3/3 TOP-Selling US Fish Oils Exceed Maximal Peroxide and Total Oxidation Levels - Levels Roughly 4000% Higher Than in Medical Grade N3 Supplements, Harvard Study Shows

The US' favorite fish oil supplements: Dirt cheap and still not worth the money. Better buy fish - fresh fish.

"I told you so!" That's how someone else in my position would probably start today's blogpost. In view of the fact that "smartassing" is not exactly an effective means of education, I will yet refuse from reminding you that I've been reporting about unwanted side effects of the gold-ish pills that claim to have "fish oil" in them on various occasions.

And guess what!? The publication of a recent study by scientists from the Cardiovascular Division, Brigham and Women's Hospital at the venerable Harvard Medical School, gives me yet another reason to rant against the evermore popular fish oil supplements.

You can learn more about omega-3 & co at the SuppVersity

Fish Oil Makes You Rancid?

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Fish Oil Doesn't Help Lose Weight

Rancid Fish Bad 4 Health

In their study, the scientists analyzed 3 commonly available fish oil dietary supplements and found that (a) their level of omega-3 fatty acids varied significantly, that (b) they contained tons of other fats that you would ask to be paid for to consume if you knew about them and, that (c) the caps were so full of oxidized fats that they exceeded international standards and may (d) may harm, rather than help with your health.

No, we're not talking about cheap Chinese internet purchases, bro!

The Harvard scientists bought the "three top-selling fish oil DS [dietary supplements] in the United States and to examine the extent of oxidative damage in the DS as compared with chemically characterized standards with respect to purity and ability to prevent human sdLDL oxidation in vitro" (Mason. 2016). The commonly heard excuse that this is "just a problem with the cheap Chinese stuff" is thus as useless as it is ridiculous in view of the data from the study at hand.

Figure 1: The TOP3 US fish oil products are rancid... well, mostly (right hand side) and they have almost no ability to prevent human LDL particles from oxidation, as the results of the MDA test on the left indicates (Mason. 2016).

Compared to the medical grade control, the US top-sellers look as if they had been tainted with motor oil from a fishing cutter. Speaking of which: I would not guarantee that the 34%, 21% and 24% of "other oils" in this so-called dietary supplements do not include at least tiny amounts of mineral oils.

Your fish oil contains 4000% more oxidized fats than prescription fish oil! That's a huge problem, because many of the studies you're so fond of, because they seem to prove how healthy fish oil is, have been done with medicinal grade fish oils. Accordingly, the results of these studies have ZERO predictive power with respect to what your "machine oil" fish oil will do to your health. Speaking of "your" - it is not impossible that the oxidative damage occured during storage, which reminds me to remind you NEVER to use fish oil in a bottle that's constantly exposed to pro-oxidative oxygen, whence you've opened the bottle. Note: If stored in the fridge (4°C) the shelf life of the fish oil in fresh fish is, as Boran et al. show in their 2006 paper in Food Chemistry ~ 90 days.

In fact, the scientists measured not just primary oxidation products, as the highly elevated peroxide levels, an indicator of high levels of primary oxidation and hydroperoxides, confirm, but also secondary products of the decomposition of the primary oxidation products during continued exposure to oxidative conditions, as they ar detected in the p-anisidine test.

Figure 2: Indeed, there was also some "fish oil" in the caps - emphasis on "also" and "some" (Mason. 2016)!

The total oxidation levels in Figure 1 were then derived from the peroxide and anisidine values indicate without fail that "[a]ll three DS exceeded the recommended maxima for peroxide and total oxidation values (5 meq/kg and 26, respectively) when normalized to 1 g OM3FA (based on the number of capsules needed to achieve 1 g of OM3FA)" (Mason. 2016). The latter is particularly shocking in view of the fact that the prescription product of pure OM3FA did not contain significant levels of these oxidation products under identical test conditions. Any studies on the health effects of fish oil - mostly conducted with medical grade capsules - is thus meaningless for the average consumer who shies away from the exorbitant costs of LOVAZA and co. - a bad mistake, as it turns out, now, that the Harvard scientists' study shows that EPA and DHA containing oxidized trash fats from the dietary fish oil supplements have a >77% reduced ability to protect your LDL oxidation from (>90% protection for pure products, a meager 21 ± 4% for the "fish oil" you have probably been buying for years).

Speaking of "for years": Is it possible that you've done more harm than good in the past years of consuming copious amounts of fish oil to your health? Yes, it is, but in view of the fact that even the "motor oil" version of fish oil in the average US dietary fish oil supplement (the brand names are obviously undisclosed = not mentioned in the paper) was still anti- and not pro-oxidative, it's more likely that you have only wasted time and money.

Only three brands, but unfortunately in line with previous research: The scientists make no secret of the fact that a major limitation of their study "is that, although [they] evaluated the top-selling DS in the United States, [they] only assessed three products given the scope of this initial investigation" (Mason. 2016). Bad luck for fish oil fans: e results of this study are consistent with previously published analyses of DS with respect to content and oxidative damage" (ibid.) - studies that didn't just find oxidized fatty acids, but also heavymetals and cholesterol in the pills.

So what do we make of these results? Well, I guess it depends on how indoctrinated you've already been about fish oil being an essential supplement (the word "supplement" already implies that it cannot be essential). If you actually believe in the magic of fish oil (imho bogus for healthy individuals), you should go and buy pharma grade fish oil spending your whole monthly supplement budged on fish. If, on the other hand, you've any sanity left, you simply do what I've been recommending for years: eat your fatty fish once or twice per week (doesn't have to be wild-caught | Farmed Fish is Less Poluted and Has More Omega-3) | Comment!

References:

• Boran, Gökhan, Hikmet Karaçam, and Muhammet Boran. "Changes in the quality of fish oils due to storage temperature and time." Food chemistry 98.4 (2006): 693-698.
• Mason, PR and Sherrat SCR. "Omega-3 fatty acid fish oil dietary supplements contain saturated fats and oxidized lipids that may interfere with their intended biological benefits." Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications - Available online 21 December 2016 | In Press, Corrected Proof

Low Dose Silymarin (Milk Thistle) Boosts Reduction in Body Fat % W/ Both, Strength (-9%) & Endurance Training (-11%)

The "classic" user of silymarin supplements is either fat, sick and suffering from NAFLD, or big, buffed and taking oral steroids. Athletic women like the ones in the photos above, on the other hand, have not yet been very likely to buy and use silymarin supplements... well, unless they were (ab-)using oral, hepatoxic steroids, as well, obviously.

When bros talk about Silymarin, the active ingredient in milk thistle, they usually do that in the context of "cycle support", i.e. the use of supplements to buffer the negative effects of (oral pro-)hormones on organ- and, specifically, liver-health. A recent study from the Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences in Iran, however, the "bro-talk" may change that, though.

In the study, which was meant to test, whether silymarin a scientifically proven (Dixit. 2007; Saller. 2009; Surai. 2015) "powerful antioxidant" (Shirali. 2016), will also affect athletic performance, N = 45 (unfortunately) previously untrained men were randomly assigned to one out of the following five groups: (a) endurance training with placebo (ET + P), (b) endurance training with 140 mg of silymarin/day (ET+S), (c) strength training with placebo (ST+P), (d) strength training with 140 mg of silymarin/day (ST + S) and (e) a placebo (C) to identify both, the effects of exercise and supplementation.

Learn more about hormesis and how antioxidants can also impair your gains

Anti-histamines, exercise and your metabolic health

Even Ice-Baths Impair the Adapt. Process

Vit C+E Impair Muscle Gains in Older Men

C+E Useless or Detrimental for Healthy People

Will ALA, Berberine & Co Ruin 'Ur Gainz?

Antiox. & Health Benefits Don't Correlate

Anthropometrical and VO2max measurements and ELISA assay for paraoxonase (PON), leptin and adiponectin levels were performed at the beginning and after the 4-week of the study. Of these, the latter were meant to identify the mechanism behind the effects of exercise + silymarin supplementation.

Figure 1: Changes in body composition and physical fitness over four weeks of exercise training plus/minus 140mg/day of silymarin (ethanol extract from dried Silybum marianum seeds | Shirali. 2016)

Effects such as those I have plotted for you in Figure 1, namely significant improvements in body composition - not only the often falsely overvalued BMI / body weight with its very limited health-significance. Effects that were more (albeit not sign. more) pronounced in the silymarin groups; and effects that also involved a non-significantly more pronounced increase in VO2max in the placebo- vs. silymarin-supplemented endurance training group - a difference of which one could argue that it supports the hormesis hypothesis, i.e. the hypothesis that it's the exposure of your mitochondria to mito-hormetic stress that will have them adapt to the stress with the very cellular growth and functional improvements which drive the adaptational response to exercise.

Paraoxonoases are enzymes that are associated with HDL molecules. In our bodies, they appear to be responsible for the antioxidant effects of high- (HDL) on the oxidation of low-density lipoproteins (LDL) - a hypothesis that is confirmed by the above data from Mackness et al. 1993.

What are paraoxonases (PONs)? Paraoxonase enzymes have been found to perform a number of biological functions (the primary role of this group of enzymes is still a topic of speculation, though | Wikipedia. 2016), including anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative, anti-atherogenic, anti-diabetic, anti-microbial and organophosphate-hydrolyzing effects. "These properties provide a promising potential for development of new therapeutic interventions to combat a number of health conditions" (Wikipedia. 2016). They are synthesized in the liver and appear to be responsible for the antioxidant properties of HDL on LDL particles, with the paraoxonases (PON) that are associated with high-density lipoproteins protecting the lipids in the LDL shuttles from oxidation (Mackness. 1993).

We have to be careful, though. Neither the additive effect of silymarin on VO2max in the strength training group, in which the subjects did a standardized supervised circuit training workout (3 circuits per workout) involving exercises for all large muscle groups (3 sets of 10-15 reps for each muscle group) thrice a week, nor the disadvantage(s) the subjects in the ET+S group, who participated in three supervised 50 minute running workouts (60% - 80% of maximal heart rate), was statistically significant. It is thus speculative to argue that

• the additive beneficial effect of silymarin on VO2max in the strength training (ST + S) and
• the subtractive negative effect on VO2max in the endurance training (ET) group

are a result of optimized / too low "stress" / oxidation levels - that's speculative, but it appears to be supported by the relative pre-/post-changes in paraoxonase, leptin and adiponectin levels (remember: leptin, just like insulin, is usually increased w/ increasing inflammation, while adiponectin is decreased) I've plotted in Figure 2:

Figure 2: %-changes in plasma PON, adiponectin and leptin levels in resp. to 4 wks of exercise +/- silymarin (Shirali. 2016).

Previous studies by Cakmak et al. (2010), show that PON activity is increased in adolescent athletes, suggesting that the cardioprotective effect of regular exercise might be mediated by increased PON activity. On the other hand, Romani et al. (2009) reported that physical stress, such as acute exercise, by altering membrane composition, may impair PON release from liver membranes and can decrease the level of PON in serum - an effect of which the study at hand appears to show that it is blunted by the provision of small amounts of the 'liver tonic' silymarin.

Addendum: What else do we know?

From previous studies, we also know that silymarin appears to increase the use of fat / trigs during exercise while sparing muscle glycogen (Choi. 2016). The latter may be one, yet certainly not the only reason why the study at hand and a previous study by Barari et al. (2014), both suggest that silymarin can help you lose body fat in the absence of energy systemic restriction... speaking of wich: the lack of dietary control is not necessarily a weakness of the study at hand; after all, a study without dietary control provides evidence that a given supplement will work in the real world, where people often fail to adhere to energy restricted diets - plus: the mood improving effects of silymarin Nazarali et al. (2015) observed in 40 female athletes may be an added bonus I haven't even mentioned yet.

Last question: Do I have to pay extra for "super-bioavailable" silymarin

As Angelo points out in response to the publication of the article at hand, silymarin has a suboptimal bioavailability - meaning: not all the silymarin you ingest will actually make it into your blood. Now, that's correct, but supplement producers abuse the notion of a low bioavailability to make money on allegedly "superior" silymarin products.

Figure 3: Primary reasons for poor oral bioavailability of Silymarin (Javed. 2011)

With a mean bioavailability of 20-50%, regular silymarin is yet far from being as quasi-useless as resveratrol with a 1%-ish absorption rate (note: silybin, the main active substance in silymarin, is not fat soluble, so having it with a fatty meal is not going to increase its bioavailability).

Figure 4: Unlike the endurance-training-induced increases in VO2max, the strength-training-induced increases in lean mass (4-5%) I've calculated for you based on the body fat% and weight changes were not checked for their statistical significance by the authors - I am pretty sure, though, they are not statistically significant.

Bottom line - Mechanism(s) and perspective(s): Whether and to which degree either of these previously discussed changes in PON, leptin and adiponectin is causally involved in the effects on body composition and physical fitness (Figure 1) and not just a corollary effect of the overall antioxidant prowess of silymarin is questionable.

What we can say with some certainty, the latter, i.e. the antioxidant effects silymarin will exert even at dosages as low as those that were administered in the study at hand, appear to have differential effects on physique and fitness depending on whether it is added on top of resistance (rel. high oxidative load) or medium intensity endurance (rel. low ox. l.) training: an augmentation of the ben. effects on fitness + body composition w/ the former, a non-sign. ame-lioration of the VO2 increase with the latter form of training.

What exactly it is that causes this exercise-specific difference will have to be the object of future research - research into the previously addressed issue of (mito-)hormesis. That both, the benefits and detriments are not exactly huge (esp. in absolute terms), on the other hand, is something we can tell today, already. Accordingly, we will have to wait for Shirali et al. or other researchers to do longer lasting (>4 weeks; better 8-12 weeks) follow-up studies with subjects who are more representative of the average SuppVersity reader than the untrained young men from Saeed Shirali's study at hand. Before those studies have not been done and are showing higher and/or long-term reductions in absolute body fat levels than the study at hand, I cannot recommend silymarin as a "weight loss drug" or a "cutter", as bros would call it. What I can do however, is to say that it appears to be a promising agent to improve both your health and your ability to maintain a healthy weight in the long(er) run | Leave a comment on Facebook!

References:

• Barari, A., And A. Eftekhari. "Exercise And Silymarin On Clotting Factors." (2014): 88-88.
• Cakmak, Alpay, et al. "Paraoxonase activity in athletic adolescents." Pediatric exercise science 22.1 (2010): 93.
• Choi, Eun-Ju, et al. "Effect of silymarin on gluconeogenesis and lactate production in exercising rats." Food Science and Biotechnology 25.1 (2016): 119-124.
• Dixit, Nitin, et al. "Silymarin: A review of pharmacological aspects and bioavailability enhancement approaches." Indian journal of pharmacology 39.4 (2007): 172.
• Javed, Shamama, Kanchan Kohli, and Mushir Ali. "Reassessing bioavailability of silymarin." Altern Med Rev 16.3 (2011): 239-49.
• Mackness, Michael I., et al. "Protection of low-density lipoprotein against oxidative modification by high-density lipoprotein associated paraoxonase." Atherosclerosis 104.1 (1993): 129-135.
• Nazarali, Parvaneh, Ahdiyeh Pormphamadi, and Parichehr Hanachi. "Effect of Six Weeks of Resistance Training (RT) and Silymarin Supplement On the Changes in the Inflammation Marker Interleukin 6 and Psychological Profile in Elite Female Taekwondo Players in Alborz Province." International Journal of Sport Studies. Vol., 5 (1), 57-61, 2015
• Romani, Rita, et al. "Modulation of paraoxonase 1 and 3 expression after moderate exercise training in the rat." Journal of lipid research 50.10 (2009): 2036-2045.
• Saller, Reinhard, et al. "An updated systematic review with meta-analysis for the clinical evidence of silymarin." Forschende Komplementärmedizin/Research in Complementary Medicine 15.1 (2009): 9-20.
• Shirali, Saeed, et al. "Effects of Silymarin Supplementation on Leptin, Adiponectin and Paraoxanase Levels and Body Composition During Exercise: A Randomized Double-Blind Placebo Controlled Clinical Trial." (2016).
• Surai, Peter F. "Silymarin as a natural antioxidant: An overview of the current evidence and perspectives." Antioxidants 4.1 (2015): 204-247.
• Wikipedia contributors. "Paraoxonase." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 15 Jul. 2016. Web. 15 Jul. 2016.

Significant Weight Gain W/ Whey vs. Casein?! Anabolism / Muscle-Protection or Fat Gain Despite Hitting the Weights?

While being misinterpreted as an "anti-whey" study by one of you, the latest whey as your main protein source study from Brazil only adds to the evidence that there's something special about whey.

One thing I like about writing this blog is that I have a lot of contact to you, the readers. One of you recently sent me the link to a study from the University of Ouro Preto in which the authors report what he called a "disconcerting" weight gain when exercise and weight training were combined. A closer look at the study reveals, however, that this "disconcerting" weight gain (even though that is not totally obvious) is probably good news.

But before we get to the implications and interpretations, let's first take a look at what the scientists did and what they observed. You'll see that this is of paramount importance wrt to not misinterpreting the weight gain in Figure 1.

Note that the study at hand is not about High-protein diets - with 14% some may call it deficient

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More Protein ≠ More Satiety

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Protein Timing DOES Matter!

More Protein = More Liver Fat?

Being aware that whey protein (WP) is known for its nutritional value and antioxidant properties, the authors speculated that the latter, or rather the protective effect they would have on the muscle tissue, would be another important contributor to Wheys beneficial effects on skeletal muscle development.

To test their hypothesis that a reduced muscle damage and thus reduced effort to rebuild the broken tissue before accumulating new muscle would contribute to the muscle building effects of whey protein in resistance training individuals, the authors used a model study: in thirty-two male Fischer rats who were randomly assigned to control sedentary, control exercised, whey protein sedentary, and WP exercised groups (n=8/group), half of the rodents (those in the exercise group) were subjected to an interesting resistance training regimen:

"RE consisted of inducing the animals to perform sets of jumps in a circular plastic container with a depth corresponding to 150 % of their body length. Weights were attached to the animal’s chest to promote submersion and the resistance to the exercise. When the rats touched the bottom of the container, they had to jump to emerge from the water to breathe. The RE program consisted of inducing the animals to perform four sets of 10 jumps per day, five times per week for 8 weeks. A one-minute rest interval was included between each set of jumps. Exercise intensity was increased weekly by changing the maximum weight supported by each animal to perform the set of jumps correctly (~25 % of body weight in week 1, ~30 % in week 2, ~ 35 % in week 3, ~40 % in week 4, ~45 % in week 5, ~50 % in week 6, and ~ 55 % in weeks 7 and 8); 55 % of body weight was the greatest weight supported by the rats to perform all jumping sets correctly" (Teixeira. 2016)

Now, what is particularly interesting about the study is that the researchers did not add the whey protein to the diet, but simply replaced the regular 14% protein in form of caseinate in the rats' AIN-93M chow with whey protein (still only 14% of the energy).

Why is it important that the scientists replaced the protein source? If Teixeira et al. had simply added extra-whey on top, you could always have argued that the effects they observed would have been the mere result of extra protein, not some special quality (in this case most likely the antioxidant effects) of whey.

Against that background, it is quite interesting to see how significant the effect of whey turned out to be... at least in the exercised group, where you can easily see in Figure 1 that the initially identical weights differed significantly at the end of the 8-week study. Since differences occurred only in comparison to the control + exercise group and we don't have total lean and fat mass data, it is, unfortunately, impossible to tell for sure how much if any of the gained weight was, as the previously mentioned SuppVersity reader feared body fat and how much was muscle weight.

Figure 1: Yes, for sure - at first sight, this logs bad for whey and good for the low-protein AIN-93M standard diet (Teixeira. 2016); I mean, the rats gained the least weight? Well, that's one of the common misunderstandings I had in mind when I started the SuppVersity. Science is not always as straight-forward as you think. So read the rest of the article before you freak out or argue that "this is just because it's rodents" - that's pathetic, anyway).

What we can say for sure, is that the exercise regimen triggered significant muscle-specific mass reductions (in gains), unless its negative effects on the rodents muscle was buffered by the pro-anabolic and anti-oxidant effects of whey protein (see Figure 2, where the %-ages over the bars in the "muscle weight (g)" columns indicate the difference between sedentary control and the rodents who did the jumps for 8 weeks).

Figure 2: Changes in body weight (%-ages indicate relative weight change from baseline), muscle weight and food intake (%-ages indicate difference between exercise and control group | Teixeira. 2016)

Accordingly, it would be wrong to use the study at hand to make a case against whey protein and to call it an obesogen, i.e. another of the many foods that contributing not just to weight, but also and maybe even specifically to fat gain - in spite of full commitment (the rodents obviously had no choice, which is a clear strength of the often criticized rodent studies) to a rather intense exercise regimen (see previous quote).

So, if it's not the "disconcerting news" that whey could make you fat and/or blunt weight loss what is it, then, that the study at hand tells us. Well, I guess there are two answers: Answer (a) is a confirmation of the authors' hypothesis that whey protein has significant antioxidant and anticatabolic effects. Answer (b), on the other hand, is not as favorable for whey protein is (a) as it emphasizes that, without exercise, simply adding whey protein to the diet won't build any extra muscle... speaking of muscle, I've communicated with the authors who confirmed that they "did not evaluate body composition in these rats" (so it's not that they just didn't report it, because it may not be that relevant for their specific study interest), but found "that WP exercised rats showed a better body composition and exercise performance" (private communication); and, what's more, to quantify the last-mentioned effects, will be the goal of follow-up studies.

But what about body com-position? As explained in this bottom line, an assessment of the body composition was beyond the scope of the study at hand. Luckily, you can find evidence of whey's ability to and superiority in (a) augment/ing training-induced improvements in body comp (Hayes. 2008) and (b) po-sitively alter the body comp of free-living, untrained adults (Baer. 2011). This goes for both individuals healthy, but also and especially people who have issues with inflammation, like the overweight and obese subjects in Baer et al. (2011) who consumed 2x56 g/d of soy or whey protein for 23 weeks and saw gains in lean (+0.5 kg) and reductions in fat mass (-2.3kg) only with the latter, i.e. whey protein - not with the former, i.e. soy protein. Whether that's a result of superior or different antioxidant effects of whey vs. soy protein would need further studies, but in view of the results of the Teixeira study, it is at least not unlikely that the antioxidant prowess of whey protein (at least) partly explains its unique (vs. soy) beneficial effects in the Bear study, as well.

So, what can we really learn from this study? It's not just the "mouse or man problem" that limits the significance of the study at hand. In addition, you must not forget that weight gain (including body fat) is a mere necessity in a group of healthy growing young animals; and at the age of 60 of usually ~660 days (Chesky. 1976), the Fischer rats in Teixeira's experiment were just that: still growing.

Against that background, there's no reason to start being afraid of whey protein supplementation, because it promotes weight gain (it does ;-), but that's as the study at hand shows because "WP ingestion inhibited the oxidative effects induced by RE, including the downregulation of gene expression of glutathione system enzymes and phagocyte infiltration in gastrocnemius muscle cells" (Teixeira. 2016) and increased both body and muscle weight gain compared to exercise, alone.

The reasons you may rightly be not 100% happy with the Teixeira's latest study are thus not related to its outcome. Rather than that, it's a logical result of methodological issues that originate in the specific research focus of the paper at hand. With the goal being "to evaluate whether the antioxidant properties of WP could contribute to muscle weight gain in response to resistance exercise (RE)," (Teixeira. 2016) the potential role of fat gain is not even mentioned in the thesis statement. Accordingly, the scientists harvested 'only' the slow and fast twitch muscle fibers to measure potentially different muscle weight developments exemplarily in both, primarily aerobic and anaerobic muscle fibers. And the results confirmed what we tend to forget way too often: Whey is not 'just' a muscle builder, it's also a potent anti-inflammatory agent... but wait, you know that already if you've read my you have read my 2014 article "Whey Beyond Brawn: 10+ Things You Probably Didn't Know Whey Can Do for You" | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Baer, David J., et al. "Whey protein but not soy protein supplementation alters body weight and composition in free-living overweight and obese adults." The Journal of nutrition 141.8 (2011): 1489-1494.
• Chesky, Jeffrey A., and Morris Rockstein. "Life span characteristics in the male Fischer rat." Experimental aging research 2.5 (1976): 399-407.
• Hayes, Alan, and Paul J. Cribb. "Effect of whey protein isolate on strength, body composition and muscle hypertrophy during resistance training." Current Opinion in Clinical Nutrition & Metabolic Care 11.1 (2008): 40-44.
• Teixeira, Kely R., et al. "Whey protein increases muscle weight gain through inhibition of oxidative effects induced by resistance exercise in rats." Nutrition Research (2016).

Bad News For Vitamin Fans - C + E Supplementation Blunts Increases in Total Lean Body and Leg Mass in Elderly Men After 12 Weeks of Std. Intense Strength Training

Chicken legs, old man? Must have been too much antioxidants ;-)

If this is not your first SuppVersity article, you may have read about the potential negative effects of (high dose) anti-oxidant supplementation in previous SuppVersity articles about, or touching on the effects of hormesis, i.e. the beneficial effects of "good oxidative stress". Up to now I have yet often said that it is possible that this effect occurs mostly in people who can handle stress pretty well and thus have to hammer it to trigger a measurable adaptive response.

The elderly subjects in the latest study from the University of Agder in Norway (Bjornson. 2015), however, don't exactly belong to the group of people I was thinking about, when I phrased this hypothesis.

Learn more about hormesis and potential neg. effects of antioxidants at the SuppVersity

Is Vitamin E Good for the Sedentary Slob, Only?

NAC Impairs Anabolic Effects of Exercise

If Vitamin C is Low, Taking More is Good

C+E Useless or Detrimental for Healthy People

Vitamin C and Glucose Management?

Antiox. & Health Benefits Don't Correlate

In said study, thirty-four elderly males (60–81 years) were randomized to either an antioxidant group (500 mg of vitamin C and 117.5 mg vitamin E before and after training) or a placebo group. Needless to say that both groups adhered to the same standardized strength training program.

Table 1: Overview of the exercises the scientists did. The exercises were identical to a previous study in young individuals and the workout was designed to give large metabolic stress (i.e., oxidative stress) and the intention was to stimulate as much muscle growth as possible (Bjornson. 2015)

"The 12-week strength training program had an undulating periodized profile (Jiménez, 2009). The protocol included three full-body sessions per week, emphasizing free weight exercises where all the major muscle groups were included. Two of the sessions each week were “moderate” (8–10 rep, with 1 min rest between sets), and one varied between “heavy” (3–5 rep, with 2 min rest between sets) and “light” (13–15 rep, with 45 s rest between sets)” every second week. [...]  

The number of sets per exercise was increased progressively from 1 to 4 sets during the first 10 weeks, and then reduced with one set each of the last 2 weeks of the intervention (tapering). 

Health and longevity as a function of mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS) formation (learn more)

Will the same mess happen with curcumin? I get this question whenever I am writing articles about hormesis and I still cannot answer it. I believe it is less likely than with vitmamin C, E and NAC, for which it has already been shown that they impair your gains (read the full story on NAC), because curcumin, green tea and co are not only targeting the free radicals, but also the inflammatory processes that occur in response. This does not mean that it is not possible that even these supplements are diminishing your gains, though. It just appears less likely.

Update: In fact, the ill effects of NAC specifically have - as you may have read in the 12+ Facebook news I post per day - been confirmed recently, a study that showed a 5.9% (p<0.05) reduction in insulin sensitivity compared to a non-supplemented control group (Trewin. 2015).

The participants conducted one additional “warm-up” set at 50% of their target weight in each exercise before the main sets started. The last set of each exercise was performed with maximal number of repetition, and if the number of repetitions exceeded the sessions target repetitions, the load was adjusted for the next week’s sessions. Two experienced instructors supervised all strength training sessions and the loads were weekly adjusted" (Bjornson. 2015 | my emphases).

At he end of the 12-week study, the changes body composition was assessed with dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, the subjects' muscle thickness was diagnosed by ultrasound imaging and the muscle strength was measured as one-repetition maxima and the results were quite unambigous.

Figure 1: Changes in muscle thickness. Percent changes in muscle thickness after 4 weeks, 8 weeks, and post-exercise in the placebo group (●) and the antioxidant group (▲), measured in three locations; m. rectus femoris (a), m. vastus lateralis (b) and armflexors (c).Data presented as median with 95% confidence intervals (Bjornson. 2015).

While the total lean mass increased by 3.9% (95% confidence intervals: 3.0, 5.2) in the unsupplemented group, the provision of only 500mg Vit C and 117.5mg vitamin E which is actually what some special "sports mulitvitamins alone have) decreased the mass gains by 64% (total lean mass gain was only 1.4% for the antioxidant group.

What about people with inflammatory diseases? I guess different rules apply for different people. Assuming you have a high baseline inflammation it may be wise to do everything to lower it to make the "good" inflammation "heard" - think of it as the guy on a ship who screams whenever people have to row to synchronize the rowing. You mess up if you shut him up, but what's even worse is if 100 people are trying to do his job. Several studies show that in the obese, for example, anti-oxidants will not trigger weight loss, but facilitate it - in lean, non-inflamed people, on the other hand, they won't. Ok, that's a different domain, but the same principle. After all the inflammation is relevant for a healthy metabolism, as well | learn more.

That's a difference that reached statistical significance and despite some outliers on both sides of the "divide" and mustn't be ignored as random (P = 0.04).

Figure 2: There are differences on the individiual level, but for the total muscle mass and the largest muscle group (the legs), there's little doubt that (a) the gains of the majority of subjects was reduced (Bjornson. 2015).

Similarly, the thickness of m. rectus femoris increased more in the placebo group [16.2% (12.8, 24.1)] than in the antioxidant group [10.9% (9.8, 13.5); P = 0.01]. This leaves us with the lean mass in trunk and arms, and muscle thickness of elbow flexors groups and the 1RM which improved in the range of 15–21% (P < 0.001), but didn't differ between groups.

Minimal, recommended and maximal intakes for all vitamins and minerals (Wikipedia. 2015).

So what? The study at hand complements evidence from studies in younger individuals, where the beneficial health effects (Ristow. 2009), the anabolic signalling, but not the 10-week gains were reduced (Paulson. 2014a, b) and confirms that "high" dosage vitamin C and E supplementation blunts certain muscular adaptations to strength training in man. In that, the dosages are too high to be derived solely from foods (ok, I admit you can get that much from food, but no one really does). Therefore, the common recommendation to eat more fruits and vegetables is not affected by the scientists's observation. You should still eat more of these healthy foods.

What you shouldn't fall for, though, is the bogus false promise that suffocating all the flames by using exorbitant amounts of vitamin C and E (aside from NAC, those appear the only antioxidants w/ sign. anti-gains effects) would be good for you, let alone your training progress and muscle gains. Even though, some subjects in the placebo group, have almost identical gains, the number of those who didn't gain anything or even lost lean mass is so much higher that and the number of subjects that benefited (ZERO) so much lower that you cannot recommend extra-vitamins for people who work out - specifically not the elderly | Comment!

References:

• Bjornson et al. "Vitamin C and E supplementation blunts increases in total lean body mass in elderly men after strength training." Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports (2015): Early view article.
• Paulsen, Gøran, et al. "Can supplementation with vitamin C and E alter physiological adaptations to strength training?." BMC sports science, medicine and rehabilitation 6.1 (2014): 28.
• Paulsen, G., et al. "Vitamin C and E supplementation alters protein signalling after a strength training session, but not muscle growth during 10 weeks of training." The Journal of physiology 592.24 (2014b): 5391-5408.
• Ristow, Michael, et al. "Antioxidants prevent health-promoting effects of physical exercise in humans." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106.21 (2009): 8665-8670.
• Trewin, Adam James, et al. "Effect of N-acetylcysteine infusion on exercise induced modulation of insulin sensitivity, and signaling pathways in human skeletal muscle." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism (2015): ajpendo-00605.
• Wikipedia contributors. "Dietary Reference Intake." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 23 May. 2015. Web. 2 Jul. 2015.

To Boil or Not to Boil? What's Going to Make Your Tea the Healthiest? Recent Study: It Depends on the Type of Tea

Hot or not? That could be a matter of health or ah... well almost death ;-)

Usually a "tea" is a hot beverage, right? No? Well, ok there's ice-tea, but even the coolest of all teas is initially brewed with hot, sometimes almost boiling water. A practice of which a recent study from the  Universidade Tecnológica Federal do Paraná in Brazil suggests that it may actually impair some of the beneficial effects of Baldo, White, Black and Mate tea.

How come? Well, in the study Vanessa de Carvalho Rodrigue, et al. conducted, it made a huge difference in terms of the total phenol and flavenoid content of the extracts (=the aformentioned teas) when the scientists used cold water instead of water that was 80°C "hot".

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During the hot extraction procedure, a total of 2.0 g of the sample was extracted with 100 mL of water distilled at 80 °C. In contrast to how you would do it at home, though, the extraction process was propelled by stirring the glass for 450s (7:30 min). A similar procedure was used for the cold extract. The only differences were that (a) the extraction was done with 20 ml cold water and only 0.5 g of tea and (b) took 120 minutes during which the infusion was kept still, at room temperature (20–25 °C), and was stirred manually every 30 min (Damiani et al., 2014).

All extracts were filtered, transferred to Falcon tubes and immediately frozen at −20 °C (dark) for later analysis in order to prevent oxidation by light and oxygen.

Figure 1: Total phenol & flavenoid content tea after extraction with hot or cold water (de Carvalho Rodrigues. 2015).

The analysis yielded interesting results, because in contrast to what you may have expected not all hot water or extracts were inferior to their cold water counterparts. In the teas with generally lower phenol and flavenol intake, using the hot water to extract the active ingredients lead to significant (lemon grass and carqueja) increases of the total phenol and flavenoid content of the extracts.
What matters more than phenol and flavenol numbers, though, are (a - primarily) the antioxidant activity of the their sum (see Figure 2) and (b - secondarily) the presence of specific bioactive compounds like theobromine, chlorogenic acid or even caffeine (see Table 1).

Too much tea (way more than 2 cups) may mess w/ your thyroid | more

"What now? May I drink tea or not? Recently you wrote it's bad for the thyroid!" What I wrote is that large amounts of green tea are bad for the thyroid and I stick to that. This does not mean, though that drinking 1-2 small cups of tea everyday cannot have any of the often-hailed beneficial effects on your metabolic and cardiovascular health. I thought we were beyond this type of black-and-white thinking. Things are rarely only "good" or "bad" and what's healthy and beneficial in small doses may just as well be bad for you in large ones.

Interestingly, significant differences were seen for the the often-tested DPPH+ (diphenylpicrylhydrazyl) radical scavenging activity only for Carqueja, Lemongrass and Mate (see Figure 2, left), and no significant effects were observed for the content of any of the bioactive agents. With the latter, the content varied, albeit not systematically and not with statistical significance.

Figure 2: Total antioxidant activity of the hot and cold extracts from various teas according to DPPH+ and TROLOX assays; sign. effects were observed only in the TROLOX assay (de Carvalho Rodrigues. 2015).

That's in contrast to the antioxidant activity in the ABTS˙+ or TROLOX test (Figure 2, right) where significant differences were observed for all teas. What is surprising, though is that these were not necessary in line with the total anti-oxidant activity which was increased in the cold extract of the Bodo tea, for example (it's anti-oxidant activity still was more than 50% lower).

60%+ Reduced Absorption of EGCG if You Consume GTE W/ Food | more

Hot or not? This cannot be answered conclusively based on the study at hand. Not just because the DPPH+ and TROLOX values differed, but also in view of the fact that there was a disconnect between the phenol and flavenol content of the tea extracts and their anti-oxidant activity.

Let's still look at the most popular teas: Green tea may be more potent if you avoid using hot water, the same goes for white tea. Black, Chamomille and Mate Tea, on the other hand, appear to benefit from the use of hot (80°C) water.

There's yet one last thing I have to say before I ask you to "Comment on Facebook": Without a study of the immediate anti-oxidant effects in living beings (at least mice) we can never tell for sure if the above suggestions stand the test of future trials ;-)  | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• de Carvalho Rodrigues, V., da Silva, M. V., dos Santos, A. R., Zielinski, A. A. F. and Haminiuk, C. W. I. (2015), Evaluation of hot and cold extraction of bioactive compounds in teas. International Journal of Food Science & Technology. doi: 10.1111/ijfs.12858