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Guanidinoacetic Acid (GAA) 'Superior' to Creatine in Terms of Bioenergetic & Health Effects on Brain, Muscle & More?

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Not so fast! Just because it may have shuttled more creatine into the muscle GAA does not have to be able to build more strength or size. It has been a while since the last creatine article was published. Luckily, the publication of the latest paper from Sergej M. Ostojic lab at the  University of Novi Sad (Ostojic. 2016b) will change that... as soon as I've analyzed the study and written about it below that is ;-) First things first, we are dealing with a randomized, double-blind, cross-over trial that was financed by a government grant - not non-existing (as of now) supplement companies who are pimping guanidinoacetic acid (GAA) as a "superior new form of creatine". You can learn more about creatine at the SuppVersity Creatine Doubles 'Ur GainZ! Creatine Loading = Unnecessary Creatine Pre or After Workouts? 1st Benefits of Creatine-HCL The Real Bioavai-lability of Crea Build 'Ur Own Buffered Creatine Now, technically speaking, thi...
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BPC-157, the Orally Available Peptide That Repairs Tendon, Muscle, Intestines, Teeth, Bone and More in Vitro & Vivo

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BPC is not patentable, and thus not interesting for BigPharma. In a way this article is a response to a question I got from Ryan on the Faebook Page of the SuppVersity a week ago. He asked, whether I had an article on Pentadecapeptide BPC-157, a substance of which he'd heard that it can accelerate tendon and muscle repair and work all sorts of other healing magic. Now, as a regular at the SuppVersity  you may know that I didn't have an article on this agent a week age. So I decided to write one. Not just because Ryan asked, but also because of the practical significance of the healing effects of this peptide from in vitro and in vivo studies (no medical advice here!). Unlike antioxidants with their anti- hormetic  effects, BPC-157 actually promotes healing Is Vitamin E Good for the Sedentary Slob, Only? Even Ice-Baths Impair the Adapt. Process Vit C+E Impair Muscle Gains in Older Men C+E Useless or Detrimental for Healthy People Vitamin C and G...
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Organ Specific Resting Metabolic Rates and Diet-Induced "Metabolic Damage". Plus: At Rest Heart, Liver & Kidney Consume 83x More Energy/kg Organ Mass Than Muscle

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No, your muscles are not the primary gas guzzler in your body. The problems arising as a consequence of a diet-induced reduction of the metabolic rate are among the recurring themes here at the SuppVersity . For a good reason, as I would say. After all, they are the #1 reason for weight loss plateaus and the yoyo effect. Although the notion that "calories count" is not very popular these days there is no debating that an energy deficit is a necessary prerequisite for weight loss. The problem however is that you cannot determine your energy balance with a calculator, a body fat caliper and a scale. There are way too many other factors involved - the amount, macro- and micronutrient composition, timing, frequency, volume, texture and palatability of the ood you eat, stress, hormonal factors, etc - all of which will affect the amount of energy you expend and subvert the results of over-simplistic calories-in vs. calories-out calculations. What are the most notorious gas g...
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Electrical Stimulation Improves Clearance of Lactic Acid After Anaerobic Activity in Collegiate Athletes. EMS Turns Out to Be as Effective as 'Traditional' Massage Therapy.

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Image 1: The EU-940 EMS device the scientists used in their study to activate the vastus medialis and lateralis (high- lighted in the image) of their subjects, is very different from the average EMS based "abdominal toner" advertised on TV. Even here, at the SuppVersity, news on ergogenics, i.e. things that improve (athletic) performance, are usually about a pill, a fancy plant extract or another 'superfood' . Today's news, however is about a much more "physical" means to improve anaerobic exercise performance, decrease lactate accumulation and improve regeneration: Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS). EMS? Now, many of you will probably remember those TV spots, where you were told that "Abmaster" & Co would transform your pot-belly into a "six-packed" attractant for the opposite sex , if you did not miss this "unique" opportunity and bought one of those electro-shockers no ...
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Resveratrol Fails to Ameliorate inflammatory response and Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness After a Marathon

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Resveratrol , an antioxidant polyphenol from the skin of red grapes, has now been around for quite a while and as it was in the case of almost every other antioxidant which was hailed as a powerful panaceum (e.g. vitamin E ) it slowly transpires that the real life value of resveratrol may well fall short of the expectations its potency in (mostly) in vitro studies rose among scientists and laymen alike. For some of you it may yet still come as a surprise that the results of a double placebo-controlled randomised trial conducted at the London Marathon 2010 ( Laupheimer. 2011 ) fall short of the expectations the colorful advertisements and cited abstracts from in vitro studies may raise in many half-informed customers: There was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of changes occurring between pre and post-tests for WBC [white blood cell count], CRP [C reactive protein] or VAS [a measure of muscle soreness] (p=0.857, 0.629 and...
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Reactive Oxygen Specimen (ROS) Trigger Muscle Hypertrophy via IGF-1 Signaling

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I have touched on the "usefulness" of oxidation, only yesterday. Now, a very recent study appears to confirm the notion that a controlled amount of inflammation is necessary in order to achieve metabolic and muscular adaptations. Figure 1: Eesult of the quantitative analysis of myotube diameter after IGF-I and NAC treatment ( Handayaningsih. 2011 ) Scientists from  Division of Diabetes and Endocrinology and Division of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the Kobe University Graduate School of Medicine published a paper ( Handayaningsih. 2011 ) describing an investigation into the role of Reactive Oxygen Specimen (ROS) in the IGF1-signaling pathway. In this study N-Acetyl-Cystein (NAC), commonly used by recreational athletes as an "ergogenic" aid, blunted myocyte response to IGF1 and thus inhibited muscle hypertophy (cf. Figure 1): While treatment with H2O2 significantly enhanced IGF-I-induced phosphorylation of the IGF-I receptor (IGF-IR), IGF-IR phosphoryla...
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Tinospora Cordifolia as in LG Sciences' Natadrol is a Potent Antioxidant and Metal Chelator

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This is only a small news-item, but unfortunately scientific background info on commercially available supplements is pretty rare - so here we go... Scientists from India ( Bhawya. 2010 ) investigated the antioxidant potential of various extracts of Tinospora Cordifolia (the primary ingredient in LG Sciences Test Booster Natadrol ) and found that ... Methanolic, ethanolic and water extracts showed significant antioxidant potential compared to other solvents and also possess metal chelation and reducing power activity . In the DPPH radical scavenging activity, methanolic extract  (98.13%)  showed high antioxidant potency, ethanolic  extract (90.34%) was a potent scavenger of superoxide radical. At the same time, both methanolic (97.08%) and ethanolic extracts  (95.21%)  inhibited hydroxyl radical along with other extracts. The metal chelation  in methanolic  (60.62%), ethanolic  (57.62%),   aqueous extracts  (40.89%)  and r...
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The Great Feast: Overeating With a Macronutrient Emphasis on Carbs Suppresses GH Levels Via Hyperinsulinemia

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An interesting study done by scientists from the Department of Internal Medicine (A.L.B.) at the University of Michigan ( Cornfold. 2011 ) reveals a direct influence of overeating (+75% over maintenance) and the associated rise in insulin on growth hormone levels. Cornfold et al. found that GH levels of seven (formerly ;-) healthy, nonobese men (body mass index, 24 ± 1 kg/m 2 ; age, 25 ± 1 yr) " declined nearly 80% by d 3 of overeating ". Figure 1: Mean plasma GH concentration every 20 min for 24 h before overeating (baseline), ond3of overeating, and at the end of the 2-wk overeating period. Inset, The average plasma GH concentration at baseline, d 3, and 2 wk of overeating. In view of some people's "eat all that cannot run away fast enough" mass gain diets, it is noteworthy that the decline in GH concentration is not an initial reaction. As it is shown in figure 1, GH response stayed way below baseline for the whole 2 weeks the subjects ate their st...
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Lower Protein to Carb Ratio Impairs Akt/TOR Signaling Pathway after Fasting in Rainbow Trout

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"Boy, you need your carbs post workout!" This cornerstone of conventional bodybuilding wisdom is crumbling and a new study, if it had been done in humans, not in rainbow trout, would potentially refute this myth once and for all - at least, if one follows the popular (but false) assumption that it is because you are in a carb depleted or overall fasted state after a strenuous workouts. A group of European scientists ( Seiliez. 2011 ) investigated the effect of diets with different protein to carbohydrate ratios on the Akt/TOR Signaling Pathway after fasting for 48h. What they found contradicts conventional wisdom: Activation of the Akt/TOR signaling pathway by refeeding was severely impaired by decreasing the proteins/carbohydrates ratio . Similarly, post-prandial regulation of several genes related to glucose ( Glut4 , glucose-6-phosphatase isoform 1), lipid (fatty acid synthase, ATP-citrate lyase, sterol responsive element binding protein, carnitine palmitoyltrans...
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L-Carnitine Works! At Least if it's L-Carnitine L-Tartrate.

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Initially, carnitine was considered the super-supplement for both, the athlete seeking the ergogenic edge, as well as for the obese trying to shed unhealthy body fat. Surprisingly, however, study after study showed no to little effect on exercise performance and/or fat loss. Ultimately, it became clear that, even at very high doses, only very little of the orally delivered l-carnitine actually makes it to the muscle. Consequently, its effects on performance and body composition where negligible. Now, a very recent study by Wall et. al. ( Wall. 2011 ) found that adding a transporter, in this case l-tartrate , to the molecule does not only help to increase muscle carnitine levels, it eventually produces exactly those effects on exercise performance and substrate metabolism one would have expected from l-carnitine supplementation in the first place. The scientists had their 14 healthy male volunteers ingest either 80 g of CHO (Control) or 2 g of L-carnitine L-tartrate and ...
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Creatine + Caffeine = No-Go? Still Nothing but a Myth

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You probably have heard both that a) caffeine would negate the ergogenic effects of creatine loading and b) that the latter is nothing but one of those gym-myths which just won't disappear. A recent study by scientists from the Department of Recreational Sports Management , Yu Da University, Miaoli, Taiwan ( Lee. 2011 ) provides practical evidence that "the no caffeine when on creatine"-advice is garbage. The scientists investigated the effects of acute caffeine ingestion on intermittent high-intensity sprint performance after 5 days of creatine loading and found no detrimental effects of 0.6mg/kg caffeine on the creatine induced increase in exercise performance. What's more the ergogenic effect of caffeine added to that of creatine , so that ... [...] the mean and peak power observed in the CRE + CAF were significantly higher than those found in the CON during Sprints 1 and 3; and the CRE + CAF showed significantly higher mean and peak power than that...
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Protein Supplementation in Heavy Resistance Training: "A case for whey protein"

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"Protein builds muscle!" < this is a sentence you will read pretty often in the advertisements - sorry, I meant "scientific explanations" supplement producers print onto their product labels to make you buy their newest "invention". In the end, however, it mostly comes down to a blend of different forms of whey protein with added vitamins minerals and digestive enzymes. But do you really need all that? Do you even need whey? Table 1: Approximate Essential Amino Acid Profile of Various Protein Sources A group of scientists from Finland ( Hulmi. 2010 ) would probably say "YES!". In a very recent review they come to conclusions which sound pretty similar to what you can read all over the web: Most, but not all studies have shown that supplementation of whey alone or with carbohydrates immediately after and possibly before and during resistance exercise can enhance the muscle hypertrophy response to resistance training in healthy adults. Su...
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Taurine Decreases Oxidative Stress After Eccentric Exercise in Rats: Human Equivalent Dose ca. 3.5g-4g

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Regular readers of the SuppVersity will certainly be familiar with the sulfur-amino-acid taurine and its various benefits on exercise performance, insulin sensitivity and weight management. So, it may not come as a surprise that a recent study conducted by young scientists from the Postgraduate Program in Health Sciences at the Universidade do Extremo Sul Catarinense in Brazil found that 14-days "preloading" with 300mg/kg taurine per day reduced the exercise induced increase in oxidative stress in rats. Taurine supplementation was found to decrease superoxide radical production, CK [creatine kinase], lipoperoxidation and carbonylation levels and increased total thiol content in skeletal muscle, but it did not affect antioxidant enzyme activity after EE [excentric exercise]. It is rather speculative, whether standard dose equivalent calculations apply to one situation or another - IF they did, you could probably get away with as little as 3.5-4.0g of taurine per day ...
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Oral ATP Supplementation Proves Completely Ineffective Even at Very High Doses

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I think most supplement companies have hitherto given up on convincing you of the use of oral ATP supplements. About 2 month ago, I did however notice a new "high dosed" product (I cannot remember the figures out of my head, but the daily dose was far below 1.000mg) was released to be bought by the in-educated public ;-) Just to discourage you from wasting your money on any such products, here is a very recent study ( Coolen. 2010 ) on the futility of attempting to rise ATP levels via oral supplementation: Thirty-two healthy subjects were randomised to receive 0, 250, 1250 or 5000 mg ATP per d for 28 d by means of enteric-coated pellets . In addition, on days 0 and 28, all thirty-two subjects received 5000 mg ATP to determine whether prolonged administration would induce adaptations in the bioavailability of ATP. ATP supplementation for 4 weeks did not lead to changes in blood or plasma ATP concentrations. Of all ATP metabolites, only plasma uric acid levels ...
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High Dose Caffeine Will NOT Allow You to Curl More Weight

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Most PreWorkout products are loaden with caffeine. The reasoning behind that is twofold: Firstly, the caffeine will spike you up and thus may allow you to work more energetically. And secondly, caffeine is believed to be a potent ergogenic in itself, allowing you to lift that extra pound you would otherwise have to take off. As far as the ergodicity of caffeine is concerned, a recent study which was part of Jared Coburns dissertation at the California State University ( Coburn. 2010 ) suggests that these must be more of a systemic nature. Comparing the effects of a preworkout drink with either 0, 5 or 10 mg/kg caffeine Coburn found no significant differences for maximal strength, RTD [rate of torque development], EMG [electromyographic] amplitude and frequency, MMG [mechanomyographic] amplitude, EMD [electromechanical delay] and PMD [phonomechanical delay] in his 14 male volunteers. So, while related studies, such as the one done by Pontifex et al. ( Pontifex. 2010 ), where athle...
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Vitamin E Exerts Positive Effects on Various Health Markers in Recreational Trainees

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A study from scientists from the Azad University in Iran ( Naghizade. 2010 ) shows that supplementation with 500mg vitamin E (~750IU) over a period of 8 weeks improved malondialdehyde (MAD, p<0.02) , creatine phosphate (CP, p<0.04), total antioxidant capacity (TAC, p<0.03), LDL (p<0.03) and Vo2max (p<0.03) over placebo values in moderately aerobically trained individuals: In summery performing moderate aerobic exercise (HRmax 60-65%) with consumption Vitamin E may decrease membrane damage and lipid peroxidation, and cardiovascular risk factors. These results stand in line with several other papers that have been released within the last months. Many of these found positive effects of vitamin E on moderately (mostly aerobically) training trainees, like the ones in this studies. If, however, the workloads increase way beyond the 3x45min (per week) the male subjects of this study spent in the gym, the results become equivocal and some studies even suggest that additional ...
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1.86 g EPA + 1.5g DHA Augment the Hyperaminoacidemia-Hyperinsulinemia–induced Increase in the Rate of Muscle Protein Synthesis

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MPS, the acronym for "muscle protein synthesis", certainly is an eye-catchers for everyone interested in building sleeve bursting arms. Obviously, the at which (dietary) proteins are incorporated into muscle tissue is an important factor in how much and how fast your muscles will grow. Scientists from the Washington University, School of Medicine ( Smith. 2010 ) have now conducted a randomized placebo controlled trial on the effect of omega-3 (4g/day Lavazza(TM) = 1.86 g EPA + 1.5g DHA) supplementation on muscle protein synthesis in older adults. And despite the fact that omega-3s on their own had no effect on  MPS, the consumption of supplemental omega-3s significantly augmented the MPS-response to Hyperaminoacidemia and Hyperinsulinemia. Figure 1: Mean (6SEM) concentrations (arbitrary units) of mTORSer2448 and p70s6kThr389 during basal, postabsorptive conditions and during the hyperaminoacidemic-hyperinsulinemic clamp before and after 8 wk of supplementation with eit...
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Loss of Trace Elements not a Concern in Well-Hydrated Athletes

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If you are a hard-training athlete you need more than "trace amounts" of trace elements, don't you? No, actually not. You may be somewhat disappointed now, but the expensive trace element supplement you just ordered might turn out to be a complete waste of money - at least, this is what the results of a recently published study by Carlos González-Haro et al. ( González-Haro. 2010 ) suggest. Figure 1: Changes in plasma trace element levels (Zn, Mn, Se and Co) for the different relative exercise intensities studied and the 7 min recovery period. As figure 1 (above) shows, lactate concentrations constantly increased in the course of the 7 minutes after a cycloergometer test, where, after a warm-up of 10 min at 2.0 W kg −1 , workload had been increased by 0.5 W kg −1 every 10 min until exhaustion. The trace mineral concentration, on the other hand, remained stable over the whole study period (exercise + recovery). This observation led the scientis...
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Vitamin D Supplementation(!) Increases Testosterone in Men

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Thanks to Dashforce from the MindAndMuscle-Forum we finally have evidence for the direct effect of vitamin D3 supplementation on testosterone in men. Dashforce reports on a study by scientists from Austria and Germany ( Pilz. 2010 ) who provided 54 men, whose serum levels were previously at the lower range ~30ng/ml (the referential  minimum varies depending on which source you cite from 30-50ng/ml),with either 83 μg (3 332 IU) vitamin D daily or placebo for 1 year. Table 1: Characteristics of the study groups at baseline and at the end of the study As you can see in table 1,vitamin D supplementation lead to a significant increase in total testosterone from 10.7 nmol/l to 13.4 nmol/l . What's even more important, this increase (+25%) was not compensated by and an increase of SHGB, so that the amount of free testosterone rose from 0.222 n/mol to 0.267 nmol/l , i.e. by +20% (vs. +5% in the placebo group). What is particularly interesting about this study is the fact that ...
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