SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

Can the guy on the right run away from the bloated macrophage coated fat cells on the left? Today's first post in the SuppVersity Exercise Science Week does hold the answer to this existential question. Those of you who don't just read, but also think about the headlines of these posts will probably already have theorized about the remote possibility that I could have changed my mind and discarded the original plan to do an "exercise quickie" early this week (see SuppVersity post from Saturday ). Now, before you are getting mad at me, let me give you the (as I would say good) reason for doing that: Some, if not almost all of the exercise related studies, I have piled up here are actually too interesting to end up as part of a mash-up. That's particularly true in view of the fact that my time budget during the week does not allow me to discuss them in appropriate detail. So, even if wanted to end up writing >10,000 word posts, this would only work on 48h da...

Chicken Egg Rolls with Red Cabbage, Mango & Lime ( CleanEatingMag ); small inset shows sulforaphane content (µg/ml) of a juice made cauliflower, broccoli, red and white cabbage and brussel sprouts (based on Totušek. 2011). When I am looking at the currently top-rated posts (see box "Most Popular (last 30 days)" on in the right navigation bar), it appears as if someone must have found my older article on the myostatin boosting effects of clenbuterol and told all his facebook friends about it. Don't forget to check out and tell your friends about the latest SuppVersity Facebook News , as well! In case this hypothesis is right, he (or she?) and all the friends will probably be happy to hear that there is a virtually side-effect free over-the-counter alternative that can suppress myostatin and thus make your muscles grow faster: Broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and co (see image on the right and realize Red Cabbare, not broccoli is the King! ) - the sulforaphane ...

This is just a random selection of the unlimited movement patterns your body has been designed to execute - don't make the mistake and rely on only one of them! The amount of really interesting, let alone revolutionary new studies on the effects of different exercise modalities is not exactly high, to say the least. I am not quite sure, what the reasons are, but as I have stated before, part of it certainly is that you cannot monetize on the results by producing patentable drugs based on your findings and will thus have a hard time to find sponsors / get funding. It is therefore no wonder that many published papers are spin-offs of small scale trials that have been conducted as part of dissertations. Others simply use rodent models, which may provide relatively reliable data, when it comes to the effects of running on a treadmill, but are not exactly what I would want to see, when it comes to weight lifting or any other of the myriad complex movement patterns our bodies can , b...

Image 1: Apart from their epistemic value, these stained tissue samples from the Valero study are actually pretty aesthetic.The arrows, by the way, mark NG2 monocytes, which "coerce" the non-myogenic stem cells (perycites) to get going ;-) I guess, the term "satellite cells" has been mentioned so often in the course of the past couple of weeks that it actually would not be necessary to tell you (once again) that these myogenic precursor cells are a necessary prerequisite for the repair and long-term growth of your pecs, legs, back, biceps, triceps, delts and the rest of the skeletal muscle tissue in your body. Those of you, who have read all the latest installments of the Intermittent Thougths will also be familiar with the notion that both the local expression of MGF-1 and inflammatory cytokines, as well as systemic hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen play an important role not only in the recruitement and migration of satellite cells into the muscle, ...

Image 1: Graphical summary of the probably best known function of testosterone - including who are not so "profane" as building muscle and getting ripped ;-) In the last two installments of the Intermittent Thoughts, I have tried to convey a realistic perception of what exactly the effects of both supra- (that is below) and super- (that is above) physiological (that is "normal" in the sense that they represent the "average" male human being) levels of testosterone on body composition are. In this installment of the series I am now going to provide more information on the "exact" molecular underpinnings by which testosterone works its muscle building and fat burning magic . There is however one thing related to data I presented in the previous installments, I want to emphasize again: The use of a testosterone enanthate in the Bhasin study makes it very difficult to use the data to make prognoses with regard to the results you would see, when ...