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A Cup of Coffee in the Bluelight District: Synergistic Effects of Caffeine + Blue Light on Psychomotor Effects. Plus: Yerkes-Dodson and U-Shaped Dose-Response Curves

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This could be your new wake-up routine: Strong coffee and a bath in blue light. "The abuse of ADHD drugs in people from all social classes is on the rise..." I guess you will have heard or read news like these several times over the past 12 months and in an article over at Forbes.com that was published on St. Nicholas' Day, Todd Essing even claimed: "Adderall use at work by the healthy to enhance cognitive performance is back in the news." Essing cites, among others, Stephen Petrow whose article over at The Atlantic is what Essing calls "a love letter to his 2-3 times per week Adderall use" - and a scary one for Petrow who is a psychologist by trade and says of himself that he "treats lots of hard-driving career-focussed 20- and 30-somethings". (Essing. 2013) I guess Essing, whose previous article "When ‘Study Drugs’ Kill" took a reasonably critical stance towards the use of Adderal and similar drugs by healthy individual...
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True or False: "Washing Your Fruit and Veggies is Useless - You Can't Wash Away the Pesticides, Anyway!"

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It's a good idea to wash your veggies, but this is not the most effective method. Bath them in warm water, don't wash them under the faucet. Despite the fact that I had my reasons to end the SuppVersity "True or False" Series back in the day. The popularity of the corresponding articles that appear from time to time as SuppVersity Classics on Facebook does yet tell me that you won't be mad at me, if I revive it and try to tackle a statement I've overheard in one of those infamous gym conversations between two ladies on the cross-trainer: "I always wash those pepper extra thoroughly, you know... tomatoes are among the veggies with the highest amounts of pesticides on them." Answer lady two: "Ha, you don't really believe the pesticides are on the outside of the tomatoes only, do you? They are in the tomato. Washing them will at best remove some of the dirt on their skin!" True or False: "It's useless to wash your peppe...
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DS Craze - An Obituary Notice From the Lab: Highly Variable Amounts of "Amphetamine-Like" Compounds in DS Craze & Gaspari's Detonate. Plus: Phenetylalamine in MP's Assault

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2013's fitness craze was about Craze Let me first get this straight: I have no intention whatsoever to comment on the reasons of the "amphetamine contamination" of Driven Sport's flagship pre-workout product Craze - I'll leave that to better informed gossipers. I guess, I would even have let the whole issue rest forever, if Mahmoud A. ElSohly and Waseem Gul hadn't published a peer-reviewed paper earlier this week that contains much more information than the previous short lab report ElSohly sent back to his clients over at Thermolife who had commissioned his lab to test a sample of DS Craze for amphetamines and decided that it was in everyone's best interest to publicize the results immediately. Craze is not alone, Detonate & Assault join the party - but you already knew that, right? The paper was published under advanced access in the Journal of Analytical Toxicology on December, 15 and the main result, i.e. the fact that the resear...
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Taurine + BCAAs - Scientists Identify Unkown Synergy of Branch-Chained and Sulfur-Amino Acids: Redutions in DOMS, Faster Recovery and Reduced DNA Damage

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If this is true and sore is the new sexy, the combination of taurine + BCAA's may turn you into an ugly worm. You know them and I would bet that >75% of you have already taken them: Branch-Chained Amino Acids (BCAAs) and the sulfur-amino acid taurine. Maybe you have taken the former for their beneficial effects on skeletal muscle protein synthesis and the latter for its anti-oxidant effects and the cascade of beneficial downstream effects I have written about quite extensively, here at the SuppVersity . If I am asking you whether you have taken both in conjunction as a means to reduce post-workout delayed-onset muscle soreness and the expression of purported markers of muscle damage, on the other hand, I'd expect only few people to raise their hands... right? Sometimes it's worth taking another look The currently available literature on the beneficial effects of BCAAs on DOMS is pretty inconclusive. If you restrict your review of the literature to studies usin...
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Minimal Carb Reduction, Maximal Results? Study Compares 60% vs. 40% CHO Diets + 6-Week 25% Energy Reduction

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Does "moderate low carb" work? And if so how much of the usual triglyceride and glucose lowering benefits of walking the whole nine yard are you going to miss? I know that 40% carbs is not what you consider "moderate", but for most of our fellow countrymen and women, cutting back on at least one serving of their beloved pasta and bread is already more than you can ask for if you want a compliance that's beyond 1%. Against that background it is all the more important to know whether even small changes in the overall carbohydrate intake have to offer obviously less pronounced, but still significantly beneficial health benefits to overweight and obese individuals -- small changes like the 20% reduction in carbohydrate intake in the "moderately-restricted carbohydrate diet" (MRCD) arm of the most recent study from the Isfahan University of Medical Sciences in Teheran, Iran (Rajaie. 2014), for example. 1/2 low carb = 100% adherence, but at which co...
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Novel Perspectives on Protein Consumption: 36% Decrease In Myostatin, With Low Protein (0.1g/kg BW) Diet, But...

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What happens to your muscle, when you train on a low protein diet? With the publication of Alan Aragon's and Brad Schoenfeld's excellent paper "Nutrient timing revisited: is there a post-exercise anabolic window?" (Aragon. 2013), the over-estimated importance of the so-called window of opportunity after a workout has been knocked back into reasonable shape. Neither of the two would yet probably tell you to copy the experimental design of a recently published study that was conducted by a team of researchers from the Maastricht University in The Netherlands, the McMaster University in Canada and the University of Nottingham in the UK. Protein "starvation" and growth potential Much contrary to the average "window of opportunity study", Snijders et al. did not look at the benefits of post-workout protein supplementation, but at the detriments of not consuming any protein before and after a workout. You can learn more about protein intake ...
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"An Apple A Day" & More: Alex Leaf's Reviews Folk Wisdom and Scientific Evidence on a Forbiddenly Healthy Fruit Item

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Forbidden fruit or not: You got to love your daily apples ;-) Guestpost by Alex Leaf An apple a day keeps the doctor away. I’m sure you’ve heard this before. And while there are many ways in which we could keep the doctor at bay with an apple (target practice anyone?), our wellbeing demands we eat the luscious fruit. Truthfully, the old adage could not be truer for a variety of reasons. So to keep things organized I am going to worm through the benefits of apples categorically. Also remember we are dealing with the apple fruit, not the apple fritter or apple flavored candy or the iPhone. I suppose the best starting point is the apple’s nutritional worth. As you can see in the nutritional label to the right, a single medium apple is less than 100 Calories and provides over 10% of the RDA for fiber. Apples also contain every vitamin needed by the body with the exception of Vitamin B12, which is only found in animal products, and Vitamin D, which you can produce by eating your app...
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