5+x Sleep Supplements that Work: Valerian, Beer, Cherries, Tryptophan, Theanine | Plus: Effects of Fats, Carbs and GI

While milk with honey is better than milk with glucose (Jalilolghadr 2011), it won't improve - if anything mess - with your sleep quality when it's consumed ≤ 1h before bedtime - noteworthy: the same goes for most foods, though.

While I have chosen it as the title image for today's SuppVersity "Sleep Supplement Special", there's actually surprisingly little (not to say "no") evidence that the notorious hot milk with honey will actually improve your sleep significantly.

That's in contrast to a number of supplements that are discussed in a recent review by scientists from the Northwestern University; a review that highlights both, the short-comings of the existing research on dietary supplements for insomnia and encourage health practitioners "to explore existing resources and partner with patients to understand their goals and advise on safe and effective use of dietary supplements" (Ring 2017).

Studies related to sleep and sleep supplements at the SuppVersity:

Sleep Like an Athlete!

Phenibut Addic- tive or Harmless?

All About GABA at SHR

Melatonin = Easy Fat Loss?

Letrozole? Use Melatonin Instead

Bone & Tooth? Melatonin Helps

Now, the question obviously is: What's safe and effective? By expanding on and elaborating their list of supplements, this article may help you - health practitioner or not - to distinguish promises from factual evidence.

• Valerian - The probably most prominent and certainly one of the best-researched natural sleep aid is the root of Valeriana officinalis - a sleep aid that works... for some.
  
  Since "[v]alerian and its constituent valerenic acid have demonstrated adenosine (A1 receptor) interactions, GABAA receptor (β3 subunit) agonism, and 5-HT5a partial agonism" (Ring 2017) it may be surprising that only 6/9 studies in a recent review by Bent et al showed no effect on subjective sleep quality. 
  

  

  Figure 1: Likelihood that valerian improved sleep quality calculated based on Meta-analysis of 6 studies reporting dichotomous outcomes for sleep quality (adapted from Bent et al. 2006).

  In addition, Bent et al (2006) highlight that "[m]ost studies had significant methodologic problems, and the valerian doses, preparations, and length of treatment varied considerably". More recently, a meta-analysis by concluded:

  "The qualitative dichotomous results suggest that valerian would be effective for a subjective improvement of insomnia, although its effectiveness has not been demonstrated with quantitative or objective measurements. Nevertheless, its use can be considered for some patients given its safety" (Fernández-San-Martín 2010).

  Objective evidence for the efficacy of valerian is thus still missing... possibly due to the use of low-dose / low-concentration supplements. Speaking of which... here are the dosage suggestions Ring et al. provide in their previously cited review.
  
  Dosage: It seems as if it took at least 300–900 mg of a standardized extract of 0.8% valerenic acid - the dosage Ring et al. recommend as an alternative for valerian tea (1.5–3 g of root steeped for 5–10 min in 150 mL of boiling water) - to be taken 30–120 min before bedtime. Effects seem to accumulate over time and may not be noticed with the first administration.

High saturated fat intakes linked to less recuperative slow-wave sleep: In their 2016 study, a randomized crossover inpatient study with 2 phases of 5 nights, St Onge et al. observed differential effects of high fiber and high saturated fat intakes on slow-wave sleep While greater fiber intakes predicted less stage 1 (P = 0.0198) and more SWS (P = 0.0286), the percent of energy from saturated fat predicted less SWS (P = 0.0422). 

• Hops - In (non-alcoholic) beer, hops seems to work wonders for some of us... but wait a minute: is that actually the small quantity of 2-methyl-3-buten-2-ol, xanthohumol, and myrcenol from Humulus lupulus and its effect on GABA that's responsible for these effects?
  
  The fact that non-alcoholic beer works (note: the alcohol in regular beer will reduce REM and boost SWS, but it will also mess w/ the nightly growth hormone production | Prinz 1980), as well, would suggest that it's at least not the alcohol that's responsible for the improvements in subjective sleep quality (assessed by questionnaires), decrease in sleep latency (=time it takes you to fall asleep), and improvement of overall global score of sleep quality improved (Franco 2012 & 2014).
  

  

  Figure 2: We better stay skeptical about the role of hops in the beneficial effects of non-alcoholic beers as it has been observed by Franco et al. in stressed Hungarian students in 2014. It's well possible that it's just the carb content of the beer that triggered the improvements in sleep latency and quality in Franco et al. (2014).

  On the other hand, the fact that hops extracts didn't yield comparably convincing results would suggest that there's more to beer than hops and/or the brewing process gives rise to metabolites that are driving an efficacy that cannot be achieved with commercial hops extracts - extracts that have, in contrast to the non-alcoholic beer, been tested in people with chronic insomnia. It is thus not clear if it's the preparation or the subject group (or both) that's responsible for the mixed results of hops only preparations (evidence in favor of valerian + hops combinations is more promising - even in insomniacs).
  
  Dosage: Unlike valerian and most of the other agents discussed in this overview, hops is not without side effects. When administered in high(er) dosages (HED ~64mg/kg) to mice in conjunction with ketamine, the mice resulted in a deep narcosis. For me, that's another reason to rather drink 300ml of a (non-alcoholic) beer with dinner (check out other health benefits of beer) than to take 120–400 mg of hop extract (ideally combined with 374–500 mg of valerian root extract) to up your sleep quality. Immediate effects can be expected.

Blindfolds and earplugs can improve your sleep quality significantly and help resynchronize a messed up circadian rhythm, which is important for both average Joes and athletes | learn more about "Sleeping like an athlete" in my article from June 2017!

Understanding the different sleep phases and their importance - focus on athletes: As Damian Davenne explains in a 2009 review, "[s]leep can be divided into two main electrical states which serve different basic functions. Slow wave sleep (SWS) is a state during which the brain reduces its activities and neuronal activity becomes synchronized. [...] This type of sleep is important for athletes because, without its presence at the beginning of the night, growth hormone cannot be released from the pituitary gland" (Davenne 2009). During rapid eye movement sleep (REM), on the other hand, the brain is very active - proposedly consolidating memories, including movement patterns.

It is thus not really surprising that studies have shown that, after REM sleep loss, procedural memory and motor skills can be affected (Stickgold and Walker 2007). Another relevant physiological phenomenon for athletes is the blockade of cortico-spinal pathways at the brain stem and subsequent suppression of motor activity, which induces a state of total muscle relaxation "that allows effective myofibril restoration" (Davenne 2009).

• Cherries (esp. tart cherries) - Cherries are well-known for their l-tryptophan content, if you fast forward to the corresponding section of this article it is thus not surprising that cherries/cherry-juice seems to be a highly promising sleep quality modulator.
  
  Next to the serotonin- and melatonin-precursor l-tryptophan, cherries contain a plethora of anti-oxidants, as well as pre-formed melatonin - a cocktail that may well explain why a randomized, double-blind, crossover study on the effect of tart cherries on older adults (age ≥ 65 years) with insomnia found that the consumption of an 8-oz serving of tart cherry juice twice daily for 2 weeks found a statistically significant reductions in insomnia severity (measured as minutes awake after sleep onset).
  

  

  Figure 3: Plot of the relative changes in selected markers of sleep quality; p-values for time x group effects indicate statistical significance for insomnia index and wake after sleep onset (Pigeon 2017).

  Moreover, another study in 20 healthy men and women (aged 18 to 40), which detected significant elevations in urinary melatonin, confirms that the benefits are not restricted to the elderly population in whom the natural production of melatonin is known to decrease. After all, the increase in melatonin Pigeon et al. detected in the urine of the subjects, who complained of insomnia but were otherwise healthy, came with significant increases in time in bed, total sleep time, and sleep efficiency (Pigeon 2010).
  
  Dosage: While pills are available, all promising research has been done using (tart) cherry juice (8 oz consumed 2x per day, chronically). Compared to whole fruits, the juices also have the advantage of being easier to stomach than the significant number of cherries you'd have to consume to get remotely close to the concentration of active ingredients in the currently available proprietary tart cherry drinks. Immediate effects cannot be expected.

Very low-carb and ketogenic diets shift the ratio of SWS to REM sleep in favor of the former: Whether it is a good or bad thing that Afaghi et al. (2008) observed a significant reduction in REM and a corresponding increase in slow-wave sleep (SWS) is still in the open. What is certain, though, is that (a) low-fat high-carb diets have previously been shown to have the opposite effect (Phillips 1975) and that (b) the pro-SWS effects of ketogenic diets can be used in the treatment of abnormal refractory continuous spikes and waves during slow sleep (Nikanorova 2009).

• L-tryptophan - The serotonin and melatonin precursor may actually help you fall asleep and stay asleep, but the # of studies is limited.
  
  Intriguingly, much of the existing evidence of tryptophan's efficacy is >35 years old, with a review by Ernest Hartmann (1982) highlighting three things
  • "the weight of evidence indicates that L-tryptophan in doses of 1 g or more produces an increase in rated subjective sleepiness and a decrease in sleep latency (time to sleep)",
  • "there are less firm data suggesting that L-tryptophan may have additional effects such as decrease in total wakefulness and/or increase in sleep time", and
  • "negative results occur in entirely normal subjects—who are not appropriate subjects since there is 'no room for improvement'"
  Mixed results are also reported in severe insomniacs and in patients with serious medical or psychiatric illness (details are beyond the scope of this SuppVersity article).
  

  

  Figure 4: Graphical illustration of the number (N=y) of studies showing significant, benefits, trends or no change according to a 1982 review in the Journal of Psychiatric Research by Ernest Hartmann (1982)

  As my plot of the number of studies showing significant benefits, trends and no effects highlights, a reduced sleep latency is what appears to be the most certain benefit you can get from 1g+ of l-tryptophan taken ~30 minutes before bed. Potential benefits may be seen from the same regimen (for the # of occasions you wake up and/or toss and turn, as well as the total sleep time.
  
  Dosage: No clear benefits have been observed for higher dosages (even though studies tested boluses of up to 15g), but it seems advisable especially for lower dosages to consume them "on empty", i.e. at least without other protein foods. Effects - at least the sleepiness - may be expected with the first administration.

High GI-carbs significantly speed up (-49%) how long it will take you to fall asleep: While high GI carbs (GI = 109) still have a bad rep, studies indicate that consumed 4h before bed will speed up the sleep latency of healthy individuals by a whopping 49% (9.0 ± 6.2 min vs. 17.5 ± 6.2 min for otherwise identical low-GI meals (GI =50) | Afaghi 2007)... to consume the meal 4h before bed is important, by the way. In the same study, Afaghi et al. observed that the same meal given 1 h before bedtime increased the sleep latency back to 14.6 ± 9.9 minutes. Other studies even suggest detrimental effects with high GI ingestion too close to bedtime (so stick to the 4h) - including milk + glucose (higher GI) vs. the notorious milk + honey mix (lower GI) when consumed ~60 minutes before bed.

General beneficial effects of carbs have been observed, among others, by Porter and Horne (1981) who provided six male subjects with a high-carbohydrate meal (130 g), a low-carbohydrate meal (47 g), or a meal containing no carbohydrate, 45 min before bedtime. The high-carbohydrate meal resulted in increased REM sleep, decreased light sleep, and wakefulness. As Halson et al. (2014) point out in their review, "the caloric content of the meals was [yet] not matched in the study".

• l-theanine - Usually supplements that are so heavily advertised as Just Chill™ and NeuroSleep™ don't work, but for these l-theanine things could be different.
  
  As the authors of the previously cited review in Current Sleep Medicine Reports point out in their review, "[s]everal studies have shown that intake of L-theanine significantly increases α-wave activity in different areas of the cerebral cortex, leading to a relaxed state without drowsiness" (Ring 2017).
  

  

  Figure 5: 200mg/day l-theanine reduce the cortisol release in response to stress (Kimura 2007).

  In conjunction with its ability to increase dopamine and serotonin, and reduce stress-related norepinephrine and cortisol levels, salivary IgA, and heart rate in response to an acute stressor. Plus: L-theanine has been shown in animal studies to partially reverse caffeine-induced reductions in slow wave sleep (Jang 2012) - effects that can occur even with your average morning Joe (i.e. not just with caffeine consumption late in the day | Landolt 1995).
  
  The reason why I still used "could" in the headline of this paragraph is that there is, more or less, only one convincing study to demonstrate beneficial effects on sleep quality in human beings: a 2011 study by Lyon et al. that investigated the effects of Suntheanine® (a branded l-theanine product) on objective sleep quality in boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and showed objective (actigraph) improvements in sleep percentage and sleep efficiency after 6 weeks.
  

  

  Figure 5: . (a) Sleep length, (b) sleep efficiency, and (c) intermittent awakening WASO data interpreted from actigraph measurements in 10 male subjects. The values represent mean § standard error. Statistical significance was measured using Student’s paired t-test (Rao 2015).

  Similar objective improvements in sleep efficiency and intermittent awakening (WAS) are also reported by Rao et al. (2015) for healthy subjects (see Figure 6).
  
  Dosage: While you will see recommendations ranging from 50 to 400 mg of L theanine taken 30–60 min before bedtime, the "proven" dosage is 200mg. That's more than 4 cups of high l-theanine green tea and thus not really achievable by consuming freshly brewed green tea before bed. As Ring et al. point out, you have to be careful, though, because "[l-t]heanine can have an antihypertensive effect, so it should be used with caution when combined with antihypertensive medications" (Ring 2017).
• Melatonin - Your body's own sleep aid is rather a circadian re-aligner than a true sleeping pill - that's why it works mostly for problems with falling asleep.
  The decrease in sleep onset latency can but doesn't necessarily result in increases in total sleep time. That's why many users who expected benzo-esque results are disappointed.
  
  On the other hand, melatonin has none of the nasty side effects of your average BZD-Z drugs: memory and cognition impairment, psychomotor retardation, or next-day hangover effects (if dosed correctly | Wilson 2010). Likewise, an often-heard of physical dependence has never been observed (Zhdanova 1996).
  
  Dosage: Dosing melatonin is difficult because the optimal dosage differs between individuals. Accordingly, Ring et al. (2017) suggest a dosage plan starting with 0.3mg and increasing to 3mg (max. 6mg) if the desired effects don't occur.
  .

Two Hours of Extra-Sleep Before Sleep Deprivation Minimize the Performance Decrements Due to 24h Sleep Deprivation | more

So, what works? Here's a list: (1) standardized valerian extracts (300-900mg) 60 min before bed, (2) non-alcoholic beer (0.3 L) with dinner, (3) tart cherry juice at a dosage of 8 oz consumed twice per day for days or weeks, (4) ca. 1g of l-tryptophan w/out amino acids competing for uptake (e.g. BCAAs) 30 minutes before bed, (5) l-theanine dosed at 100-400mg/d 30-60 minutes before bed, taking it thrice a day may boost the effect (w/out causing drowsiness) all work, are safe, and worth trying out.

Experimentation may be necessary to find out what works for you - one-size-fits-it-all advice is unwarranted!

The above is especially true for melatonin, which didn't make the A-list, because it's more of a circadian re-aligner than a sleep aid. This doesn't make it less useful, though - on the contrary: if used correctly (1-2h before bed at 0.3-6.0 mg depending on your tolerance) it can have far-reaching beneficial effects on both, your sleep latency, quality, and duration as well as your overall health.

What neither melatonin nor any other sleep aid can make up for, though, is sleep hygiene.

One supplement that has evidence to support its effect, which I still won't recommend, though, is (*) Kava Kava (Piper methysticum), which messes w/ the cytochrome enzyme cascade (CYP450), will affect the metabolism of both meds and other dietary supplements, and has been linked to liver failure (albeit outside of RCTs lasting up to 6 months | Clouatre 2004), as well as the following concoctions that are often recommended but don't have convincing scientific backup: (i) chamomile, despite proven interactions of apigenin in chamomille w/ the GABA receptor, (ii) passion flower, (iii) California poppy, (iv) skullcap, (v) lemon balm, (vi) St. John’s wort, (vii) lavender, and (viii) magnolia bark | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Afaghi, A., O'connor, H., & Chow, C. M. (2007). High-glycemic-index carbohydrate meals shorten sleep onset. The American journal of clinical nutrition, 85(2), 426-430.
• Afaghi, A., O'Connor, H., & Chow, C. M. (2008). Acute effects of the very low carbohydrate diet on sleep indices. Nutritional neuroscience, 11(4), 146-154.
• Bent, S., Padula, A., Moore, D., Patterson, M., & Mehling, W. (2006). Valerian for sleep: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The American journal of medicine, 119(12), 1005-1012.
• Clouatre, D. L. (2004). Kava kava: examining new reports of toxicity. Toxicology letters, 150(1), 85-96.
• Davenne, Damien. (2009) "Sleep of athletes–problems and possible solutions." Biological Rhythm Research 40.1: 45-52.
• Dement, W C. (2005). "Sleep extension: getting as much extra sleep as possible." Clinics in Sports Med, 24: 251–268.
• Fernández-San-Martín, M. I., Masa-Font, R., Palacios-Soler, L., Sancho-Gómez, P., Calbó-Caldentey, C., & Flores-Mateo, G. (2010). Effectiveness of Valerian on insomnia: a meta-analysis of randomized placebo-controlled trials. Sleep medicine, 11(6), 505-511.
• Franco, L., Sánchez, C., Bravo, R., Rodríguez, A. B., Barriga, C., Romero, E., & Cubero, J. (2012). The sedative effect of non-alcoholic beer in healthy female nurses. PloS one, 7(7), e37290.
• Franco, L., Bravo, R., Galán, C., Rodríguez, A. B., Barriga, C., & Cubero, J. (2014). Effect of non-alcoholic beer on Subjective Sleep Quality in a university stressed population. Acta Physiologica Hungarica, 101(3), 353-361.
• Halson, S. L. (2014). Sleep in elite athletes and nutritional interventions to enhance sleep. Sports Medicine, 44(1), 13-23.
• Hartmann, Ernest. "Effects of L-tryptophan on sleepiness and on sleep." Journal of psychiatric research 17.2 (1982): 107-113.
• Jalilolghadr, S., Afaghi, A., O'Connor, H., & Chow, C. M. (2011). Effect of low and high glycaemic index drink on sleep pattern in children. JPMA-Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 61(6), 533.
• Jang, H. S., Jung, J. Y., Jang, I. S., Jang, K. H., Kim, S. H., Ha, J. H., ... & Lee, M. G. (2012). L-theanine partially counteracts caffeine-induced sleep disturbances in rats. Pharmacology Biochemistry and Behavior, 101(2), 217-221.
• Kimura, K., Ozeki, M., Juneja, L. R., & Ohira, H. (2007). L-Theanine reduces psychological and physiological stress responses. Biological psychology, 74(1), 39-45.9
• Landolt, H. P., Werth, E., Borbély, A. A., & Dijk, D. J. (1995). Caffeine intake (200 mg) in the morning affects human sleep and EEG power spectra at night. Brain research, 675(1), 67-74.
• Lyon, M. R., Kapoor, M. P., & Juneja, L. R. (2011). The effects of L-theanine (Suntheanine®) on objective sleep quality in boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial. Alternative medicine review, 16(4), 348.
• Ozeki, Makoto, Lekh Raj Juneja, And Shuichiro Shirakawa. "The Effects Of L-Theanine On Sleep Using The Actigaph." Japanese Journal Of Physiological Anthropology 9.4 (2004): 143-150.
• Nikanorova, M., Miranda, M. J., Atkins, M., & Sahlholdt, L. (2009). Ketogenic diet in the treatment of refractory continuous spikes and waves during slow sleep. Epilepsia, 50(5), 1127-1131.
• Phillips, F., Crisp, A. H., McGuinness, B., Kalucy, E. C., Chen, C. N., Koval, J., ... & Lacey, J. H. (1975). Isocaloric diet changes and electroencephalographic sleep. The Lancet, 306(7938), 723-725.
• Pigeon, W. R., Carr, M., Gorman, C., & Perlis, M. L. (2010). Effects of a tart cherry juice beverage on the sleep of older adults with insomnia: a pilot study. Journal of medicinal food, 13(3), 579-583.
• Porter, J. M., & Horne, J. A. (1981). Bed-time food supplements and sleep: effects of different carbohydrate levels. Electroencephalography and clinical neurophysiology, 51(4), 426-433.
• Prinz, P. N., Roehrs, T. A., Vitaliano, P. P., Linnoila, M., & Weitzman, E. D. (1980). Effect of alcohol on sleep and nighttime plasma growth hormone and cortisol concentrations. The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 51(4), 759-764.
• St-Onge, M. P., Roberts, A., Shechter, A., & Choudhury, A. R. (2016). Fiber and saturated fat are associated with sleep arousals and slow wave sleep. Journal of clinical sleep medicine: JCSM: official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, 12(1), 19.
• Stickgold, R and Walker, M P. (2007). "Sleep-dependent memory consolidation and reconsolidation." Sleep Med, 8: 331–343.
• Wilson, S. J., Nutt, D. J., Alford, C., Argyropoulos, S. V., Baldwin, D. S., Bateson, A. N., ... & Gringras, P. (2010). British Association for Psychopharmacology consensus statement on evidence-based treatment of insomnia, parasomnias and circadian rhythm disorders. Journal of Psychopharmacology, 24(11), 1577-1601.
• Zhdanova, I. V., Wurtman, R. J., Morabito, C., Piotrovska, V. R., & Lynch, H. J. (1996). Effects of low oral doses of melatonin, given 2–4 hours before habitual bedtime, on sleep in normal young humans. Sleep, 19(5), 423-431.

Ursolic Acid, Leucine or Placebo for mTOR, IGF-1, Irisin, Size & Strength Gains & Fat Loss? Plus: Tart Cherry Powder as Anti-Oxidant Immune Protector for Athletes

Weights are better than pills, but in some cases, they can also work synergistically.

A new month, a new exercise & supplementation research overview for the "SuppVersity Short News". In today's installment I am going to highlight the latest evidence for the beneficial anti-oxidant & immuno-protective effects of tart cherry powder in endurance athletes. I am going to discuss the disappointing results of a comparison between leucine and ursolic acid as mTOR-elevating, IGF-1 receptor modulators in the post-workout window. And I am going to contrast these findings to the results of a non-sponsored chronic resistance training + ursolic acid intervention from a group of Korean scientists.

Read more short news here at the SuppVersity

Obesity Research Upd. Nov. '14

Exercise Res. Upd. Nov '12(1)

Exercise Res. Upd. Nov '12(2)

Nutrition Res. Update Nov. '14

Weight Loss Tricks & More

Reductive Stress, Iron & the Military

• Tart cherry powder as anti-oxidant immuno-protector - Scientists from the Texas A&M University reported at the Eleventh International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) Conference and Expo that the provision of tart cherries, not as whole fruits, but in 480 mg capsules that contained a freeze dried powder (one capsule daily), for 10 days leading up to a half-marathon, the 27 endurance trained or triathlete (21.8±3.9 yr, 15.0±6.0% body fat, 67.4±11.8 kg) men (n=18) and women (n=9) completed in less than one hour lead to a significant reduction of the immune response to exercise. In particular, the statistical analyses of the data revealed a...

  "[...] significant group x time quadratic effect [...] for WBC [white blood cell count] (p=0.034) [and] a trend toward a significant delta value based on group assignment for WBC (p=0.09)" (Goodenough. 2014).

  In spite of the fact that the mitigated immune response following exercise did, as Goodenough et al. point out "correlate with the decreased catabolic response indicated by BUN/Cr ratio and cortisol levels reported in a companion abstract", and notwithstanding the results of a similar study which found that
  

  "acute supplementation with powdered tart cherries over the 7 days leading up to, during, and 2 days after intense resistance exercise helps to minimize post-training perceptions of pain in the most biomechanically loaded regions of the quadriceps muscle group associated with the back squat compared to a placebo" (Levers. 2014),

  the overall benefits are probably negligible for normal trainees. For training junkies and professional athletes, though, the ameliorated stress and immune response, as well as a minor decrease in pain may yet be good reasons to give tart cherry supplements a try.
  

Homebrew blackberry "supplement" inhibits lipid oxidation.

In case you're not into tart cherries, a recent non-sponsored study that does not use a commercial supplement from the Islamic Azad University (Niloofari. 2014) shows that you can also boil 100g blackberries with some water for 10 minutes, then cool them and place them in a sealed containers in order consume 100ml of the black- berry "soup" daily. In said study the consumption of this extract lead to a significant reduction in the producton of lipid oxidation products in obese subjects during a standar- dized resistance training program. Accordingly, we can assume that this "homebrew" supplement will have similar protective effects on the cell membranes as the capped tart cherry extract from the perviously discussed study.

• Ursolic acid or leucine, what's more anabolic on paper? Yes, there is a good reason I underlined the words "on paper". Why? Well, the experiment David Church, Neil Schwarz, Mike Spillane, Sarah McKinley, Tom Andre and Darryn S Willoughby conducted may employ a randomized, cross-over design, but still investigated only the acute effects of 3g leucine (LEU), ursolic acid (UA) or placebo on IGF-1 (a serum regulator of MPS) and the Akt/mTOR pathway.
  
  The 9 apparently healthy, resistance-trained [regular, consistent resistance training (i.e. thrice weekly) for at least 1 year prior to the onset of the study] men between the ages of 18-30 who had volunteered to participate in this study consumed the supplements immediately afer a lower-body resistance exercise that involved 4 sets of 8-10 repetitions at 75-80% 1-RM on the angled leg press and knee extension exercises. A venous blood sample was obtained before, and 0.5, 2, and 6 hr post-exercise, whereas a vastus lateralis muscle biopsy was obtained before and 2 and 6 hr post-exercise. 
  

  

  Figure 1: the results of the ursolic acid vs. leucine comparison are not exactly exciting (Church. 2014).

  The analysis of these blood and muscle samples revealed that there were no differences  observed among the three "supplements" (one of them being the placebo) for serum IGF-1 (p > 0.05), the expression of IGF-receptors or the phosphorilation of Akt, and p70S6K (p > 0.05).
  
  The only significant difference the researchers observed was a significant increase in phosphorylated mTOR in response to the 3g of leucine compared to UA and PLC (p = 0.001).
   
• Ursolic acid: Different study different outcome - In the defense of ursolic acid it should yet be mentioned that Hyun Seok Bang et al. recently found that the chronic supplementation with 3x450mg/day of ursolic acid lead to concomittant increases in serum irisin and muscle strength, as well as impressive reductions in bod fat in twenty-four Korean men with over 3 years of resistance training experience.
  

  

  Figure 2: Changes in body composition (left) and IGF-1 & irisin levels (right) in response to 8 weeks of resistance training + placebo or resistance training + 3x450mg/day of ursolic acid (Bang. 2014).

  As you can see in Figure 2, significant increases in IGF-1 weren't observed in this study either. Accordingly, Church et al. may simply have been betting on the "wrong anabolic horse" and the chronic effects like the strength gain and fat loss Bang et al. observed in their trained subjects alluded them due to the nature of study, i.e. an acute vs. chronic exercise supplementation regimen.

BCAAs Don't Build Muscle, Study Says | Learn more

Bottom line: In view of the fact that the ursolic acid studies teach us not to judge a supplement by an acute / short-term study I refuse to make a commendation for or against tart cherries - no matter, whether they're fresh or powdered.

What I am willing to admit, though, is that the study by Bang et al. (2014) yielded pretty impressive results. Results that are not yet enough to fully convince me that all the hilarious claims you will find on ursolic acid supplements are true, but results that will have me keep an eye on future studies investigating the effect of chronic ursolic acid supplementation on body composition and physical performance | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Bang, Hyun Seok, et al. "Ursolic Acid-Induced Elevation of Serum Irisin Augments Muscle Strength During Resistance Training in Men." The Korean Journal of Physiology & Pharmacology 18.5 (2014): 441-446.
• Church, David, et al. "A comparison of the effects of ursolic acid and l-leucine supplementation on IGF-1 receptor and AKT-mTOR signaling in response to resistance exercise in trained men." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 11.Suppl 1 (2014): P19.
• Goodenough, C., et al. "Powdered tart cherry supplementation mitigates the post-exercise immune response with reduction in total antioxidant status and serum triglyceride levels following an acute bout of intense endurance exercise." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 11.Suppl 1 (2014): P34. 
• Levers, K., et al. "Powdered tart cherry supplementation demonstrates benefit on markers of catabolism and muscle soreness following an acute bout of intense lower body resistance exercise." Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 11.Suppl 1 (2014): P31. 
• Niloofari, A., Et Al. "Responses Of Oxidative Stress Indices To Resistance Exercise After Blackberry Extract Supplementation." IJBPAS 3.12 (2014): 2798-2810.