3.8 vs. 2.3 g/kg Protein + Exercise to Improve Body Comp. | Digestive Enzymes to Pimp Vegan Proteins | High Protein vs. MUFA Meals for GLP1 | ISSN Research Review '15 #3

"If some is good, more is better!" Unfortunately, this simple maxime does rarely apply when it comes to the physiological response to certain foods and/or supplements. For protein, however, it appears as if the relation holds - at least as long as protein does not become the only energy source in your diet.

I guess by now I can simply skip the lengthy introduction telling you about how I didn't want to cherry pick only three out of more than twenty newsworthy studies that were presented at the Twelfth International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) Conference and Expo in 2015, when I started writing this series right (click here if you have missed the previous articles)?

Well, that's good because it leaves more room for a brief preview of the studies I am about to discuss in today's third serving of the SuppVersity ISSN Research Review 2015 - studies that are all related (in one way or another) to increased protein intake. Either in overweight or obese people, for whom higher protein meals increase the post-prandial increase of the "satiety hormone" GLP-1, or in vegans, vegetarians and everyone else who wants to make the most of his vegetable protein sources (pea and rice protein, to be precise) by adding digestive enzymes to the mix, or - last but not least - gymrats who ramp up their protein intake from 2.3 to 3.8 g/kg body weight to see even more pronounced improvements in body composition.

Read more about ISSN and other studies at the SuppVersity

Vitargo, Red Bull, Creatine & More | ISSN'15 #1

Pump Supps & Synephrine & X | ISSN'15 #2

High Protein, Body Comp & X | ISSN'15 #3

Keto Diet Re- search Update | ISSN'15 #4

The Misquantified Self & More | ISSN'15 #5

BCAA, Cholos-trum, Probiotics & Co | ISSN'15 #6

• High protein, high GLP-1, ... highly beneficial? As a SuppVersity reader you are aware of the far-reaching metabolic effects of GLP-1 on appetite (suppression | Näslund. 1999), glucose and fat metabolism, as well as thermogenesis (Lejeune. 2006). Against that background, you will know that the small, but statistically significant increase in GLP-1 Franklin et al. (2015) observed in their latest study which compared the effects of a high protein and high mono-unsaturated fat meal on the well-known incretin hormone may have significant long-term effects even though the blood glucose levels of the study's twenty-four overweight or obese participants (male/female: 12/12; age: 38.7 ± 15.3 (mean ± standard deviation) years; BMI: 31.6 ± 4.0kg/m²), who consumed isocaloric meals containing either 35.2% energy from fat and 20.7% from monounsaturated fat (HMF meal) or 31.9% energy from protein (HP meal), did not trigger differences in post-prandial glucose levels at 30, 60, 120, and 180 min.
  
  

  

  Figure 1: Levels of active GLP-1 in response to high protein (HP) or high MUFA (HMF) meals (Franklin. 2015).

  To believe that "simply eating more protein" is going to solve all your weight problems, though, would be short-sighted - especially for the overweight obese for whom the study at hand as well as previous studies investigating the effects of GLP-1 on glucose metabolism suggest that they may benefit to a lesser extent from protein induced increases in GLP-1 than lean individuals, in whom the "satiety hormone" will trigger much more pronounced β-cell responses that in in patients with sign. insulin resistance and pre- or full-blown type 2 diabetes (Kjems. 2003).
  
  If that sounds like you, using the high(er) protein meals in conjunction with an energy restricted diet to lose weight and thus to improve your insulin sensitivity can obviously still be beneficial. Without a planned, reasonable caloric deficit, however, high(er) protein intakes alone are probably not going to "cut it" (all puns intended).

Even if weight loss is the goal, training fasted and thus hungry does not appear to provide significant benefits. Learn more about this longstanding myth and the reality in my write-up of Schoenfeld et al's seminal paper on fasted cardio and fat loss. A paper that finally had a long-standing and die-hard fat loss myth tumble.

Are you hungry before your workouts? In this case you may be interested in the results of a paper by Nystrom et al.' who suggest that athletes have to use "more proactive strategies [...] to optimize training adaptations". Why's that? Well, of the 481 (240 women, 241 men) NCAA Division I athletes representing eleven intercollegiate sports from three universities in three athletic conferences (i.e., Atlantic 10, Atlantic Coast Conference, Conference USA) who participated in the researchers investigation into the nutrient timing habits of Division I NCAA athletes, 79% reported feeling hungry prior to training, practice or competition - and that despite the fact that most of them had breakfast. It is thus well possible that the amount and types of foods athletes eat before their workouts do still receive (too) little by athletes and their athletic departments which often provide post-workout meals, but fail to do so pre-workout.

• Pimp my plant protein - digestive enzymes can do the trick! Despite the fact that pea and other protein powders have become widely (and cheaply) available over the past years, vegan and vegetarian athletes and gymrats are still having a harder time satisfying their protein requirements than their omnivore competition or gym-buddies. Against that background and in view of the fact that more and more athletes are "going vegan" or at least vegetarian, the latest study by Julie Minevich (2015) and colleagues from the University of Tampa and the formulators, manufacturers and vendors of digestive enzymes and respective supplements from Chemi-Source and Increnovo LLC, was in fact published quite timely. A study that was designed...

  "to investigate if co-ingestion of a plant protein specific digestive enzyme blend (Digest-All® VP, a proprietary enzyme blend consisting of protease 6.0, protease 4.5, peptidase, bromelain and alpha-galactosidase, Chemi-Source, Inc., Oceanside, CA) can reduce the significant differences in amino acid appearance in the blood between plant and animal proteins" (Minevich. 2015).

  To this ends, 11 resistance-trained male subjects (age: 21.4 ± 1.5 years, body weight: 82.5 ± 3.9kg, height: 177.3cm ± 6.1cm | average training status of 2.3 years ± 1.9 years) were randomly assigned to receive either 60 g of whey protein concentrate, or the same amount of protein in form of a 70:30 blend of pea and rice protein concentrates (Veg), either alone or alonside the enzyme blend Digest-All® VP in a double-blind, crossover study. All supplements were provided on an empty stomach after a 12 hour overnight fast. The three testing sessions, in which blood was drawn immediately prior to, and at 30 minutes, 1, 2, 3, and 4 hours following consumption of the supplements, were separated by a washout period of 7 days.
  

  

  Figure 2: Time to achieve peak amino acid levels and total amount of amino acids that made it to the blood stream with whey protein, the pea + rice mix and the pea + rice mix w/ digestive enzymes (Minevich. 2015).

  Ok, I have to admit that the differences are not exactly staggering and the standard deviations (see error bars) are large, but still. One potentially important determinant of skeletal muscle metabolism, the time it takes for the serum levels of essential amino acids - including leucine - to peak, i.e. T_max in Figure 2, was visibly improved by the addition of digestive enzymes to the otherwise comparatively slow digested rice + pea protein mix (if you look at the error bars, you will see that this was just a "trend", though).
  
  If you also take into account that the digestive enzyme blend brought the area under the EAA curve (see Figure 2) and the peak amino acid levels (not shown in Figure 2) of the vegetable protein blend up to the same level as it was observed with whey protein, it would seem as if the study would provide the missing evidence of the usefulness of proteases and co. for people who want to make the absolute most of their vegetable protein supplements - what is missing, obviously, is data that would allow us to quantify the downstream effects on muscle gains and other practically relevant study outcomes.
• High protein + training = WIN?! You will certainly remember the impressive results of Antonio et al.'s 2014 study on the effects of a 4.4g/kg protein diet on the body composition healthy resistance-trained men and women (learn more). Right after said study had been published the authors promised a follow up that would combine a similarly high protein intake with a controlled exercise intervention and... voila! The first results of this study were presented at this year's ISSN meeting.
  
  For the corresponding experiment, Ellerbroek et al. recruited forty-eight healthy resistance-trained men and women in their early twenties. who consumed either 2.3g/kg body weight per day (NP) or 3.4g/kg body weight per day (HP) of dietary protein during the treatment period. Moreover, all subjects participated in a split-routine, body part heavy resistance-training program. Training and diet (everyday) logs were kept by each subject.

Learn everything about the previous study.

Don't worry! I am going to write a full review of this study as soon as it will be published. In theory I would have had to skip it just like the other studies, but since I would have been mad at me if for doing that if I were you, I decided to give summarize the little information you can find in the abstract. Against that background I hope you will understand that I will refrain from making any definite conclusions until I've read the full-text. The abstract does after all lack a lot of potentially relevant information, such as the type of workouts, the way the subjects achieved the increase in protein intake (dietary or supplemental protein), the adherence, actual protein, carb & fat intakes, etc.

• As the scientists point out in the results section of the abstract, their two-time point (Pre, Post) by two-group (NP, HP) repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed (a) significant time by group (p ≤ 0.05) changes in body weight with weight gains and loss in the normal and high protein groups, respectively (1.3 ± 1.3 kg NP, -0.7 ± 4.0 HP), as well as reductions in total and relative body fat in both groups (-0.3 ± 2.2 kg NP, -1.7 ± 2.3 HP), and % BF (-0.7 ± 2.8 NP, -2.4 ± 2.9 HP) - both as you can see in Figure 3 with significant advantages for the HP group.
  

  

  Figure 3: Changes in body weight, fat and fat free mass in the normal and high protein groups during the diet + training intervention; mind the error bars = high inter-individual differences (Ellerbroek. 2015).

  In the absence of any form of ill health effects due to the high protein intake (both groups consumed significantly more than the recommended daily allowance of 0.8g/kg), Ellerbroek et al. also found a significant time effect for the increase in fat-free mass  (1.5 ± 1.8 NP, 1.5 ± 2.2 HP), 1-RM on the bench and squats and vertical jump and pull-up performance - albeit without significant diet-induced inter-group differences.

So what's not in this issue? Poster presentations I decided not to discuss "at length" in this issue are the allegedly interesting presentation by Galvan et al. on the "[e]ffects of 28 days of two creatine nitrate based dietary supplements on bench press power in recreationally active males." Just as it was the case for the previously referenced studies on BCAAs, I'd rather wait for the full-text to be published before I make up my mind on whether creatine nitrate is the first form of "advanced creatines" that's actually worth it's money (unlike the rest of the pack | Jäger. 2011).

Blocking Inflammation is Like Cho- king the Fire: Long Term Weight-, Visceral- and Android-Fat Gain in Human Study Emphasizes Essential Role of TNF-α in Metabolic Control!

The same must be said of a study by Detzel, et al. (2015) in which the researchers compared the effects of functional animal proteins on mTOR and endotoxins like , pro-inflammatory compounds, that arise as a consequence of intense training. There's no debating: The way serum the derived protein supplements (BioBeef, SerumPro, and SuperSerum) were capable of neutralizing endotoxin is is interesting, but to comment on the practical usefulness of blending of high-quality protein sources with functional serum protein supplements (SuperSerum and SerumPro) the abstract that does not provide numbers to assess the relevance of the reductions in IL-8 cytokine production by THP-1 monocytes is simply not sufficient | Comment!

References:

• Detzel, Christopher J., et al. "Functional animal proteins activate mTOR and bind pro-inflammatory compounds." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 12.Suppl 1 (2015): P35.
• Ellerbroek, Anya, et al. "The effects of heavy resistance training and a high protein diet (3.4 g/kg/d) on body composition, exercise performance and indices of health in resistance-trained individuals-a follow-up investigation." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 12.Suppl 1 (2015): P37.
• Franklin, Brian, et al. "The effect of meal composition on postprandial glucagon-like peptide-1 response in overweight/obese participants." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 12.Suppl 1 (2015): P12.
• Galvan, E., et al. "Effects of 28 days of two creatine nitrate based dietary supplements on bench press power in recreationally active males." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 12.Suppl 1 (2015): P17.
• Jäger, Ralf, et al. "Analysis of the efficacy, safety, and regulatory status of novel forms of creatine." Amino Acids 40.5 (2011): 1369-1383.
• Lejeune, Manuela PGM, et al. "Ghrelin and glucagon-like peptide 1 concentrations, 24-h satiety, and energy and substrate metabolism during a high-protein diet and measured in a respiration chamber." The American journal of clinical nutrition 83.1 (2006): 89-94.
• Näslund, E., et al. "Energy intake and appetite are suppressed by glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) in obese men." International journal of obesity 23.3 (1999): 304-311.
• Nystrom, M. G., et al. "Nutrient timing habits of Division I NCAA athletes." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 12.Suppl 1 (2015): P33.
• Minevich, Julie, et al. "Digestive enzymes reduce quality differences between plant and animal proteins: a double-blind crossover study." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 12.Suppl 1 (2015): P26.

Is Rice the New Whey to Go? Study Shows, Rice and Whey Protein Equally Support Mass & Strength Gains + Fat Loss in Resistance Trained College Aged Men

Is rice the new whey to go? Or just something for the average vegan who realizes that he cannot go without protein?

While I personally considered the study on phosphatidic acid (yesterday's news) most interesting, there were many other presentations on the ISSN conference that are worth mentioning (note: my buddy Sean Casey is about to write a summary of his stay there, I'll let you know on Facebook, when he is done). The full-text papers are however only available for one of the studies, which has likewise been conducted by Joy et el. (see PA study). The fulltext just appeared on the website of the Nutrition Journal (Joy. 2013) and is also the topic of today's SuppVersity article that revolves - once again - around the question, whether whey really is the whey (all typos intended) to go.

Is there any other way than whey?

The study was conducted with 24 college-aged, resistance trained males (21.3 ± 1.9 years, 76.08 ± 5.6 kg, 177.8 ± 12.3 cm) who had trained at least three times per week for the past 6 months. The guys were randomly and equally divided into two groups, consuming either 48 g of rice or whey protein
isolate (isocaloric and isonitrogenous) right after the workout.

Figure 1: Amino acid profile of the rice and whey protein isolate (Joy. 2013)

"The program  was designed to train all major muscle groups using mostly compound movements for the  upper and lower body. The programmed, non-linear training split was divided into  hypertrophy days consisting of 8–12 RM loads for 3 sets, with 60–120 seconds rest and  strength days consisting of 2 to 5 RM loads for 3 sets for all exercises except the leg press  and bench press which received 5 total sets. Weights were progressively increased by 2–5%  when the prescribed repetitions could be completed. All training sessions were closely monitored by the researchers to ensure effort and intensity were maximal each training session." (Joy. 2013)

The subjects s trained 3 days per week for 8 weeks as a part of a daily undulating periodized resistance-training program (see quotation. above). Ratings of perceived recovery, soreness, and readiness to train were recorded prior to and following the first training session. The changes muscle thickness was determined by ultrasonography and DEXA scans were used to assess the body composition.

Put your prejudices aside, results are the only thing that counts

Moreover bench press and leg press for upper and lower body strength were recorded during weeks 0, 4, and 8 and statistically analyzed, when the study was over.

Figure 2: Bench pres, leg press strength and peak power before, during  and after the study (Joy. 2013)

As you can see the strength increases did not differs significantly when you compare the rice to the whey protein. Against that background it is actually not very surprising to see that the same was the case for the change in body composition, I plotted in figure 3.

Figure 3: Baseline and post study body composition and muscle size (Joy. 2013)

If we take another look at the amino acid profile in figure 1, it does yet become evident that the effects could have been different, if the subjects stuck to only 50% of the amount of protein they ingested in the study at hand.

Figure 4: Theoretical model for protein dose and the anabolic response (adapted from Joy. 2013)

"In the present study, the combined muscle thickness of the VI and VL increased in both the rice protein (0.2 cm) and whey protein (0.5 cm) conditions. Lean body mass increased in the rice protein condition by 2.5 kg, and it also increased in the whey protein condition by 3.2 kg. Combined bench press and leg press 1-RM strength increased in the rice protein condition by 76.4 kg and in the whey protein condition by 89.5 kg. However, no significant differences were observed between the two conditions for any measure. The collective findings of our study and others suggests that as the amount of protein consumed increases, the importance of the relative leucine content of the protein diminishes" (see figure 4; Joy. 2013).

Overall, the study at hand does therefore provide reliable evidence that people with dairy intolerance fair pretty well with a rice protein - as long as they make up for the 30% lower leucine content.

---

Rice protein can be a valuable replacement for whey. Just remember, you cannot live on rice alone, because you would be running the risk of not getting adequate lysine, which would heavily compromise the nitrogen balance increase anxiety, impaired catecholamine release, etc. (cf. Albanese. 1941; Smriga. 2000, 2002, 2003). As part of a regular diet, rice proteins do yet in fact appear to be a viable (yet higher to dose) alternative to whey protein, which has be the way been shown to help with blood lipid management, only recently (Yang. 2013).

References:

• Albanese, Holt LE, Brum-Back JE, Hayes M, Kajdi C, Wangerin DM. Nitrogen Balance in Experimental Lysine Deficiency in Man. Proceedings of the Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine. Society for Experimental Biology and Medicine (New York, NY). Royal Society of Medicine. 1941; 48(3): 728-730. 
• Joy JM, Lowery RP, Wilson JM, Purpura M, De Souza EO, Wilson SM, Kalman DS, Dudeck JE, Jäger R. The effects of 8 weeks of whey or rice protein supplementation on body composition and exercise performance. Nutr J. 2013 Jun 20;12(1):86.
• Smriga M, Mori M, Torii K. Circadian release of hypothalamic norepinephrine in rats in vivo is depressed during early L-lysine deficiency. J Nutr. 2000 Jun;130(6):1641-3. 
• Smriga M, Kameishi M, Uneyama H, Torii K. Dietary L-lysine deficiency increases stress-induced anxiety and fecal excretion in rats. J Nutr. 2002 Dec;132(12):3744-6.
• Smriga M, Torii K. L-Lysine acts like a partial serotonin receptor 4 antagonist and inhibits serotonin-mediated intestinal pathologies and anxiety in rats. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Dec 23;100(26):15370-5.
• Yang L, Han G, Liu QH, Wu Q, He HJ, Cheng CZ, Duan YJ. Rice protein exerts a hypocholesterolemic effect through regulating cholesterol metabolism-related gene expression and enzyme activity in adult rats fed a cholesterol-enriched diet. Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2013 Jun 14.
   

Diet Deoptimization with Rice Protein: Less Weight Gain, Lower Cholesterol and Fatty Acid Synthesis - So What?

Image 1: Rice protein power - I'd bet a pouch of casein protein that this Chinese "body builder" must have eaten plenty of rice protein. I mean, check out how ripped he is! Update: Garymar informed me that this is a Japanese comedian called Yoshiaki Yamane - sorry, my mistake ;-)

The "real" supplement news have been pretty slow as of late - there have not been any, to be precise. Unless you are interested in yet another study on an exotic African or Asian root or herb and its "antioxidative activity" in the petri-dish, you would probably have been as bored as I was by the latest articles in respective journals. And if Stephen Watt had not asked my opinion on a study my colleagues over at ergo-log had in the news, as of late, I would probably have ignored a "rodents on rice protein" study from the Department of Food Science at the School of Food Science and Engineering of the Harbin Institute of Technology in Harbin, China (Yang. 2012) - the headline ergo-log headline "Fat percentage too high? Add rice protein to your shake", did however look too intriguing not to take another look at a study, the abstract of which I did not really suggest that rice protein would actually help you burn body fat.

Rice for lactose intolerant vegetarians and poor Chinese farmers ...

What the scientists from the Middle Kingdom had done, was to feed three groups of 7-week (adolescent*) male Wistar rats on diets containing either

• 22.9% casein - could the one in your cheap protein blend, after all it was from China ;-),
• 23.2% rice protein A - extracted from Oryza sativa L. cv. Longijng by alkaline / acid extraction, or
• 23.2% rice protein E - extracted by sigma aldrich via heat stable starch degradation

The total experiment lasted two weeks and aside from the protein faction, the composition of the chow, to which the rodents had ad-libitum (=whenever they wanted) access was identical.

Figure 1: Blood amino acid concentrations in rodents fed casein or rice protein (the figures in % represent the relative level of the given amino acid in the RP-A group compared to the casein group, e.g. RP-A rats had 92% of the amount of Alanine, the casein rats had in blood; left; data adapted from Yang. 2012) and absolute and relative amounts of amino acids in casein and rice protein (open pars indicate relative amount of the given amino acid in rice compared to casein, eg. 172% more alanine in rice than in casein protein; data adapted from Morita. 1997)

The latter, i.e. the being identical, cannot be said of either of the amino acid structure of the casein and rice protein (figure 1, right), nor the amino acid contents and ratios in the plasma of the lab animals (cf. figure 1, left), though.

... yet not necessarily for aspiring physical culturists!

The muscle head and fitness fanatic that you probably are, you will certainly already have realized that the level of BCAAs in the blood of the animals on the rice protein diets was 26% and 29% (RP-A and RP-E, respectively) lower than that of the rodents receiving the casein chow. An observation which was to be expected in view of the -27% lower BCAA concentration in rice compared to the casein protein (Morita. 1997; figure 1, right). Astonishingly, this does not hold true for all other amino acids, for glycine, for example, the amino acid content in the source was 2x higher, the serum levels were yet only 15% higher than in the casein group (note: the casein chow was enriched with cysteine, in this particular case a comparison of source vs. serum levels would thus be futile).

Figure 2: Fecal analysis (left) and changes in body weight, as well as absolute body fat percentage and food intake  (right) of adolescent male Wistar rats (data calculated based on Yang. 2012.

If you also take into account that a 7-week old male rat has just become fertile (at about the 6th week of its life), think of yourself, your brother or son at the age of 16y, of what you / he ate and how much weight he gained and then take another, closer look at the data in figure 2 I would say that the question whether switching from casein to rice protein would actually help you lose fat appears more than warranted. After all, we are looking at weight (not fat!) gain in a period of growth (the body fat levels of the rodents, were 2.1%, 1.9% and 1.8%, respectively, cf. figure 2, right). If the latter were totally absent, you would call that "failure to thrive" - a term that would not strictly apply in the situation at hand, though.

In view of the huge fecal loss of dietary fat (+60% over casein) and dietary protein (+145% in the RP-A and +217% in the RP-E group), the 5% lower fat free mass in the rodents on the rice protein diets and the reduced ALT and AST levels, which are not necessarily indicative of "improved liver function", but rather of a reduced hepatic protein turnover, it seems as if "Rice protein reduces body weight gain, energy availability and storage in adolescent rodents due to its lower digestibility" would have been a more appropriate title for the study than "Rice protein improves adiposity, body weight and reduces lipids level in rats through modification of triglyceride metabolism" - and alas, a very similar study, yet without the data on the "body weight gain", has already been published by the same research group in 2011 (Yang. 2011).

Diet-deoptimization a novel weight loss strategy?

Image 2: I guess the Chinese have heard how the Americans got rid of their corn and soy and do now try to pull off a similar "it's good for your health"-stunt with rice protein as the US did with their "healthy" vegetable oils and soy proteins.

Personally, I would yet suggest to call the study "diet-deoptimization by the provision of less palatable, less digestible chow to rodents", but I guess in that case the results would never have made it to ergo-log and subsequently to the SuppVersity. It was thus pretty clever to disguise what could simply be a natural (side) effects of a reduced energy intake (-5%) and reduced energy absorption (-60% from fat and -145% or -217% from protein), i.e. a reduction in fatty acid synthesis and an increase in breakdown (you may remember that even rodents need fat, right?), as evidence that (I quote from the conclusion) "rice protein can modify triglyceride metabolism, leading to an improvement of body weight and adiposity" - wouldn't you agree?

In the end, the protein and fat wasting effects of the rice protein diets could even explain the advertised "beneficial" impact on the lipid profile with VLDL/HDL ratios of 0.19 and 0.16 vs. 0.24 in the RP-A and RP-E groups vs. the casein group. Whether similar effects could be observed in a human trial and whether these "improvement" (from one end of the normal range to another) would decrease the risk of heart disease, is yet questionable. Moreover, the reduction (or replacement; not necessarily the complete elimination) of the whopping ~60% carbohydrate content (488g cornstarch and 100g succrose per kg of chow) in the diet and/or the replacement of the pro-inflammatory soy-bean oil with e.g. olive oil would probably elicit way more beneficial effects on the triglyceride and blood glucose level in humans than a switch from casein to indigestible and in rodent-terms obviously non-palatable rice protein.