findings of recent investigations: Figure 1: In Great Britain Vitamin D3 supplementation appears indicated at least in the winter month It is now recognized that most cells in the body have a vitamin D receptor and they also have the capability of producing 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D(3) which in turn is capable of regulating a wide variety of genes that have important functions in regulating cell growth, modulating immune function and cardiovascular health. Epidemiologic evidence and prospective studies have linked vitamin D deficiency with increased risk of many chronic diseases including autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular disease, deadly cancers, type II diabetes and infectious diseases . ...

It was praised as the ultimate safe replacement for ephedrine and has been present in numerous fat burner for years. Lately, synephrine is disappearing from the next-generation fat burners and there appears to be some reason for that. A 2004 review by Fugh-Berman & Meyers (2004) had already established: There is little evidence that products containing C. aurantium are an effective aid to weight loss . Synephrine has lipolytic effects in human fat cells only at high doses, and octopamine does not have lipolytic effects in human adipocytes. Just taking more synephrine to achieve the required levels, on the other hand, is dangerous. As a study by Arbo et al. (2009) indicates, Citrus aurantium (400/2000mg/kg) consumption leads to oxidative damage in mice: There was an increase in reduced glutathione (GSH) concentration in groups treated with C. aurantium 4000 mg/kg and p-synephrine 30 and 300 mg/kg. In glutathione peroxidase (GPx), there were an inhibition of the activity in C...

Only 2 days ago, you read at the SuppVersity about L-Carnitine being a costly, but ineffective ingredient in many weight loss supplements. Today's news is about a study on the effect of 14-day l-carnitine supplementation (4g/day) on muscle and blood carnitine fractions, and muscle and blood lactate concentrations, during high-intensity sprint cycling exercise. The results observed in 8 subjects were unambiguous: L-carnitine supplementation had no significant effect on muscle carnitine content and thus could not alter lactate accumulation during exercise. The increase of plasma carnitine, on the other hand, is insufficient to bring about the ergogenic effects carnitine supplements are advertised for. So if you can't get it into the cell, you could as well dump it into the toilette - or better just don't buy it ;-)

Figure 1: Molecular structure of HMB (HMDB v2.5) In view of the fact that the educated gymrat will already have known this for years, it is hardly worth being cited that scientists ( Slater. 2010 ) provide further evidence for the ineffectiveness of oral HMB supplementation in the latest issue of the International Journal of Sports Nutrition & Exercise Metabolism . None of the variables the scientists measured (body mass, body composition - using dual energy x-ray absorptiometry, and 3-repetition maximum isoinertial strength, markers of muscle damage and muscle protein turnover), was influenced by supplementing 3g HMB per day: While the training and dietary intervention of the investigation resulted in significant strength gains (p < .001) and an increase in total lean mass (p = .01), HMB administration had no influence on these variables . Likewise, biochemical markers of muscle protein turnover and muscle damage were also unaffected by HMB supplementation. In vi...