SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

They may have been published in "Obesity" and observed in people w/ weight problems, but the results of these three recent papers are still relevant for lean, metabolically healthy people, too. Even if you are already way beyond the stage, where "weight loss" is your main interest, I am pretty sure you will appreciate this selection of recent studies from obesity research all around the world. After all, some of the research may actually help you achieve your new goal which should be to lose body fat while keeping or even building lean mass. In today's research review I am going to discuss three papers that have recently been published in the International Journal of Obesity (after being available online since late 2017, btw). To generalize one could say that the papers deal with the effects of nutrient timing and your microbiome on the efficacy of your fat loss efforts. Review older articles about the gut - health  axis.at the SuppVersity Bugs Dicta...

Epidemiologists created the myth of obesity preventing, weight loss promoting effects of increases in meal frequency. Experimental scientists have yet not been able to convince the public that this is bogus... so, studies like Kahleova e al. (2017) may be 'observational bogus', but could actually be more likely to facilitate change than even the best RCTs. As a SuppVersity  reader you know that the commonly heard advice to eat 5-6 smaller vs. 3 larger meals in order to "stoke the metabolic fire" is bullshit ("No Advantage of 6 Meals While Dieting" | read ; "Many Small Meals Suck! Especially For Diabetics" | read ). Unfortunately, the mainstream media has not caught up to this insight... ... at least not until now. Now you're rightly asking yourselves why this would change, right? Well, you know how mainstream science reporting is obsessed with the impressive number of study participants in often practically worthless epidemiological studi...

"To eat or not to eat breakfast?" Unfortunately, the scientists geared their research pretty much to this question. Alright, you all have read my recent Facebook news post  about the reduced energy expenditure students reported in a hitherto unpublished paper. Those of you who have (rightly) pointed out that this was at best preliminary evidence (which is, by the way, exactly what I pointed out, as well), will now feel vindicated: Scientists from the German  University of Hohenheim  report that "when compared with the 3-meal control, 24-h energy expenditure was higher" with a meal-skipping regimen that had a lot of similarity to what many of you will practice and label "intermittent fasting". Learn more about fasting at the SuppVersity Don't Start Having Breakfast Now! "Lean Gains" Fast Works Fasting Better W/ 1 or 3 Meals? Fasting Works for Obese, Too!? IF + Resistance Training = WIN ADF Beats Ca-lorie Restriction ...

You better super-size that lunch box if you plan to enjoy the scientifically suggested health and body weight benefits of getting the lion's share of your energy intake at lunch, instead of dinner [15%, 50%, 15% + 15% (ideally) healthy snacks]. This is one of the rare occasions when SuppVersity  articles need an introduction before the introduction. Why's that? Well, in contrast to 99.9% of the other 2280 SuppVersity articles the following text wasn't written by myself, but by my good friend Alex Leaf. How's that? Well, as Alex is going to point out in the next paragraph. He was the one who spotted the latest "meal timing" study and I thought that Alex's at least as qualified as I am. He's, after all, an important contributor to the Examine Research Digest (always the articles that need the least editing ;-) and a registered general and sports nutritionist with his own business , while I am just... well, a physicist. "So why don't you l...