SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

"Keto diets are unhealthy! You simply do not get enough quality nutrients if you do not eat your healthy pasta, bread and other starchy carbs." I suppose many of you - just like me - cannot tolerate the black-and-white thinking of either of the two, the high or the low/no carb camp and are thus as interested in the recently published results from a 12 month dietary intervention using either a classical ketogenic diet ( Christodoulides. 2011 ), which uses long chain triglycerides as its primary source of fatty acids, or a medium chain triglyceride ketogenic diet , where the majority of fatty acids came from MCT oils [unfortunately the scientists used Liquigen or MCT oil (both SHS International) instead of a natural source of MCTs, like coconut oil] on vitamin and mineral status of 49 children (age 2-16 years). Although the results are somewhat skewed due to the extensive use of supplements - apart from the MCT oil in the MCT group, all children received an additional mulit

Have you ever wondered about the "pill-form" Brazil nuts naturally exhibit? Well, I guess nature wanted you to recognize Bertholletia excelsa as natural medicine. Brazil nuts which come from the Amazon have a "complex matrix, composed of bioactive substances, such as selenium, α- e γ-tocopherol, phenolic compounds, folate, magnesium, potassium, calcium, proteins and mono (MUFA) and polyunsaturated (PUFA) fatty acids " and can thus be far more than mere selenium suppliers in your diet. Figure 1: Changes in blood parameters after 16 weeks (t1) of Brazil nut consumption @ 3-5 Brazil nuts a day. (data adapted from Maranhao. 2011 ) As a randomized placebo-controlled study published in Nutrition & Metabolism shows ( Maranhao. 2011 ), the consumption of 3-5 Brazil nuts per day for 16 weeks led to significant improvements in selenium levels (p=0.02), RBCV (p=0.03) and RBCVmax [Red Blood Cell maximal Velocity] (p=0.03) and reduced total (TC) (p=0.02) and LDL-c

Vitamin D is all the rave. Even mainstream nutritionists are now jumping on the vitamin D bandwagon and the hype is spilling over from the Internet to newspapers and TV stations. "Take your Vitamin D!" is what children and adults, men and women, couch-potatoes and top-level athletes are told. Recently discovered problems related to the accurate measurement of actual vitamin D levels aside (e.g. Shah. 2011 ), a recent investigation into the immediate effects of vitamin D on aromatase activity in Sertoli cells of rat testes, suggests that we have to reevaluate whether this advice, which is hitherto largely based on epidemiological data, is not overgeneralizing, to say the least. Image 1: Transverse section of a tubule of the testis of a rat. X 250. (Wikipedia) After all, the results of the aforementioned study, which has been published in the Journal of Vertebrate Reproduktive Science & Technology ( Zanatta. 2011 ), c

Image 1: Natto, a traditional Japanese food made from soybeans fermented with Bacillus subtilis. Does not even look healthy, does it? (image from Wikipedia.de , uploaded by Gleam ) As a studious visitor of the SuppVersity, you have probably banned all conventionally processed soy-containing products from your homes, already (at least I would hope so). Yet, those of you who frequent the various nutrition blogs from the paleo- and similar "healthy-eating" spheres, will probably have come across information about the miraculous benefits that are ascribed to "traditionally fermented" soy products. And, yes indeed, a recent study published in the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry ( Wang. 2011 ) was able to reproduce the results of previous studies, which had shown  that fermented soybean liquid alleviates peptic ulcers . Yet , what your soy-friendly nutrition-guru from the XYZ-Blog did not tell you, the fermented

Image 1: Golden and green Kiwi fruits (image by Zespri ) In the pseudo-scientific camp of hardcore low-carbers fruit is getting a real bad rep, lately. Only a few weeks ago, Hunter et al. ( Hunter. 2011 ) had published a review of the anti-oxidant potency of kiwi fruits, which puts into question, whether abstaining from fruit consumption altogether is necessary or even just beneficial for healthy, active human beings in the long run. A more recent study conducted by a group of scientists from various European countries ( Brevik. 2011 ) does now provide experimental evidence that the good old saying "An Apple a day keeps the doctor away!" may be just as or even more applicable to kiwifruits in general and the particularly phytochemical rich golden variety Actinidia chinensis var. Hort 16A , in particular. The scientists recruited 24 men and women (20-57 years, BMI 20-30 kg/m²), specifically selecting subjects who already consumed modest amounts of fruits and vegetables

The early 2000s were the fat years: "Want to lose fat? Eat fat!" became the credo of more and more nutritional gurus, who put their faithful clients "on" EFAs, PUFAs and a certain fatty acid (FA) that, despite, or rather due to its presence in our food chain, had hitherto received little attention by the medical orthodoxy: conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). All of a sudden, this "unhealthy" trans-fatty acid that can be found in relatively large amounts in high fat milk products, was supposed to become the magic bullet in every dieter's fight against unhealthy or unaesthetic body fat. So, is the majority of the Americans in the 21st century going to be obese, simply because they are not consuming enough CLA? A recent study from Canadian scientists ( Jones. 2011 ) suggests otherwise. In a 3-phase crossover trial, Jones et al. recruited 27 overweight (BMI ≥ 25 kg/m 2 ), borderline hype

This relevant for all of you - regardless of whether you can or cannot spare the time: Tune in live and listen to me @ Carl Lenore's Super Human Radio to learn that amino acids are far more than just the building blocks of the proteins of your body... Listen live to SHR @ 12:00PM ET Amino Acids for Super Humans. Part II (update: click here to download podcast ) Arginine, Citrulline and Ornithine: Nitric Oxide and Beyond In the second installment of the show we are going to look at the purported and busted NO Booster l-Arginine, its metabolites citrulline and ornithine, malic acid or alpha ketoglutarate binding of this amino acids and their largely overlooked effects on glucose homeostasis, protein synthesis and detoxification . As usual, I will do my best to provide relevant examples and relate the theory to practical advice. The magic of individual amino acids will be tackled in the shows to come. Update: The show is now available for down

Image 1: Arginine based first generation " nitric oxide booster ", such as BSN's NO-Xplode still have a huge fanbase "No NO from l-arginine" , you probably remember this or similar headlines from a few years ago, when the first studies seemed to indicate that l-arginine, the main "working" ingredient in all the (over-)hyped nitric oxide (NO) boosters that had become an integral part of the line-up of each and every major supplement producer was found not to increase the amount of nitric oxide in their consumers' bloodstream. Although these results stand in stark contrast to the early studies using intravenous infusion of l-arginine, which established the myth of the NO and growth hormone boosting effects of 2-amino-5-guanidinovaleric acid (l-arginine) ,  a 2007 study by Malinauskas et al. ( Malinauskas. 2007 ) found that 8% of the male student athletes who participated in their survey were still

If you are still looking for ways to "naturally" boost your testosterone levels, here are two ways of doing so, you better avoid. Excessive Cell Phone Use to Boost Testosterone The first one has been discovered by Gutschi et al. only recently ( Gutschi. 2011 ). When they investigated the effects of cell phone radiation on men's semen parameters, the scientists were in fact able to confirm their hypothesis that exposure to cell phone radiation leads to decreased sperm quality (cf. fig. 1, left). An interesting side-finding, however was the unexpected correlation of cell phone use and testosterone levels (cf. fig. 1, right) observed in the study. Figure 1: Sperm health (left) and hormone levels (right) in cell phone users and non-users (data adapted from Gutschi. 2011 ) So, you love your cell phone and don't want to have kids, anyway? Fine, keep using it, but do not expect to improve your athletic performance, gain mu

In June 2010 my fellow countrymen Michael Ristow from the Department of Human Nutrition at the University of Leipzig formed an interesting hypothesis ( Ristow. 2010 ) stating that the dreaded reactive oxygen species [ROS], most scientists associate with accelerated cell-aging and degenerative diseases were in fact " essential signaling molecules which are required to promote health and longevity ". In a more recent paper he picks this hypothesis up and, in cooperation with Sebastian Schmeisser from the Department of Clinical Nutrition at the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Nuthetal, Germany, reviews the current literature on selected longevity-promoting intervention. Figure 1: Health and longevity as a function of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation. Both too much and too little ROS are detrimental, due to either insufficient stimulus for or overtaxing of hormetic processes (this graph is a mere illustration and is not based on any existing exp

If you are no regular visitor of the SuppVersity, I guess, you are religiously taking your (high dose?) fish oil , day in day out. So what? It probably l owers your total and low density cholestero l (LDL-C; it may reduce your triglycerides and thus improve your insulin sensitivity . Yet, in doing all those "great" things, the unmetabolized and peroxidized remainder of everyone's favorite wonder-supplement begin to clog your arteries and liver - at least, if you believe in the validity of that kind of rodent studies which suggested the usefulness of fish oil, in the first place. Image 1: Micrograph of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, caused by the same kind of lipid accumulations Shirazi et al. observed in the rats receiving fish oil treatment (image by Nephron ) Shirazi et al. ( Shirazi. 2011 ) recently published a paper reporting exactly that: "Fish oil increases atherosclerosis and hepatic steatosis, although decreases serum cholesterol in Wistar rat&quo

Image 1: ROC anti-cellulite intensive cream ; supposedly, the product used in this study I've said this before, but in a different context: I love companies who do even try to back their products by scientific studies and thus I cannot really decry Johnson & Johnson for funding a study on one of their products, the name of which - and this is interesting - is yet not even mentioned in the respective publication ( Roure. 2011 ) in the May issue of the International Journal of Cosmetic Science . While parts of the study were done ex vivo and in the petri dish, the interesting part, i.e. the part, I want to focus on, was an in vivo study with female 78 subjects (mean ages: placebo, 38y / product, 41y) who matched the following criteria: Participants in the study were required to have a body mass index (BMI = weight height −2 ) between 20.0 and 26.0 kg m −2 and to present a modest amount of orange peel on the hip

Its quite remarkable that, primates aside, swine are among the best models of human metabolism . So, even if you do not feel piggy at all, the fact that pigs just as humans are omnivores, makes them a much better model for metabolic disease than rodents. It is thus not too unrealistic to assume that we can learn something about ourselves from the results of a very recent study published in the Journal of Animal Science ( Apple. 2011 ). Figure 1: American Pork Cuts; quality is determined by corn-oil and carnitine intake of the swine. What lessons can you learn from our pink relatives? Investigating the effects of l -carnitine supplementation on the quality characteristics of fresh pork bellies from pigs fed three levels of corn oil, J.K. Apple and his co-workers observed a linear trend towards decreased belly-firmness with increasing amounts of corn oil (0, 2 or 4%) in the diet. If you look at the average American, his/he

In case you missed yesterday's episode of the BodyRX show , download the podcast and listen to what turned out to be the first part of a two part series on muscle building strategies for those not part of the genetic elite . BodyRx Show #020 - Are we all Hardgainers? Muscle building strategies for those not part of the genetic elite Dr. Scott Connelly, Vince Andrich, ProfDrAndro and Carl Lanore Special Guest: Vince DelMonte

Image 1: Slow dieting paves the way to an aesthetic and strong body A question intricately related to my dissertations in episode #698 of Carl Lenore's Super Human Radio , was and still is the question of the optimal rate, i.e. weight/time, of weight loss to a) maintain a healthy metabolism and b) keep as much muscle mass as possible . While this issue certainly is relevant for the average person, it is of essential importance to an athlete competing in a sport with weight classes. Even if at "weighing day" he or she has the desired body weight, "making" this weight would have been worthless, if he or she had lost too much previous muscle to maintain adequate performance... It is thus surprising that the amount of studies that look into the effects of fast vs. slow weight loss on body composition in an athletic population is rather small, which renders the results of a recent Norwegian study ( Garthe. 2011 ) interesting, all the more. Garthe et al. put a

Image 1: Stevia rebaudiana foliage (photo by Ethel Aardvark ) The health-conscious consumer, you, as a SuppVersity reader, are, you will probably have heard of the natural sweetener stevia, which -despite its various advantages over its artificial counterparts- still has not made it to the mass market. While higher costs , certainly are the main culprit here, another factor could be the unfamiliar, for some commercially available products metallic taste . But hey, didn't people initially complain about the taste of aspartame and natrium-cyclamate, as well? And now, the very same people drink one bottle of diet coke after the other? Well, if not being as toxic as it's artificial counter parts didn't convince people, yet, maybe the findings of a recent study from India will. On a side note: don't you think it is kind of telling that studies on "alternative" treatments for diabetes never appear to come from the home countries and continents of Big Pharm

Image 1: LG's Anadraulic State is only one example for some of the 2nd generation pre-workout products with deliberately lowered amounts of caffeine and increased amounts of creatine & other ergogenics in it. You know it, you love it: Creatine Monohydrate - the godfather of dietary supplements ; but did you know that Creatine supplementation at 50 or 100mg/kg body weight is as effective as low (1mg/kg) or high dose (5mg/kg) caffeine in preventing the decrease in athletic skill performance after sleep deprivation? On ten separate occasions, Cook et al. ( Cook. 2011 ) had ten elite rugby players complete 10 trials on a simple rugby passing skill test (20 repeats per trial). On five of these occasions the players had slept their usual 7-9h on the other five occasions, however, they only slept 3-5h before reporting to the laboratory. While the 2-6h of sleep they were lacking "resulted in a significant fall in skill performance accuracy on both the dominant and non-d

Image 1: Soybean saponins turn out to be an effective fish poison. Bottom line: No Soy for Your Koi! As a "student" of the SuppVersity, your source for nutrition and exercise science on the Internet, you already know about the " Soy Ploy ". Probably, you are also aware that despite deliberately avoiding the consumption of soy products, many of you are exposed to meat and fish which has been raised on a soy-based chow. As questionable as the practice of feeding animals plants they naturally would not consume may be, the provision of soy-based diets to all sorts of livestock is still considered a highly economical way of fattening up fatstock. A recent study ( Chen. 2011 ) from the Ocean University of China could however change this perspective and persuade fish farmers to use a more natural foodstuff for their breed. Chen et al. found that a diet containing more than 3.2g/kg saponins damaged the gut lining of the fish and lead to a significant decrease in

It has long been established that after peaking at the end of puberty, the p roduction of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) steadily declines with age and approaches levels of approximately 80% in the elderly (>75y). In the late 20th century, initial studies investigating the "anti-aging" effect of the adrenal hormone DHEA provided results that appeared to confirm the hypothesis that the restauration of DHEA to youthful levels would have beneficial cognitive and metabolic effects. Many of the findings could yet not be reproduced in follow-up studies and the pharmaceutical industry soon lost interest in spending money into research on a naturally occurring and thus non-patentable compound. Consequently, expensive long-term studies such as the one ( Weiss. 2011 ) recently been published in the medical journal AGING are scarce and thus well-worth being mentioned on the SuppVersity. Figure 1: Changes in Body Weight and Body Composition Before and After 12 months of

Just in case you wonder that there were no news yesterday . Blogger was down, so it took me some time to be able to tell all of you, who followed my advice and tuned in to yesterday's episode of Carl Lenore's Super Human Radio: "Amino Acids for Super Humans" and heard Carl and me talk about his use of bovine colostrums as part of his peri-workout supplementation regimen that my concerns over the digestibility of the (mostly) immunomodulating long-chain peptides in colostrum (the milk mammals produce in the last days / first days after pregnancy), appear to be legit. At least the results of a recents study ( Carol. 2011 ), which failed to produce any (systemic) immunomodulatory effects in well-trained athletes, would confirm my assumption that these longer amino acid chains are not able to overcome the tight gut junctions, which are genetically designed to "close" (the further tightening of the junctions is also known as "closure") within the fi