SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Image 1: Johan Otterström after shedding a mind-boggling 120 pound of fat - awesome, man! I knew, or rather I hoped that you, my dear 'students', would be similarly interested in seeing, how useful all those small pieces of a puzzle, which, somewhere in the distant future, may finally deserve the appellation "exercise and nutrition science ", actually are in the hands of someone who understands how to combine them in a way that makes sense for him, as an individual . Nevertheless, I was surprised by the overwhelming and, except for a few of the usual jealousies, positive feedback, Duong Nguyen received. I am thus especially happy that today, two weeks after the first installment of the SuppVersity Student Spotlight was published, I have another story to tell you: It's the inspiring story of a hungry Swedish kid and his in both senses Super Human ( listen to Johan @ Carl Lenore' SHR ) transformation from an ai...

A paper by Foster et.al. ( Foster. 2010 ) in the Annals of Internal Medicine reviews the outcomes of a 2-years dietary intervention employing low carb vs. low fat diets. Fig. 1: Predicted absolute mean change in body weight for participants in the low-fat and low-carbohydrate diet groups, based on a random-effects linear model. ( Foster. 2010. Fig.2 ) The interesting result, which is also clearly visible in the data shown in Fig. 1 was that there were no differences in weight, body composition, or bone mineral density between the groups at any time point . ( Foster. 2010 ) Although the low carb dieters reported overall more side effects (esp. in the course of the first 6 months) the low carb diet delivered favorable changes in cardivascular disease which have not been observed in the group of the low-fat dieters: During the first 6 months, the low-carbohydrate diet group had greater reductions in diastolic blood pressure, triglyceride levels, and very-low-density lipoprotein ...

Some good news for all fat, yet healthy students of the SuppVersity. Scientists at the University of Oxford cooperated with some colleagues from the University of Ottawa Heart Institute ( Hodson. 12 July 2010 ) and found that The contribution of fatty acids from splanchnic sources was higher (P<0.05) in the abdominally-obese group. Ketogenesis occurred to a significantly greater extent in abdominally-obese compared to lean males largely due to lessened down-regulation of postprandial ketogenesis (P<0.001). Not only does this tell us, that our bodies try to protect themselves from fat-deposition in the liver and other organs. It might also shed additional light onto the effectiveness of low-carb diets in obese individuals.