Dairy - The Good, the Bad or The Ugly? Latest Studies On Heart Disease, Diabetes, Cancer, Obesity and Co. Plus: What Dairy Peptides Do For Your Heart, Gut, Brain, etc.

Do you take Liz Hurley's word and set all warnings about the "non-paleo-ness" of dairy in general and milk in particular at naught? Or do you put faith into the "got milk?" campaign? Personally, I'd suggest not to do one or the other. I'd rather suggest you join me and take a look at a selection of recent studies.

If you've been following the SuppVersity Facebook News and / or have read previous SuppVersity articles on milk and dairy, you will be aware that I am not exactly convinced that the mere existence of allergic reactions and the "fact" that "our ancestors did not drink milk before ..." *put your favorite guesstimate here* allows for the conclusion that we are "not meant" to consume cow's milk. I am nevertheless open to scientific arguments that would convince me that dairy is bad for me - it's just that I don't see this evidence outside of "western diet + dairy makes you fat and that makes you sick" contexts.

What I do see, though, are papers such as the one Sandra Abreu or the recent review by Flávia Galvão Cândido et al. - studies that tell us that the intake of milk is negatively associated with the clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors in adolescents (Abreu. 2013), and reviews which conclude that "the consumption of low-fat dairy products may be an important strategy to prevent and control T2DM [type 2 diabetes]" (Cândido. 2013).

The evidence that dairy is bad for us all is simply not there

But hey, ... let's tackle the evidence one by one. I mean, there is plenty of news-worthy material here and we don't want the fun to be over prematurely, do we? So, let's start with a brief sketch of what Sandra Abreu and her colleagues from the University of Porto base their assessment that the intake of milk, but not total dairy, yogurt, or cheese, is negatively associated with the clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors in Spanish adolescents - shall we?

No! Full-fat dairy is not bad for you: While most of the epidemiological studies with their hilariously unreliable food questionnaires appear to suggest that only low fat dairy was good for your heart, a recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health found a clever way to test the association more objectively. Instead of questioning their subjects, 2837 US adults aged 45 to 84 years, they tested the amount of certain phospholipids in their blood and found that "plasma phospholipid 15:0, a biomarker of dairy fat, was inversely associated with incident CVD [-19%] and CHD [-26%]." (de Oliveira Otto. 2013) The fact that other dairy related phospholipids were not associated (neither positive nor negative) with cardiovascular and coronary heart disease risk does yet, as the scientists rightly point out, warrant further investigation.

"To test th[e] hypothesis [that a higher dairy product intake is associated with lower cardiometabolic risk factor clustering in adolescents], a cross-sectional study was conducted with 494 adolescents aged 15 to 18 years from the Azorean Archipelago, Portugal. We measured fasting glucose, insulin, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides, systolic blood pressure, body fat, and cardiorespiratory fitness. We also calculated homeostatic model assessment and total cholesterol/high-density lipoprotein cholesterol ratio. For each one of these variables, a z score was computed using age and sex. A cardiometabolic risk score (CMRS) was constructed by summing up the z scores of all individual risk factors. High risk was considered to exist when an individual had at least 1 SD from this score. Diet was evaluated using a food frequency questionnaire, and the intake of total dairy (included milk, yogurt, and cheese), milk, yogurt, and cheese was categorized as low (equal to or below the median of the total sample) or “appropriate” (above the median of the total sample). The association between dairy product intake and CMRS was evaluated using separate logistic regression, and the results were adjusted for confounders." (Abreu. 2013)

I know that sounds really sophisticated, but in the end, it's just standard procedure for cross-sectional studies like this - studies with one unfortunate downside: It's impossible to detect causal relationships. 

Figure 1: Dietary intake in the low and "adequate" dairy-, milk-, yogurt-intake groups (Abreu. 2013)

Keep that in mind, when you take a closer look at the data in Figure 2 which indicates that the average adolescent milk connoisseur of whom you can see in Figure 1 that he / she consumes significantly more energy on a daily basis has a significantly reduced cardiometabolic risk (predicted by cardiometabolic risk score; CMRS):

Figure 2: Cardiometabolic risk in "adequate" vs. low dairy, milk, yogurt and cheese consuming adolescents; adjusted for parental education , pubertal stage, low-energy reporter, energy intake, total fat , protein , and dietary fiber intake.

I personally was surprised to see a statistically significant protective effect only with milk - it's not that I had expected to see that for all forms of dairy, but based on previous studies I would have expected the fermented yogurt products to outperform conventional milk.

The negative effects of cheese on the other hand are by no means surprising. Food logs do after all include all types of "cheese" including the fake yellow vegetable oil based cheese analogues the kids shovel down with their pizzas, burgers and the rest of the fast food dirt. A high cheese intake has thus (unfortunately) become an indicator of low diet quality and the results of the study at hand hardly a credible marker that cheese is bad for you.

If 95% of your "dairy intake" comes from pizza, you are unlikely to see...

... any of the following benefits of dairy peptides, Blanca Hernández-Ledesma, María José García-Nebot, Samuel Fernández-Tomé, Lourdes Amigo, and Isidra Recio summarized in a soon-to-be-published review in the peer-reviewed scientific journal International Dairy Science:

• 

  Figure 3: Reduction of systolic blood pressure in mmHg per mg/kg of the said peptide you consume - mind the logarithmic scale(!); data calculated based on rodent studies summarized in Hernández-Ledesma (2014)

  Cardiovascular health effects due to the antihypertensive, anti-inflammatory, general antioxidant and hypocholesterolaemic properties of various dairy peptides
• Intestinal health effects due to the ability of dairy peptides to modulate and regenerate the gut mucosa, increase mineral absorption, exert local anti-inflammatory effects at the gastrointestinal level
• Antidiabesity effects that are related to both direct pro-insulinogenic effects of dairy peptides ant their ability to increase satiety. 
• Central nervous system relaxant and antinociceptive (pain-killing) effects
• Immune health which is promoted by antimicrobial and immunomodulatory peptides that are either already present in dairy or arise during the digestion process
• Anticancer effects that are mediated by the overall anti-inflammatory properties of certain dairy peptides, as well as direct anti-proliferative effects of dairy

Now, it goes without saying that you won't see the same effect from eating some goat kefir as Miguel et al. (2010) observed it, when they administered fraction 58-68 of goat casein to their lab rodents, but the data in Figure 3 can explain the well-established blood pressure lowering effects of dairy in general and the whey and casein induced BP reduction Figueroa et al. observed only recently in a study with obese women (Figueroa. 2013; see SuppVersity Facebook News).

Bottom line: You can't expect dairy to fully protect you against diabesity, cancer and a leaky, you can't expect it to lean you out in days, and you can't expect it to build muscle overnight, but you can expect general health benefits not detriments from incorporating a variety of fermented and unfermented dairy products into your diet - as long as you ain't lactose intolerant.

"Are Camels the Better Cows? Cancer, CVD, Allergies,Infections & More - Camel Milk Prevents or Fixes All These Ailments" | more

One thing you should keep in mind, though, is the unfortunate fact that the amount of "non-dairy" cheese, cream and other products is increasing by the day. Especially the former, the fake yellow vegetable oil based cheese analogues is something you want to avoid. The same goes for many of low fat products. While much of the "magic" is in the peptides, most of the commercially available "diet" products contain tons of sugar and all sorts of questionable additive to make up for the loss of color, taste and texture that's brought about by the removal of the fat. And lastly all products that extend the shelf-life to "eternity" by adding questionable preservatives.

References

• Abreu, S., Moreira, P., Moreira, C., Mota, J., Moreira-Silva, I., Santos, P. C., & Santos, R. (2013). Intake of milk, but not total dairy, yogurt, or cheese, is negatively associated with the clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors in adolescents. Nutrition Research.
• Cândido, F.G., Ton, T. S., & Alfenas, R. D. C. G. (2013). Dairy products consumption versus type 2 diabetes prevention and treatment; a review of recent findings from human studies. Nutr Hosp, 28(5), 1384-1395.
• de Oliveira Otto, M. C., Nettleton, J. A., Lemaitre, R. N., Steffen, L. M., Kromhout, D., Rich, S. S., ... & Mozaffarian, D. (2013). Biomarkers of dairy fatty acids and risk of cardiovascular disease in the multi‐ethnic study of atherosclerosis. Journal of the American Heart Association, 2(4), e000092.
• Figueroa, A., Wong, A., Kinsey, A., Kalfon, R., Eddy, W., & Ormsbee, M. J. (2013). Effects of Milk Proteins and Combined Exercise Training on Aortic Hemodynamics and Arterial Stiffness in Young Obese Women With High Blood Pressure. American Journal of Hypertension, hpt224. 
• Freedman, B. J. (1980). Sulphur dioxide in foods and beverages: its use as a preservative and its effect on asthma. British Journal of Diseases of the Chest, 74, 128-134.
• Hernández-Ledesma, B., García-Nebot, M.J., Fernández-Tomé, S., Amigo, L.,
  Recio, I., Dairy protein hydrolysates: Peptides for health benefits, International Dairy Journal(2014), ahead of print
• Iammarino, M., Di Taranto, A., Palermo, C., & Muscarella, M. (2011). Survey of benzoic acid in cheeses: contribution to the estimation of an admissible maximum limit. Food Additives and Contaminants: Part B, 4(4), 231-237.

Peri-Workout Hydro-Whey Supplementation: Tried & Proven Muscle Builder Will Also Increase Tendon Size & Strength

Squats are by no means the only exercise that requires strong muscles and tendons.

In a way you could argue that today's SuppVersity article serves two purposes. Firstly, it provides direct evidence for my outrageous claim that the VPX Shotgun + Synthesize study from Saturday's installment of On Short Notice has little to no practical value, because the use of 2x17g of maltodextrin as a control has little to do with the real-world supplementation regimen the potential consumers of respective products are ingesting. I mean, you can safely assume that people who are willing to spend the money on expensive peri-workout kitchen sink supplements will - just like most of you - be ingesting a whey (or other fast acting) protein source after their workouts, anyways.

It goes without saying that it would not have needed a new study to prove this point, so that informing you about another observation Farup et al. made in their most recent study is not just the second, but actually the main purpose of today's SuppVersity article.

A new whey to build tendons of steel

The training protocol: The subjects completed 33 training sessions during the 12 weeks of training. The training program was primarily designed to induce hypertrophy and to a lesser extent maximal muscle strength highlighted by a large number of sets and repetitions and by moderate high intensity. Training frequency was three times per week with a progressive increase in volume and intensity throughout the 12 weeks.

The resistance training exercise consisted of isolated knee extensions in a Technogym knee extensor machine. All repetitions were performed by lifting the load with the concentric leg (while extending the

eccentric leg unloaded). Then, with aid from a training supervisor, an additional load was released onto the weight stack and then lowered with the eccentric leg.

Both the eccentric and concentric leg training program consisted of isotonic knee extensions (TUT 2-0-2s; rest between sets 2min) and applied the following progression in volume and intensity: 6 x 10-15RM (sessions 1–4), 8 x 10-15RM (S 5–10), 10 x 10-15RM (S 11–20), 12¥6–10 RM (S 21–28), and 8 x 6-10RM (S 29–33).

The actual paper is going to be published in one of the future issues of The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports and deals with the outcomes of a 12-week double-blinded resistance training intervention in the course of which the 22 male subjects (healthy, young, recreationally active height 181.5+/- 1.5 cm, weight 78.1 1.8 kg, age 23.9 +/-0.8 years, fat% 16.0+/- 0.9%) consumed either

• a high leucine whey protein hydrolysate + carbohydrate group (WHD; 19.5 g whey protein hydrolysate +19.5 g) or 
• an isoenergetic carbohydrate only supplement for the placebo group (PLA, 36g of carbohydrates)

Regardless of supplementary intake, all subjects performed eccentric training with one leg and concentric training with the other.

"This within-subject design was used to minimize the potential differences in the hypertrophy response that are inherent with group designs (e.g. initial training status, habitual nutritional intake,and/or hormonal status). Eccentric leg was randomly chosen to be either the dominant (preferred kicking leg) or the nondominant leg to exclude any potential pre-training difference between the two." (Farup. 2013)

Overall, we are thus comparing not two, but rather four different training modalities, namely eccentric+WHD, eccentric+PLA, concentric+WHD and concentric+PLA.

Maximal standardization, reliable measuring methods

In the two weeks before commencing the training program, magnetic resonance image (MRI) scans of both thighs and patellar tendons and isometric strength test were taken. In conjunction with the before and after tests that were standardized up to the time of the day, pre- and post-training, "to control for potential effects of diurnal rhythm" (Farup. 2013)

The training sessions were closely supervised and monitored by qualified training instructors to ensure proper execution and loading. The same goes for the ingestion of the supplements, 19.5 g whey protein hydrolysate +19.5 g of carbohydrate (both equal to 4% solution) and the placebo drink consisting of 39 g of carbohydrate, which were handed to the trainees at the beginning of the training sessions and were to be consumed before and after the training (50/50).

Even the intake of additional plain water was standardized, so that the subjects would not ingest and fluids 1 1/2 h prior to and 1 h after completion of an exercise session, "to ensure and standardize the conditions for digestion/absorption and within the range typically applied" (Farup. 2013)

The only methodologically lapse was the absence of dietary control. While the subjects of previous studies in which the participants were advised to "maintain their normal habitual dietary intake throughout the study" (Farup. 2013), did not register any differences in habitual total energy or protein intake (Andersen. 2005; Hartman. 2007; Hulmi. 2009; Erskine. 2012) and the accuracy of food logs is generally questionable, this is kind of awkward in view of the lengths to which the scientists went to exclude any other confounding factors.

Enough of the prelude, what about the results?

So, while we cannot exclude that the subjects in any of the two groups may have skewed the overall results by consuming an additional steak on top of their regular diets, it is quite unlikely that these counfounding factors would have been group specific, so that the overall effects on quadriceps cross-sectional area I plotted in figure 1 are unquestionably reliable.

Figure 1: Relative changes in quadriceps and patella tendon CSA in concentrically and eccentrically trained leg of the subjects in the whey protein hydrolysate and placebo groups (Farup. 2013)

The same obviously goes for the strength increases and the initially mentioned increase in patella tendon CSA. All good and reliable evidence supporting the current "standard" in periworkout supplementation.

Apropos, in conjunction with the recent revelations about the unique glucose-sensitizing effects of the short-chain peptides in whey hydrolysate, it may even be worth to consider adding a "hyrolysate" to the current recommendation to ingest 30g of whey protein in the vicinity of your workouts. Convincing evidence from studies that were specifically designed to elicit the marginal benefits of replacing a regular whey protein with the less tasty (you won't notice that with the tons of flavoring agents, though) and still more expensive "pre-digested" form of whey is yet - at least as far as I know - still missing.

---

Bottom line: Actually, I already mentioned the most important findings of the study at hand in the introduction:

Figure 2: Whether the effects observed in the study are "hydrolysate specific" and related to the amino acid or peptide composition of the supplement that was used in the study at hand cannot be said without a "regular" whey control. The same goes for the general superiority or inferiority of hydrolysates vs. whey isolates or concentrates.

(a) Whey proteins alone will amplify the effects of regular strength training to a degree that is hard to surpass by the more expensive "advanced muscle builders" - no wonder the producers are reluctant to use anything but an isocaloric carbohydrate supplement as their yardstick. (b) Increases in tendon CSA are a novel benefit to be added to the comprehensive list of benefits of a supplement I suspect most of you are using anyway.

Whether the hydrolyzed whey proteins are actually worth the extra bucks is yet still not 100% certain. As previously mentioned, the number of practically relevant direct comparisons is still scarce. We know that they create a more rapid increase of the amino acid levels in the blood, that they are more insulinogenic and we that some of the short peptides have favorable physiological effects (learn more). A long-term study comparing the muscle and (that's new) tendon building effects of the three commonly available varieties of whey, i.e. concentrate, isolate and hydrolysate, has not yet been conducted. But don't worry, as soon as the pertinent data is going to be available, you'll find all the information you need, as well as the practical implications of the results right here, at the SuppVersity - your #1 source for the latest on exercise, nutrition and supplementation research on the Internet.

References:

• Farup J, Rahbek SK, Vendelbo MH, Matzon A, Hindhede J, Bejder A, Ringgard S, Vissing K. Whey protein hydrolysate augments tendon and muscle hypertrophy independent of resistance exercise contraction mode. Scand J Med Sci Sports. 2013 May 7.

Fiber Up Your Foods, Omega-3 For Female Fat Loss, 50+ Ways to Treat Constipation, Serotonergic Peptides in Milk, Weight Cycling & Reduced Metabolic Rates, Exercise & 102% Weight Loss From Fat - Plus: More Short News

Inulin enriched foods are good for your gut, your waistline and your pancreas (anti-diabesity effect) and what's more inulin is also on the list of anti-constipation agents,

100g that's this week's SuppVersity figure of the week and that despite the fact that it is the amount of fat you are going to gain within one year when your metabolic rate is 100kcal below where it should be (Piaggi. 2013)... Where it should be? Yeah, ok I know that's idiotic, but if you read today's news-item about the down-regulation of the metabolic rate due to YoYo-dieting the picture that emerges is that of yet another vicious cycle that leads directly into a weight spiral that knows but one direction: upwards!

Another one of today's news-items does however hint at a solution: Just lose 102% fat! What? I see I got you interested. So what are you waiting for? Lot's of good stuff today. So much in fact that let's spend no time and get right to the news-business ;-)

"Fiber up" you foods with prebiotics (inulin in particular)

Pretty obvious that these Spanish Christmas confections take a toll on your HbA1c ;-)

(Capriles. 2012; Garcia-Garcia. 2013) -- You've read about the benefits of "feeding the good guys" a couple of days ago. Now, aside from being a substrate for the purportedly beneficial gut bacteria fiber also changes the feel, taste and most importantly digestive properties of foods. A couple of recently published studies confirm that this can have pretty profound and in most cases highly desirable consequences.

Garcia-Garcia, for example, added some inulin (5%) to Turon, a traditional Spanish sweet treat that's made of toasted almonds, honey and sugar and fed 30g of the Christmas nougat-type confection to 32 healthy, normal-weight volunteers.

While the subjects in the "regular" Turon group had a slight but significant increase in HbA1c (long-term measure of blood glucose management) the blood glucose management of the 17 subjects in the active group did not budge. And while most subjects (64%, specifically those who conumed Turon as a Christmas snack on a regular basis) preferred the "classic" variety, at least 24% did actually like the inulin Turon better (Garcia-Garcia. 2013)

Gluten will interact with PPARs & gut bacteria and can thus precipitate insulin resistance (read more).

In a similar study, scientists were able to show that the addition of prebiotic inulin-type fructans to gluten-free bread (4 g of fructans per 50 g bread serving size) did

"[...] provide structure and gas retention during baking, thus improving GFB quality by yielding better specific volume, softer crumb, improved crust and crumb browning with enhanced sensory acceptance" (Capriles. 2012)

 and decreased the glycemic index and glycemic load of the gluten-free bread by 34% (from 71 to 48) and 33% (from 12 to 8), respectively.

Omega-3 loading improves weight loss in obese women

(Munro. 2013) -- According to a recently published study, a 4-week preload with 6 × 1 g capsules per day LC ω-3PUFA (fish oil) each comprising 70 mg EPA and 270 mg DHA, increased the amount of weight the female (and only the female!) participants of a very low calorie weight loss intervention lost in the subsequent 8-weeks.

Despite being statistically significant, the 1.4% increase in bod weight loss is yet not so pronounced that anyone whose been dieint with LC-PUFA preload in the past should now be fretting about having missed out on this great chance of getting ripped. If you are a man, the protocol would have been useless, anyways.

Constipated? Review offers three types of "solutions" - in some cases a literal sense

(Gelinas. 2013) -- If you are one out of five, chances are you belong to the 20% of the world's population who suffer from constipation on a regular base. If that's the case, you may want to consider one of the following "treatment" strategies, Pierre Galinas mentions in his latest review of the literature:

• 

  Table 1: Relative laxative potential of 50 food ingredients for the prevention of constipation

  Bulking agents  - They soften the stool by binding water; examples are psyllium seed husk, wheat bran, methylcellulose, calcium polycarbophil; are considered "mild" and are not habit forming, but may cause abdominal pain and bloating because of gas formation
• Osmotic agents - They also soften the stool but ba a dfferent mechanism than the bulk fiber, they create an osmotic gradient, which will distend the intestines and stimulates a contractile response; examples are lactulose, sorbitol, mannitol, polyethylene glycol (PEG), magnesium hydroxide (milk of magnesia), sodium phosphate; side effects are gas, and the offensive taste (of some)
• Softeners and lubricants  - They  lubricate (oil) and soften (detergent) the stool; examples are sodium docusate and various mineral oils; pretty milk
• Stimulants - Just like the stims in a fat burner get you going, these get your colon going; examples are epson salts (magnesium sulphate heptahydrate), bisacodyl, sodium picosulphate, sodium sulphate, magnesium oxide, phenolphthalein; they taste offensive, but don't produce gas
• Herbal teas - Provide water and can increase bowel frequency; examples are anthracenes derivatives (senna; aloe; cascara, Frangula bark); unfortunately they taste offensive and work almost immediately; moreover tolerance builds up pretty fast

As you can see there are different ways to get going with the bulk agent aka an increase in fiber intake being the only healthy long-term solution.

Even unhappy cows produce "Happy Milk"

"Mutant Milk" is homogenized milk a potential threat to your health (learn more)?

(Nongonierma. 2013) -- Three days ago a paper by Alice Nongonierma and her colleagues was published ahead of print on the website of the Journal of Food & Function. In the said paper, the researchers describe an experiment, in the course of which they were able to proof that hydrolyzed milk proteins contain a peptides that "behave as serotonin 2C (5-HT2c) receptor agonists" (Nongenierma. 2013). According to the scientists, the bioactive peptides have a relatively low molecular mass (< 1 kDa) and are hydrophobic in nature. With the 5-HT2c receptor being more than just a pharmacological target for the treatment of depression and anxiety, but also a trigger of neurogenesis (growth of new neurons) in the hippocampus (Millan. 2005), this certainly is good news for all the milk junkies out there - or could the serotonine-like effects make you fat?

Magic anti-diabetic mushrooms

(Su. 2013) -- Not what you are thinking now, folks! That's Traditional Chinese Medicine. After all, mushrooms such as Coriolus versicolor and Grifola frondosa have been used in TCM for centuries now. As a recent study by Scientsts from Kang Jien BioTech confirms rightly, so. Extracts from both mushroom had potent inhibitory effects on the carbohydrate digesting enzymes α-amylase and α-glucosidase. With Coriolus being a better inhibitor of the former and Grifola a more potent inhibitor of the latter enzymes.

How this relates to glucose control? Easy: If you don't disentangle the complex carbs your body cannot access their sugar content and if you do it only very slowly even "high" GI starches suddenly turn into low GI foods.

Weight cycling does not forestall future weight loss, but it makes it harder

Geoffrey Cannon's "Dieting Makes You Fat" was first published in 1983 but is that true? Does dieting always make you fatter and would it be better so simply surrender   (learn more)?

(Bosy-Westphal. 2013) -- While the ups and downs in body weight so many dieters are experiencing on a regular basis do not, as it was long suspected, ruin your body composition. A paper that has been published roughly a week ago in the International Journal of Obesitysuggests that another often touted downside, namely the long-term creeping down-regulation of the basal energy expenditure is unfortunately very real.

According to the analysis of the researchers from the Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel, Germany, the 27 "weight regainers" (after ~30% of loss) showed a reduced REE adjusted for changes in organ and tissue masses after weight loss that was not present in the 20 previously weight stable, yet likewise overweight / obese subjects in the control group of the researchers' 13-week dietary intervention study.

It is however not sure, whether this actually is a result of previous weight cycling or vice versa; meaning that the people with the ups and downs in body weight are the ones whose metabolism shuts down the easiest. The study at hand was obviously not able to exclude this possibility.

More than 100% weight loss from fat? How is that supposed to work?

(Hall. 2012) -- Actually this study was published late in the year 2012, that it still made it to On Short Notice has two reasons. Reason #1 is that it was an Epub way ahead of print. Reason #2 is that the figures the author reports appear to be pretty nonsensical. I mean how on earth can the projection K.. Hall from the National Institute of Health in Bethesda made based on data from the Biggest Loser camp yield a net weight loss of 24kg of which more than 100% (102% to be precise) came from the exuberant body fat stores of the (>70kg for the average participant) of the "big losers"?

For the researchers who worked with the Biggest Losers the highly successful TV show was a fluke. Having a TV station pay for their "research" certainly is something extraordinary and against and the study at hand is only the latest publication based on data from the Biggest Loser camp (read up on a previous news item)

The answer is actually pretty straight forward and underlines the efficacy of exercise as a weight loss tool that won't leave you skinny fat, but lean and more muscular. After all, the initially counter-intuitive +2% extra came from the increase in lean mass the Big Losers experienced despite being on a 1,300kcal-1,600kcal diet and working out at a "vigorous intensity" for 3.1h and 1.1h per day in phase 1 and phase 2 of the boot-camp intervention (the simulation of a diet only intervention yielded a slightly larger total weight loss yet with only 65% of the weight coming from the fat stores).

The one thing I am a bit skeptical about is whether Hall's prediction that the weight loss will be sustainable with no more than 20min/day of, once again, "vigorous" exercise per day. I mean that probably would be true in the sheltered environment of the weight loss camp. In a real life scenario, on the other hand, the super size menus, family pizzas and cosy TV couches are probably too much of a temptation for the many of the Big Losers.

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Wine was yesterday! Chocolate liqueur is the future of healthy alcohol consumption (learn more)

That's all for today, at least as far as On Short Notice is concerned. By now the majority of you should yet be aware that there's always more... correct, the Facebook News - not sure if you notices, but you can actually see the latest items in the side-bar of the SuppVersity. To make sure you don't miss any of them it would yet be wise to simply "like" the SuppVersity on Facebook and/or register as a follower to my Twitter Account. It's hard-wired to the Facebook page, so if you are into tweeting.. maybe you prefer being notified this way.

Whatever your social media service provide of choice may be, I am pretty sure that you don't want to miss news such as the one on the total phenols, flavonoids, flavan-3-ols and proanthocyanidins of chocolate liqueur and how this may make it a better choice for your daily dose of "healthy" alcohol than wine ;-)

References:

• Carpiles VD, Aréas JADG. Effects of prebiotic inulin-type fructans on structure, quality, sensory acceptance and glycemic response of gluten-free breads. Food & Function. 03 Oct 2012 [Epub] 
• Garcia-Garcia E., Narbona E, Carbonell-Barrachina AA, Sanchez-Soriano J, Roche E. The effect of consumption of inulin-enriched Turrón upon blood serum lipids over a 5-week period. International Journal of Food Science & Technology. 2013; 48(2):405–411.
• Gelinas P. Preventing constipation: a review of the laxative potential of food ingredients. International Journal of Food Science & Technology. 2013; 48(3):445–467. 
• Hall KD. Diet versus exercise in "The Biggest Loser" weight loss competition. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2012 Oct 3. doi: 10.1002/oby.20065. [Epub ahead of print]
• Lai MN, Ng LT. Inhibitory effects of medicinal mushrooms on α-amylase and α-glucosidase – enzymes related to hyperglycemia. Food & Function. 2013 [Epub ahead of print].
  
• Millan MJ. Serotonin 5-HT2C receptors as a target for the treatment of depressive and anxious states: focus on novel therapeutic strategies. Therapie. 2005 Sep-Oct;60(5):441-60.
• Munro IA, Garg ML. Prior supplementation with long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids promotes weight loss in obese adults: a double-blinded randomised controlled trial. Food & Function. February 2013 [Epub ahead of print].
• Nongonierma A,  Schellekens H, Dinan T,  Cryan JF, Fitzgerald D. Milk protein hydrolysates activate 5-HT2c serotonin receptors: influence of the starting substrate and isolation of bioactive fractions. Food & Function. 2013 [Epub ahead of print]
• Piaggi P, Thearle MS, Bogardus C, Krakoff J. Lower Energy Expenditure Predicts Long-Term Increases in Weight and Fat Mass. JCEM. 2013; jc.2012-3529;

Don't Judge a Protein by Its Amino Acid Content: 17% Higher Protein Synthesis With Whey vs. Free Form Amino Acids

Take a look at the FRS of sedentary rats in figure 2, compare them to those who endured the 2h swimming torture and tell me "rest" was not important to build muscle (read more about resting and recovery).

Those of you who have read about the recent revelation that the hitherto often overlooked branched-chain amino acid isoleucine is in fact the major driving force behind the nutrient repartitioning effects of BCAAs (it shuttles the glucose into the muscle instead of the adipose tissue, read more), will probably remember that isoleucine was not the only molecule in that study with the ability to increase GLUT-4 expression and skeletal muscle glucose uptake. Its 2-amino-acid peptide cousins Lue-Ile and Ile-Leu, both combinations of leucine and isoleucine, exerted similar effects. Against that background the latest results, Atushi Kanda and his co-workers from the Meiji Company Ltd. in Kanagawa, as well as Kentaro Kawanaka an Mitsuri Higuchi from the Niigata University of Health and Welfare and the Waseda University present in the British Journal of Nutrition probably won't come as a total surprise to most of you.

Compared to EAAs alone, whey induces a 17%  higher protein synthesis

To determine whether there would be a significant difference in the appearance of amino acids (essential or not) in the blood stream of the Sprague Dawley rats, the researchers used in the study, and to elicit whether this would translate into an identical protein synthetic response the scientists fed their semi-fasted rodents after 2h of swimming in a water-filled barrel a test-solution containing either

Figure 1: Nutrient composition (Kanda. 2013).

• whey protein hydrosylate (WPH)
• free form amino acids (WAA)
• carbohydrates (CHO)

That this is not exactly the most "anabolic" workout is probably nothing I would have to tell you, right? I still want to mention it, because it reduces the significance of the results, or rather the size of the differences that were observed in the study at hand.

Why does the choice of the exercise protocol matter? What we are actually most interested in is obviously the protein synthetic response after a strength training workout, right? A brief intense hypertrophy workout would however provide a nutrient independent stimulus for protein synthesis. For 2 hours of exhaustive swimming this is not the case, so that any protein supplement will initially have to set the protein synthetic machinery into gear. Now, we got to do to do some math to understand why this makes a difference: Let's quantify our effects for whey vs. AA as 117 and 100 arbitrary units, respectively. If we add those to a baseline level of 0 a.u. (= protein synthesis after 2h of swimming) we get a 17% difference between totals of 117 and 100 a.u. If we add the same 117 and 100 a.u. to a baseline level of say 50 a.u. (hypothetical value after a brief resistance training workout) we will observe total levels of 167 and 150 and thus an increase of only 11% - got it?

The iso-energetic "test-meals" the scientists had prepared covered 15% of the daily energy requirements of the laboratory rats and the whey and amino acid supplement had completely identical amino acid make-ups (see figure 2) with the only difference being that the AA supplement contained all of them in their pure crystalline forms, while the whey protein hydrosylate contained mostly small peptides (bonds of amino acids), with an average chain length of 3.64.

Figure 2: Fractional protein synthesis (left), amonio acid glucose and insulin concentrations in the blood and expression of mTOR, 4E-BP1 and S6K1 in skeletal muscle in response to CHO, whey protein hydrosylate (WPH) or identical free form amino acids (AA; Kanda. 2013)

As the data in figure 2 shows, the allegedly "minor" difference did produce a significantly more pronounced fractional protein synthesis rate of roughly 0.7%/day vs. only 6%/day (+17%) in those rodents who had been receiving the whey + CHO solution after their involuntary 2-h "workout" - and that despite the fact that the amino acid levels in the blood of both groups were virtually identical!

Identical amino acid levels in the blood, but profoundly different fractional protein synthesis

The underlying reasons for this difference can be found in the differential response of the protein signaling cascade to free form amino acids and the small peptides in the whey protein hydrolysate, where the phosphorylation of mTOR (the notorious mammalian target of rapamycin and the central and locally acting trigger of skeletal muscle protein synthesis) and its downstream targets, the eukaryotic initiation factor 4E-binding protein 1 (4EBP-1) and ribosomal protein S6 kinase (S6K1) levels, was significantly enhanced compared to both the carbohydrate only and the essential amino acid groups (figure 2, right).

Don't forget that you cannot expect the same mTOR response as on day one, after weeks of intense training. Take some time off and reset your protein anabolic response (learn more about detraining and the difference to tapering)

Post-exercise ingestion of glucose plus WPH caused a significant increase in phosphorylated mTOR levels compared with AA or CHO. The WAA group also showed a significant increase in phosphorylated mTOR compared with the CHO group. The WPH group had greater phosphorylation of 4E-BP1 compared with both the AA and CHO groups. The WAA group also exhibited a significant increase in phosphorylated 4E-BP1 compared with the CHO group. Phosphorylation of S6K1 at Thr389 and Thr421/Ser424 was greater in the WPH group than in the AA and CHO groups. The AA group also demonstrated greater phosphorylation of S6K1 at both these sites compared with the CHO group.

I guess, I could hardly have said it more concise or could I? Well, I guess I could. "WPH > WAA > CHO wrt to FSR", or in a complete sentence: The maximal fractional protein synthesis was achieved with the whey protein hydrosylate, the isolated amino acids came a close second, and the' carbohydrate only' supplement did not have any effects on protein synthesis, at all.

"So what is it that makes whey special"

If you like it gross, you should consider taking some Deer Blood Isolate. Crazy idea? Well maybe, but when I just wanted to find a study with the exact peptide composition of WPH I came up with a 2013 paper by scientists from the Wildlife Institute of the Heilongihang Province in (you guessed it) China. Who state that deer blood hydrosylates "could be a potent food antioxidant" in their recently published paer in the Journal of Advanced Materials Research (Shuai Wang. 2013). Certainly an alternative to deer antler velvet, right *rofl*?

Actually I have answered the above question in the introduction already. Rather than just being subject to further breakdown, the short peptides that arise in the process of hydrolysation, are taken up by their own transporter system in the gut and will, just like the phrase "build muscle!" deliver a different message than the words "build" and "muscle" alone to muscle cells; or, as the scientists say it: "The WPH used in the present study contained active components that are superior to leucine itself for increasing muscle protein synthesis" (Kanda. 2013).

Just as I did in the introductory paragraph with the study by Morato et al., Kanda et al. refer to previous study by their research group (Morifuji. 2009), in which they

" [...] demonstrated that BCAA-containing peptides in WPH, such as Ile-Val, Leu-Val, Val-Leu, Ile-Ile, Ile-Leu, Leu-Ile and Leu-Leu, increased the rate of glucose uptake in isolated rat skeletal muscle"  (Kanda. 2013)

Their rationale is that it would only logical that the same BCAA-containing peptides that promote muscle glycogen synthesis may also "act as bioactive peptides in both glycogen and muscle protein synthesis in skeletal muscle" (Kanda. 2012) and that this would be relevant for both man and rodent has been demonstrated in a previous study from the same group already (Morifuji . 2010).

---

 Ex-Mr. Universe, Manohar Aich, turns 100 and swears by the synergy of whey & casein in milk (read more)

Are isolated or specifically engineered BCAA containing peptides the future? In view of the fact that the total amount of dipeptides that actually make it into the blood stream is low and reaches maximal concentrations that are 13-40x lower than those of leucine and other free form amino acids (based on unpublished data by the same group), the profound differences in protein synthesis, the scientists observed do certainly suggest that isolated or even better specifically engineered branched-chain amino acid containing small peptides are going to be the future of protein supplementation.

Until the future turns into the present, however, regular whey proteins and - as reluctant as I am to admit that - particularly the partially hydrolyzed whey protein hydrolysates will remain the #1 choice for post workout supplementation. That a combination of whey + casein and a subsequent whole foods meal is probably still going to yield the largest net protein accretion is a different matter and one I would finally like to be addressed in a single study investigating the full time-frame to the next workout, so that we would no longer have to rely on hypotheses based on various oftentimes hardly comparable isolated experiments.

References:

• Kanda A, Nakayama K, Fukasawa T, Koga J, Kanegae M, Kawanaka K, Higuchi M. Post-exercise whey protein hydrolysate supplementation induces a greater increase in muscle protein synthesis than its constituent amino acid content. Br J Nutr. 2013 Feb 7:1-7. [Epub ahead of print] 
• Morifuji M, Koga J, Kawanaka K, Higuchi M. Branched-chain amino acid-containing dipeptides, identified from whey protein hydrolysates, stimulate glucose uptake rate in L6 myotubes and isolated skeletal muscles. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo). 2009 Feb;55(1):81-6.
• Morifuji M, Ishizaka M, Baba S, Fukuda K, Matsumoto H, Koga J, Kanegae M, Higuchi M. Comparison of different sources and degrees of hydrolysis of dietary protein: effect on plasma amino acids, dipeptides, and insulin responses in human subjects. J Agric Food Chem. 2010 Aug 11;58(15):8788-97. 
• Zeng J, Zhu H, Kong J. Antioxidant Properties of Deer Blood Hydrolysate and the Possible Mode of Action. Advanced Materials Research. 2013; 1435:634-638.

The Glucose Repartitioning Effects of Isoleucine: Falsely Underappreciated BCAA and Its Dipeptides Maximize GLUT-4 Expression and Ramp Up Muscular Glucose Uptake

Still waiting for your abs to appear? Maybe you have the wrong "scientifically proven", "superior", or "modern", but unnatural ratio of BCAAs in your peri-workout nutrition - just kiddin' that alone won't be the reason, but still...

In the past week I have posted several facebook news items which were, in one way or another, related to he negative effects of isolating (micro-)nutrients and/or consuming them in what one could call "unnatural" ratios. Now one of those natural ratios most of you will be familiar with is the 2:1:1 ratio of leucine to valine and isoleucine, the three branched-chain amino acids. I have long been eye-balling with more than some skepticism how supplement companies have been trying to monetize on the unwarranted hype around leucine by twisting the ratio from 2:1:1 to 3:1:1 and even 10:1:1 and stating that this would be a "more anabolic" or "scientifically supported" modification. With the impending publication of a paper by a group of Brazilian scientists, I am yet pretty sure that you are soon going to see very different "optimal" ratios being propagated (Morato. 2013).

Leucine was yesterday, isoleucine is the future - at least for lean mass gains

You already know from previous articles that EAAs increase GLUT-4 expression - could it be that this effect was stimulated by isoleucine, alone? As a branch-chained amino acid it is after all one of the EAAs. Or is it rather a synergistic effect of various amino acids?

The data the researchers are presenting in their soon-to-be-published article in the Jornal of Food Chemistry, clearly indicates that not leucine, not glutamine, not cysteine, not arginine, not citrulline and none of the other usually often hailed amino acids, but the hitherto more or less ignored branched chain amino acid l-isoleucine is the driving force of the increase in skeletal muscle GLUT-4 translocation and subsequent glucose uptake in response to BCAAs and BCAA rich protein sources such as whey protein.

To study the individual effects of various components of whey on glucose uptake, the scientists administered a mixture of glucose + whey protein hydrosolate or one of the following amino acids / dipeptides to 49 rats who had been exercised the day before and were kept in a fasted state for 15:30hr afterwards (this protocol was meant to deplete muscle and liver glycogen): L-isoleucine (ILE), L-leucine (LEU), L-leucine plus L-isoleucine (LEU+ILE), L-isoleucyl-L-leucine and (ILE-LEU), L-leucyl-L-isoleucine (LEU-ILE).

Important recent update on isoleucine: I highly suggest you read my more recent article on isoleucine, as well. It discusses the beneficial effects on blood glucose in man, but adds that an amino acid mix containing high amounts of isoleucine blunts glycogen resynthesis after the workout.

After receiving these solutions, the animals (N=7 per group) were sacrificed and the effects on glucose transporter 4 (GLUT-4), p-Akt and AMPK in skeletal muscle, as well as the insulin and glucose levels in the blood and the glycogen content of  liver, skeletal muscle and heart were evaluated.

Figure 1: Skeletal muscle protein expression, insulin and glucose levels and glycogen content of muscle, liver and heart 30min after the ingestion of the glucose + whey / AA / peptide solutions (Morato. 2013)

A brief glance at the data in figure 1 reveals that the isoleucine + glucose solution did produce exactly those non-insulin dependent  increases in GLUT-4 activity, glucose uptake and disappearance from the blood stream we'd expect from a glucose repartitioning agent (check out the low insulin and glucose levels and high GLUT-4 expression in for ILE in figure 1). 

Where did the glucose go, dude?

Training glycogen deplete can be regarded as an intensity technique that can increase markers of mitochondrial biogenesis by +700% (read more), not repleting your glycogen levels for days must be regarded as madness, though.

What may surprise you, though, is the fact that the glucose that disappeared from the blood stream did not reappear in form of glycogen in either of the tested organs. That's yet not due to oxidation, let alone it's deposition in the adipose tissue of the animals, but simply due to the fact that the study protocol, in which the rodents had only 30min to live after the administration of the test solutions. According to previous research, the complete repletion of severely reduced glycogen levels can take up to 24h (Jentjens. 2003) and that's in the presence of sufficient amounts of glucose. The 30% glucose solution in which the 0.55g/kg of whey, amino acids (AA) or dipeptides were dissolved in the study at hand, however, would not have been sufficient to replete the glycogen levels to a significant degree, even if the poor critters had lived for another 24h.

Now you could certainly argue that the scientists would not have had to measure the glycogen content, in the first place, if they already knew it would not change. In a way, this is correct, but since we know that the rate of glucose uptake is inversely related to the glycogen levels in the muscle, measuring the actual glycogen content was necessary simply to make sure that inter-group differences in terms of the amount of glycogen that was still left in muscle, liver and heart tissue of the animals would not interfere with the study outcomes.

Amino acids, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), creatine kinase and more

No wonder the cup on the left is the only one that smiles. The black coffee it contains may be among the least known, but most consumed GLUT4 promoters worldwide. That's at least what a  paper by Guarino et al. from 2012 suggests. And while this partly explains the reduced diabetes risk in habitual coffee drinkers, the lower incidence of CVD and cancer are brought about by the natural synergy of various nutrients in coffee (read more)

In addition to the previously discussed parameter, Morato et al. also analyzed a whole host of additional parameters, mostly with non-significant or physiologically irrelevant results. One thing that's worth mentioning though are the higher serum levels of the (main) glyconeogenic amino acid l-alanine in the l-isoleucine group.

The scientist ascribe the latter to the competition of isoleucine and alanine for hepatic transport via the neutral amino acid transporter. The decreased uptake of alanine by liver, in turn, could have reduced hepatic (=by the liver) gluconeogenesis and thus contributed to a further reduction (or absence of an increase) in serum glucose levels. This would also explain the lower ALT levels in the isoleucine group. After all, this enzyme that's often misattributed as an indicator of liver damage is actually nothing but a marker of the transamination of alanine (hence "ALT" as in ALanine amino-Transferase), a process that is a necessary step in hepatic gluconeogenesis from alanine to pyruvate, which will subsequently be converted to glucose and released into the blood.

Bottom line: If we recap the results the main take home messages of this study are as follows: (1) Never mess with nature's wisdom *lol*; (2) the hitherto mostly overlooked #3 of the BCAAs could be a very important contributer to the nutrient and thus body recompositioning effects of branch-chained amino acids and BCAA rich protein; (3) while l-isoleucine may be king, when it comes to the non-insulin dependent increase in GLUT-4 activity and the subsequential lowering of blood glucose, the whey(-exclusive?) dipeptide l-leucyl-isoleucine with its profound effects on both Akt and insulin, is probably the more anabolic GLUT-4 stimulant.

Having 10g of essential amino acids (EAAs) or 2030g of "high quality = high EAA" protein with each and every of your meals is one of the easiest an most reliable strategies to become and stay lean (read more). With isoleucine obviously being one of those EAAs and 25g of whey and casein having ~1.75g respectively 1.13g of this carbohydrate repartitioning amino acid in it, this could well explain part of the benefits (note: 125g of chicken breast will also yield 1.5g of isoleucine and the same amounts of beef and pork also have >1g; the same goes for 3-4 eggs or 500g of peas and 2.5kg pumpkin or 4kg of eggplant ;-)

Based on these insights most of you probably won't really have to change anything about their protocol... well, unless you have fallen for the unwarranted advertisement claims of the supplement business and switched from a cheap whey protein to an overexpensive BCAA or EAA product with tons of leucine and almost nothing else in it.

Whether or not there would be real world benefits of isolated l-isoleucine supplementation for people with compromised insulin sensitivity or even full-blown diabetes will have to be elucidated in future studies. In view of the fact that BCAAs have yet already been proposed as viable "treatment" (I'd rather prefer the term "management", though) strategies for type II diabetes and related diseases (e.g. Manders. 2012; Takeshita. 2012) and considering the fact that leucine alone did not have any beneficial effects on glucose management on pro-diabetic diets (Nairizi. 2009), the addition of some isoleucine to products meant to increase glucose uptake from skeletal muscle does certainly look worth investigating. Whether the outcomes will be significantly superior to those of plain whey protein hydrolysates (Sousa. 2012), on the other hand, is something I wouldn't be too certain about.

References:

• Jentjens R, Jeukendrup A. Determinants of post-exercise glycogen synthesis during short-term recovery. Sports Medicine. 2003; 33(2):117-144.
• Manders RJ, Little JP, Forbes SC, Candow DG. Insulinotropic and muscle protein synthetic effects of branched-chain amino acids: potential therapy for type 2 diabetes and sarcopenia. Nutrients. 2012 Nov 8;4(11):1664-78.
• Morato PN, Lollo PCB, Moura CS, Batista TM, Carneiro EM, Amaya-Farfan J. A dipeptide and an amino acid present in whey protein hydrolysate increase translocation of GLUT-4 to the plasma membrane in Wistar rats, Food Chemistry. 2013 [epub ahead of print].
• Nairizi A, She P, Vary TC, Lynch CJ. Leucine supplementation of drinking water does not alter susceptibility to diet-induced obesity in mice. J Nutr. 2009 Apr;139(4):715-9. 
• Sousa GT, Lira FS, Rosa JC, de Oliveira EP, Oyama LM, Santos RV, Pimentel GD. Dietary whey protein lessens several risk factors for metabolic diseases: a review. Lipids Health Dis. 2012 Jul 10;11:67.
• Takeshita Y, Takamura T, Kita Y, Ando H, Ueda T, Kato K, Misu H, Sunagozaka H, Sakai Y, Yamashita T, Mizukoshi E, Honda M, Kaneko S. Beneficial effect of branched-chain amino acid supplementation on glycemic control in chronic hepatitis C patients with insulin resistance: implications for type 2 diabetes. Metabolism. 2012 Oct;61(10):1388-94.

The Soy Formula: Pregnant or Lactating Mother + Soy = Metabolically Deranged Male Offspring

Image 1: Newsweek title from the
year 2000 - "Fat for Life?"; did his
mother love her soy protein more
than her son's health?

Those of you who listened to my dissertations on yesterday's fourth installment of the Amino Acid Series on Carl Lenore's Super Human Radio will probably remember the lack of carnitine in the not-yet-enriched soy based baby-formula of the late 1970s. Now, a recently published rodent study suggests that the negative effects of soy may well begin before the offspring is even born: Exposure of pregnant and lactating rats to a soy (vs. a casein) based diet "increased the presence of the characteristics of the metabolic syndrome in the offspring" (Jahan-mihan. 2011).

In the course of their study, the results which was published in the latest issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, the scientists randomly assigned pregnant rats (at day 3 of gestation) to one out of two calorically identical diets, which different only with regard to the source of their protein content. While half of the rats were fed a soy based formula, the other half received a casein based diet.

Figure 1: Amino acid composition of the cystein- (C) and cystein+methionine (S) fortified (indicated by the asterisk) casein (C) and soy-based (S) diets rat dams and their offspring were fed in the course of pregnancy and lactation and weening, respectively (data adapted from Jahan-mihan. 2011).

The whole study consisted of two almost identical test series, which lasted 9 (Exp. 1) and 15 weeks (Exp. 2) and provided unambiguously detrimental results for the male pups :

In Expt 1, pups born to S-fed dams had higher fasting blood glucose (BG), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) at week 4, higher blood glucose (BG) response to a glucose administration (P,0·001) and higher body weight (BW) at week 8 (P,0·05). In Expt 2, consumption of the S diet throughout gestation and lactation resulted in higher BW (P,0·05), DBP (P,0·005) and SBP (P,0·005) in the offspring. They also had higher homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR; P,0·05) and plasma homocysteine (P,0·05) at weaning, higher fasting BG and glucose response to glucose administration (P,0·005) at week 12 and higher HOMA-IR (P,0·01) at week 15.

It goes without saying that in absence of other variables, either the amino acid composition or the genistein, daidzein and glycitein content of the soy diet must have been responsible for the metabolic priming towards high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes.

Figure 2: Relative elevation of glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR (marker of insulin resistance) and corticosteroids (stress hormones) in offspring of soy-fed rats compared to pups of casein-fed mothers at different time-points in their lives (data adapted from Jahan-mihan. 2011).

In that it is worth mentioning that the extension of the duration of the soy feeding from gestation in experiment 1 to gestation + lactation in experiment "resulted in a more robust effect of the S diet on BW, body composition and glucose metabolism in the offspring". These results contradict the hypothesis "that offspring weaned to similar diets as their mothers will adapt more appropriately to their postnatal environment"; an observation a cynic may comment with the words: 'I guess, they did not have enough time for genetic adaption'.

As far as the underlying reasons for these detrimental effects of a soy-based pregnancy and lactation diet go, the scientists argue that bioactive peptides such as valine–proline–proline and isoleucine–proline–proline, which are present in casein, but are not contained in soy proteins, may play a factor. On the other hand, Jahan-mihan et al. discount the isoflavone content of the soy protein (36.1, 31.3 and 4.4µg/g for Genistein, daidzein and glycitein, respectively) as potential cause of the metabolic derangement, because "the genistein content of the S diet was 36 µg/g of the diets, well below that reported (250 mg/g diet) in the maternal diet to affect epigenetic and phenotypic changes in mice". The latter, however, makes me question the reasons, the researchers had to chose exclusively male pubs in their study!? What if not the phytoestrogens in soy would whack up the male pups endocrine system? Be that as it may, if you are a mother to be, you better not make soy protein your no.1 source of dietary protein, in order not to set your children up for high blood pressure, obesity and diabetes in their later lives.

Drink Your Milk! Scientists Unlock the Health Secrets of the White Elixir of Life

Arnold said "Milk is for babies", yet recent studies showed that chocolate milk is among the most effective post-workout drinks you can consume and whey proteins are a stable not only of almost every bodybuilder's diet regimens.

In a recent review, a group of Irish scientists (Mills. 2011) attempt to summarize all the available information on the "ever-accumulating range of bioactivities associated with milk substituents"; and the sheer size of the paper underlines that there probably is much more to milk than Arnold would have imagined.

Table 1: Milk-derived bioactive peptides in commercially available functional foods and ingredients (Mills. 2011)

Table 1 (truncated from Mills. 2011) shows a summary of the most important components of milk and their proclaimed beneficial health effects. So, don't let anyone tell you milk was for babies, only ;-)

Edit: I think it is noteworthy to say that (of course) this review was supported by the milk industry. While this does not change the reliability of the scientific evidence cited, one should keep that in mind when looking at which studies the authors selected.