SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

This is a scenario, where the results of the study at hand would apply - if that's you, go ahead get yourself some BCKAs; if it's not read at least the bottomline before you spend your money on the "latest", but not necessarily "greatest" ergogenic As a seasoned SuppVersity veteran, you will be aware that the number of supplements that work is pretty small. The number of supplements that will actually make a difference that's not just statistically significant can probably even be counted on the fingers of one hand and arginine-alpha-ketoglutarate , aka AAKG , the purported nitric oxide booster is certainly not one of them and that despite the fact that there are one or two studies, which showed minuscule performance improvement from large doses of this combination of arginine and the alpha-keto acid to glutamine alpha-ketoglutarate . Against that background it is however even more intriguing that a group of scientists from the Section of Sports ...

For many of us, our gut is like our feet. We ignore it as long as it appears to be working properly. I think, I do not have to tell you that this is a mistake. Just like you cannot run without healthy feed, you cannot digest and use all the good food and supplements you consume without a healthy gut. This is why you should be interested in the findings of a recent review by scientists from the Hubei key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition and Feed Science in Wuhan 430023, China ( Hou. 2011 ). The scientists evaluation of related studies lead them to conclude that the conversion of Alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG), which is an intermediate of the Krebs cycle and bridges amino acid metabolism with glucose oxidation, into glutamate in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and animals is of particular interest in view of overall gastric functioning, "including regulation of cell function, neurotransmission, and gastric emptying". Translating the basic research into practice, results o...

Regular readers of the SuppVersity will know that - despite the recent bashing of arginine by the some supplement producers - I like this universal amino acid AND studies supporting the notion of athletes being able to benefit from arginine supplementation keep coming. The most recent one was done by Kamil et al. ( Kamil. 2010 ) and investigated the effect of 2g pure l-arginine on vasolidation and VO2Max in soccer players. Their findings were as follows: Oral supplementation of L-arginine significantly (p<0.01) decreased blood pressure indices and increased VO 2 max (p<0.01), blood flow (p<0.05), femoral artery diameter (p<0.05) and urea levels (p<0.05). There was no change in blood lipid levels (p<0.05). No significant changes were noted in the placebo and control groups. The increase in VO2Max, as shown in Table 1 was relatively low, though. Yet, it's statistical significance stands out of question. L-Arginine Placebo Control ...