HIT Your Satellite Cells to Increase Your Gains! Only High Intensity "Cardio" Exercise Will Fuel Your Satellite Cell Pool and Set You Up For Future Muscle Growth.

Image 1: NO-mediated satellite cell
recruitement (Anderson. 2000)

You have read it on the SuppVersity, you have heard about it on Carl Lanore's Super Human Radio and the BodyRX Show and those of you who have seen videos or pictures from the latest New York City Marathon, should actually have been able to infer it from the way the "finishers" looked like. Intensity not duration is what counts, when doing "cardio". Yet, as a very recent (7 days old) study shows (Naito. 2011), High Intensity Training (HIT) will not only burn off your lovehandles, while keeping your muscles intact, it will also prime your musclefibers for future growth by increasing the number of satellite cells, the small dormant mononuclear progenitor cells that are sandwiched between the basement membrane and sarcolemma of the fibers of your muscle and are recruited, whenever your body feels that you could use a little more or have to replace some damaged muscle mass.

While I will go into more detail on how your muscles actually grow in the upcoming parts of the Intermittent Fasting Series, in the course of which I am going to explain how you should train, eat and sleep in order to exploit all three major pathways of skeletal muscle growth, I want to give you a sneak peak at what you are going to learn, by highlighting that protein synthesis, i.e. the accrual of muscle protein in existing myonuclear domains, and the recruitment of satellite cells to replace damaged or add new myonuclei are distinct processes. It should nevertheless be obvious that with all the protein synthesis of the world you will - sooner or later - hit a plateau, when all the existing myonuclei have "blown up" to their maximal size - or as Naito et al. put it: "Increases in the number of satellite cells are necessary for full skeletal muscle growth and hypertrophy" So, whenever the existing myonuclei have reached their "full potential", the only way to keep growing is by adding new myonuclei via satellite cell recruitment. Keep that in mind before you discard the results the following study, because the "HIT rats" did not gain more "active" muscle than the "LIT rats" ;-)

In their experiment Hasashi Naito and his colleagues from the Tokai University and the Juntendo University in Japan put 17-week old (these are old rats!) female Sprague-Dawley rats on one out of four exercise regimen (for a detailed outline of the regimen, cf. table 1):

1. High Intensity, High Duration (90H)
2. High Intensity, Low Duration (30H)
3. Low Intensity, High Duration (90L)
4. Low Intensity, Low Duration (30L)

Table 1: Outline of the exercise
protocol (from Naito. 2011)

In the course of the 10-week study period the rats were exercised five times a week on one of those funky rodent treadmills. What's funny is that despite the fact that, as the scientists say, "[e]lectrical shocks were used sparingly to motivate the animals to run", two of the critters in the high intensity groups refused to do their workouts, which reminds me of what Dr. Layne Norton had to say on one of the past installments of BodyRX Radio: "Most of those who will tell you that they cannot do HIT for whatever reasons are usually just too lazy" - we may thus consider those two lazy rats as evidence for the accuracy of the model... and by the way, it did not save them from being anesthetized and deprived of their plantaris muscle, which was weighed and analyzed for its fiber composition and satellite cell count.

As it was to be expected in view of the high age of the rats, where skeletal muscle mass maintenance, may be considered a success, there were no statistically significant increases in plantaris and/or body mass in any of the treatment groups.

Figure 1: Changes (compared to untrained control) in number of myonuclei and satellite cells per muscle fiber (data calculate base on Naito. 2011)

Despite the absence of measurable skeletal muscle hypertrophy, the pronounced (cf. figure 1) and fiber-type specific (cf. figure 2) increases in satellite cell counts in the high intensity groups may well be considered as the necessary prestage of a hypertophic growth spurt, which could be triggered by appropriate training (which would obviously be strength training) and endocrine (more on that in the conclusion) stimuli.

Figure 1: Satellite cells per muscle fiber in type I (slow twitch) and type II (fast twitch) muscle fibers of rats in the control and the high intensity, high duration (90H) groups (data calculate base on Naito. 2011)

In that, it is also interesting to note that contrary to popular believe, the slow-twitch type I fibers, with their greater number of satellite cells, have an increased propensity for maximal myonuclear numbers, the fable of the "hypertrophy-prone fast-twitch type II" fibers, on the other end, is a consequence of their ability to accumulate more protein per myonucleus. And while I will - as promised in the red box above - dig deeper into that in future installments of Sunday's Intermittent Thoughts, I can already tell you that the fiber composition (not the size!) of professional body builders is almost identical to those of non-strength-trained individuals and thusly fundamentally different from that of strength athletes, like powerlifters (Tesch. 1982) - in order to achieve maximal muscularity you can thusly not neglect your type I fibers!

That being said, both the strength training, which would make use of the increased propensity to grow by recruiting satellite cells to form new myonuclei, as well as the necessary local IGF and MGF responses, which have been shown to decrease with age (Grounds. 2002), were absent in the study at hand. In someone like you, a young, vigorous strength trainee, both stimuli will yet obviously be present in abundance (at least I would hope so ;-). Accordingly, 1-3 high intensity (and in view of the fact that the duration, 30 vs. 90min, did not make a difference probably also high intensity interval) training (HIT or HIIT) sessions per week could not only make your increasingly fat-free muscles shine in their full glory, they will also "precondition" you for future muscle growth by increasing your satellite cell pool. I would thus suggest, you better not join the two lazy rats from the study, and rather find yourself the next best track to do a bunch of sprints ;-)

VPX Pre- & Post-Workout Nutrition Gets "Sponsored" Scientific Approval: +4% Lean Mass, -6% Body Fat, +13% Upper and +21% Lower Body Strength in 29 Days

Image 1: Supplemental double-whammy. VPX' now
"scientifically proven" pre- & postworkout products

This is one of those cases, where I cannot decide whether I should applaud VPX or just shake my head... the scientist in me says: "Hey, you know how that is - with a research grant from the government cutting edge science is impossible, especially if you want to investigate something as 'profane' as building muscle". The cynic skeptic, on the other hand, whispers: "Come on, what results would you expect, if the study was financed by the producer of the supplement under scrutiny?" I guess I will applaud skeptically and exercise special caution in my analysis of the latest study from the Department of Health and Performance at Baylor University (Willoughby. 2011).

As in previous studies (Willoughby. 2007; Willoughby. 2009), Darryn S. Willoughby and his colleagues availed themselves of a buckload of VPX supplements and recruited 19 previously recreationally active, yet untrained (*) men with an average age of 22.8 +/-4.67 years, a height of 179.5 +/-6.38 cm and a total body mass of 79.1 +/-16.13 kg for another study into the effects of two supplements, which are supposed to "advance you to the next level of fitness" (VPX. 2011). Strength and body composition (body fat measured reliably by DEXA, not body-impedance), venous blood sampling and muscle biopsies were performed on day 0 and day 29 of the 4-week study period, in the course of which the participants underwent a standardized resistance training protocol (upper-/lower-body split, 4x à week), which mirrored the one that had been used in Willoughby. 2009 already (*).

Figure 1: Illustration of the training regimen (based on Willoughby. 2011)

The bodybuilding-type beginner 2x split training regimen is unquestionably a huge plus of the study (cf. figure 1). Performed twice a weak, this is what real world training would look like and so that it stands out of question that the results of the study will translate into practice - at least for everyone who has not touched a dumbbell more than thrice a week within the last 12 and abstained from all sorts of performance enhancing supplements and drugs within the last 3 months (*).

The NO Shotgun approach to protein NO SyntheSize??? 

Figure 2: Ingredient profiles of
No Shotgun and No SyntheSize

More important than the identical training regimen was yet obviously the supplementation protocol, to which the participants were assigned in a double-blind randomization process (on a side note: "double-blind" means that not only the subjects, but the scientists, as well, did not know which participants received the placebo and which ones the VPX products). While half of the subjects consumed a maltodextrose placebo (27g pre, 27g post workout), the subjects in the "NOSS" group consumed the same amount of NO Shotgun and NO SyntheSize as their pre- and posworkout supplement, respectively. Now, as the names imply, both supplements are intended to increase nitric oxide production and protein synthesis, yet with a focus on the former in NO Shotgun that is loaden with arginine and a heap of stimulants and a focus on the latter in NO SyntheSize, the composition of which is pretty similar (cf. figure 2), yet without the "Redline Energy & Meltdown Fat Burning Technology" ;-)

Although there were no specifically dietary guidelines, the research did at least collect some nutritional data based on a 4-day questionnaire all participants had to answer at the beginning and end of the study. While there was a slight reduction in the total caloric intake in the carb group (interestingly mainly from carbohydates), neither the intra-group changes, nor the inter-group differences reached statistical significance.

More muscle, less fat! Trainee, what more can you ask for?

That there were no differences is yet something you cannot say of the changes in body composition the study participants underwent in the course of this 28-day intervention.

Figure 3: Relative changes (compared to baseline) in body composition after 16 strength training sessions in 28 days with either 54g of maltodextrin or 27g of NO Shotgun and 27g NO Synthesize pre- and postworkout (Willoughby. 2011)

As a passing view of the relative changes (compared to baseline) in figure 3 show, the NOSS group (receiving NO Shotgun prior and NO SyntheSize post workout) registered significantly more pronounced elevations in fat free mass (p<.023 indicates that the chances that this was sheer coincidence are 23%) and - contrary to the carbohydrate group - lost -6% of their body fat, while the carb eaters added another 2% of adipose tissue to their love-handles.

Figure 4: Changes in upper and lower body strength (in kg/kg body weight during bench press and leg press at 1RM) after 16 strength training sessions in 28 days with either 54g of maltodextrin or 27g of NO Shotgun and 27g of NO Synthesize pre- and postworkout (Willoughby. 2011)

Interestingly, the lean mass increase went hand in hand with likewise (statistically) significantly greater (p-values see figure 4) increases in both upper (+13% vs. +1%) and lower (+21% vs. +11%) strength in the subjects in the NO Shotgun + NO SyntheSize groups.

* you may have wondered what all the asterisks in the previous paragraphs meant... well, they indicate specificities in the study design detractors may call "precautions that ensure that the VPX supplements are sitting pretty" ... I mean the exact same supplementation protocol performed on a bunch of veteran bodybuilders would probably not have elicited any measurable effects on body composition - keep that in mind when you interpret the results.

Now, it obviously should not surprise you that the protein (and leucine) loaden and creatine, beta-alanine spiked workout supplements outperform simple sugar water. It is thus more interesting to take another look at the data from the 2009 "NO Shotgun only"-study, Willoughby et al. have done (Willoughby. 2009). On the exact same training protocol, yet with only 27g of NO Shotgun or placebo 30min preworkout, the participants lost less body fat (-1.21%), but gained the exact same ~4% of lean mass and comparable increases in bench press and leg press 1RM (+8.82% and +18.4%, respectively).

Scientifically proven ingredients make scientifically proven products

I leave it up to you whether or not the results of this study will influence your next supplement purchase - after all, even the VPX guys will be aware that their supplements are not so unique that intelligent people like you would not be able to identify the key ingredients in their products (EAAs, hydrolized protein, creatine, beta alanine, some workout-boosting stimulants, etc.) and realize that there are way more than those two products which would probably have produced identically (within statistical margins) results, if, and here we've come full circle, if their respective manufacturers had the money and the balls to do scientific studies on their products.

Intermittent Thoughts on Intermittent Fasting - Finally Getting Started - Setting Yourself Up For Success!

Image 1: Socrates unquestionably did not look like he knew anything about intermittent fasting or physical culture, but he knew a lot about how to unlock the potential of his students.

In the last parts of the series you have learned so much about the biochemical underpinnings of how your diet and exercise regimen can change the way you look, feel and perform that you should by now have a general idea of why people, like Duong, "all of a sudden" drop tons of body fat, without having to resort to the still much-heralded combination of low-intensity-steady state "cardio" sessions and frequent low-fat high carb mini-meals. You should, however, also have grasped the idea that copying Duong's or Adelfo's regimen probably won't get you where you want to be. My intention thus is (and has always been) to teach you all the stuff you will need to find your own way... just as children will not learn to read if you just read books to them, you will never be able to constantly progress unless you totally surrender yourself to the advice of a highly paid personal trainer who babysits you 24/7 or - and I would assume that this is the way more desirable alternative - learn how to do his job on your own. In this installment of the Intermittent Thoughts and probably a few follow ups, I am thus going to "think" about how you can decide on the necessary steps you have to achieve your personal goals.

Do you want to know how to set yourself up for failure?

If I wanted to make it easy for me, I would follow the example of many health and fitness authors and provide you with a 3-10 item list of how you can "set yourself up for failure". This is easy, because you do not even have to know what works. It is enough to now what does not work. Yet even though there are much more things that don't work, than things that do work,  the word(s) "overeating" or even "constant overeating" would be totally misplaced on the list of "don'ts" of a skinny person who insists to do an intermittent fast and still wants to gain weight. Without "constant overeating" in the restricted feeding windows this is not going to happen.

Image 2: The new "MyPlate" is probably the most prominent example of moribund one-diet-fits-them all solutions (even if it was not intrinsically flawed, as well)

As you may notice, it gets pretty difficult for me, not to set you up for failure, even if I am providing advice that would be spot on for 90% of my readers. This is why I will not give you any answers, at all, but ask questions. I will ask questions that will enable you (based on the information of the future installments and concrete examples I will weave into future Intermittent Thoughts) to come up with the answers yourself - in didactics, this is referred to as a "socratic dialogue" (Rose. 2001), where the lecturer is trying to ilicit information from students through a direct line of reasoning... I suspect that this may sound counter-intuitive, after all it sounds as if it implied that you already know what the answers would be. That, however, is not the case. Socrates made his pupils discover for themselves things they could know - and that is fundamentally different from inquiring about things you do know.

Who are You and what do You want to achieve?

As I am doing it at the beginning of each semester with my real world students, the first thing I will ask you to do is to introduce yourself. What relevant information would you have to provide? Are you being fed up of being the fat or skinny kid, the girl or guy who is always just "a friend", the last one to be picked when you are playing football with peers, the pre-diabetic who got scared, when the doctor told him that if he did not start jogging and eating "healthy" *haha* whole grains will sooner or later be injecting insulin? If you do not have an answer to this question, yet, chances are you won't be able to help yourself make a change - and if you do not want to change, why are you even contemplating an intermittent fast?

Image 3: Are you sure "getting skinny" is really what you want, former fat kid?

Outside of the realm or professional athletics, the issue we are approaching right now is something that is commonly overlooked by many trainees and oftentimes not accordingly valued by their trainers (if they have any) - it is the complex interrelation of personal motivation and goals. Let's assume you were the "fat kid" all your life. Is you goal actually to "get skinny"? Probably not. And in case it is - just stop eating. If you take in enough fluid, and maybe a protein shake with some olive oil from time to time, you will probably live long enough to see a skinny image of yourself in the mirror, someday. Will this provide the social acceptance you have been longing for, all these years? I don't think so. It would rather have you descend deeper into the social abyss...

Why are you here? What is it that motivates you to "study" at the SuppVersity?

The first step in setting yourself up for success is thus to set an appropriate long term goal. I know that each and every one of you will tell me that he is "freakin' motivated" and "ready to do whatever it takes" to achieve his/her goals... so!? Then give me the elevator pitch of what you want to achieve... if it took you longer than 2 seconds to put your main goals into a single sentence, I must tell you that you have not yet taken the first and most fundamental step to set yourself up for success. Even the slightest doubts on your part as far as your goal is concerned will eventually become major obstacles on journey to a "new" or "better" you. That does not mean that your goals cannot change in the course of your journey (it is very likely that they will and in most cases it is even necessary), but if you were not sure, whether you want to go to Canada or to the South Pole, don't you think it would be better to stay at home, then?

Figure 1: Initial motivation (as assessed by the MPAM-R questionaire on a 7-point Likert scale) of male and female trainees going to a commercial gym and correlation (r-values) with adherence to the exercise program (adapted from Ryan. 1997)

Maybe it will help you if we take a look at what others set out to achieve. In a 1997 study, Richard M. Ryan and his coworkers at the Universities of Rochester and Southern Utah conducted a study where they asked 66 male and 89 female gym-goers for their personal motives and correlated this information on initial motivation with the subjects adherence to their respective exercise programs. The results are quite interesting, because although physical fitness and appearance were ranked highest, they showed the least correlation with the individuals adherence to the exercise program. In the case of "appearance" - my often-cited "I just want to look good naked" - there was even no (statistical significant) correlation at all. In other words, it did not matter how bad people wanted to improve their physical appearance - if this was their main motive to go to the gym. It did not help them to stay on track. Or as the scientists put it:

The implications of these findings [...] suggest that body-related motives are not, on average, sufficient to sustain regular exercise regimens, and thus should not be made the most salient justification for engaging in exercise.

Image 4: For Arnold (you know he is my favorite ;-) "the pump is like cumming ... like having sex with a woman" ... well, we all know how much he enjoys both, and it was the former joy, the one from the pump, him on track and made him succeed (still from video).

The scientists suggest that trainers & trainees would be better off if they emphasized "the inherent enjoyment associated with physical activity and/or the growth of competences that exercise promotes". Now, think about yourself and the people surrounding you. Think about the "losers" and the ones who had success. Do you see a pattern? Think about their faces when they come to the gym. Think about how they approach the weight stack. Think about what they say and how they respond, when you ask them: "What do you train today?" Do you see the pattern? Think of Arnold

Your muscle get a real a tight feeling [...] that's the pump [...] it feels different, it feels fantastic [...] it is as having sex with a women [...] I am cumming day and night ... it's terrific, I am in heaven (if you don't believe he said that, watch the video)

Do you see the pattern? Think of the fat lady that was holding on to the inclined treadmill, trampling away sweating, when you were doing your HIIT on the stair-master. Do you see a pattern?

Well, obviously both Arnold and the lady wanted to improve their physique. For the Governator, however, it was a necessary consequence of his life-style, a life-style that was based on doing what he loved to do. For the lady you saw on the treadmill, on the other hand, it was something alien - a physique "those other all have", something "nature has given those skinny anorexic chicks", something she "can work for as hard as she wants, but will never achieve". Be honest with yourself: Who are you? Arnold or the lady on the stairmaster?

Did I just hear you say that "it is not my fault, Dr. Andro!"?

Image 5: "Good" or "bad" this DNA helix is a part of your setup for success. Trust me - a few pathologic exceptions aside - it will only hinder your success if you lull yourselves into believing that it does.

From the fact that you did not head right to the gym to jerk... ahh I mean pump off ;-) I gather that you are not on the extreme "arnold'esque" side of the continuum - in other words: Things have not worked out the way you intended in the past, have they? You know what? That's your advantage! Thusly you save yourself at least a few of the 1001 mistakes that lurk on the way that lies between the "old" you and the "new" one... which reminds me: Do you already have your elevator pitch ready? What? You still "just want to look good naked"? Well, that is fine with me. Just be aware that even if you went to bed tonight, woke up the next morning, stood before the mirror in your bedroom and ... finally looked good naked, it will probably only take few weeks to restore your looks to your old "inner self", which obviously would not have changed, when the beauty fairy struck you with her magic wand in that fateful night.

You need to realize that whatever the central aspect of your motivational elevator pitch is going to be ...

• looking good naked (how do you define that?)
• never being called "skinny bitch/bastard", again (are you sure that is only an issue of how you look?)
• not being the fat guy/girl, any more (what do you think will change, then?)
• eventually get rid of the constant fatigue (could the fatigue be the result of trying to achieve unrealistic aims?)
• adding +20lbs of lean muscle to my frame (what will you have achieved then? will this be enough? or are you going to want more?)
• losing -50lbs of fat (is it just the figure on the scale you are looking for?)
• getting off your diabetes drugs (do you have an idea why you maneuvered yourself into this situation in the first place?)
• living into your 100s (do you just want to live long or is this more about good health into the old age?)
• and so on and so forth

 ... chances are, you would already be there, or at least on your way to achieve them, if there was not this one person that was standing in your way: YOU! No excuses! Taking responsibility for where you are at now, regardless of which "bad advice" you have been following or "how bad your genes" may be - your status quo is the foundation on which you are going to reinvent yourself - not just your training or your "diet". If that works out, patience and perseverance will be the only thing it will take you to eventually arrive, where you see yourselves in your elevator pitch.

Homework for the next installment: Post your elevator pitch

Figure 2: Robb Wolf once mentioned the "performance - health - longevity triple point" in one of his numerous insightful blogposts on his webpage. In essence the figure above expands on his idea: You obviously cannot max out on all of the items. Notwithstanding, all of them are attached to the very same life-style foundation and the practical overemphasis of any of them may have pathological consequence (Adonis complex, depression, drug addiction, obesity, anorexia, ...).

As a  "homework" I want you to fine-tune and post your elevator pitch in the comment section of this post. Not only will you thusly make yourself accountable for what you will feel, look and perform in a few weeks or months from now, you will also help me tailor the next parts of this series, which are going to deal with the actual "programming of success" by making appropriate life-style interventions, to your goals. So don't miss out on this chance and give the world a preview of what the characteristic feature(s) of the "new you" is going to be.

And don't forget, where you came from. Maybe you've just been straying around, because your present elevator pitch incorporates two or more of the partly diametrically opposed extremes in figure 2? Think about it. Have you ever seen an Olympic athlete partying 5 days à week, who goes to bed at 4am has pizza for "breakfast" at 4pm and improves the world record at 8pm? Probably not. So incorporating diametrically opposed extremes into your elevator pitch is about as much a no-go as having none at all, remember that before you go public - I mean, what would the world think if your plan to have french fries instead of the pizza and them perform a new world record fails?

Astragalus membranaceus: Purported Telomerase Activator Increases Exercise Capacity by +56%, Fights Cancer and May Be a Healthy Adjunct to Chemotherapy and Vaccines

Image 1: Astragalus membranaceus, one of the 50 fundamental herbs in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A purported telomerase activator that contains potent antioxidants.

There is hardly one month passing without some media reports about a group of scientists who supposedly found the royal route to health and longevity. With all those potentially life-extending drugs, herbals and nutritional supplements that have thus surfaced in the course of the last decades, it is actually almost surprising that we still die like flies, isn't it? Well, one possibility would obviously be that the scientifically-backed wonder-potions you can buy in the snake-oil shops all over the Internet do not work at all - impossible? I don't think so. Consequently, I was and still am very skeptical about the dubious claims about the "life-extending" effects of a patented Astragalus membranaceus (also Astragalus propinquus) extract - and that despite or, I should say, because of its "scientifically proven" effect on telomerase length in 114 older (63 +/-12 years) subjects. After all, the respective study was not only by the owner of the company which holds the patent for T-65(R), a (I quote) ">95% pure single chemical entity isolated from a proprietary extract of the dried root of Astragalus membranaceus" (Harley. 2011), but the authors (guess what all somehow involved in the sale of the product) also use several more or less clever tricks to polish their results. While they have to admit that

Two independent measures of median or mean telomere length (by FlowFISH and qPCR) showed no consistent change with time on PattonProtocol-1 (data not shown).

they cleverly handpicked 7 out of 13 tested subjects in which the percentage of nuclei with short telomeres had declined at 12-18 months compared to baseline. Now, while this decline may be statistically significant (p<0.05, according to the scientists), I wonder what happened to the other 6 subjects... and even if you were among those lucky 7, this does by no means indicate that that will actually prolong your life.

Who wants to live forever, anyway...

That I did nevertheless dig a little deeper into the research on astragalus had two reasons. One was that I wanted to find any other data on its potential effects on telomerase length - and more importantly its practical outcome in rodents or even my "favorite" subject of medical research, the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, or "C. elegans" (do I have to say that there are no such studies?). The other reason was that astragalus membranaceus has been used in Traditional Chinese Medicine for centuries. So, even if it would not make you live forever there obviously had to be some benefits to this flowering plant from the family of Fabaceae. And as it turned out, Chinese researchers have been performing numerous studies into its antioxidant, anti-diabetic, anti-hypertensive, and immunomodulatory activity within the last decades, of which a very recent one could be of particular interest for fitness enthusiasts and even professional athletes.

... isn't performance the only thing that counts?

Image 2: While this is not the exact model that has been used in the study, this is what "exercise" looks like if you are one of those poor lab rats... well, not so much different from what a whole host of trainers still suggest their clients should do to lose weight... but I am digressing, here ;-)

If you look at the sales-ranks of various dietary supplements, it is quite obvious that (potential) long-term effects on health and longevity usually stand second to immediate benefits like increased energy, well being, weight loss or exercise performance. "If you don't feel it, it doesn't work!" is the mantra of many fitness enthusiasts; a montra on which the manufacturers of purported fat-burners and pre-workouts, 99% of which are only caffeine, geranamine and yohimbine loaden stimulants, monetize big time. And as long as those cheap stims keep the sales of their products up, the producers obviously would be stupid if they changed their formulas and included more expensive "adaptogens" - chances are the customers would not be willing to pay the price, anyway. Accordingly, you won't find references to studies like the one Deng and Hu recently published in the Academic Journals on any of the labels of the currently available mainstream supplements (Deng. 2011).

In what they themselves claim is one of the few studies (to my mind the first to be published in an international journal) investigating the effects of Astragalus membranaceus polysaccharides (AMP) on exercise performance, the scientists from the Kunming University in China orally administered 50, 100 or 200mg/kg of previously extracted pure astragalus polysaccharides to 6-8 week old male Sprague-Dawley rats for 30 successive days. In the course of the last week of the experimental period the rats, who had been fed ad-libitum for the whole study period, were accustomed to running on a treadmill for 15-20min at 15-30 m/min (=0.9-1.8km/h), so that they would be able to perform an exercise test that consisted of running on a 10° incline (30m/min, ~75%VO2Max) until exhaustion on day 30.

Figure 1: Running time to exhaustion (in s, left) in rats who received either saline control or astragalus membranaceus polysaccharides at a dosage of 50, 100 or 200mg /kg per day and the extrapolated dose-response relationship (data calculated based on Deng. 2011)

As the data in figure 1 shows, the supplemental regimen, which had no effects on the body weight of the then 12-week old rats, significantly improved the running endurance of the laboratory animals. Interestingly, the extrapolation of the dose-dependency suggests that dosages above 300mg/kg (human equivalent ~50mg/kg) will probably not yield much better results than the 200mg/kg maximal dose that was used in the study (human equivalent ~35mg/kg).

Figure 2: Effects of astragalus supplementation on anti-oxidant enzymes after exhaustive endurance training in rats; values expressed relative to unsupplemented control (data calculated based on Deng. 2011)

The post-exercise glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) activity exhibits a similarly logarithmic dose-response relation (cf. figure 2). The decreases in malondyaldehyde (MDA), as well as the increase in superoxide dismutase (SOD), on the other hand appear to be almost linear. And, lastly, the lower increase in catalase (CAT) in the high dose astragalus group could be a consequence of the fact that, with GPH-Px and CAT both being responsible for the catalyzation of hydrogen peroxide to water, there simply was no need for additional cat activity, when the GPH-Px activity already increased by >100%.

If (the big if ;-) those results could be confirmed in human trials, the +56% increase in exercise endurance in the 200mg/kg (i.e. 35mg/kg for humans) of astragalus could in fact be the "next big thing" in terms of natural ergogenics. For the time being, it is yet only another item on the list of purported benefits, I am now going to conclude on another anon more health related note.

Beyond exercise performance: Cancer protection and immuno-modulation

While I initially voiced some doubts with regard to the purported longevity effects of astragalus, its relatively well-established anti-carcinogenic effects could well help many of us to substantially prolong our lives. After all, numerous studies have established the anti-cancerous activity of various natural constitutents of astragalus. Among the cancer cell lines that were tested were  

• colon cancer cells (Tin. 2007, Auyeung. 2010),  
• breast cancer cells (Zhou. 2009; Gülcemal. 2011),  
• cervical cancer cells (Yalcin. 2011), 
• human gastric adenocarcinoma cells (Auyeung. 2011),  
• human hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) cells  (Hu. 2009; Auyeung. 2009)

If you look a the publication dates and authors, you will notice that despite its longstanding tradition within TCM scientists have only lately begun to realize that we could have overlooked a vital contribution in the ongoing battle against cancer - and what's more, the studies are mostly done by TCM practitioners at the School of Chinese Medicine, who certainly ain't under suspicion to be interested in monetizing on a new drug. After all, natural medicine is not patentable.

From the petri dish to the bedside: APS improved quality of life in cancer patients.

Image 3: Astragalus has already proven its usefulness as an adjunct to the toxic cocktail cancer patients receive as part of their chemotherapy

In a first trial (Guo. 2011), the intravenous administration of astragalus polysaccharides (APS) at 250mg/day in connection with chemotherapy for 7 days lead to statistically significant improvements in the overall quality of life of advanced non-small-cell lung cancer patients. Personally, I find it most remarkable that it reduced the chemotherapy induced fatigue by >50% (as measured by a standardized Quality Of Life questionnaire). The objective response rate to chemotherapy was higher, as well: 42.64% (29/68) in the APS supplemented patients vs. 36.76% (25/68) in the control arm of the study, but these effects did not reach statistical significance (P = 0.483, indicating that chances are about 43% that this was just "conincidence").

In view of the immune-weakening effects of chemotherapy, it may also be important that astragalus has established anti-viral effects. It has been tested as an adjunct to interferon alpha-2b in anti-herpes therapy (Zhang. 1998) and against (chronic) hepatitis B infections (Wu. 2001; Dang. 2009) - the effects are yet rather mediocre and may be mediated by the same general immune-stimulatory effects of the herb (Block. 2003; Jiang. 2010). In this context, it is particularly noteworthy that a paper on herbal medicinces for viral myocarditis published in the reputable Cocraine Database of Systematic Reviews that ...

[..a]stragalus membranaceus (either as an injection or granules) showed significant positive effects in symptom improvement, normalisation of electrocardiogram results, CPK levels, and cardiac function.

And with the current vaccination-hysteria, we may soon see the practical realization of a proposal that has been made by Lin et al. in a recent paper on the effects of Astragalus polysaccharides (APS) on foot-and-mouth disease in swine (Lin. 2010), i.e. the addition of APS as an immuno-modulator for various vaccines (I guess it would certainly be better than mercury, don't you think ;-).

Conclusion: A promising herb... without a future?

Image 4: If all the info got you interested, Carl Lanore from Super Human Radio has recently sourced a bulk powdered version of astragalus. The bulk source is probably the only way not to run out of money before you notice any effects ;-)

Despite the accumulating evidence for the many health benefits that could be derived from the administration of crude extracts or isolated fractions of astragalus, chances that it will make it from Carl Lenore's Super Human Radio shop to the mass market are low ... or I should say non-existent, as long as the latter is still controlled by BigPharma and their right-hand men and women in the bureaucracy. After all, Astragalus membranaceus is not only non-patentable, it also does not appear to have any side-effects, the pharma companies could monetize on ;-) So regardless of whether future studies will validate or maybe falsify the hopes many naturopaths and TCM practitioners are pinning on this herb, MDs who follow the official guidelines, which state that the...

evidence for using astragalus for any health condition is limited. High-quality clinical trials (studies in people) are generally lacking (NCCAM. 2010),

will probably never prescribe it to their patients... unless, well unless some genius of a molecular biologist in one of the pharma-companies applies a few minor melcular tweaks to some of the active ingredients of astragalus, so that his company can file a patent application that goes beyond the extraction technique that has been patented for Harley's (questionable) T-65(R).

-16% Abdominal Fat on a Cornstarch Diet? No Problem If You Add 4 Teaspoons of Black Pepper to Your Meals!

Image 1: According to Wood et al. (1988) black pepper contains between 3-8% piperine. A teaspoon of black pepper would thus deliver have 60-160mg piperine, which would mean that you would have to swallow roughly 4 of those to get the fat loss effect (if it does translate to humans)

I don't know if you have realized it, but if you are taking any "high quality" dietary supplements, chances are that one of the minor ingredients on its label is "piperine", the alkaloid that is responsible for the pungent taste of black pepper. The reason, why manufacturers keep adding this spicy ingredient to their formulas is not its anti-oxidant potency, not its stimulating effect on the digestive enzymes of pancreas or even its ability to significantly reduce the gastrointestinal food transit time, no it is because piperine messes with the way your liver metabolizes drugs (piperine inhibits both the drug transporter P-glycoprotein and the major drug-metabolizing enzyme CYP3A4; Bardhwaj. 2002). Yet, while everybody seems to be freaking out about possible medical interactions of St. John's Wort, nobody appears to care about piperine... the credo seems to be "As long as it enhances the delivery of my curcumin it must be a good thing!" That it could as well enhance the bioavailability of a lot of other things, you'd rather have your liver clear from your system as fast as possible, is largely ignored, though.

Note: It always amazes me how scientists design their experimental diets. Usually we have those "high fat diets" that then turn out to be high fat + high carb (like 40% carb, 50% fat, 10% protein). So I was curious what a "high carbohydrate, high fat" diet (HCHF) would look like. Well, let me put it like that. I am not sure, whether the control diet that consisted of a meat-free rat and mouse feed (Specialty Feeds, Australia) that was mixed with cornstarch (yes, the devil! ;-) and water was so much "healthier" than the fattening HCHF diet where part of the cornstarch and the water was replaced with condensed milk, fructose and beef tallow... I mean, condensed milk and beef tallow do sound pretty good, and let's be honest even "normal" corn starch is probably not much better than pure fructose... what do you say? "Scientific Idiocy?" Well, I didn't say that ;-)

So far for the bad news. Now for the good one: A recent study from the University of Southern Queensland found that the addition of ~30mg piperine per kg body weight to the chow of 8-9 week old male Wistar rats, who were fed a high carbohydrate + high fat diet for 16 weeks (cf. red box above), ...

[...] reduced blood pressure, improved cardiac and liver structure and function, reduced oxidative stress, and attenuated inflammatory and metabolic changes induced by HCHF diet as compared to CS diet.

Moreover, the addition of 30mg/kg piperine (=4.86mg/kg for humans) kept the rats on the "typical Western diet" (high carbs + high fat) healthy, it also kept them reasonably lean and, more importantly, it also reduced the weight of the abdominal fat pads by -16% in the "control" (=high carb) group (cf. figure 1).

Figure 1: Changes in dietary intake and body composition of male Wistar rats receiving 30mg/kg piperine in their cornstarch (control) or high carbohydrate + high fat (HCHF); values relative to unsupplemented control (data calculated based on Diwan. 2011)

If you have a closer look at the dietary and body compositional data, I've compiled for you in figure 1, you will also realize that all that happened, although the rats who received the piperine in their chow consumed +7% (cornstarch) and +16% (HCHF) more calories than their peers. This is not only further evidence for the ludicrousness of the calories in vs. calories out hypothesis it also goes to show that the rats did not simply stop eating, because they felt that their chow was too spicy ;-)

Figure 2: Changes in inflammatory markers and anti-oxidant status of male Wistar rats receiving 30mg/kg piperine in their cornstarch (control) or high carbohydrate + high fat (HCHF); values relative to unsupplemented control (data calculated based on Diwan. 2011)

For those of you who are also interested in their health (for the general public, I often get the impression that looking good is more important for many than feeling good), it may also be worth to have a look at the changes in inflammatory markers and anti-oxidant status in figure 2. After all, the data indicates that the piperine supplemented animals exhibited statistically significant (* p<0.05) reductions in the high carb + high fat induced elevations in C-reactive protein (one of the few markers of which scientists still believe that it is a realiable predictor of heart disease), uric acid and reactive oxygen specimen. Moreover, the total antioxidant status of the HCHF + piperine fed rats improved and was not statistically different from the rats in the cornstarch group at the end of the 16 weeks treatment period.

A potential fat-burner with a bitter after taste

Although Kim et al. observed similar effects in another recent study on mice, who were fed the classic high-fat diet for 3 weeks (the study compared piperine to pipernonaline, and dehydropipernonaline, Kim. 2011), these positive results do yet still have a peppery, ahh... I mean bitter after-taste. Yes, piperine exerted beneficial effects on body composition in both groups and had ameliorated the negative effects of the high carbohydrate + high fat diet on inflammatory markers (most importantly C-reactive protein) and anti-oxidant status and thusly prevented fibrosis, inflammation, and the accumulation of mast cells in the heart and liver of the animal, BUT in view of the colorful poly-pharmacological OTC self-doctoring approaches of many of the self-proclaimed "health conscious" consumers, I am kind of worried that the addition of 400mg of piperine per day (that would be the HED for an 80kg human being) could have unpredictable consequences. That being said, I am not even convinced that we would see similarly profound effects in human studies. After all, it would not be the first "proven" fat burner that turns out to be a non-starter in human trials... if you insist on trying it, do me a favor and not mix it with a lot of other supplements or even medical drugs!

Adelfo Cerame - Road to The Wheelchair Nationals '12: Eggs, Chocolate Milk and Wheelchair Bodybuilding

Image 1: It's just a Halloween costume, but one that is absolutely fitting - in every sense.

I am honestly not sure on what note to introduce this week's installment of Adelfo's increasingly popular contest prep log - a funny or rather a dead serious one? I mean, even in the introduction to his very first post I have pointed out how inspiring not only his work ethic, but also his whole constructive attitude is. I mean look at him in his Halloween costume, what may look somewhat hilarious at first sight, is in fact dead serious (and you will realize that at least after reading the current installment of the contest prep series) - if you asked me, I would not be able to name someone else who would be more suited for the role of Thor, the hammer-wielding god associated with thunder, lightning, storms, oak trees, strength and the protection of mankind... and the fact that my Thor is sitting in a wheelchair, does just add to the freaky awesomeness of someone, I am proud to be call a friend.

Short-Term Protein Shortage and Other Obstacles

Wow it’s already November, Thor is back from Valhalla (cf. image 1) and the second months of my contest preperation for the 2012 Wheelchair Nationals begins. Things have gone quite well so Contrary to what you would expect, my strength and performance been increasing - I have been increasing my lifts by 5-10 pounds every week. The switch to escalating density training (cf. "Things Start to Escalate") is already paying off. I am getting stronger which each cycle - each week, a rep or two or a few pounds more on all major moves. 

Video 1: Click on the image to view Adelfo pump out an intense biceps + triceps EDT cycle (video by Adelfo Cerame, 2011)

EDT - a strong argument against superfluous body fat

While my strength is exploding, my waist is doing the exact opposite: It seems like I’m leaning out real fast - current waist circumference 30". Jeans which usually only fit, when I was way more into previous contest preps fit like a glove - now, more than 3 months out! I know that this would scare the hell out of many of my "colleagues" who would probably be afraid that they were losing too much muscle, but form me, it's a good thing. I don't feel that my arms, chest or back got flat (quite the opposite) and with Thanksgiving and Christmas just around the corner, being leaner will actually benefit me when I use those holidays for my designated cheat/carb load days. It’s always fun to have cheat and re-feed days when you’re lean and mean, because you can feel and moreover see (at least when you are back at the gym) how those carbs replenish your muscle ... but I’ll talk more on that on another segment when I do get leaner and actually start carb loading again.

A note by Dr. Andro: It is when you are "lean and mean", as Adelfo artistically put it, when you benefit (and even need) refeeds the most. With your insulin sensitivity maxed out and your adipose tissues almost empty, little aromatase converting your valuable testosterone into estrogen etc. this is the best time for an intermittent (high carb) overfeed that will set the anti-catabolic + protein synthetic machinery into overdrive and convince your body that he can, with a clear conscious, spend those last few triglycerides he has still held back for "the real bad times" in the course of your next intermittent fasts ;-)

Thor is back in the gym - not doing Hammer curls, though ;-)

Since pictures, and even more videos, usually say more than a thousand words and because I suppose that you are curious what exactly I am doing at the gym that produces these outstanding changes, I shot another video tonight (cf. video 1). It's a biceps + triceps EDT block [comment Dr. Andro: You can find the best exercises for biceps, triceps and all other body parts in the SuppVersity EMG Series]. The same fundamental concept as with the other body parts: You have 20 minutes, in the course of which you have to complete as many cycles of two given exercises as you can. Personally, I usually do 2-3 EDT block exercises every training session; and mostly, I end my workouts on a biceps and triceps block… well, you know, this is just my favorite ;-)

The calorie spiral starts turning

As I mentioned last week, this is going to be my first week with a slight caloric deficit. For the first month I stayed within my caloric maintenance just to see if my body would lean out or make any improvements. This month I’m going to drop down to 1900 calories/day, which would equal a 350 kcal deficit, which isn’t that much but things are going to well, currently that anything more than that would be plainout stupid. After all, I have repeatedly hinted at the advantage of being able to gradually drop your calories, whenever it becomes necessary in my previous blogposts... my whole contest prep is built around this idea - start early lean down gradually, but consistently and avoid the flattening crash at the end of the prep that cost so many aspiring bodybuilders their procard.

Recipe of the Week: Yet to be named Porky Potato Post Workout Meal: As you see, I have not forgotten last week's promise to have a recipe of the week in each and every of the upcoming installments of my contest prep log. This week's recipe is actually so brand new that I have yet to come up with a catchy name for it. It's easy to prepare and for me it is a post workout meal.

Image 2: Yet to be named Porky Potato Post Workout Meal

Ingredients:

• 2 lean pork loin chops (about 4 oz each)
• 4 oz sweet potato
• 6 baby carrots
• ½ cup cottage cheese
• 1 medium banana (about 3 oz)
• 1 tbs. honey

Macros: 48g protein/ 65g carbs/ 17g fat

A quick tip: Pork is naturally salty, so I don’t even season it with salt; I just use garlic, pepper and spices. And the banana and honey over the cottage cheese makes for a great dessert after the meal!

When you drastically cut calories, be that at the beginning or the end of your prep, this is like... juicing, when you are still a complete beginner... or like premature ejaculation, if you like that comparison, better. Drop your calories too low and you are done. There is nothing you can do anymore, when your body stops responding. So I'm going to drop as much body fat as I can with my 1900 calories and when I realize I'm hitting a wall, it will be time to drop down to 1800. And so on…

"If being able to buy a month worth supply of eggs for $25 ain't an argument for not investing another $60 into protein powder, what then? "

What is every bodybuilder's worst nightmare? Correct! Running out of protein. And guess what happened to me this very week? Correct! I ran out of protein. And since I don’t get paid till’ this Friday, this wasn't going to change for the rest of the week. I usually use protein to fortify my foods and include it as a drink with my whole food meals to help me reach my daily macros for protein. As I was browsing around through my local grocery store thinking about what other sources of protein I could possibly use - one that has a decent amino acid profile and is yet economical and won't turn me into an eunuch (so no soy, obviously ;-), my eyes fell on a five dozen eggs (for all mathematical geniuses out there, five dozen = 5x12 = 60) for $8 and some change! What better way to get your protein than from eggs? So instead of using a protein shake, I just popped a couple of these bad boys throughout my feeding hours to help me reach my macros for protein (I just take out the yolk if I would be missing my fat macros, otherwise)… that did actually work so well, that I am considering to to this in the future, as well. After all, the 5-dozen eggs lasted a little over a week.

Image 3: 5 dozen eggs for $8? And a gallon of chocolate milk for $4? Bodybuilder what else can you ask for? The protein supplements will have to take a back seat, for now.

I also started using low fat chocolate milk as my post workout shake (low fat, to avoid the slowing effect of the fat on protein & carb digestion). I was reading an article that Dr. Andro posted a while back (cf. table 2) about how chocolate milk was just as good a PWO shake as any other, so I figured" why not?" - I ran out of protein anyway.

And since we’re on the topic of budgeting and being economical, I decided to cut most of the raw meats out of my diet and stick to conventional cuts for the majority of my prep. In order to eat raw, the sources have to be the best quality such as grass-fed or cage-free, and along with quality (unfortunately) comes an expensive price. To me, who was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth, it just makes sense to spend $7 on 7 pieces of chicken breast, rather than $7 on 1 piece of grass-fed NY steak. I will still do raw milk and cheeses (and raw eggs from time to time) though. Fortunately, the place where I get my raw milk and cheeses hooks me up. And in case you are now thinking to yourselves: "Man that goes completely against his quality over quantity mantra", let me tell you this: Yes, I am downgrading the quality of my meats, but I still eat whole “nutrient dense” foods, I train everyday, and keep my calories and macronutrients in check, and right now that’s all that matters.

Competitive Wheelchair Bodybuilding

Image 4: Jason Greer took 2nd at the 1st 2011 IFBB Pro Wheelchair Championchips. Be honest, guys. If there is anything freaky about Jason, that it is his freakin' awesome physique and I am happy that RX Muscle covered the show pretty extensively and would love to see Dave Palumbo and the rest of the team vocer the NPC Wheelchair Nationals, as well (note: this is my = Dr. Andro's comment).

Now let's get to a much less depressing topic: Wheelchair Bodybuilding! For those of you that may not know, there is a small and growing community of bodybuilders that are in wheelchairs. We train and diet just as hard as our able body counter parts... well, I guess minus the legs ;-). We don’t roll on stage for pity claps, most of us train and diet hard and put our bodies through the grind of training and dieting year round. We look at ourselves as serious athletes in a sport we love to compete in.

The disabilities of the competitors range from multiple sclerosis over cerebral palsy, spina bifida to spinal cord injuries such as paraplegics and quadriplegics. The type of disability and level of injury eventually determine wheelchair bodybuilder's mobility and function: For wheelchair bodybuilders, who were injured above the waistline, for example, it is particularly hard to build their abdominal muscles. Other wheelchair bodybuilders have limited function on all four limbs, so they have to work twice as hard just to train and build muscle. Some can do certain exercises, others can’t. It just all depends on the disability and injury level. For those of who want to know more about us, I've compiled a few links:

• Biographic information on many of the currently competing wheelchair bodybuilders
• Weelchair Bodybuilding on Facebook
• Natural Wheelchair Bodybuilding on Facebook

For those of you that may be reading this and are in chairs and curious about competing or those of you who are interested in going to a show, here are the three major wheelchair bodybuilding competitions I know of...

• the NPC Wheelchair Nationals in Florida - taking place every march,
• the NPC USA’s in New Orleans - taking place in June, and
• the INBF Natural Buckeye in Ohio, which just started a wheelchair division last year. 

There are other shows and organizations that have wheelchair classes, but most of the time the competition is slim or - even worse ! - competition is just you against yourself and that’s no fun! In my first competition I was the only competitor and I hated the fact that I took first place by default! Lol. I’d rather lose to someone than take a 1st place trophy because I was the only competitor... but hey you know, neither of this is going to happen at the Nationals in Florida and if you want to know why, come back next week ;-)

L-Carnitine Works! Yet, Maybe More Subtly Than Thought: 1.2-5g L-Carnitine Increase Expression of Genes Implicated in Fatty Acid Oxidation, Glucose & Lipid Metabolism.

Image 1: This is you... well, not exactly. It's rather an animal model of human carnitine metabolis ;-)

As a faithful student of the SuppVersity it stands out of question that you have read my masterpiece *rofl* on the "Purported Ergogenics" in the "Amino Acids for Super Humans Series". You will thusly be familiar with the inconsistency of the mostly disappointing results of randomized, placebo-controlled trials. Whether it was for fat-loss, for increases in exercise performance or whatever else the producers of respective supplements promise would happen, when you buy and take their oftentimes profoundly underdosed supplements, in the absence of pathological (or severe dietary) carnitine deficiency the observed effects, if there were any, were negligible.

A soon to be published paper by Janin Keller and other researchers from the Institute of Animal Nutrition and Nutrition Psychology at the Justus-Liebig-University, in Gießen, the Institute of Agricultural and Nutritional Sciences at the Martin-Luther-University, in Halle-Wittenberg, and the Hans-Knöll-Institute, Research Group Systems Biology/Bioinformatic, in Jena (all in Germany, btw.), does now shed some light onto the more subtle, epigenetic effects of l-carnitine supplementation (Keller. 2011).

Image 2: The calculation of human equivalent doses is a constant (unreliable) pain in my ass - either you don't have the adequate conversion ratio or you do not know how much an animal eats. weighs etc...

Note: While my calculation (see below) indicates that the equivalent dose of the dietary enrichment used in the study should be ~4-5g, Keller et al. use a different method to calculate dose equivalents that is based on the ~500g of feed the pigs consumed per day. According to their calculation the daily dose of l-carnitine on a per kg body weight base for the piglets (final body weight: 17kg) was 15mg/kg body weight l-carnitine. If we now take a look at our conversion table (cf. table 1), where this specific type of big obviously is not listed, we probably have to divide that by 1.1 to get the Human Equivalent Dose - but since this is for "Mini pigs", we will just leave it with 15mg/kg and would thus have a dose of only 1.2g for an 80kg human being.

Keller et al. fed a group of 16 male crossbred pigs (body weight at study begin: ~10kg) a standardized diet with a naturally occurring amount of <5mg/kg carnitine. Half of the pigs, did receive additional 500mg/kg carnitine in their feed. In view of the fact that this effectively centuplicated (x100) the carnitine content of the diet, and considering the fact that the average human dietary carnitine intake ranges from ~47mg in men to ~30mg in women (Lennon. 1986), this would translate into an additional dose of roughly 4-5g of supplemental l-carnitine per day for humans. If you buy your carnitine in bulk (currently ~5$ per 100g) mimicking the supplement regimen used in the study would cost you about 25cents a day... but I guess before you do that you will rightly want to know what the potential benefits would be.

Figure 1: Liver free and total l-carnitine levels (in nmol/g) in growing piglets after 21-days of normal or carnitine supplemented feed (data adapted from Keller. 2011)

As you can see in figure 1 the liver of the animals literally squirreled the l-carnitine away (this could also be the reason, why most of the previously cited studies saw only transient increases in serum l-carnitine levels and almost no increases in muscular carnitine stores). An increase of +915% in free and +937% in total liver l-carnitine content is - I probably don't have to mention that - more than significant and was not without consequences... consequences of which scientists probably would not have even thought about 10 or even 20 years ago - epigenetic changes of which Keller et al. write:

we observed that 563 genes were differentially expressed by L-carnitine. This shows that supplemental L-carnitine influences gene expression in the liver of piglets and indicates that at least some of the biological effects of L-carnitine are mediated by altering gene transcription. [...] Gene term enrichment analysis revealed that the most frequent biological processes associated with L- carnitine supplementation were dealing with metabolic processes. This was not surprising considering that the main function of L-carnitine is to stimulate energy metabolism by acting as shuttling molecule for long-chain fatty acids which also enhances the metabolic flux of glucose through the glycolytic chain. This was also confirmed by clustering analysis showing that 6 out of the 10 top-ranked clusters were dealing with metabolic processes. Representative genes from one of these clusters dealing with metabolic processes (carboxylic acid metabolic process, oxoacid metabolic process, organic acid metabolic process) encoded proteins or enzymes involved in cellular fatty acid uptake (SLC27A6, solute carrier family 27/fatty acid transporter, member 6), fatty acid activation (ACSL3, Long-chain-fatty-acid-CoA ligase 3) and fatty acid β-oxidation (ACADSB, Acyl-CoA dehydrogenase, short/branched chain specific), and most of these genes including SLC27A6, ACSL3 and ACADSB were found to be significantly up-regulated by L-carnitine supplementation.

Moreover, the researchers found that a whole host of genes (e.g. GLUT8, GCK and GPD1 more than 4x elevated) related to glucose metabolism (glucose transport, conversion of glucose into glucose 6-phosphate, and glycolysis, and hexose biosynthetic processes, like gluconeogenesis) and triglyceride metabolic and triglyceride biosynthetic processes were elevated, as well. Taken together this lead the scientists to conclude that the epigenetic changes that were induced by 21 days of (relatively) high-dose dietary l-carnitine supplementation suggest that the "conditionally essential" amino acid l-carnitine

1. ... exerts its "well-known stimulatory effect [...] on fatty acid β-oxidation" at least partly by stimulating the transcription of genes involved in "cellular fatty acid uptake, fatty acid activation and β-oxidation"
2. ... has profound beneficial effects on glucose metabolism and utilization, which are mediated "not only by [a genetically triggered] stimulation of glycolysis but also suppression of gluconeogenesis in the liver", and
3. ... triggers genetic modifications which lead to an "inhibition of glycerolipid biosynthesis and stimulation of lipoprotein secretion and fatty acid catabolism", which contribute to its overall beneficial effects on lipid metabolism.

Now that you have all the facts, I'll leave it up to you to decide whether those "hidden" genetic changes are worth the 0.25$ (or 0.06$ if you use the 1.2g dose, cf. red box above) you would have to pay for your share of supplemental l-carnitine per day... and by the way: don't ask me if whatever other form of carnitine will do just as well, better or worse. This is a question only a separate study could answer!

Never(!) Sip Your Whey, If You Want to Kickstart Protein Synthesis. Over 60% Reduction in 1-5h Post Workout Protein Synthesis if You "Pulse" Your PWO Shake.

Image 1: The whey isolate used in the study - I guess as a scientists you just take whatever you get sponsored ;-) All jokes aside, any other whey isolate will do just as fine.

We all know, leucine is the magic amino acid that tells your muscles to ramp up protein synthesis. We also know that whey protein, which is made from the globular proteins the manufacturers isolate from the milky by-product of cheese production, is "the whey to go" if you do not want to ingest your leucine as a free-form amino acid or as part of a BCAA or EAA free-form amino acid blend. After all, whey is not only particularly rich in leucine (~14-15%), but also highly digestible. Well, at least this is what you are told to believe by the supplement industry... but how do we know that it is really the "speed" that makes a difference? After all, in all existing studies which compare whey to "slow digesting" proteins the absorption speed is not the only independent variable. Moreover, a recent study by Reitelseder et al. on the effects of post-exercise supplementation with 0.2g/kg body weight whey vs. casein could not find significant differences in the post-exercise protein synthetic response - and that despite the fact that whey is faster digested and does contain ~5% more leucine (Reitelseder. 2011).

A cleverly designed experiment that was (how else could it be ;-) conducted by Stuart Phillips' Exercise Metabolism Research Group at the Department of Kinesiology and Neurology at McMasters University in Hamilton, Canada, could hold the answer to the question, whether the speed with which the amino acids from your post-workout protein shake hit your body actually matters (West. 2011). Instead of using caserin or another slow-digesting protein source as control, Daniel W.D. West and his colleagues effectively eliminated all other possibly interfering variables, such as the exact amino acid composition, the carbohydrate and fat or vitamin and mineral content of the control beverage, by simply comparing the protein synthetic response to strength training (8 sets of 8-10 reps at 10RM on the bilateral leg extension machine) in 8 healthy men after bolus or pulsed (10x2.5g every 20min) ingestion of 25g of whey protein.

Figure 1: Mean serum blood concentration  (nmol/ml) of essential amino acids after bolus (red) or pulsed (blue) ingestion of 25g whey protein; * significantly (p<0.05) greater than pulse, # significantly (p<0.05) greater than bolus (data adapted from West. 2011)

While, obviously, the areas under the curve were identical for both the total essential amino acid (EAA), as well as the leucine serum levels in both groups, only the bolus ingestion of 25g of whey protein caused a significant spike (+122% over baseline, +45% over pulse) of total EAA and leucine levels about 60min post ingestion (cf. figure 1, the graph for leucine looks virtually identical). Conversely, there was a transient increase (+66% over baseline, +33% over bolus ingestion) in both serum EAA and leucine content 180min at the end of the pulsed ingestion.

Figure 2: Relative increases in mTOR phosphorylation (left) and myofibrillar fractional muscle protein synthesis rates (right) over fasted baseline after bolus or pulsed ingestion of 25g of whey protein (data adapted from West. 2011)

As the relative increases in myofibrillar fractional muscle protein synthesis rates (FSR over fasted baseline) in figure 2 (right) go to show, the spike and not the total amount of EAA/leucine over a given time period (as measured by the area under the curve) is what kicks the muscle protein synthetic machinery into gear. Even with the lower serum EAA levels at the ~3h (=180min) mark, both protein synthesis as well as mTOR-phosphorylation (figure 2, left) were still higher in the group who consumed their 25g of whey in a single bolus. So, even if your whey tastes so good that you feel like it would be a sheer waste to gulp it down all at once, you better ignore those moral objections if you want to make the most of your post-workout nutrition ;-)

Exercise the one and only "nutrient partitioner"

These results are obviously important, in that they substantiate the current practice of "getting your fast digested protein in right after exercise", what I personally did yet find even more revealing is the following remark that can be found in the extensive discussion of the results:

An intriguing and important divergence between our findings and reports in which aminoacidemia resulted in only a transient rise in MPS with infusion of amino acids or with amino acid consumption is that our results were postexercise. It appears that a unique aspect of resistance exercise is to selectively sustain elevated synthetic rates of myofibrillar proteins after protein consumption. In contrast to the effects of protein consumption alone at rest, the current results and our earlier work showed that the highest rates of MPS were observed at 3–5 h postexercise when aminoacidemia had subsided.

So, what am I preaching in each and every post? There is only one "nutrient repartitioner" which works: EXERCISE. Now, get your ass to the gym and save the money the supp companies want you to spent on dubious supplements which - even if they worked - don't give you any advantage over what you can accomplish with exercise alone for a container full of tasty whey protein isolate (which ought to be ingested in bolus portions of 25g, of course ;-).