SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Yogurt does not have to be served this way to be healthy, but I bet many of your friends and relatives would be amazed and much more likely to pass on the cream cake or tiramisu if the option was an appetizing dessert like that. In a world where being vegan is "the new sexy" and eating animal products "the new smoking", dairy has lost much of its former appeal. I mean, we all remember how the literal "glass of milk" has been marketed as a daily health booster, right? Well, times have changed and that despite the fact that an impartial review of the evidence suggests more benefits than downsides to dairy consumption. Specifically fermented dairy, first and foremost yogurt, but also cheese can ,   and in the case of yogurt maybe even  should  be part of your of your diet. And that's not just because both are an often forgotten, but essential part hailed "Mediterranean diet" (Vasilopoulou. 2013). The same diet of which recent studies say tha...

Bicycling to work is one of these "small things" that may make the difference between lean and obese. I know this is not what your friends will want to hear, but for 99.9% of them it's  not  their genes which are to blame for their inability to lose weight. It's much simpler than that: It's their inability or unwillingness to induce a large enough caloric deficit to force their bodies to tap into the fat stores. Don't get me wrong: It's obvious that genes, with their direct and indirect influence on one's basal energy requirements (think of being tall vs. being small, if nothing else), amount of muscle, and even ability to handle glucose and fats, will factor in here. In the end, however, it's everyone's knowledge about the dos and don'ts of dieting, effort and dietary adherence that will make the difference. That's no news for you? I think the results of a recent study from the University of Kansas Medical Center and the Texas T...

If the frying time is short (2-5 min) and the heat not extreme, it's no problem to fry with virgin olive oil. If that's not the case there are better options . You will probably remember my Facebook post about olive oil having recently become the first food that may officially call itself heart healthy in the European union. As María-Isabel Covas et al. point out in their latest paper, this leave a key question for the consumer unanswered: Which olive oil is the for you and your health? And how strong is the evidence it's actually going to make a sign. health difference (Buckland. 2015)? In today's SuppVersity article I am going to answer these question and then turn to another, related issue: The alleged health-hazards of cooking and frying with vegetable oils as they were reviewed by Carmen Sayon-Orea (2015) and Carmen Dobarganes (2015): Lean more about frying & co at the SuppVersity The Quest for the Optimal Frying Oil MUFA Modulates Gut Bacteria →...

Unless you're planning to just sit, instead of cycle on your spinning bike, it is by no means sure if your performance well benefit or maybe even suffer from the use of AMPK mimetics and activators. Recently someone asked me on Facebook, whether AMPK activators like Lipoic acid (ALA), Berberine, Metformin, AICAR & Co wouldn't make excellent performance boosters. I pondered that question for some time and said: "If you are about to compete in a highly glycolytic sport, the opposite is probably the case." There's little question that supplements like lipoic acid are useful if you are an overweight type II diabetic. But let's be honest: How many of you fall into this category? As healthy, active individuals or even athletes, on the other hand, you should be aware that the ability of these agents to increase the glucose uptake and block the glyconeogenic pathways in the liver may easily make you run out of fuel during anaerobic activities like lifting or...