SuppVersity - Nutrition and Exercise Science for Everyone

I wonder if it is coincidence that the modern Santa is an obese advertisement character invented by some marketing genius working for Coca Cola ? Those of you who have been reading the intermittent thoughts on intermittent fasting ( click here and start with the links at the bottom, if you haven't) will remember that the actual number of studies on intermittent fasting, as it is interpreted by most people on the Internet is actually quite scarce. Aside from the Ramadan studies, you mostly see very long fasting periods or other oddities that decrease the significance of the studies. That said, I did hit onto an older study that has been published in Medical Hypothesis in 2009, already. A study with a daily 12-14h "mini-fast" + low intensity aerobic exercise 5x a week and a study the results of which point to the usefulness and practical value of skipping a meal - especially in a time where you give in to nutritional temptations way too easily, anyhow - the holiday se...

The stop watch is your friend, when it comes to HIIT optimization. After the examples selected examples in the previous installment the intention of this 2nd part of the serious is to find some more general rules of HIIT program optimization with a special focus on exercise and performance on the one hand and fat loss and improvements in body composition on the other hand. Now, if you want to optimize something, you often have one or a set of parameters you can plug into a system of linear equations to find those parameters which generate the maximal output. Unfortunately, we are not only lacking linear, but any form of exact equations, but are also at a loss how programming is actually done. In that, Laursen's & Jenkins' definition of optimization as identifying "[...] the optimal exercise intensity, exercise duration and number of interval bouts, in addition to the type (active vs passive) and duration of the recovery between exercise bouts." May be...

If the Aliens have seen these Bugarash apocalypse pilgrims, they have probably turned tail and fled ;-) I guess the SuppVersity figure of the week was a date "12/21/2012", I mean this is a once in a life-time event! Or do you really believe there will be another chance for mankind to be snatched from the jaws of extinction? Ok, enough of the sarcasm, the world is still there and the SuppVersity is still operating, so let's get to the not so short On Short Notice items for today. If there had been more room in the headline I would probably have labeled it "Endocrine Special" and I guess once you have gone through the posts, you will agree that this would certainly have made sense. Traditional treatment of osteopenia with Epimedium brevicornum works, 'cause it's a potent aromatase promoter (Yang. 2012) -- When a group of researchers from the Chengdu Institute of Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and the School of Chinese Pharmacy, Chengd...

When it's served like this, Gum Arabic looks more like a healthy snack than a weight loss adjuvant. I guess everyone who has already listened to the podcast of yesterday's show or was even able to listen live, will have noticed that the audio quality - yet not my German accent - have improved significantly, now that Carl and I did eventually switch to Skype instead of the landline. I know, you have been telling me that all along... be that as it may, unless my Internet connection hangs up for whatever reasons we will continue to do the SuppVersity Science Round-Ups via Skype from now on. Apropos, there will definitely be another show next Thursday (assuming that the world did not collapse by then ;-) Follow up on Gum Arabic : Dosing & mechanism In addition to that, I was actually presently surprised how much ground we were able to cover. Allegedly, we have gone way over the scheduled 60min, and I guess I could have said a couple of additional words on the Gum Ar...

Both ladies are D-ficient, but will probably need profoundly different amounts of D3 to get their 25OHD back in range. Actually, I guess, I don't really have to tell you that there is not going to be guest post by Adelfo Cerame , today. Adelfo is busy with the last weeks of school, but will be back as soon as he has passed all the tests. And while I am not sure, whether or not you would call the latest on vitamin D supplementation an adequate replacement for a contest prep update from "your's truly", I suppose that it's better than nothing to bridge the time that still remains until the SuppVersity   Science Round-Up on the Super Human Radio Network is going to air (the show starts at 12PM, EST; the Science-Round-Up airs in the 2nd hour and will thus begin at 1PM, EST; click here to listen live or wait for the podcast // update : now available). I am honestly not yet sure what exactly we will cover today, but among the things I am still thinking about h...

EAAs beyond whey: It may not necessarily look like this, but this salad ( repicecorner ) is an EAA power horse with cheddar cheese (25% protein, 0.49 EAA / P ratio), tuna (in oil, 29%,  0.45) and kidney beans (9%, 0.45). You see, it does not always have to be chicken breasts or whey to get beyond the 10g+ EAA threshold, I have repeatedly suggested as one of the fundamental rules of dieting for weight loss, maintenance and muscle gain. Many people take it for granted that you become fat, when you get old. If you look at the statistics, you could even make a point that obesity has some protective effects with esp. with respect to CVD mortality. Scientists call this the "obesity paradox" (Kastorini. 2012). What's particularly paradox, at least in my humble opinion, is yet not the phenomenon itself, but rather the fact that it gets smart scientists derailed from working on useful dietary and exercise interventions to prevent the development of heart disease, cancer, metab...