Garlic & Red Yeast Rice: Manage Your Blood Lipids W/Out Statins - 12+1 Natural Alternatives Reviewed (Part I)

Red yeast rice is the "+1" in this SuppVersity Mini-Series because it is actually a "statin". Similar effects, similar side effects and all that (probably) because of the similar structure of its lipid lowering active ingredient(s).

"Twelve + 1"? I know that sounds odd, but I have my reason to single one of the natural alternatives, two scientists from the Chulalongkorn University in Thailand list in their 2016 review "A Review of the Efficacy, Safety, and Clinical Implications of Naturally Derived Dietary Supplements for Dyslipidemia", right from the start: red yeast rice (RYR).

While garlic, which will also be discussed in today's first installment of what is going to become a mini-series, also has the ability to decrease your HMG-CoA reductase activity, only RYR does that at a similar potency as statins do; which is why its use entails the risk of similar side effects as they have been reported for regular statin drugs Whether RYR is thus your best "natural alternative" is highly questionable.

All about cholesterol & related stories in previous SuppVersity articles:

Cholesterol Boosts Immunity

Eggs Promote Heart Health

All About Eggs (Focus on Yolk)

Silicon-Powered Anti-CVD Foods

Paleo Works W/ High Cholesterol

Coconut Oil to Control Chol.

On the other hand, the fact that the monacolins, the main bioactive compounds in RYR, is not debatable. Only recently, a meta-analysis by Li et al. (2014) reported no serious side effects and concluded based on 13 RCTs that "red yeast rice is an effective and relatively safe approach for dyslipidemia" (Li. 2014). Li et al. do yet also know that "further long-term, rigorously designed randomized controlled trials are still warranted before red yeast rice could be recommended to patients with dyslipidemia, especially as an alternative to statins" (Li. 2014).

Figure 1: Effects of 1,200mg/d red yeast rice (RYR) on blood lipids in statin-intolerant subjects (left | Venro. 2010) and subject-dependent reductions in LDL in the latest meta-analysis of the effects of RYR (right | Li. 2014).

If you are statin intolerant, however, Venro et al's study in 25 statin-intolerant subjects who received 1,200 mg RYR at bedtime, however, would suggest that you in particular could benefit from RYR as it appears to have a rather good tolerability in those subjects who cannot take regular statins.

Don't be a fool! This article is no statin or anti-cholesterol add. Nobody says that taking statins without a good reason would be wise. In fact, even the relatively well-tolerated RYR which works by the same mechanism, produced (albeit tolerable) muscle weakness and muscle pain as adverse effects in most clinical studies; a downside that points to the 'demusculizing' effects of HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors - even if the difference to placebo reached statistical significance only in few (albeit short-term) studies (Liu. 2006 & Li. 2014).

Further evidence that, as so often, individuality is key comes from the differential effects in European, Asian and US subjects (see Figure 1 showing data from Li. 2014). The latter, however, may be explained by both, the genetic configuration of the subjects, and the high ingredient variability of commercially available RYR preparations of which a comparative analysis of 10 commercial red yeast rice products reports a >30-fold range in total monacolin content. The authors of said study also highlight:

"Furthermore, compared with the full spectrum of monacolins expected in a red yeast rice dietary supplement, with monacolin K representing 55% to 60%, 4 of the 10 products were >90% monacolin K, suggesting that they were actually food-grade red yeast rice “spiked” with lovastatin, the prescription statin that is chemically identical to monacolin K" (Mark. 2010).

And Mark et al. are not the only ones reporting an intolerable degree of cutting in the snake oil industry. Similar results have been presented by Gordon et al. who tested 12 products that are regularly sold and consumed in the US and found total monacolin contents ranging from 0.31 to 11.15 mg/capsule. Just like Mark et al. Gordon et al. also found monacolin K (lovastatin | 0.10-10.09 mg/capsule), which could occur naturally, albeit not at very high doses, in many and the kidney-damaging citrinin in four of the twelve tested products (33%).

Garlic is a HMG-CoA inhibitor that doesn't have the problems of statins & RYR ...

...or, we simply don't know about them yet, because the currently available garlic supplements all suffer from the pathetic bioavailability of allicin (which is broken down enzymatically before it reaches your bloodstream | Lawson. 2001), which could - in very high doses that have not been tested in studies yet - possibly have similar negative side effects as the monocalins in RYR.

More recently, however, studies have suggested that allicin may not even be necessary for some of the beneficial effects of garlic. In particular, its general anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory effects appear to be mediated mainly by S-allyl cysteine. Furthermore, "various chemical constituents in garlic products, including nonsulfur compounds such as saponins, may contribute to the essential biological activities of garlic" (Amagase. 2006) - including their anti-lipidemic effect.

I want to try it - What's the optimal dosing for garlic and RYR? While the evidence for the more powerful RYR is relatively conclusive and says that effective dosage(s) range from 600 and 3600 mg (depending on product quality and how significant your 'cholesterol-problem' is), reliable dosage suggestions are hard to make for garlic. In the previously cited recent review from Thailand (Thaipitakwong & Aramwit. 2016), the suggestion is 2–5 g of fresh garlic, 0.4–1.2 g of dried powder, 2–5 mg of oil and 300–1000 mg - "any other preparations should correspond to 4–12 mg of alliin or 2–5 mg of allicin" (ibid.). As previously pointed out, however, there's probably one study to refute the efficacy of real-food or supplemental garlic at the given dosages for every two studies that support it. Eventually, you will thus have to self-experiment to find out if and at which dosages garlic can exert a significant effect on your blood lipids.

In contrast to their active ingredient, however, the efficacy of garlic and garlic supplements as anti-hyperlipidemic drugs is well-established. One of the most cited meta-analyses (39 RCTs with 2298 participants | Ried. 2013) found that, overall, garlic consumption caused significant changes in serum levels of total cholesterol (–15.25 mg/dl; p < 0.0001), LDL-C (–6.41 mg/dl; p = 0.02), and HDL-C (1.49 mg/dl; p = 0.02), whereas the triglyceride levels appeared to be unaffected (I will address this in a follow-up, but if you eat your garlic with fatty fish, this should address the triglyceride issue). In addition, a more recent meta-analysis revealed that it will also reduce the level of lipoprotein (a) in the blood of hyperlipidemic subjects (Sahebkar. 2016).

Figure 2: Effects of garlic supplements on LDL (left, red) and HDL (right, green) according to a 2013 meta-analysis of  39 RCTs with 2298 participants (Ried. 2013) - the results have generally been confirmed more recently (Ried. 2016). 

Needless to say that, for garlic, just like RYR and any other drug or supplement, conflicting evidence exists. Early studies, for example, didn't report consistent effects on LDL and HDL. Whether that's due to different types (raw, powder, oil, and aged extract), processing and doses of garlic products used, or the subjects' baseline lipid levels and the study duration is something neither Thaipitakwong & Aramwit (2016), in their review, nor I can tell you due to the lack of studies that directly investigate the individual effects of these parameters. studies. The latter is also true for the bioavailability of raw garlic vs. supplements and the various types of 'garlic products' on the market. As the previously cited study from Thailand rightly concludes: the individual bioavailability simply has not been studied, yet (Thaipitakwong & Aramwit. 2016).

It should never be your goal to eradicate cholesterol. What you want is to control your levels within a rationale range that is probably much higher (esp. for total cholesterol) than the US recommendations to reap the benefits this essential hormone precursor and building block of your cells will have on endocrine, immune, muscle and brain function.

To be continued: If you miss the promised 11 'true' alternatives that won't mess with your HMG-CoA enzyme activity, I can reassure you, there will be a follow-up in which you can learn more about phytosterols, sesame, green tea, probiotics, fiber, chitosan, soy, flaxseed, guggul, krill and fish oil.

Until then, I would like to leave you with the conclusion that garlic is both, the less effective, and less side-effect prone natural alternative to statins. In contrast to red yeast rice, which is practically a "natural statin", it is yet able to control only "slightly elevated" (Ried. 2016) cholesterol levels; and not those you will see irrespective of your diet due to an inheritable genetic disposition and/or known or unknown pathologies (oftentimes one or several of the other components of the metabolic syndrome) | Comment!

References:

• Amagase, Harunobu. "Clarifying the real bioactive constituents of garlic." The Journal of nutrition 136.3 (2006): 716S-725S.
• Gordon, et al. "Marked variability of monacolin levels in commercial red yeast rice products." Arch Intern Med 170.19 (2010): 1722-1727.
• Lawson, Larry D., and Z. Jonathan Wang. "Low allicin release from garlic supplements: a major problem due to the sensitivities of alliinase activity." Journal of agricultural and food chemistry 49.5 (2001): 2592-2599.
• Li, Yinhua, et al. "A meta-analysis of red yeast rice: an effective and relatively safe alternative approach for dyslipidemia." PloS one 9.6 (2014): e98611.
• Liu, Jianping, et al. "Chinese red yeast rice (Monascus purpureus) for primary hyperlipidemia: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials." Chinese medicine 1.1 (2006): 1.
• Mark, David A. "All red yeast rice products are not created equal—or legal." The American journal of cardiology 106.3 (2010): 448.
• Venero, Carmelo V., et al. "Lipid-lowering efficacy of red yeast rice in a population intolerant to statins." The American journal of cardiology 105.5 (2010): 664-666.
• Sahebkar, Amirhossein, et al. "Effect of garlic on plasma lipoprotein (a) concentrations: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled clinical trials." Nutrition 32.1 (2016): 33-40.
• Ried, Karin, Catherine Toben, and Peter Fakler. "Effect of garlic on serum lipids: an updated meta-analysis." Nutrition reviews 71.5 (2013): 282-299.
• Ried, Karin. "Garlic lowers blood pressure in hypertensive individuals, regulates serum cholesterol, and stimulates immunity: an updated meta-analysis and review." The Journal of nutrition 146.2 (2016): 389S-396S.

Natural H. Pylori Treatment and a Brief Overview of its Ill Health Effects & the Scientific Debate About Whether its Eradication Would Necessarily be Good for Us

An H. pylori infection is not exactly a death sentence, but it can still have nasty consequences.

Over the past decade H. pylori has repeatedly been in the focus of scientific research. It has been linked with gastric carcinoma (Parsonnet. 1991; Huang. 1998). The summary of odds-ratio of a 198 meta-analysis by Huang et al. for example shows increases of cancer risk of 92%, 124% and 81% in infected patients for all studies, cohort, and case-control studies, respectively. The meta-analysis also found that "H. pylori–infected younger patients have a higher relative risk for gastric cancer than older patients with odds ratios decreasing from 9.29 at age ≤29 years to 1.05 at age ≥70 years." (Huang. 1998).

But cancer is only the "worst case" scenario, when it comes to the potential (ill) health effects of being infected with H. pylori.

You can learn more about the gut & your health at the SuppVersity

Bugs Dictate What You Crave

Sweeteners & Your Gut

Foods, Not Ma- cros for the Gut

Lactulose For Gut & Health

Probiotics Don't Cut Body Fat

The Macrobiotic MaPi2.0 Diet

The Helicobacter pylori bacterium has also been associated with in cases of chronic gastritis, functional dyspepsia, peptic or duodenal ulcers, and cancer or gastric lymphomas.

"Because it can survive in acidic environments, it remains intact in the stomach and promotes the destruction of the gastric mucosa. This makes the organ sensitive and vulnerable to triggering of ulcerative lesions and blocks the sterilization of food, producing failures in the digestion process." (Bonifácio. 2014)

Atrophic gastritis, which is a common consequence of rampant H. pylori infections, may cause pernicious anemia because it interferes with the absorption of vitamin B12 from food. The symptoms of gastritis in general are burning, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, feeling of satiety and gastrointestinal bleeding.

One question that arises is: How likely is it that you are infected?

With worldwide prevalence estimated at between 50 and 90%, this type of cancer frequently occurs in developing countries. And one of the most comprehensive reviews of the literature confirms, the answer to this question may well depend on where you live.

Table 1: Population-based studies of Helicobacter pylori prevalence according to detection method,
published between April 2008 and March 2009 (Azevedo. 2009).

As a brief glimpse at the data in Table 1 shows, the number of infected individuals is lowest in Japan (in kids) and highest in African immigrants to Australia.

How is H. pylori transmitted? Laboratory studies have yielded evidence in favor of both faecal-oral and oral-oral pathways. However, a role for either waterborne or zoonotic transmission has not been ruled out. Overall, "the failure of investigations to single out a mode of transmission for H. pylori signals the possibility of multiple transmission pathways." (Goodman. 1995)

A classic, pharmacological "H. pylori" eradication scheme that would of which recent studies show that it is more effective if a metronidazole-based therapy is chosen over the standard clarithromycin-based therapy (Nishizawa. 2014), is yet something you should only contemplate if you have actually been diagnosed with the nasty gram-negative, microaerophilic bacterium. If you only suspect being infected or want to reduce your risk of being affected, the following natural H. pylori treatments are certainly preferable to the nitroimidazole antibiotic medication metronidazole:

• 

  Feijoa sellowiana (O.Berg) is one of the natural anti-H. pylori agent (Basile. 2010)

  Feijoa sellowiana fruits have been shown to inhibit the growth of Helicobacter pylori by Basile et al. in 2010.
• Leaves of Strychnos pseudoquina ST. HIL. (Loganiaceae) or rather a methanolic extract from these leaves which have been used traditionally as malaria treatment has been shown to be effective in a rodent study by Silva et al. (2005).
• Chamomille or more specifically an extract from the inflorence of the camomille flower (Cogo. 2010).
• Achiote (Bixa orellana) or rather a tincture that's made from the seeds of this shrub or small tree originating from the tropical region of the Americas (Cogo. 2010).
• Green Yerba mate leaves are another effective H. pylori treatment as Schubert et al. point out in a 2006 paper. Whether drinking mate tea will do the same, has not been established, though.

Maybe H. pylori  is not always bad!? As strange as it may sound, some scientists argue that the contemporary evidence that "with modern life, for probably the first time in human history, there are large numbers of noncolonized persons" and that this decrease in H. pylori infections was associated with an increase in gastroesophageal reflux (GERD), Barrett's esophagus, and adenocarcinomas of the gastric cardia and lower esophagus. These diseases are not directly related to H. pylori, but "colonization with cag+ H. pylori strains appears protective against these diseases." Accordingly, the authors of one of the more recent papers elaborating on this hypothesis conclude: "[I]n the 21st century, the continuing decline in H. pylori may lead to the disappearance of duodenal ulcers and distal gastric cancers and toward a marked increase in GERD, Barrett's esophagus, and esophageal adenocarcinoma." (Blaser. 1999)

• Garlic extracts are another of the better-known H. pylori treatments (Cellini. 1996)
• Pistacios, or rather the mastic gum from Pistacia lentiscus (L.) var. chia (Duham) has been found to inhibit H. pylori growth by Paraschos et al. (2007).
• Malva sylvestris inflorences and leaves have been shown to inhibit the growth of H. pylori by Buffon et al. (2001)
• False rubarb, aka Rheum rhaponticum roots have been reported to be effective H. pylori killers (Cogo. 2010).
• Pomegranate peels exhibit anti-H. pylori activity, as well (Hajimahmoodi. 2011).

Table 2: Anti-Helicobacter pylori activity of essential oils (Bonifácio. 2014)

Next the aforementioned plants, fruit and fruit parts which are usually used as methanolic or aqueous extracts, there is a good dozen of essential oils of which a recent review by Bonifácio et al. (2014) indicates that all of them exert significant inhibitory effects on H. pylori (see Table 2).

As you can see in Table 1 the major problem is that in vivo studies, i.e. studies in which the oil was tested in intact organisms, in the case of the essential oil from Cymbopogon aka lemongrass the anti-H. pylori effects were observed in vivo, as well (in a mouse study by Ohno et al. (2003), to be precise).

Against that background it remains to be seen if any of the previously mentioned oils, fruits, plants and plant extracts are "strong" enough to eradicate a rampant H. pylori infection in a living human being. What appears to be likely, though, is that they could prevent it from becoming "rampant" in the first place.

H. pylori eradication is not the only thing pistachios can do for you - find out more in "The Pistachio Manifesto: Antioxidant, Metal Chelator, DNA Protector, Anti-Cancer Agent, Bug Killer  & More." | read more

Bottom line: While the is conclusive evidence that certain strains, but not all forms of H. pylori increase your risk of developing gastric cancer. There is (a) evidence that some strains may actually protect you from developing other gastrointestinal diseases (see red box) and (b) insufficient data from in vivo studies to recommend any of the previously listed agents as an "effective replacement" for the standard course of antibiotics doctors usually prescribe to eradicate H. pylori.

That being said, it is non unlikely that the regular consumption of garlic and pistacios or the use of essential oils from lemon grass could protect you from being infected or infections from flaring up | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Azevedo, Nuno F., Janis Huntington, and Karen J. Goodman. "The epidemiology of Helicobacter pylori and public health implications." Helicobacter 14.s1 (2009): 1-7.
• Basile, Adriana, et al. "Antibacterial and antifungal properties of acetonic extract of Feijoa sellowiana fruits and its effect on Helicobacter pylori growth." Journal of medicinal food 13.1 (2010): 189-195.
• Blaser, Martin J. "Hypothesis: the changing relationships of Helicobacter pylori and humans: implications for health and disease." Journal of Infectious Diseases 179.6 (1999): 1523-1530. 
• Bonifácio, Bruna V., et al. "Antimicrobial Activity of Natural Products Against Helicobacter pylori: A Review." Annals of clinical microbiology and antimicrobials 13.1 (2014): 54. 
• Buffon, Marilene da Cruz Magalhães, et al. "Avaliação da eficácia dos extratos de Malva sylvestris, Calendula officinalis, Plantago major e Curcuma zedoarea no controle do crescimento das bactérias da placa dentária. Estudo" in vitro." Revista Visão Acadêmica 2.1 (2001): 31-38. 
• Cellini, Luigina, et al. "Inhibition of Helicobacter pylori by garlic extract (Allium sativum)." FEMS Immunology & Medical Microbiology 13.4 (1996): 273-277.
• Cogo, Laura Lúcia, et al. "Anti-Helicobacter pylori activity of plant extracts traditionally used for the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders." Brazilian Journal of Microbiology 41.2 (2010): 304-309.
• Goodman, Karen J., and Pelayo Correa. "The transmission of Helicobacter pylori. A critical review of the evidence." International Journal of Epidemiology 24.5 (1995): 875-887.
• Hajimahmoodi, M., et al. "In vitro antibacterial activity of some Iranian medicinal plant extracts against Helicobacter pylori." Natural product research 25.11 (2011): 1059-1066.
• Huang, Jia-Qing, et al. "Meta-analysis of the relationship between Helicobacter pylori seropositivity and gastric cancer." Gastroenterology 114.6 (1998): 1169-1179. 
• Nishizawa, Toshihiro, et al. "Clarithromycin Versus Metronidazole as First-line Helicobacter pylori Eradication: A Multicenter, Prospective, Randomized Controlled Study in Japan." Journal of clinical gastroenterology (2014).
• Parsonnet, Julie, et al. "Helicobacter pylori infection and the risk of gastric carcinoma." New England Journal of Medicine 325.16 (1991): 1127-1131. 
• Paraschos, Sotirios, et al. "In vitro and in vivo activities of Chios mastic gum extracts and constituents against Helicobacter pylori." Antimicrobial agents and chemotherapy 51.2 (2007): 551-559.
• Schubert, Alexandre, et al. "Variação anual de metilxantinas totais em amostras de Ilex paraguariensis A. St.-Hil.(erva-mate) em Ijui e Santa Maria, Estado do Rio Grande do Sul." Quim. Nova 29.6 (2006): 1233-1236.
• Silva, Marcelo Aparecido da, et al. "Evaluation of Strychnos pseudoquina St. Hil. leaves extract on gastrointestinal activity in mice." Chemical and pharmaceutical bulletin 53.8 (2005): 881-885.

5-10% Weight Reduction From Set to Set For Hypertrophy, Heavy Leg Workouts for Cyclists, Garlic For 400% Higher Test/Cortisol Ratios & Max(!) 1g Vitamin C for Muscle Gains

7% increase in breast cancer risk for every 500g above "normal" birthweight for Scandinavian women. Weight is yet not all that counts, mommy's gestational diabetes and even a large body size also precipitate to later disease.

7% per 500g that's the increase in breast cancer risk, the female offspring of Scandinavian women will have, if they are born heavier than normal. This figure is the SuppVersity Figure of the Week and comes from a study I came across a couple of days ago (Troisi. 2012). The statistics are based on birth register data of women from Norway, Sweden or Denmark who were subsequently diagnosed with primary, invasive breast cancer (n=51419) and 10 controls for each case from the birth registries matched by country and year of birth (n = 514,190).

Contrary to what you may think, the birth weight does yet not pose as much of a risk to become obese later in life as being larger than "appropriate" for your gestational age does (Eyzaguirre. 2012). If you also consider that gestational diabetes has been linked with increased risk of metabolic syndrome in the offspring (Davis. 2012) and that obesity in itself is an independent risk factor for breast cancer (Patterson. 2012), these should be more than enough good arguments not to surrender to your occasional food cravings and laziness - pregnant or not.

It's not all in your genes, but most in your hands

Although some people would love, if this was the case, because they could blame their own misery on the mistakes other  may have made, our lives and health are not fully determined by our genes and/or the mistakes our mothers may or may not have made. As Poston and Foreyt wrote in 1999, already: "Obesity is an environmental issue." And we are lucky: It is in our hands to change the environment we are exposing ourselves to and thus influence which of our genetic disposals will become active and are  promoted and which of them won't. Now that's obviously not just the case for obesity, muscular hypertrophy would be another example. Irrespective of your genetic make-up your strength and muscle gains stand and fall with the way you train, eat and supplement... and guess what, all of these points will be addressed in today's installment of On Short Notice.

• Experimentally validated: 5-10% drop in weights per set is "optimal" for hypertrophy training (Medeiros. 2012) -- Scientists from the Laboratory of Physiology and Biokinetic at the Faculty of Biological Sciences and Health on the UNIG Campus V at Itaperuna in Brazil find: The average resistance trainee - in this case a young man aged 24.0±4.5 years with a body mass of 78.3±10.2 kg and a height of 177±7 cm - can remain in the hypertrophy range (10-12 reps to failure) for most of his sets, when he reduces the weight by 5-10% after each set.
  
  Whether this will also yield optimal gains was yet not within the scope of this 5-week study. What these results do however tell you is that you are not training hard enough if you perform all your sets with the exact same weight in the exact same rep range - well, unless you don't just like to listen to Super Human Radio, but are actually related to Superman himself ;-)

• 

  Sir Chris Hoy's legs are not as hilarious as those of the German Robert Forstemann (Robert is the right guy), but I am pretty certain their size and strength played a very important part in becoming the most successful Olympic track cyclist of all times (six gold and one silver Olympic Medal + 11 times world champion)

  Heavy leg training could make the difference between victory or defeat at the end of a cycling race (Hansen. 2012) -- In a soon-to-be-published paper, Ernst A. Hansen et al. report that the addition of 12-weeks of heavy resistance training in the form of 4 lower body exercises (3 × 4–10 repetition maximum) which had to be performed twice a week enhanced the cycling performance of highly trained cyclists by 7% compared to the training outcome of the subjects in a control group who simply followed their regular endurance-only, protocols:
  

  "Performance was determined as average power output in a 5-min all-out trial performed subsequent to 185 min of submaximal cycling. The performance enhancement, which has been reported previously, was here shown to be accompanied by improved pedaling efficacy during the all-out cycling. Thus, E+S shortened the phase where negative crank torque occurs by ~16°, corresponding to ~14%, which was more than in E (P = .002)" (Hansen. 2012)

  Since the test was conducted at the end of a 3h cycling session, it should be plain obvious that those 15% increases in torque will catapult the strength trained endurance athlete to the forefront on every final sprint.

• Human dose equivalent of ~0.1g/kg garlic per day could not just boost your testosterone and lower the high protein diet induced increases in cortisol, it could also improve the way your body utilizes dietary protein (Oi. 2012)-- Actually this is not a new study, but since Maxim was not happy with things "so yesterday" as the increases in HDL and LDL the Arabian scientists observed in the garlic study I have been talking about at the end of Thursday's SuppVersity Science Round-Up on SHR, I thought others may be as happy as Maxim will hopefully be to hear that there is more to garlic than "just" its beneficial effects on your heart.
  
  

  

  Figure 1: Higher testosterone levels, an amelioration of the high protein induced increase in corticosteroids and a 40% increase in net protein balance are unquestionably impressive results given the fact that the all those differences were brought about within 28 days and by no more than 0.1g/kg (HED) of "supplemental" garlic in form of heat dried powder that was added to the chow (Oi. 2001)

  In fact, I am almost sure that the >400% increase in the testosterone to cortisol ratio you will see if you take a closer look at the data in figure 1, is probably rather what Maxim would have liked to hear me talk about. Especially in view of the fact that this endocrine effects went hand in hand with a highly significant +60% increase in protein retention (figure 1, top right). Think about it, if only part of he protein that was now no longer excreted in the urine / feces would be used for protein synthesis this would entail exactly those hypertrophy effects you don't see with your average "scientifically proven" herb-based testosterone booster.
  
  Unfortunately, the scientists did only measure the body weight and visceral fat pads, not the actual muscle mass of the rodents,. But if you go by their ratios it is obvious that the high protein + garlic group were not just the heaviest, but also the leanest.
  
  With +11 % vs. +5% in both the medium and high protein diets, the animals on the low protein did yet exhibit the most profound benefits as far as the body weight / visceral fat ratio goes. Against the background that their net protein balance remained the same, this observation does actually suggest that the pro-anabolic effects of garlic are not solely a result of a decreased protein excretion (see figure 1).

  

  Table 1: Principal sulphur compounds of garlic preparations (Hammami. 2012)

  Warning: Don't live on garlic alone! While the provision of 0.8% garlic powder did have beneficial effects on testosterone production in the study at hand, there are a couple of studies which suggest that a diet with 15-30% of crude garlic (Hammami. 2008 & 2009), as well as the administration of Diallyl trisulphide in isolation (Qian. 1986) and raw garlic juice (e.g. 600mg/kg per day for 21 days in Fehri. 1991) can compromise testosterone production and/or testicular function. In view of the difference between 0.8% garlic powder in the diet of the rodents in study at hand and 15-30% of pure garlic in the diet of the animals in the Hamami studies, it is most likely that the effects were dose-depended, but in case you are interested in health benefits of specific sulfor compounds in garlic, the data in table 1 on the left may still come handy to pick "your" preferred form of garlic.
  Rather than that, it appears as if the human equivalent of 0.1g/kg body weight of heat dried garlic powder that contained a total amount of 5.05 mg/g of total diallylsulfide (0.05 mg of monosulfide, 1.0 mg of disulfide, 3.4 mg of trisulfide, 0.6 mg tetrasulfide) had the ability to improve the incorporation of dietary protein into muscles (and other organs).

 

• Study shows: Vitamin C supplementation does reduce skeletal muscle hypertrophy in response to chronic overload (Makanae. 2012) -- Despite the fact that it has not even been published yet, the paper by Yuhei Makanae et al. actually only confirms what more and more scientists have been speculating about within the last couple of years. The provision of high does of active antioxidants, and as it seems in particular vitamin C, blunts the hypertrophy response to skeletal muscle overload.
  
  

  

  Figure 2: 14-day of 500mg/kg  (HED 0.08g/kg) supplemental vitamin C blunt skeletal muscle hypertrophy in rodents (Makanae. 2012)

  As you can see in figure 2 the effect size was relatively small, but statistically highly significant (p < 0.01) and that despite the fact that the supplementation regimen (500mg/kg body weight; HED: 0.08g/kg body weight) was not even that much higher than what some "vitamin C enthusiasts" are taking on a daily basis in the futile (and useless) effort to boost their serum vitamin C levels to a concentrations your body does - probably not without reason - try to counter by increasing renal vitamin C clearance.
  
  As the data in figure 2 shows, the same homeostatic mechanism we know from humans worked in the rodents, as well - well, at least with respect to the serum levels. In the plantaris muscle of the supplemented group, on the other hand, there was a significantly higher accumulation of vitamin C than in the placebo group. This increase went hand in hand with an attenuation of the repressive effects the chronic overload of the muscle had on the expression of the catabolic protein atrogin-1 and the increases in the pro-anabolic protein Erk1/2 (p < 0.01) in the non-supplemented animals. Based on this observations and with reference to the results of previous studies and the fact that neither the water content of the muscle, nor a significant reduction in food intake in the vitamin C group could explain the observed differences, Makanae et al. conclude "that oral vitamin C administration attenuates plantaris muscle hypertrophy induced by chronic mechanical load." (Makanae. 2012).
  
  What the study does not answer, though, is the question whether the effects would be identical in a real-world training scenario, where the temporary, yet more intense wear and tear on the muscle could in fact be sufficient to induce skeletal muscle hypertrophy human despite vitamin C supplementation. But let's be honest in view of the fact that scientific evidence for ergogenic benefits of more than 1g of supplemental vitamin C  per day (in humans) is simply non-existent, the take away message from the study at hand should actually read: Do not escalate your vitamin C beyond the 1g per day, if you don't want to risk compromising the results of all the hard work you are investing into your training.

That's is, another installment of On Short Notice and the first day of the weekend approaching it's peak. If you still have some time before whatever your plan for Saturday night may be and feel like you could use some seconds on today's short news, I suggest you head over to the SuppVersity Facebook Wall and check out the latest news on

• 

  Ever thought about what green tea, grape seed, curcumin, cranberry, and tons of other Super Food have antimicrobial effects? Considering the LPS-influx from the gut turns out to be a major contributor to all sorts of diseases, I am curious about how much of their effects are actually mediated by the gut microbiome.

  The differential role of intramuscular lipids in trained athletes and sedentary slobs and how the difference between performance enhancement and insulin resistance it all comes back to getting your as off the coach (learn more)
• Metformin 2.0? Scientists have developed a hypolipidemic, anti-atherosclerotic, anti-obesity, and glucose lowering agent called ETC-1002 (learn more)
• Confirmed: Grape seed could be the go-to neuroprotector for diabetics - GSE administration was found to be able to ameliorate most of the biochemical altered parameters in diabetic rats (read more)
• Fermenting your own dairy? Just add some catechin rich teas and the lactobacilli will strive. Makes you wonder about the 'internal' probiotic effects of green and black teas, as well. Doesn't it? (learn more)

There will be more, don't worry - so feel free to check for updates either directly on the SuppVersity Facebook Wall or simply by taking a look at the navigation in the right under "SuppVersity Facebook Wall" from time to time. Obviously, you can also simply "like" the SuppVersity on facebook to make sure you don't miss anything.

References:

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