Sleeping Like an Athlete: Supplement Smart to Complement Your Diet, Periodize Your Training, Practice Sleep Hygiene

Blindfolds and earplugs can improve your sleep quality significantly. The special beauty of blindfolds is: unlike earplugs, blindfolds may also be used to refresh 'other things' you may be doing beneath or on top of your sheets, which in turn will help those who are struggling with getting restorative sleep (learn more)

While every idiot will tell you that ZMA is "the shit" (it indeed is, literally) its purported benefits are either insufficiently proven or even disproven, as it is the case for the alleged  anabolic effect of ZMA, which clearly don't exist (Wilborn 2004) outside of the "alternative facts" supplement companies use in pamphlets people call "write ups". Obviously, this won't stop the bros at the gym from telling you: "Dat ZMA gives me an amazingly anabolic sleep, bro!"

The reasons ZMA (unfortunately) hasn't disappeared, yet, is still in the TOP10 of an unfortunately high number of supplement retailers' sales-lists, though, is not only bropaganda. It's bropaganda that appears plausible, because both, B-vitamins and magnesium, play an important role in the physiology of human sleep.

Learn more about the effects of GABA & co at the SuppVersity

GABA Diabesity Treatment

Phenibut Addic- tive or Harmless?

All About GABA at SHR

Melatonin = Easy Fat Loss?

Letrozole? Use Melatonin Instead

Bone & Tooth? Melatonin Helps

It is thus only logical that they made it on a list scientists from Portugal and Spain compiled and published in "Arch Med Deporte" in form of a review. A review which does, unlike a dozen of articles on fitness websites, mislead its readers to believe that supplements were the basis or at least necessary for optimal sleep in athletes.

Figure 1: Rules of optimal sleep hygiene for athletes - Sleep hygiene measures that may contribute to improving the quantity and quality of sleep in athletes (from Ordóñez 2017).

You wouldn't have believed such bogus, anyway, would you? I mean, we all know that the basis of optimal sleep ain't different for athletes vs. couch potatoes, it's always sleep hygiene. The rules of sleep hygiene, on the other hand, may well differ. Periodization and a sensible control of one's training volume and intensity, for example, are nothing you'd find on the average couch potato's list because he's already training way too little to get optimal sleep.

Why do we care about sleep as athletes (and wanna-be athletes)? (1) Performance - not sleeping enough has direct negative effects on your cardio-respiratory capacity and possible negative effect on maximum and sub-maximum strength levels; (2) recovery - a lack of sleep will impair your recovery and predispose you to overtraining, with all its nasty symptoms, such as depression, confusion, anger, fatigue and reduced vigour, as well as increased levels of catabolic hormones, such as cortisol, in rest and reduction of anabolic hormones, like GH, IGF-1 and testosterone; (3) injury risk - you'll be more likely to get injured, because of sign. reductions in cognitive performance and proprioceptive and neuromuscular alterations (+ the aforementioned recovery deficits); (4) infections - a lack of sleep will impair your immune competence which, in turn, will make you more susceptible to infections; (5) muscle loss and fat gain - the former are direct effects of the previously mentioned changes in the hormonal balance [see (2)].

For you, who is obviously not a sedentary couch potato, my first advice to "fix your sleep" is thus: make sure you're not following the invalid "more helps more" approach and have been overtraining for weeks (that's in contrast to overreaching | learn more). When you've your sleep hygiene ducks in a row, go ahead and read the following paragraphs about supplements:

• 

  Figure 1: Changes in sleep in response to TRYP (Silber 2010).

  the serotonin precursor tryptophan - while it is unquestionably essential for optimal sleep, the amount of the serotonin precursor tryptophan in our diet is usually more than high enough to fulfill our dietary requirements;
  
  still, if your intake is low and/or your requirements are increased (e.g. low niacin intake and/or requirements of the tryptophan based-vitamin) or you've been stupid enough to block the entry of tryptophan into the brain by guzzling BCAAs all day (learn more), taking at least 1g (best consumed on empty) before going to bed may help you fall asleep and improve subjective sleep quality
• vitamins from the B-complex - yes, here it is B-vitamin, but the infamous B6 (pyridoxin) from ZMA, is required only in very low doses and together with folate as a co-factor in serotonin synthesis; in fact, taking too much (which is what you will find in most ZMA products) can ruin your sleep by giving you the weirdest kind of dreams;

  

  Figure 1: Possible mechanisms of the influence of dietary components on the synthesis of serotonin and melatonin (from Peuhkuri 2012). One thing you should remember, though: Most of us get all the necessary nutrients from our diet, accordingly you must not expect exorbitant benefits from taking supplements.

  often forgotten, but at least as important, especially for athletes, whose requirements may be significantly increased, is vitamin B3 aka niacin, the endogenous production of which will otherwise be favored by your body over the synthesis of serotonin from tryptophan (Peuhkuri 2012); some evidence also exists for B12, which is necessary for the proper synthesis of melatonin, and should thus have possible positive effect on the quantity of sleep, especially in vegetarian athletes, who often don't get enough B12 from their meatless and thus in many cases cobalamine-deficient diet
• overrated, but important magnesium - while there's little doubt that magnesium is important for the 5-Hydroxytryptamine enzyacetyltransferase to convert 5-HT into N-Acetyl-5-Hydroxytryptamine and which is then transformed into N-Acetyl-5-methoxy tryptamine aka Melatonin, there's little evidence that taking extra Mg has beneficial effects on sleep; in fact, scientists have yet to establish, if low magnesium is the cause of just a corollary factor of sleep problems (Nielsen 2010 | this could still mean that Mg supplementation will solve the underlying problems that keep you awake, though) and beneficial effects of supplementation have only been established in elderly subjects (Abbasi 2012), where it has been found to reverse the age-related neuroendocrine and sleep EEG changes (Held 2002)

No such conclusive evidence exists for zinc, the third ingredient in the supplement everybody will name when you ask for "sleep supplements for athletes". While an older rodent study suggests that a full-blown zinc deficiency goes hand in hand with reduced melatonin levels (Abbasi 2012), there's no evidence that zinc deficiency is (a) causally involved, (b) a major problem in the average athlete and (c) no human data to support improved sleep with zinc. Similarly promising, but not fully convincing evidence exists for

• GABA and phenibut, which I've discussed in detail (see "GABA - An Effective Sleep Aid W/ GH Boosting Effects that Works Within 30 Minutes - Only 100 mg Pre-Bed Will Suffice" | read it, and "Phenibut, Addictive Sleep Aid With Unhealthy Hangover? Dosages, Effects, Side Effects and Safety Concerns" | read it), ...
• plain dietary calcium and potassium, which are, much like magnesium, essential for protein encoding that facilitates sleep and regeneration, ...
• dietary (or supplemental) L-ornithine, the anti-stress effects of which I've likewise addressed in previous articles ( "L-Ornithine an Anti-Stress Agent: Lower Cortisol, Higher DHEA, Better Sleep W/ Only 400mg of Ornithine Pre-Bed" | read more) and 
• reduced intakes of palmitic acid (aka hexadecanoic acid), which have been found to be significantly associated with difficulties falling asleep (Grandner 2014).

All these dietary links that have been outlined quite nicely by Zeng et al. a 2014 paper about their potential use in functional foods (see Figure 3):

Figure 3: Possible mechanisms of functional components in foods promote sleep (from Zeng 2014).

Certainly effective in some, but highly debated among both scientists and practitioners, is the last supplement on the list: melatonin. Useful dosages for athletes appear to range from 3-12 mg with higher doses not necessarily working better, but increasing the risk of side effects ranging from headaches over nausea and drowsiness during the day or nightmares, all of which could potentially negatively affect your performance. I would thus not necessarily call melatonin a "must have" supplement for athletes - well,... unless you're traveling over several time zones regularly. In that case, you can use it to combat jet lag and reprogram your internal clock; or, as a Cochrane Review says you could use its "remarkabl[e effectivity] in preventing or reducing jet lag [... whenever you cross] five or more time zones, particularly in an easterly direction, and especially if [you have experienced jet lag on previous journeys" (Herxheimer 2002).

Always remember: You want to control cortisol, not eradicate it if you want to melt away your belly fat, beat your personal bests and feel just great! Learn how to control cortisol.

So, what's the verdict then? I still maintain that overtraining is the #1 reason why athletes and gymrats will have trouble sleeping. It will still make sense to keep an eye on your B-vitamin, magnesium and tryptophan intake as a complement to practicing appropriate sleep hygiene (see Figure 1).

If nothing helps, a visit to the doctor who can exclude underlying physical problems like hyperthyroidism, adrenal problems, sleep apnea and a whole host of other health problems that may affect your sleep ... I can guarantee, though, in 99% of the cases not being able to fall asleep, cannot sleep through or cannot sleep at all a lack of sleep hygiene (unable to fall asleep) and/or overtraining (waking up at  1-3AM) are to blame | Comment!

References:

• Abbasi, Behnood, et al. "The effect of magnesium supplementation on primary insomnia in elderly: a double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial." Journal of Research in Medical Sciences 17.12 (2012).
• Grandner, Michael A., et al. "Sleep symptoms associated with intake of specific dietary nutrients." Journal of sleep research 23.1 (2014): 22-34.
• Held, Katja, et al. "Oral Mg2+ supplementation reverses age-related neuroendocrine and sleep EEG changes in humans." Pharmacopsychiatry 35.04 (2002): 135-143.
• Herxheimer, Andrew, and Keith J. Petrie. "Melatonin for the prevention and treatment of jet lag." The Cochrane Library (2002).
• Ordóñez, Fernando Mata, et al. "Sleep improvement in athletes: use of nutritional supplements." Nº 135 (Murc Tlf (2017): 93.
• Nielsen, Forrest H., LuAnn K. Johnson, and Huawei Zeng. "Magnesium supplementation improves indicators of low magnesium status and inflammatory stress in adults older than 51 years with poor quality sleep." Magnesium Research 23.4 (2010): 158-168.
• Peuhkuri, Katri, Nora Sihvola, and Riitta Korpela. "Diet promotes sleep duration and quality." Nutrition Research 32.5 (2012): 309-319.
• Silber, B. Y., and J. A. J. Schmitt. "Effects of tryptophan loading on human cognition, mood, and sleep." Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 34.3 (2010): 387-407.
• Wilborn, Colin D., et al. "Effects of zinc magnesium aspartate (ZMA) supplementation on training adaptations and markers of anabolism and catabolism." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 1.2 (2004): 12.
• Zeng, Yawen, et al. "Strategies of functional foods promote sleep in human being." Current signal transduction therapy 9.3 (2014): 148-155.

Vitamins B1, B2, B5 & B6 & Glucose Management | Part VII of the "There is More To Glucose Control Than Low Carb"- Series. Any Real Benefit From Supplementing With "Bs"

Funny or obscene? A woman w/ low vitamin B and thus fortified cornflakes is among the "top images" Google will show you, when you search for B-vits

There is an often overlooked reason I am addressing thiamin (B1), riboflavin (B2), panthotenic acid (B5) and pyridoxine (B6) in one installment of the "There is More to Glucose Control Than Carbohydrates"-Series (read previous installments): They are all necessary to store glycogen in the liver (Supplee. 1942).

In general, a whole foods diet, as recommended in previous SuppVersity articles will easily cover the B-vitamin needs of the average sedentary and physically active individual - in spite of minimally increased requirements for B2 & B6, in particular (Manore. 2000; Woolf. 2008).

You can learn more about this topic at the SuppVersity

Proteins, Peptides & Blood Glucose

SFA, MUFA, PUFA & Blood Glucose

Vitamin D & Diabetes

Glucose Manager Calcium?

Flush & No-Flush Niacin & Diabesity

Vitamin C & Glucose Control

As a SuppVersity reader you do yet know that "adequate" and optimal intakes can differ significantly and the fact that the provision of additional B-vitamins does not have ergogenic effects does not exclude the possibility that it may have beneficial effects on blood glucose management.

The initially mentioned inability to convert glucose to glycogen and to store the latter in the liver, for example, would already set you up to increases in blood glucose levels. The latter will in turn increase the urinary loos of the water-soluble vitamins, so that a deficiency in one of the initially named B-vitamins could trigger a whole "pro-diabetic" cascade that leaves the by then (pre-)diabetic individual deficient even in those of the B-vitamins of which he or she is actually getting enough from his or her diet (+ supplements).

Annual spending Alzheimer patients >65y in the US from 2010 to 2050 (projection, in billion U.S. dollars;  Alzheimer's Association. 2010)

This article is exclusively about the beneficial effects of b-vitamins on glucose control: The conclusions I draw based on the evidence presented in this article do not affect potential cognitive benefits from "optimal" (=within the RDA) intakes of B-vitamins (in particularly folate, and B-12, which are not part of this overview, anyway) in the young (Herbison. 2012) and old , where they are furthermore "confined to participants with high homocysteine (above the median, 11 µmol/L) and that, in these participants, a causal Bayesian network analysis indicates the following chain of events: B vitamins lower homocysteine, which directly leads to a decrease in GM atrophy, thereby slowing cognitive decline" (Douaud. 2013).

Conclusive evidence for anti-diabetic or insulin-sensitizing effects of B-vitamin supplements is yet still scarce. Even the notion that (pre-)diabetics suffer from low levels of the said B-vitamins is still controversial. This does not mean, though, that there were no promising study results I could report. For thiamine, for example, ...

• 

  Figure 1: Effects of lipophilic thiamine on HbA1c (top) and insulin requirements (bottom) of type I diabetics (Valerio. 1999(

  Valerio et al. report that the provision of a lipophilic form of thiamine (benzoyloxymethyl-thiamin) at 50mg/day lead to improvements in HbA1c and reduced insulin requirements in children with type I diabetes (Valerio. 1999) - the difference between the active and the placebo arm of the study did yet not reach statistical significance
• Obrenovich et al. report in a 2003 that thiamine, or rather benfothiamine bocks the oxidative damage due to the presence of excessive amounts of glucose in the blood of a rodent model of diabetes - their results have been replicated in human studies by Stirban et al. an other researchers several times over the past decade (Stirban. 2006)

Corresponding evidence for riboflavin is hard to find. While there are studies that suggest the presence of reduced levels of this b-vitamin in both type I and type II diabetics, direct beneficial effects of vitamin B2 supplementation on glucose management have not been reported.

A very similar picture, i.e. reduced levels in type II diabetics, but no reports of direct metabolic benefits from the provision of supplemental vitamin B5 from randomized controlled human trials, emerges if you do a database search for panthotenic acid.

Figure 1: 2h glucose and insulin response to oral glucose tolerance test before (white) and after 25 days of B5 depletion (red), as well as during B5 refeed (violet) in a healthy male subjects (Bean. 1995)

The results of a study from the mid 1950s, when scientists still put healthy individuals on nutritionally deficient diets still indicate. After 25 days without significant amounts of panthotenic acid in the diet, the subjects' insulin sensitivity was notably compromised (Figure 1, red) and was not normalized within only 10 days on a diet with 133x the normal amount of panthotenic acid (Figure 1, violet).

Mind the vitamin <> vitamin interactions: Even if there is no reason for high dose pantothenic acid supplementation to inhibit the cellular uptake of glucose directly, it's well possible that it messes with glucose metabolism via interactions with other water solube vitamins like vitamin B6 aka pyridoxin, the excretion of which is increasing, whenever the intake of panthothenic acid exceeds an (in humans undetermined) sane threshold.

In fact, the extreme elevation of the insulin levels in the "reload phase" would rather suggest that extreme amount of vitamin B5 will compromise, not improve your insulin sensitivity - contrary to edema, severe fatigue, joint pains, reduced protein metabolism, reduced phosphorus, raised VLDL triglycerides, calcification (from calcium pantothenate), dehydration, gastrointestinal symptoms, and depression, a decreased insulin sensitivity is yet not on the "official list of side effects"* of high panthotenic acid intakes (*by "official" I refer to the lists everyone copies ad pastes from the major health information outlets on the Internet).

And what about B6? It's in all my supplements, so it must be good!

If I had to write the bottom line to today's installment of the "There is More to Glucose Control Than Carbohydrates" series now, it would probably be very short and certainly very disappointing for the various supplement junkies out there. Luckily (?) there is still one of the B-vitamins missing: Pyridoxine or vitamin B6 - and you should expect the only B-vitamin that can produce severe toxic effects when it is consumed in very high amounts chronically (peripheral nerve damage) should be able to bring about at least minimal increases in insulin sensitivity / cellular glucose uptake, as well, right?

Well, unfortunately, that's not the case. In 1980, already, a group of scientists from the Gandhi Medical College Hospital in India were able to show that the provision of 40mg of pyrodixine per day had "did not bring about any significant alterations in either the oral glucose tolerance or the insulin response to glucose" in thirteen adult maturity-onset diabetics - and that in spite of the fact that 7 of them were actually vitamin B6 deficient!

Mind the "hidden" B-sources: If you are still concerned that you may not be getting your Bs in, you are probably an OTC supplement junkie. In that case I suggest you briefly take a look at the pre-workout, post- workout and whatever other products in your stack... what? Oh, they all contain 10x the RDA and more of these B-vitamins - that's surprising, right?

A major disappointment? Although this article focused exclusively on the benefits of the water-soluble B-vitamins on glucose control, the results are still paradigmatic for the overall "potency" of vitamin-B-supplements. They are all the rage, but the benefits are overblown, in many cases simply non-existent.

If we discard the well established beneficial effects of benfothiamine on the side-effects of elevated blood glucose levels, and the highly disputed benefits of pyridoxine in diabetic peripheral neuropathies (alleviation of sympthoms, no change in nerve damage; Bernstein. 1988 & 1990), there is actually no reason to even consider taking extra amounts of any or all of these vitamins if you are (a) no diabetic and (b) no junk food eater - and let's be honest, if either (a) or (b) applies you have got more important issues to deal with than potentially suboptimal B-vitamin intakes and their effects on glucose tolerance.

Reference:

• Bean, William B., et al. "Pantothenic acid deficiency induced in human subjects." Journal of Clinical Investigation 34.7 Pt 1 (1955): 1073. 
• Bernstein, A. L., and C. S. Lobitz. "A clinical and electrophysiologic study of the treatment of painful diabetic neuropathies with pyridoxine." Current topics in nutrition and disease (USA) (1988).
• Bernstein, Allan L. "Vitamin B6 in clinical neurology." Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 585.1 (1990): 250-260.
• Herbison, Carly E., et al. "Low intake of B-vitamins is associated with poor adolescent mental health and behaviour." Preventive medicine 55.6 (2012): 634-638.
• Manore, Melinda M. "Effect of physical activity on thiamine, riboflavin, and vitamin B-6 requirements." The American journal of clinical nutrition 72.2 (2000): 598s-606s.
• Supplee, G. C., R. C. Bender, and Z. M. Hanford. "Interrelated vitamin requirements. The influence of thiamin, riboflavin, pantothenic acid and vitamin B6 on liver glycogen reserves." Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association 31.7 (1942): 194-198.
• Valerio, G., et al. "Lipophilic thiamine treatment in long-standing insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus." Acta diabetologica 36.1-2 (1999): 73-76.

Leucine + B6: 82% More Weight + Twice As Much Body Fat Loss in First 12 of 24 Weeks on -500kcal/day Diet W/ 2.25g Leucine + 30mg Pyridoxine - To Good to Be True?

Check your nutrition labels, I bet you get 2.25g+ leucine and 30mg of B6 from one of your supps already

I am sorry to say that and actually this is usually something that goes into the bottom line, but I do have serious doubts whether the results reported in this study can be replicated in any of you. Yes, it is a human study, but (a) the subjects, 12 men and 12 women, were obese (34.76 ± 2.57) and (b) if the mere addition of 2.25 g leucine and 30 mg vitamin B6 would have such profound effects, everyone who has ever taken a commercial BCAA product would have noticed a doubling in fat loss, already, as almost all of them contain 2.25g+ of leucine and tons of pyridoxine (B6).

So what are you saying here? Is this study a fraud?

I have no evidence that the study was a fraud and I am certainly not implying this, but you must wonder about the magnitude of the weight loss and fat loss difference between the regular and the NuShape supplemented dieters (-500kcal from baseline energy demands calculated simplistically by  1.3× result of the WHO formula for basal metabolic rate), who ingested 2x 1.125 g leucine and 15 mg pyridoxine per day (whether that's on empty is not disclosed in the paper).

Figure 1: Changes in insulin (μU/ml), HOMA-IR, waist circumference (cm), body weight (kg), fat weight (kg) after 12 (blue) and 24 weeks (orange), relative change from 12-24 weeks is indicated in % below the bars (Zemel. 2013)

According to the researchers, who have published corresponding data for rodents and an analysis of the effects of the same combination of leucine + pyridoxine on total fat oxidation (>30g increase per day in a randomized controlled study; Zemel. 2012), the specific effects on visceral obesity could be a result of the

"reductions of oxidative and inflammatory stress biomarkers, such as plasma malondialdehyde (MDA), 8- isoprostane F-2α, tumor necrosis factor-α, and C-reactive protein, as well as an increase in the anti-inflammatory marker adiponectin" (Zemel. 2013)

they observed in a previous trial after 4 weeks, even in the absence of weight loss (Zemel. 2012). This would certainly be beneficial for both the lean and the fat individual, but with already low levels of CRP, MDA and TNF-alpha as you, as a healthy follower of physical culture should have them, these changes will be so small that they are unlikely to have any visible effects on you.

There decreased weight / waist / fat loss within the 2nd two weeks in the supplement group (see figure 1, yellow arrow for the discussion of waist circumference as an example) does actually provide evidence that the effect size will decrease the learner you are... even "worse", but rather hypothetical: The effect could also be diminishing, because the human body get's used to the new steady influx of leucine and B6 and their beneficial effects on the mitochondria, Sirt-1 and AMPK expression (learn more; note: as stated in this older article of mine, it works also without resveratrol)

---

Learn more about leucine, HMB, B6, mitochondrial health and weight / fat loss in a previous post (read more)

Bottom line: You are probably already doing what 50% of the subjects in this (sponsored) study have been randomly assigned to, i.e. consuming an extra 2.25g of leucine and 30mg of vitamin B6 (this is ~3800% of the RDA) per day if you consume either a "sports multi", a "high potency B-vitamin" or simply the next best BCAA or other amino acid / protein product with added B6. So, let me ask you a question, then. Did you get ripped to the shreds from this practice? No? Well, in that case you will probably share my doubts about the relevance of the data and the usefulness of the said supplement.

References:

• Zemel MB, Bruckbauer A. Effects of a leucine and pyridoxine- containing nutraceutical on fat oxidation, and oxidative and inflammatory stress in overweight and obese subjects. Nutrients. 2012;4:529–541
• Zemel MB, Bruckbauer A. Effects of a leucine and pyridoxine-containing nutraceutical on body weight and composition in obese subjects. Diabetes, Metabolic Syndrome and Obesity: Targets and Therapy. 22 August 2013.

Sunlight, L-Tryptophan & Vitamin B6 With Breakfast Increase Serotonin and Wakefulness During the Day and Melatonin and Restful Sleep at Night

Image 1: For these kids the high tryptophan + B6 breakfast would be useless unless they already got their 10min+ of direct sun exposure this morning

A recently published study that was conducted by a team of international researchers led by Miyo Nakade from the Gakuen University in Nagoya, Japan (Nakade. 2012), concludes that sunlight exposure and vitamin B6 and l-tryptophan intake with breakfast could be profound modulators of circadian rhytmicity in young children (N=816, age = 2-6 years). The results the researchers published in the latest issue of the Journal of Physiological Anthropology clearly suggest that the increased production of serotonin from l-tryptophan and the vitamin B6 metabolite pyridoxal 5’-phosphate (also known as PLP or p5p) exerts beneficial effects on the morningness-eveningness (M-E) score - a measure for the natural and highly desirable difference in wakefulness in the morning and sleepiness in the evening, the disturbance of which is among the emerging correlates of metabolic diseases, such as diabetes, obesity and abnormal lipid metabolism.

[C]hildren showed a tendency to be more morning-typed if they ate breakfast with
a high estimated Trp content. This study also confirmed a similar trend with estimated Vi-B6
content. Among essential amino acids, the Trp content in food is quite small, and thus it is
necessary to make a special effort to consume a sufficient amount in one’s diet.

That those foods with specifically high tryptophan content are, as so often, eggs, meats, and fish is something I probably don't have to tell you - just as I don't have to tell you that soybeans, and other soy products, which also contain significant amounts of tryptophan should not constitute a major part of your diet; regardless of whether you are a man or a woman.

Sunlight must not be hidden behind curtains or seen just through the windows your car

Interestingly, all the vitamin B6 and tryptophan in the world appears to be of little use, if you get too little sun-exposure (Rosenthal. 1997). And, now listen up!, they can become disturbed when you sleep with black out curtains and use an alarm clock to wake you up (Harada. 2003) - in how far these effects are mitigated, or even reversed (i.e. using black-out curtains = beneficial) in people who would otherwise be constantly exposed to unnatural light-exposure (e.g. a street lantern right before your window) would require further investigation, though.

Figure 1: Distribution of early birds (low M-E score on the x-axes) and late risers (high M-E score) among the study population (data calculated based on Nakade. 2012).

Anyways, as you can see in figure 1 the effect of the curtains was statistically significant, but not as pronounced as the scientists' emphasis in their report would have it. There are tendencies for more morning types (lower M-E scores) in the children sleeping without blackout curtains, yes. And there are no real evening types in the children sleeping without blackout curtains, but the broad majority falls into the same 18-23 M-E score range on the 7-28 early bird to long sleeper scale Nakade et al. employed.

Vitamin B6 and inflammation: Although this is only indirectly related to the topic of circadian rythmicity and wake-sleep patterns, it is quite intriguing that vitamin B6 is still touted as an anti-inflammatory agent. And though even very recent population based studies confirm that there is in fact an inverse relation of low plasma vitamin B6 and its active metabolite pyridoxal-5-phosphate (PLP) are inversely associated with the "overall inflammation" score in the US population (Sakakeeny. 2012), another recent study by Ulvik et al. clearly suggests that these associations are corollary, at best (Ulvik. 2012). In their trial, the results of which have been published in the May issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Ulvik et al. administered 40 mg pyridoxine hydrochloride per day to patients with stable angina pectoris. Contrary to their expectations, this practice did neither replete the low vitamin B6 levels, nor sooth the inflammation. On the contrary, the rapidly metabolized vitamin B6 appeared to preserve or even increased the expression of inflammatory markers.

What's good in the morning won't hurt at night

With tryptophan being a serotonine precursor and vitamin B6 a necessary co-factor in its synthesis, it may come as a surprise that both, and the sunlight induced serotonin synthesis boost can boost "morningness" and make you more alert. After all, you will probably have read on the label of various dietary supplements that tryptophan is supposed to make you sleepy, right? What those labels don't tell you is that the exposure to sunlight and not the shear availability of precursors and co-factors, let alone the position of the hands on your clock modulate its destiny. And determine whether the tryptophan will get you going, as it obviously does in the children with the highest breakfast intake of tryptophan and vitamin B6 (cf. figure 2), or helps you fall and stay asleep at night.

Figure 2: M-E index relative to group mean in high / low tryptophan & vitamin B6 breakfast intake groups (data calculated based on Nakade. 2012)

That both is possible and obviously works quite fine, is thus the main message of this study, the results of which Nakade et al. interpret as direct evidence for the potential usefulness of

[...] a higher Trp and Vi-B6 intake [to] promote the synthesis of serotonin via light stimulation in the morning and have a natural sleep-inducing effect when converted to melatonin at night [and thus] help prevent a phase delay in young children’s circadian clocks and promote their morningness against the effects of the 24-h commercialization of society.

Against the background, that similar improvements have been observed in 35 middle-aged/elderly (aged 55-75 year) volunteers who consumed a tryptophan enriched  (+30mg per serving) cereal at breakfast and dinner for three weeks by Bravo et al. (Bravo. 2012). And since there is no effect without "side effects", I guess I better mention that the Spanish researchers also observed significant increases in

Table 1: Tryptophan content of various foods (in g per 100g, 2nd column), ordered by tryptophan per protein content (3rd column; data based on Wikipedia)

• sleeping time,
• sleep efficiency, and
• immobile time

as well as concomitant decreases in

• sleep latency (almost 25%!),
• wake bouts,
• total activity, and
• sleep fragmentation index

If you take into consideration that their subjects' total antioxidant capacity levels and mood improved, as well and that the treatment elicited a -50% decrease in state anxiety and a significant drop on Beck's Depression Inventory Index, both of which returned to their initial value, when the treatment was seized, it should be obvious that you better make get out in the sun, immediately after you made the right food choices (and no, I am not talking about tryptophan-enriched breakfast cerals, here) at breakfast and watch the sunset after dinner ;-)

References:

1. Bravo R, Matito S, Cubero J, Paredes SD, Franco L, Rivero M, Rodríguez AB, Barriga C. Tryptophan-enriched cereal intake improves nocturnal sleep, melatonin, serotonin, and total antioxidant capacity levels and mood in elderly humans. Age (Dordr). 2012 May 24.
2. Harada T, Matsumura A, Takeuchi H: Effects of the usage of a blacked-out curtain on the sleep-wake rhythm of Japanese University students. Sleep Biol Rhythms 2003, 1:179–181
3. Nakade M, Takeuchi H, Taniwaki N, Noji T, Harada T. An integrated effect of protein intake at breakfast and morning exposure to sunlight on the circadian typology in Japanese infants aged 2-6 years. J Physiol Anthropol. 2009 Sep;28(5):239-45. 
4. Nakade M, et al. Can breakfast Tryptophan and Vitamin B6 intake and morning exposure to
   sunlight promote morning-typology in young children aged 2-6 years? Journal of Physiological Anthropology 2012, 31:11
5. Sakakeeny L, Roubenoff R, Obin M, Fontes JD, Benjamin EJ, Bujanover Y, Jacques  PF, Selhub J. Plasma Pyridoxal-5-Phosphate Is Inversely Associated with Systemic Markers of Inflammation in a Population of U.S. Adults. J Nutr. 2012 May 23.
6. Rosenthal N, Schwartz P, Tumer E, Nalm S, Matthews J, Hardin T, Barnett R, Wehr T:
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Mitochondrial Super Food: R-ALA, Acetyl-L-Carnitine, Biotin, Nicotinamide (B3), Riboflavin (B2), Pyridoxine (B6), Creatine, CoQ10, Resveratrol & Taurine Optimize Mitochondrial Function.

From China, the biggest (and cheapest) producer of raw materials for dietary supplements comes a study (Sun. 2011) on the effectiveness of a mitochondrial nutrient combination on performance and mitochondrial biogenesis in exhaustively exercised rats, which may well have consequences on the number of items on your next supplement shopping list.

For 4 weeks, Sun et al. supplemented exhaustively exercising rats with a combination of R-a-lipoic acid, acetyl-L-carnitine, biotin, nicotinamide, riboflavin, pyridoxine, creatine, CoQ10, resveratrol and taurine (cf. table 1)

Table 1: Ingredients of the "mitochondrial nutrient supplement";dosage used in rat study (data adapted from Sun. 2011); and calculated human equivalent doses 

This nutrient combination had beneficial effects on standard markers of exercise induced oxidative stress and muscular breakdown. Specifically, it "significantly inhibited the increase in activities of alanine transaminase, lactate dehydrogenase and creatine kinase". The supplementation protocol also had beneficial effects on antioxidant status reversing increases in malondialdehyde and inhibiting the decrease in glutathione S-transferase and total antioxidant capacity in plasma. It also suppressed the elevation of reactive oxygen species in the spleen and thus protected splenic lymphocytes from apoptosis [cell death].

These effects were accompanied / mediated by significant increases mitochondrial biogenesis, evidenced by increases in

[...] the protein expression of mitochondrial complexes I, II and III, mtDNA number and transcription factors involved in mitochondrial biogenesis and fusion in skeletal muscle.

Taken together these results underline that proper nutrition, not only on a macroscopic, but also on a microscopic level, is of paramount importance to exercise performance and metabolic health. Interestingly, the amount of the supplemental "mitochondrial nutrients" used in this study is not even exorbitantly high. In fact, the human equivalent doses (cf. table 1) would be easily attainable by a nutrient-rich diet and some cheap and readily available supplements.