SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

If glycine worked in athletes as it did in pigs or even isolated muscle cells, in which scientists recently observed a dose-dependent increase in protein synthesis (up to 80%) and reductions in protein degradation (-30%), it would be a go-to supplement for dieting athletes. Glycine is not exactly the most popular amino acid supplement in the health and fitness community. With recent studies by a group of Chinese and American scientists from the State Key Laboratory of Animal Nutrition  in China and the Texas A&M University , this may change - rightly so? Only recently Wang et al. were able to show that dietary glycine supplementation enhances skeletal muscle growth in young pigs (Wang. 2014a,b) - an excellent model of human metabolism. In view of the fact that the mechanism has hitherto not been fully understood, it was difficult to judge whether the smallest possible amino, i.e. glycine, could / would be useful for trainees as well. Learn more about amino acid supple...

This study does almost everything right and yet, it still needs a follow-up study to address the question whether the results would be the same for fast(er) digesting proteins such as whey protein where 'more', i.e. ever-increasing boluses of protein, could actually increase the amount of protein that is being fed into gluconeogenesis, bros. You've read it here, you've read it elsewhere: Simply doubling your protein intake ain't going to double your gains. That's true and the latest data from the  Center for Translational Research in Aging and Longevity  at the  University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences ain't going to change that. The questionable, if not incorrect overemphasis on postprandial (meaning right after you ingested a protein shake) and/or post-exercise and -prandial (meaning after the protein shake you consumed right after a resistance training workout) skeletal muscle protein synthesis of the vast majority of studies that investigate the...

Intermittent fasting has accumulated lots of scientific back-up in obese subjects and rodent models of obesity. In lean, athletic folks, however, the "evidence" is - with one exception - based on hear-say and N=1 reports... until now! While previous studies in Ramadan fasting have already provided some evidence of the efficacy of intermittent fasting - lean gains style - aka 16h fasting to 8h feeding, the latest study from the University of Padova is the latest of two studies ( here's a write-up of the other one ) that were specifically designed to evaluate the efficacy of what the scientists call "an increasingly popular dietary approach used for weight loss and overall health" (Moro. 2016). As the authors likewise point out, the evidence that intermittent fasting (IF) can have significant beneficial effects on blood lipids and other health outcomes in the overweight and obese, albeit mostly using alternate day fasting (learn more), there's limited a...

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 - w...

Not basing both the ketogenic and regular very low calorie diet on whole foods, only was only one of at least 3 problems with the study at hand that can thus not be considered the ultimate litmus test to compare VLCD with en vogue VLCKD diets. Ketogenic diets are characterized by constantly low insulin levels. That's not exactly what has been considered muscle protective in the old age of bodybuilding, where insulin's protein-anabolic and anti-catabolic effects were still hailed as a benefit you wouldn't want to miss (Fulks. 1975; Woolfson. 1979), but according to a recent study from Rome, a ketogenic diet may be the go-to diet for everyone trying to shed as much as weight as possible in as little time as possible by cutting your total daily energy intake down to a hilarious <700 kcal/day (Metta. 2016). Now, cutting calories back that much may sound (and be) idiotic for someone who has been lean all his / her life and is just trying to make his abs more visible. Fo...