SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Image 1: The gap between the purported and the real world effects of vitamin D3 supplementation remains about as wide as the Grand Canyon - if not wider... and it takes a lot of ignorance towards your own study results to fill this divide up :-o It is astonishing how fast things can change, only last Thursday I said on the SuppVersity Science Roundup on SHR , that hitherto trial after trial with supplemental vitamin D in the form of cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) failed to produce the desired results. And what do I have to tell you today? A group of researchers from the Purdue University and the College of Charleston have just published a study that appears to make it necessary for me, to at least rectify the previous assessment by stating: "With the exception of a recent trial from the Purdue University ..." Upon having a closer look at the actual data, it did yet turn out that the gap between what the abstract, on the one hand, and the real data, on the other hand...

Image 1: "Please Dr. Andro tell me I can keep taking my essential multivitamin! I am just too busy to eat healthy..." I must admit that I feel kind of awkward as I am about to defend one of those supplements, I consider to be the most dispensable within the dietary regimen of a physical culturist: the so-called multi-vitamin! In essence these small, and lately more often than not large pills do not even fall into the category supplement. With dose-equivalents way beyond what you would actually need, "multivitamins" are not even "replacements" , they are madness or, I should say, the mad outgrowth of the prevalent "more is more" mentality that is beginning to harm us on every level of our society... but I am digressing, here. Let's take a look at the actual study which brought about such an upheaval in the supplement-addicted health community on the Internet. Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women Image 2: Is this yo...

Figure 1: This is where you, my American friends (and most Europeans), should and would get your "E's" from - it's called "food" ( Eitenmiller. 2004 ) With the recent publication of two studies on increased all-cause mortality in older women ( Bjelacovic. 2011 ; Mursu. 2011 ) who took multivitamins (+2.4%), vitamin B6 (+4.1%), folic acid (+5.9%), iron (+3.4%), magnsium (+3.6%), zinc (+3.0%), and the "killer" copper (+18%) and increased risk of prostate cancer due to selenium and/or vitamin E supplements ( Klein. 2011 ) on a regular basis and the huge media attention these studies, " Certain Dietary Supplements Associated With Increased Risk of Death in Older Women, Study Suggests " " Vitamin E Supplement May Increase Prostate Cancer Risk, National U.S. Study Finds " have received, I got interested in taking a closer look at what I would usually have discarded as epidemiological guesswork and scare tactics , anyway. ...

Image 1: Although Tom Platz had massive arms, as well, there is little conclusive scientific evidence that this was a result of leg training. Usually I am offering you my thoughts and comments on the results of the studies I am presenting here at the SuppVersity. In this case however, I am going to rely on the insightful analysis of Stuart M. Phillips, head of the Department of Kinesiology, Exercise Metabolism Research Group at the McMaster University , who spotted some interesting inconsistencies in a recently published paper by Ronnestad et al. who had reported that (contrary to conclusive findings from dozens of study by Phillips and others) endogenous hormone release from leg training had a major impact on the anabolic response in the arm flexors (cf. news from March, 2nd / I plead guilty of not having seen these inconsistencies, though I must say in mitigation that back in March I only reported, not commented on studies). As Phillips points out, Ronnestad's c...

Image 1: Monkey milk tea by Conchibi . No matter how decorative it may look, according to various online sources, the milky monkey decoration is just about to annihilate the beneficial health effects of tea at the very moment it mingles with the antioxidant brew... or is this just another urban myth that is reaffirmed by ' gurus ' all over the Internet? Question from Samir Banga ( via Facebook ): "Just wanted to ask you about tea and if adding milk or cream for that matter disturbs or destroys the antioxidants/good stuff in the tea . Also would this be the same with black, green and white tea?" Answer Dr. Andro: This is one of the typical cases where just typing in a question in Google produces either answer A "tea with milk = no problem" or answer B "tea with milk = worthless swill" - it just depends on how you formulate the question - or maybe who on whether the milk industry advertises with Google? Who knows.... A more thorough investigat...

Image 1: The yellow bone marrrow fat turns out to be more than a filler. In Germany there is a common saying that is predominantly used by the mothers of fat kids: "My son, overweight? No. He just has some really heavy bones." Well, I guess few of these proud mothers will be aware that recent research from the Boston Medical School ( Fulzele. 2011 ) and the University of Toledo suggests that there may be more to the bone-bodyweight connection than even they may have thought. In a comprehensive review of the latest findings on bone metabolism ( Fulzele. 2011 ) Keertik Fulzele and Thomas L. Clemens state that the " contemporary model [which] assigns IGFs [insulin like growth factor] as central regulators of cell profileration, survival, and organism growth " and reduces the influence of insulin to the "level of regulation fuel utilization, storage, and energy expenditure" is too simplistic to to accomm...