SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Intra-workout BCAA supplements are marketed specifically to resistance trainees. If they do have anti-catabolic effects, though, those are - just like potential fatigue reducing effects - significantly more likely to occur in endurance trainees. If you go by the results of a 2001 study by Blomstrand et al., which is actually the only study to investigate the effect of BCAA intake on the leg exchange of amino acids along with the change in their muscle concentration during exercise and a 2-h recovery period, it would appear as if the claim that "Intra-Workout BCAA Supplements Are Useful Only For Those Who Produce, Import and Sell Them" was true. The study, which measured the amount of amino acids directly and does thus provide a much better proxy of proteolysis than protease measurements which are "a poor index of muscle proteolysis" (Attaix. 2010), did after all indicate that there is no decrease in the rate of protein degradation when BCAA are consumed during...

24%, 23% and 22% of the DV for magnesium that's what you can find in one serving of sunflower seeds (0.25cup), halibut (4oz) and a large(r) banana - now you tell me it was impossible to get your magnesium from dietary sources. After having handled half of the Science Round-Up from Thursday yesterday, yesterday , there is still something left to serve: seconds to the seconds, if you will and probably not so "new" as the average SuppVersity news. In order not to bore you, I will yet refrain from telling you how important magnesium is and how it is involved in thousands of enzymatic reactions ... you know the whole magnesium-guru-spiel all too well, anyway. I mean, anyone doing a cursory Google search will have to conclude that there is nothing magnesium cannot cure, right?. Whatever you may suffer from, someone has already found out that it must be related to magnesium deficiency or, even more profitable, taking the wrong form of magnesium supplements. Apropos defici...

Oh yes, this will happen despite if not because you've taken large amounts of BCAA before the workout. Usually you don't put the cart before the horse, but I guess you won't mind if I do so and postpone a summary of the information on magnesium from yesterday's installment of the Science Round-Up to tomorrow, when this means that we are going to take care of the "BCAA crisis" today. Ok, maybe "crisis" is not the best word to describe the reverberations the recent publication of a study by SuJean Choi et al. should be having (=nobody buys BCAAs anymore), but I was looking for something better than the usual "the truth about..." Science, and I am not going to tire repeating that, is after all not about truth (that's what the confessional box is about), but about experimentally verifiable/verified and non-verifiable/non-verified hypothesis (Popper. 1994). BCAAs can have ergolytic effects - A verifiable hypotheses? Based on the ...

Can creatine beneficially influence your neurotransmitter so that you can run longer? I guess, some of you will remember, while others will still ignore the discussion revolving around the serotonin (5-HT) depleting effects of high doses of BCAA (see news item " BCAAs inhibit serotonin metabolism "). To those who remember and may even have followed the ensuing discussion it is probably no news that the acute ingestion of ~60g of BCAAs suppresses 5-HT, raises prolactin and lowers dopamine to such a degree that it has a direct negative impact on emotional decision making in human beings (Sevy. 2006). Against that background you may probably be assuming the worst, when I am now telling you that every gymrat's darling, creatine monohydrate, does also exhibit non-negligible effects on the levels of the two important neurotransmitters. All clear: Creatine probably won't make you depressed Contrary to BCAAs which exert their effect irrespective of whether you do or ...