No Time? No Excuse! Three Minutes (One Minute All Out, Only) Exercise Per Week Suffice to Increase One's Skeletal Muscle Oxidative Capacity and Improve Metabolic Health!

HIIT your weaker self hard, with a total of one minute all out cycling.

It's the most often heard excuse you get, when you ask your sick overweight neighbor if he'd like to accompany you to the gym to do something for his health, first, and his physique, second. "Ah, I don't have the time to work out!"

Obviously, this is a "perceived lack of time" that is not real for 99.9% of the people, even if we're talking about 30 minutes of exercise every other day. And even if it was not, the results of a recent study from the McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, will totally steal their non-existent thunder and provide you with convincing arguments to drag them to the gym for a quick HIIT session (Gillen. 2014).

Why? Well, as the headline of today's SuppVersity article says, the study shows that three (=3) minutes of all-out exercise per week (no typo or other mistake here!) will "Suffice to Increase Skelet al Muscle Oxidative Capacity and Improve Metabolic Health" (Gillen. 2014).

You can learn more about HIIT at the SuppVersity

Never Train To Burn Calories!

Tabata = 14.2kcal /min ≠ Fat Loss

30s Intervals + 2:1 Work/Rec.

Making HIIT a Hit Part I/II

Making HIIT a Hit Part II/II

HIIT Ain't For Everyone

Slackers, beware! The subjects of Gillen's study, fourteen overweight or obese men and women, who were recruited by poster advertisement from the McMaster Univerisity community, were not even as short in time as you were. While they still qualified as "sedentary based on their self-reported habitual physical activity", they actually did <2 data-blogger-escaped-u="">not "=zero" exercise sessions per week that lasted on average ≤ 30 min.

Participants were allocated into the male or female intervention group and matched for age, body mass index and VO₂ peak. The experimental protocol, itself consisted of familiarization and baseline testing that was followed by a 6 wk training intervention and post-training measurements. Over the course of the 6 week intervention period the subjects hit the gym only once a week, where they did

• 3x20 s all-out cycling efforts
• against a load corresponding to 0.05 kg/kg body mass,
• separated by 2 min of low intensity cycling (50 W)

The exercise was performed on an electronically braked ergometer (Veletron, RacerMate, Seattle, WA, USA). With the obligatory 2 min warm-up and 3 min cool-down at 50 W, the sessions lasted 10 minutes. That's more than just three minutes, but if you think about the exhausting part of the workout, only, it's actually not a three, not a ten, but a one minute workout.

Figure 1: Changes in BMI, parameters of blood glucose management (FPG - fasting peak blood glucose; FPI - fasting peak insulin; HOMA-IR, Gmax - maximal glucose levels in 24h; blood pressure (systolic & diastolic); MAP - mean arterial pressure; power output) in response to six weeks of once a week 3 min all out HIIT exercise (Gillen. 2014)

As you can see the once weekly workouts had a significant impact on both the parameters of glucose management and the cardiovascular and muscular fitness parameters (see Figure 1). The additional skeletal muscle biopsy samples the scientist obtained before and 72 h after training revealed that the above changes went hand in hand with an increase in maximal activity of citrate synthase and protein content of cytochrome oxidase 4 (p < 0.01, main effect) and increases in the maximal activity of b-hydroxy acyl CoA dehydrogenase in men only (p < 0.05).

All the aforementioned changes in protein expression will allow the participants to burn additional amounts of fat during exercise and at rest and could, in conjunction with the improvements in glucose management that was brought about by increases in GLUT4 glucose transporter activity on the muscle specifically, slow down their weight gain - in conjunction with dietary lifestyle changes, they would even favor fat over muscle loss.

If you've missed Saturday's HIIT vs. LISS efficacy comparison, check the article out now! And/or learn more about HIIT at the SuppVersity.

Bottom line: There is no debating, the "[s]hort-term interval training using a 10 min protocol that involved only 1 min of hard exercise, 3x/wk, stimulated physiological changes linked to improved health in overweight adults." (Glenn. 2014) Changes that may pay off in form of a handful of additional years on earth, if the subjects (a) stick to their new exercise protocol and (b) stop eating everything in sight, relatively indiscriminately.

Without dietary intervention, though, I am not sure if the relatively small amount of exercise will do anything but turn a profoundly unhealthy overweight individual into a slightly more healthy overweight individual. Moreover, it's unlikely that the protocol will produce similar benefits in lean, athletic individuals. For them it probably requires some more effort to stimulate fitness gains | Comment on Facebook.

References:

• Gillen, Jenna B., et al. "Three Minutes of All-Out Intermittent Exercise per Week Increases Skeletal Muscle Oxidative Capacity and Improves Cardiometabolic Health." PLOS ONE 9.11 (2014): e111489.

Acoustic Gear: The Right Music at the Right Time Can Double your Endorphin and Growth Hormone Levels, Increase Norepinephrine By +50% Over Baseline and Make You Feel Like the King of the Gym...

Image 1: Attention reading SuppVersity
posts and following respective advice may
have desirable ergogenic (side-)effects ;-)

Does your life rock? No? Did your last gym session suck? Yes? Well, maybe you just don't inject the right gear into your auricle (ear). We all know that listening to music can profoundly influence the way we feel. In the course of the last 20 years scientists from all around the world have been investigating how these musically triggered emotional changes relate to hormonal, neurocrine and even immunological changes and mechanisms and have found, time and again, that music "provides the simplest solution" for symptoms such as pain and hyperactivity, in the treatment of which, "[t]oday, an emphasis has been placed on pharmacological substances" (Gangrade. 2011).

Even the idea to substitute your stimulant-loaden preworkout supplement with a full dose of techno music is thus not as outrageous as it may occur to you, at first sight. Particularly in view of the cardiac effects (heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, cf. figure 1) of a single inter-auricular injection of 30 minutes of 1000 beats per minutes soundtracks from Cyber Trip, Techno Shock & Techno Magnetiko at a peak sound intensity of 70 dB 16 healthy 18- to 19-year-old received in a 1998 study by Gerra et al. (Gerra. 1998) would easily outperform the Jacked3Ds, SuperPumps and NoXPlode's from your local GNC.

Figure 1: Effect of 30 minutes of techno and classical music on heart rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure (data adapted from Gerra. 1998)

Have I gotten your attention, no? Well, what if I told you that the same techno beats also doubled the beta-endorphine and growth hormone concentrations of the subjects and increased your favorite 'lift-and-pump-catecholamine' noripenephrine by a whopping 50% (cf. figure 2)?

Figure 2: Relative (to baseline) neurotransmitter, catecholamine and hormone response to 30 minutes of techo vs. 30 minutes of classical music (data adapted from Gerra. 1998)

I see, now you're listening. A pros pos listening, did I mention that a hefty dose of H.W. Wenze or Ravi Shankar could possibly return the training-induced elevations of cortisol and noradrenaline back to baseline (Gangrade. 2011) and thus improve / accelerate regeneration. If you are a Japanese women, a proper way to further augment exercise recuperation would be to listen to some Japanese children's folk songs sung in English by Susan Osborn in order to ramp up your testosterone by ~20%, if you are a man, you would probably be better off with Ozzy or another Osborn, as the Japanese children's folk songs decreased the testosterone levels of male subjects in a 2003 study by Fukui & Yamashita (Fukui. 2003) by at least >12%!

As far as the immediate effects on exercise performance are concerned, it is interesting to note that Brownley, et al. (Brownley. 1995) in a 1995 study found that trained and untrained athletes react very differently to music with different tempos. In their conclusion the authors claim that

[c]ollectively these  results  suggest  listening  to  fast,  upbeat  music  during  exercise  may  be  beneficial for  untrained  runners  but  counterproductive  for  trained  runners.

If you feel beat up and don't want to go to the gym today, I suggest you you immediately get your daily dose of intra-auricular Tiger eyes by clicking on the YouTube video above;-)

While this statement is in line with the subjective exertion the subjects reported after about half an hour on the treadmill, it is slightly incorrect, if you judge the athletic performance by the time to exhaustion, which was maximal, in both groups, under the 'fast music' condition (fast  music  included  contemporary  pop,  rock,  and  movie  sound track  selections  standardized  within  a  tempo range  of  154-162  beats/min).

And although scientists still argue whether the emotional changes trigger the endocrine responses or vice versa, I would suggest you get your iPod ready, select your favorite catecholaminergic techno songs for your workout and download a handful of the anti-catabolic Classics to consume them with your post-workout protein shake ;-)

Fish Oil W/ High Peroxide Levels Is Useless and Can Negate the Beneficial Health Effects of an Omega-3 Rich Diet. Plus: 3 Tips to Help You Make the Right Fish Oil Choices

This describes the problem quite perfectly. You would never eat rancid fish - trust me, if you did it would take the same way out, it went in. Try the same with rancid fish oil caps and you will at best suffer from burping. Could be a sign your some of the "real fish" that stinks and warns you that a fish is rancid is still left in your oil, but I don't have a study to prove that.

Carl mentioned it on the Science Round-Up, but we did not really get to it, so I thought it would make a nice headliner for the weekend. A headliner, of which I have already pointed out that I doubt it will be responsible for the prostate cancer issues with fish oil (see Thursday's news). It does, allegedly, sound logical that the consumption of oxidized (=rancid) fish oil would precipitate the development of cancer, but it is not logical why this would happen in the prostate, yet nowhere else.

On the other hand, rancidity could, as this recent study from the  Miguel Hernandez University in Spain goes to show you, well negate the beneficial effects I enumerated at the end of the previous article and what's particularly nasty about the whole business is that it's hard or rather impossible to spot, whether your fish oil is rancid. With real fish you would start to vomit it up again, as your body knows that the smell and taste, which is largely due to components that have been filtered during the industrial manufacturing process of fish oil, is not good for you.

There is no rancid fish protein left in rancid fish oil - that's the problem

It is thus no wonder that popping the highly oxidized (=totally rancid) fish oil caps was not much of a problem for the 57 female participants of the study at hand. The women all suffered from dyslipemia (250–300 mg/dL and TG 160–175 mg/dL), but did not yet receive any medical treatment. During the one-month intervention period, all participants attended face-to-face training sessions, receiving instruction manuals that included a personal sample meal plan, recipes and information regarding physical activity. Body weight, height and blood pressure were repeatedly measured under standard conditions.

More importantly, the ladies followed similar dietary regimen with an overall energy intake of ranging from 1900 to 2000kcal/day. The meal planning included seven different daily "fish meal" options (macros: see table 1). Each meal option contained a dish of fish distributed as follows:

• 

  Table 1: Composition of the standardized hypocholestorolemic diet (Garciá-Hernandéz. 2013)

  Day 1: 120 g of sole for dinner,
• Day 2: 115 g of hake for lunch, 115 g cod for dinner, 
• Day 3: 120 g of swordfish for dinner,
• Day 4: 120 g of monk fish for dinner, 
• Day 5:120 g of salmon for dinner, 
• Day 6: 250 g of mullets for dinner and
• Day 7: 105 g of tuna for lunch, 105 g hake for dinner

You can see the daily intakes of long-chain omega-3 fatty acids in table 1. The daily energy expenditure was estimated according to Harris– Benedict equation.

Now I do agree, this does at first sight not look exactly like your typical supplement study and you are right. In my humble opinion the overtly healthy baseline diet and even more so the high amount of fish is a major design flaw, which will obviously reduce the validity of the results in a real world Western diet scenario.

Healthy diet + rancid fish oil = negative effect

In this scenario there are almost no intact omega-3 fatty acids in the baseline diet to counter the potential negative effects of rancid fish oil, so that the it is all the more remarkable that the scientists were still able to observe significant interferences with the blood pressure lowering and cholesterol normalizing effect of the fish oil in their study (see figure 1; additional benefits on BMI & co were not observed, by the way).

Figure 1: Rel. change in glucose, total cholesterol and systolic & diastolic blood pressure (Garcia-Hernandez. 2013)

If you scrutinize the data you will recognize that the dietary change alone yielded albeit non-significant reductions in total cholesterol, for example, that were actively reversed by the ingestion of 2 fish oil caps/day with a rather mediocre oxidation level of 47.67meq/kg, which is ~50% of the highest levels the researchers found in their batches of commercially available fish oil products and ~3x more than in the oils the other group received (peroxide level: 16.98meq/kg).

So how rancid is commercial fish oil, after all?

These differences actually lead us to the different peroxide levels of the fish oils Garcia-Hernandez et al. analyzed before and after 6 months of storage. As it is common practice, the authors don't encoded the products with numbers. So it is probably not useful for you, if I tell you that the fish oil with the lowest peroxide level in the study was #4. It had a peroxide index of 15.1meq/kg and contained 175mg of EPA and 125mg of DHA per serving. The most significant and at least for me surprising result of this part of the study is therefore the fact that ...

Figure 2: Fish oil does go rancid over time, vitamin E just turns an exponential into a linear process (Kulas. 2001)

"[...a]ll brands presented similar peroxide index after 6 months compared to time 0, indicating that the quality of the initial product rather than storage conditions was the main determinant in the oxidation of encapsulated oils.

This observation can be explained by the use of antioxidants in the moment of encapsulation. The majority of the brands, when indicated, reported the addition vitamin E (ranging from 0.5 to 10 mg/capsule) and some of them (five brands) used vitamins A (ranging from 375 to 1500mg/capsule) and D (ranging from 0.2 to 10mg per capsule)."  (Garciá-Hernandéz. 2013)

In other words, contrary to what I claimed on the Science Round-Up, storage (out of the sun, cold, etc.) does not seem to pose such a great risk for oxidation. At first this struck me as being quite odd. Not because I am infallible, but rather because it contrasts the data in figure 2, which shows the results of a 2001 study by Kulas & Ackman in the course of which they tested the oxidation rates for fish oil with different forms of vitamin E that were stored protected from sunlight, but at 30°C (obviously not optimal, but not unrealistic in the warmer climates, either).

It's the oxygen exposure during storage that makes the difference

There is yet one significant difference I did not take into consideration at first and that's the lack of oxygen exposure, when the fish oil is properly encapsulated. Contrary to the caps the Spanish researchers had bought, the fish oil in the Kulas study was stored in a brown, yet not air-tight bottle. It's quite obvious that the oxidation process will stop, once all the oxygen that may have been inside the caps has been "consumed". So that it appears plausible to assume that your fish oil, as long as you buy it in caps and not in a bottle, will last a couple of months without going even more rancid than it was, when it left the manufacturing plant.

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Suggested read for all of you who are now considering to switch from fish in capsules to real fish: "Making the Right Fish Choices" (read more)

Bottom line: So, the good news is, if you store your caps properly (best, but not necessarily in the fridge and protected from the sunlight), it's not your fault, when they are rancid. The bad news is however that your fish oil can very well already be rancid enough to lack any measurable benefits once you buy it and may - in the worst case not improve, but worsen blood lipids , even if you are, like the ladies in the study at hand, already getting plenty of good omega-3s in your diet - even in that case, the two rancid fish oil caps per day won't kill you, though... I guess ;-)

So what can be done? If you still want to take your beloved fish oil? Well, one thing should be obvious: (A) Don't buy bottled fish oil! Whenever you open the bottle you'll restart the oxidation process. Another thing you may do in case you insist on supplementing with fish oil instead of simply eating fish, is to (B) buy fish oil from a supplier who has the peroxide index of the final product controlled for each batch by an independent lab. And (C) chew your fish oil caps! While the taste is not as bad as with rancid fish, you still got a chance to identify whether your fish oil is rancid - if it has not or not totally been cleansed. In fact, a 1975 study by Huss et al. suggests that the highest "acceptable" (=does not taste off) peroxide index for crude (not processed) fish oil is only 7-8meq/kg, which happens to be less than the "best" fish oil in the study. So, in case "your" fish oil doesn't just taste like dead fish, but rather like dead fish after being stored in the heat for weeks, you better try to find another source.

References:

• Djoussé L, Gaziano JM, Buring JE, Lee IM. Dietary omega-3 fatty acids and fish consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes. Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Jan;93(1):143-50. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.110.005603. Epub 2010 Oct 27.
• García-Hernández VM, Gallar M, Sánchez-Soriano J, Micol V, Roche E, García-García E. Effect of omega-3 dietary supplements with different oxidation levels in the lipidic profile of women: a randomized controlled trial. Int J Food Sci Nutr. 2013 Jul 18. [Epub ahead of print]
• Huss HH. 1975. Principal changes during storage wet fish FAO/DANIDA training course on quality aspects in the handing and storage of fish 4, Copenhagen (Denmark), Rome (Italy): FAO, 15p.
• Kulås E, Ackman RG. Different tocopherols and the relationship between two methods for determination of primary oxidation products in fish oil. J Agric Food Chem. 2001 Apr;49(4):1724-9.

The Ergogenic Effect of Nonalcoholic Beer Front- & Back Loading + 15 Beerish Health Facts Everyone Should Know

Image 1: Erdinger Weißbräu Alkoholfrei your first choice for peri workout isotonic carbohydrate supplementation!?

Where else, if not from Germany, "The Land of Beer and Weißwurst" as it is falsely perceived by the average foreign Oktoberfest visitor, could the data for a study on the ergogenic effects of nonalcoholic beer originate from? In their recently published paper Johannes Scherr and his colleageas from the Department of Prevention and Sports Medicine at the Klinikum rechts der Isar of the Univerisity of Munich report that a 'forntload + post-supplementation' strategy (3 weeks before, 2 weeks after) with 1-1.5l/day of Erdinger Weißbräu Alkoholfrei led to statistically significant reductions in post-race total blood leukocyte counts (-9%) and interleukin-6 (-24%) and 66% lower incidence of upper-respiratory tract infections in the 58 beer-drinking subjects (age: 36-51y), when compared to their 63 peers(age:35-49y) who received an isocaloric control beverage, which differed from the beer only in terms of its polyphenol content (Scherr. 2012).

It's not all about Erdinger Alkoholfrei  - 15 Beerish Health Facts You Should Know

In fact, the ergogenic effects Scherr et al. observed in their most recent study are probably nothing but one of the manifold downstream effects of the nutrient dense non-alcoholic fraction of 'amber nectar', which consists of a whole host of bioactive ingredients with at least as many, mostly beneficial health effects (the following is in part based on Sohrabvandi. 2010; where other references were used, additional references are provided):

How exactly is nonalcoholic beer produced?

• Fermentation-free brewing and dilution procedures won't produce results European or US costumers will be happy with, therefore it is mostly used in Islamic countries
• Alcohol removal by vacuum destillation, adsorptive alcohol removal, dialysis, reverse osmosis, or osmotic distillation
• Restricted alcohol fermentation uses yeast that can only partially ferment the wort or represses or interrupts fermentation by applying different compositional and/or process procedures (interrupted fermentation technique)
• Fermenting with GMO bacteria which lack the alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) enzyme and produce no or minimal amonts of alcohol.
• Reducing fermentable fractions / glucose content in wort by adjusting the concentration of sugar in the primary formulation so that no considerable sugar residue remains after the restricted fermentation period.
• Heating or pressurizing the wort to inactivate yeast cells and inhibit the subsequent alcoholic fermentation, as soon as the desired flavor profile of the wort was achieved

Note: The beer in the study at hand was brewed under tightly controlled temperature (the exact method is apparently a company secret, though).

• has potentially blood pressure lowering effect due to high potassium to sodium ratio (typically 4:1) 
• is relatively rich in magnesium and to less extent in phosphorous
• contains glutathione precursors and co-factors zinc, copper, selenium and amino acids
• features physiologically active immuno-modulatory peptides and proteins
• has 35+ phenolic compounds (about 80–90% from malt and 10–20% from hops)
• may prevent and improve obesity and type-2 diabetes, improve lipid metabolism, and suppress atherosclerosis due to beneficial health effects of the bitter substances in hops (Kondo. 2004)
• has been shown to improve sleep and lactation in women; probably due to bioactive molecules from hops (Koletzko. 2000; Franco. 2012)
• contains folate and glycine betaine which exert antimutagenic effects and reduce homocysteine
• has up to 6.2g fiber per liter
• its β-pseudouridine content may protect against radiation damage (Monobe. 2003)
• contains silicic acid which increases renal excretion of aluminum (Aluminum has been associated with age related diseases and neurodegeneration; cf. Krewski. 2007)
• is associated with higher hip mineral density in older men who drink 2 regular beers/day; probably due to its silicon content (Tucker. 2009)
• provides more antioxidants per day than wine to the U.S. diet (Vinson. 2003)
• exerts anti-oxidative effects on lipoproteins (=cholesterol) which are superior to that of its vitamin & antioxidants, alone (Vinson. 2003)
• unfortunately, allegedly gluten-free barley based beers contain significant amounts of hordein (=gluten) and are not suitabe for patients with celiac disease (Colgrave. 2012)

Now compare that to your average energy drink, which - as you should by now be aware of - may deliver zero fat calories and will still add 18g /day of body fat right to your frame, when consumed on a daily basis (cf. "Fat Content Per Energy Drink 0g, Body Fat Gain Per Energy Drink 18g!")

Image 2 (FOX): Homer always knew what Schütze et al. confirmed in 2009: "Beer consumption leads to [waist circumference] gain [...] closely related to overall weight gain. This study does not support the common belief of a site-specific effect of beer on the abdomen."

Implications: In view of the fact that carbohydrate supplementation is still common practice among endurance athletes, I don't see why a refreshing nonalcoholic beer (1.5l of Erdinger Weißbreu Alkoholfrei contain 375kcal and ~75g of carbohydrates)  that has been brewed according to the German purity law should not be at least as good as one of those sugar-laden electrolyte drinks or gels with artificial colorings and what not.

Moreover, the relatively high phenolic content of the beer (~400 mg of gallic acid equivalents per day), of which Scherr et al. speculate that it was the underyling reason for the observed benefits, could render the use of other polyphenolic supplements obsolete, save you money and keep you healthy and sane, as only few people are like me don't like the taste of beer and can thus sit in the Biergarten with nothing but plain water, while their friends hoist brew after brew... although, when I come to think about it: Maybe I should order some Erdinger later today? *rofl*

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Note: The study was financed from a fund that was established by the Erdinger Weissbraeu, Werner Brombach GmbH. Contrary to some other researchers Scherr et al. do yet openly disclose the funding and state that "the funders had nodirect role in the study’s design, conduct, analysis, interpretation of data, and reporting" - and before you start lamenting, now, think about who finances and conducts the studies on pharmaceuticals...

References:

• Colgrave ML, Goswami H, Howitt CA, Tanner GJ. What is in a beer? Proteomic characterization and relative quantification of hordein (gluten) in beer. J Proteome Res. 2012 Jan 1;11(1):386-96.
• Franco L, Sánchez C, Bravo R, Rodríguez AB, Barriga C, Romero E, Cubero J. The sedative effect of non-alcoholic beer in healthy female nurses. PLoS One. 2012;7(7):e37290. Epub 2012 Jul 18.
• Koletzko B, Lehner F. Beer and breastfeeding. Adv Exp Med Biol. 2000;478:23-8. Review.
• Kondo K. Beer and health: preventive effects of beer components on lifestyle-related diseases. Biofactors. 2004;22(1-4):303-10.
• Krewski D, Yokel RA, Nieboer E, Borchelt D, Cohen J, Harry J, Kacew S, Lindsay J, Mahfouz AM, Rondeau V. Human health risk assessment for aluminium, aluminium oxide, and aluminium hydroxide. J Toxicol Environ Health B Crit Rev. 2007;10 Suppl 1:1-269.
• Monobe M, Arimoto-Kobayashi S, Ando K. Beta-pseudouridine, a beer component, reduces radiation-induced chromosome aberrations in human lymphocytes. Mutat Res. 2003 Jul 8;538(1-2):93-9.
• Scherr J, Nieman DC, Schuster T, Habermann J, Rank M, Braun S, Pressler A, Wolfarth B, Halle M. Nonalcoholic beer reduces inflammation and incidence of respiratory tract illness. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2012 Jan;44(1):18-26.
• Schütze M, Schulz M, Steffen A, Bergmann MM, Kroke A, Lissner L, Boeing H. Beer consumption and the 'beer belly': scientific basis or common belief? Eur J Clin Nutr. 2009 Sep;63(9):1143-9. Epub 2009 Jun 24.
• Sohrabvandi S, Mousavi SM, Razavi SH, Mortazavian AM, Rezaei K. Alcohol-free Beer: Methods of Production, Sensorial Defects, and Healthful Effects, Food Reviews International. 2010;26:4, 335-352
• Tucker KL, Jugdaohsingh R, Powell JJ, Qiao N, Hannan MT, Sripanyakorn S, Cupples LA, Kiel DP. Effects of beer, wine, and liquor intakes on bone mineral density in older men and women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2009 Apr;89(4):1188-96.
• Vinson JA, Mandarano M, Hirst M, Trevithick JR, Bose P. Phenol antioxidant quantity and quality in foods: beers and the effect of two types of beer on an animal model of atherosclerosis. J Agric Food Chem. 2003 Aug 27;51(18):5528-33.

On Short Notice: EPO Reduces Mitochondrial Biogenesis, Excess Zinc Raises BP + Impairs Insulin Clearance, ALA + UDCA "Cure" NAFDL, Earthing, Estrogen & Your Heart ...

Image 1: 2h of earthing would certainly solve this problem just as they seem to reduce the risk of developing blood clots,  by the way (see below)

I thought I could try something new today and just give you a brief research update on stuff that would otherwise not necessarily make it to the SuppVersity, because it is not really worth writing a whole blogpost on it. Please make sure you let me know whether or not you like this format. I am open to comments of all sorts and suggestions on whether to continue posting things like this; on the respective frequency; on whether or not you want stuff in more detail and so on and so forth... You know that I am writing this blog for no-one else, but YOU, so take this chance and give me some feedback to allow me to tailor things even more to your demands. But enough of that, let's get to the studies for today :-)

EPO treatment reduces mitochondrial biogenesis...

...in  fast twitch-muscle fibers, only! Vladimir E. Martinez-Bello and his colleagues from Spain and France (yeah, the Tour de France has just begun ;-) have found that after no more than 3-weeks of thrice weekly subcutaneous administration of 300IU of rHuEpo, the expression of PGC-1α, mTFA and cytochrome c in the fast-twitch muscles of the gastrocnemius were significantly reduced (Martinez-Bello. 2012).

Figure 1: Changes in haemoglobin, haematocrit, and reticulocytes (colored large graph) and expression of enzymes involved in the mitochondrial biogenesis pathway in gastrocnemius muscle (black-and-white small graph) before and after 21 days of rHuEpo or saline administration (Martinez-Bello.2012)

If you take a look at figure 1 you could certainly argue that this is a simple consequence of the increase in haemoglobin, haematocrit and the rediculocyte count and the subsequently increased oxygen delivery to the target muscle. Unfortunately, that does not really make sense, since that should be all the more important for the highly oxygen-depended slow twitch muscles in the soleus, where the expression of neither of the three enzymes changed. So, as Martinez-Bello et al. say "further studies are needed to address and clarify this issue as well as to establish accurate biological mechanisms". This may also explain the fact that the treatment did not ellicit any changes in maximal aerobic performance, something you would actually expect as a mechanistic consequence of the EPO-induced increase in oxygen transport.

Too much zinc can increase blood pressure by compromising kidney function 

You already know that the long-term ingestion of high doses of zinc can set you up for insulin resistance and diabetes (cf. "Zinc: 15mg Are Plenty - After 120 Days Rodents on Diets Containing 2xRDA of Zinc Develop Metabolic Syndrome"). According to another recent study from the Health Science Center, Saitama Medical University in Japan (Kasai. 2012), excessive zinc intake can reduce renal function and thus indirectly elevate in blood pressure.

Figure 2: As you can see, the compromised kindey function did not just lead to profound increases in blood pressure, it also reduced the insulin clearance by >20% and > 40% (based on Kasai. 2012)

And if you take a closer look at the effects the diets that contained 10x (for humans 10x above normal is "only" 150mg/day, something I have in face seen as a recommendation for "natural testosterone bosting" on some of the boards) and 40x the normal amount had on insulin clearance within after no more than 4-weeks, it becomes clear that in addition to the previously mentioned increased nutrient absorption the inability to clear insulin from the blood may have been an additional factor which contributed to the progression of insulin resistance, Tenaja et al. observed in their study (see "Zinc: 15mg Are Plenty"; Taneja. 2012)

400mg of ALA + 300mg of UDCA + diet = good bye NAFLD

Pretty impressive data comes from a recent human trial on non-pharmacological interventions in patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (Gianturco. 2012). As the data in figure 3 goes to show the combined effects of a colorically reduced diet (1,200kcal/day for women, 1,500kcal/day for men) with a macronutrient ratio of 26% fat (5% polyunsaturated, 14% monounsaturated, and 7% saturated), 25% protein, and 49 % carbohydrates, 400mg of alpha lipoic acid (ALA) and 300mg of ursodeoxycholic acid, a bile acid that is also known as ursodiol, led to profound  improvements in all markers of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Figure 3: Changes in characteristic markers of liver health after 12 months on a hypocaloric diet with and without supplementation of ALA and/or UDCA (Gianturco. 2012)

What is particularly remarkable, though, is the fact that these pronounced improvement took place in the absence of significant weight loss changes in blood glucose, insulin, HOMA-IR or triglycerides. In other words: It was not a side effect of improved weight loss, increased insulin sensitivity or the restoration of a healthy fatty acid metabolism. And what's best about all it: The treatment was side effect free!

On ultra-short notice

Image 2: It may be debatable whether or not running around in the dark is the ideal form of aerobic exercise, in terms of it's effects on your hemoglobin, platelet, etc. counts it does yet not make a difference when you train.

• Your blood does not mind, when you train - Time of the day has no effect on impact of maximal aerobic exercise on haematological parameters (hemoglobin, platelets, erythrocytes, and leukocytes) immediately after, and two hours after the exercise (Shahidi. 2012)
• "Earthing" could help reduce blood clotting - A "groundbreaking" *rofl* study by Chevalier et al. reveals that 2h of sitting quietly in a room grounded with conductive patches on the soles of your feet and palms of their hands (patches must be connected to stainless-steel rod inserted in the earth outdoors) you can reduce the zeta potential (charge of your red blood cells) and thus reduce their potential to form blood clots (Chevalier. 2012)
• Sunscreen from within? Coffee could hold the answer! - Although this is exclusively based on epidemiological data, it's interesting that Song et al. report that an increased caffeine intake appears to protect to against Basal cell carcinoma of the skin (Song. 2012). Men and women who consumed more than 3 cups/d had the lowest risk (10% and 21% lower than people who consumed only 1 cup or less). And while caffeine from other dietary sources (tea, cola, and chocolate) had similar effects, there were no benefits associated with the consumption of decaffeinated coffee.
• Estrogens protect against cardiac hypertrophy - If you are a friend of OTC or pharmacological estrogen eradication, you should be aware that the results of a recent study from the University of Colorado suggest that estrogen has preventive effects against pathological hypertrophy of the heart (Haines. 2012). And while this could explain why some of the non-aromatising anabolic steroids have more pronounced cardiovascular side-effects it should be mentioned that the study was conducted on female aromatase knockout mice and does therefore not necessarily translate 1:1 to humans, let alone men... the 2x increase in cardiac hypertrophy, on the other hand, is so pronounced that I would think twice whether or not it really is necessary to rid yourself from as much estrogen as possible, after all it appears to play an important role in skeletal muscle growth and repair, as well - see "Intermittent Thoughts on Building Muscle: Estrogen, Friend or Foe of Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy?"

References:

1. Chevalier G, Sinatra ST, Oschman JL, Delany RM. Earthing (Grounding) the Human Body Reduces Blood Viscosity-a Major Factor in Cardiovascular Disease. J Altern Complement Med. 2012 Jul 3.
2. Gianturco Y, Troisi G, Bellomo A, Bernardini S, D’Ottavio E, Formosa V, Lo Iacono C, Verrusio W, Marigliano B, Marigliano, V. Impact of combined therapy with alpha-lipoic and ursodeoxycolic acid on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: double-blind, randomized clinical trial of efficacy and safety . Hepatol Int. 2012 Jul 3.
3. Haines C, Harvey P, Leinwand LA. Estrogens Mediate Cardiac Hypertrophy in a Stimulus-Dependent Manner. Endocrinology. 2012 Jul 3.
4. Martinez-Bello VE, Sanchis-Gomar F, Romagnoli M, Derbre F, Gomez-Cabrera MC, Viña J. Three weeks of erythropoietin treatment hampers skeletal muscle mitochondrial biogenesis in rats. J Physiol Biochem. 2012 May 25.
5. Kasai M, Miyazaki T, Takenaka T, Yanagisawa H, Suzuki H. Excessive Zinc Intake Increases Systemic Blood Pressure and Reduces Renal Blood Flow via Kidney Angiotensin II in Rats. Biol Trace Elem Res. 2012 Jul 4.
6. Shahidi F, Alhosseini SLN, Kandi YNMP.  The Effect of a Maximal Aerobic Exercise Session in the Morning and Afternoon on Certain Hematological Factors in Young Athletes. Annals of Biological Research, 2012, 3 (6):2703-2707
7. Song F, Qureshi AA, Han J. Increased caffeine intake is associated with reduced risk of Basal cell carcinoma of the skin. Cancer Res. 2012 Jul 1;72(13):3282-9.
8. Taneja SK, Jain M, Mandal R, Megha K. Excessive zinc in diet induces leptin resistance in Wistar rat through increased uptake of nutrients at intestinal level. J Trace Elem Med Biol. 2012 Jun 8.

Water or Diet Soda - What's the Better Diet Beverage? Study Confirms Fake Sweetness Promotes Weight & Waist Loss, Decreases Hunger, Blood Pressure, Cholesterol & Trigs

There is one thing that's not debatable, compared to regular coke, diet coke is a diet beverage.

I am probably repeating myself, when I tell you that there are still many people out there who don't understand that it makes a fundamental difference if you are looking at potential pro-obesogenic effect of non-nutritive sweeteners (NNS) in an energy restricted vs. ad-libitum diet scenario. In view of the discussions revolving around the last article on a similar matter, I still thought it was prudent to mention that something that could potentially increase the cravings for sweets is not going to make you fat, if you don't give in to the urges.

Apropos urges, if you look at the abstract of the study I am about to discuss in today's SuppVersity article, you will realize that this effect does not existent.

You can learn more about sweeteners at the SuppVersity

Unsatiating Truth About Sweeteners?

Will Artificial Sweeteners Spike Insulin?

Sweeteners & the Gut Microbiome Each is Diff.

Sweeter Than Your Tongue Allows!

Stevia, Much More Than Sweet?

Artif. Sweetened Foods Help Weight Loss!

In fact, a brief glimpse at the data scientists from the University of Colorado it's obvious that the exact opposite happens. After 12 weeks on  those of the 158 subjects who had been randomized to consume at least 24 fluid ounces of a non-nutritive sweetened beverage of their choice per day had not jus lost 46% more body weight than their peers who had been confined to water for 12 weeks, they also experienced a slight decline in hunger.

Figure 1: Changes in body weight, waist circumference & hunger in the course of the 12-week study (Peters. 2014)

In the water only group, on the other hand, the perceived desire to eat e the water drinkers increased in the course of the study period - certainly a potential reason they lost ~2kg less body weight than their peers did over the course of the 12-week study.

There are a few drawbacks to the study you should know of: Firstly, 12 weeks is not a very long study period and someone who is obese would have to benefit for at least 50 weeks to lose more than the pathetic 6kg of weight the subjects in the study and hand lost. Secondly, the results cannot be used in non-diet contexts - if there is no calorie restriction, the effects may be very different. Thirdly, the subjects were all already non-nutritive sweetener consumers. For someone who is used to regular coke the effects may thus not be as pronounced. And fourth- and lastly, the authors are stuck for an answer to the most important question: Why does it work? In know this is a typical physicist thing, but as long as we can't explain it, it does not really exist for us ;-)

As the data in Figure 2 goes to show you, this weight loss benefit was not bought dearly! On the contrary, the non-nutritive sweetener group who had received gift coupons from the Coca-Cola Company, PepsiCo and Dr Pepper Snapple Group that were redeemable for bottled water or NNS beverages at retail stores, didn't just record greater weight loss and less hunger, they had also higher reductions in blood pressure, waist circumference, total and LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.

Figure 2: Changes in systolic BP, total, LDL and HDL cholesterol and triglycerides (Peters. 2014)

Personally I would exclude that this is in any way directly related to the use of dietary sweeteners. reducing effects of the non-nutritive sweeteners may thus eventually tipped the balance in favor of the aspartame, acesulfam-k and stevia group.

What's much more likely is that these additional benefits are - just like the increased weight loss - attributable to an increased adherence to the energy deficient diet and a lower number of (sweet) cheat meals. In combination with the ~30min of extra physical activity the "diet coke junkies" performed, the appetite suppressive effects may thus well explain the statistically significant advantage the scientists from the University of Colorado and the Temple University recorded in their latest study.

Yes, some sweeteners can increase the amount of insulin your pancreas produces, but there are only few scenarios in which these effects could make you fat - and dieting is not one of them | learn more

Bottom line: If we assume that none of the sponsors American Beverage Association messed with the objectively measured results of the study at hand, we are dealing with another experimental confirmation of what the majority of fitness, bodybuilding and fitness competitors have been saying for years: "Diet coke & co help me stick to my diet and everything that helps me stick to my diet will help me to step on stage in picture perfect form." I am not sure why this sounds incredible do some people, but the way you see fitness forum visitors keep accusing artificially sweetened beverages for their own failure is another hilarious instance of the scapegoatism millions of failed dieters use to find ever-new excuses for their own mistakes and shortcomings.

The Hair-to-Belly Cortisol Connection: Hair Analysis As Reliable Tool for Longterm Cortisol Analyses

Figure 1: 3D model of molecular
structure of cortisol (Wikipedia)

Although cortisol is probably one of the most important hormones, and a lack of cortisol will provoke symptoms which can range from simple fatigue to death, chronically elevated levels of this essential corticosteroid are associated with increases in visceral obesity and its entailing metabolic pathologies, which are commonly described as "the metabolic syndrome". The results of a very recent study (Manenschijn: 2011), that was published in the medical journal Steroids, may thus turn out to be a valuable tool in the a:nalysis of the underlying causes of pathological obesity and its consequences.

Manenschijn et al. collected hair samples of 195 healthy individuals, 9 hypercortisolemic and one hypocortisolemic patient and measured the cortisol levels in the hais and saliva of their subjects. They then correlated the data with waist and hip circumferences, as well as blood pressure values of 46 of the healthy subjects and found:

[...] a positive correlation between hair cortisol and both waist circumference (r = 0.392, p = 0.007) and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) (r = 0.425, p = 0.003). No correlations were found between hair cortisol levels and BMI, blood pressure or age. There was no decline in cortisol levels in six consecutive hair segments. Hair cortisol levels were elevated in patients with known hypercortisolism (p < 0.0001).

This is an interesting result. On the one hand, it does show that hair analysis may serve as a valuable tool in the assessment of longterm cortisol levels (as long as confounding factors, as washout effects due to certain shampoos and other hair care products are taken into consideration), on the other hand, however, it raises the question whether the well accepted association between stress, high cortisol and elevated blood pressure is practically relevant, if longterm cortisol levels remain within certain "healthy" limits.

OxyElite, Jack3D and PowerFULL - USPLabs' "Own" Studies Find: The Products Are Safe and OxyElite Does Even Work!

Image 1: When the sales of the "crown jewels" in their line-up is at stake, even the average supp company CEO becomes interested in "science"

You know that I am a huge fan of supplement companies spending some of your (the customers) hard earned money on actual research. The latest "science offensive" from USPLabs, however, has a negative connotation. I mean, you should expect that you establish that your product is safe before you throw it onto the market, right? Be that as it may, the way USP is currently under attack by the FDA and Johnny Pacheco, whose motifs for filing a class action suit against USPLabs are somewhat nebulous (cf. armytimes.com), is still overblown and the petty controversy about whether DMAA aka "geranium" is or is not a natural constituent of geranium oil puts me off big time... so let's stop gossiping and take a look at the latest data from the USPLabs at the University of Memphis ;-)

"We have got three products here, make sure they are safe and effective!"

I guess, when the whole issue about the "false claims" about 1,3-dimethylamylamine (aka geranium) boiled up, someone in the USPLabs head quarter in Dallas must have had the glorious idea that his, or I should say, the company's money would be better invested in some research to refute at least those claims pertinent to the possible adverse health effects of USPLabs mega-sellers Jack3D and OxyElite Pro than in yet another Ferrari for the CEO. The results of this glorious idea have recently been published in the journal Nutrition and Metabolic Insights and, assuming that USP did not get a bulk discount, must have cost them 5x $1699 for the publication, only...

Figure 1: Summary of study design and main findings of the five recently published studies on Jack3D (Whitehead. 2012; Farney. 2012), OxyElite Pro (McCarthy. 2012a; McCarthy. 2012b) and Powerfull (Alleman. 2011)

I have summarized the study design, as well as the main results, of which I do believe that they are reliable, despite being "sponsored" and despite being published in a "pay and have your articles published in 3-weeks"-journal, in figure 1. The main message here is obvious: The "geranium" containing products are safe!  The problem with this message is yet, that ephedra is just as safe, when it is consumed in reasonable doses and by healthy, young and athletic people. Whenever something is touted as a fat burner, you do yet get people like the obese diabetic who is supposed to have died after taking a dozen of the "good old" Super Caps (30mg ephedrine) along with a few cans of coke in his "effort" to lose weight.

As safe as a weapon - in the hands of the right person ;(

In this context it is also quite telling that the subjects in the acute OxyElite study were advised to take only a single cap, while the recommendation on the label says that a "regular" serving would be two caps. By selecting the right subjects (lean, healthy, young, athletic) and using a "minimal dosing approach" the scientists thusly produced the results USP needs to present them in court, where they will be having a hard time, anywas. After all, a recent study by Lisi et. al. apparently confirms that...

[...] geranium oils do not contain methylhexaneamine and that products labelled as containing geranium oil but which contain methylhexaneamine can only arise from the addition of synthetic material (Lisi. 2011)

With respect to the "natural" claim, USP thus appears to be on the losing side, it will therefore be all the more important for them to refute the claim that their "unnatural" product is (on top of being unnatural *outrageous* ;-) also bad for your health.


The products "work", but without making a noticeable difference

And despite the fact that the other study results pertaining to the effectiveness of the products are going to be of little value in court, I suspect that you will be interested to hear that all three products, i.e. Jack3d, OxyElite Pro and PowerFULL do "work" - the extend to which they do so is however either not statistically significant or very unlikely to come up to what USP is making their customers believe the products would do.

Image 2: Jack3D is a powerful stimulant, but chronic intake will rather burn you out than increase your gains.

Note: It should be said that none of the studies investigated the effects on training performance. This is relevant, because I personally believe that for the "supplement naive" subjects in the study, the caffeine + geranamine rush from Jack3D would definitely have made a difference on an acute basis. With regard to the chronic effects of pre-workout products, we do yet all know that their contribution to both strength and muscle gains is meager and has been scientifically validated only for products which contain relatively large amounts of BCAAs - something Jack3D, which is not much more than a beta alanine laden stimulant cannot boast of.

The meager +27kcal (total) increase in resting energy expenditure in the 2h after the ingestion of a single capsule of OxyElite, for example, is about as useless as the pronounced increase in free fatty acids (+100%) and glycerol (+44%) in the same trial as long as you don't get your ass off the couch and "exercise the fat away" - in the worst case, the decreased insulin tolerance that comes with the increase in catecholamines in response to the ingestion of the caffeine + geranamine + yohimbine containing supplement will have people who take the word "fat burner" too literally stash away even more fat, when they pop their 2 caps of OxyElite in the morning, benefit from the statistically like-wise non-significant appetite suppressant effect of the product, to fast all day long and then go on a rampant binge in the evening.

Figure 2: Changes in appetite, dietary intake in kcal, total fat free and fat mass, trunk fat (measured by DEXA) and skinfold thickness after an 8-week intervention (regular exercise was maintained and the subjects voluntarily reduced their energy intake) with either OxyElite Pro or placebo (data calculated based on McCarthy. 2012b)

The data from the 8-week trial on the OxyElite Pro (McCarthy. 2012b), I plotted in figure 2 does yet show that the addition of a "fat liberator" like OxyElite or any other stimulant based self-proclaimed "fat burner", can actually help you shed body fat, if you combine it with a reasonable reduction in energy intake (~20% in the study at hand) and exercise (5.2 ±0.3 hours/week in the study at hand).

OxyElite Pro is a reasonable addition to diet + exercise, but PowerFULL?

Image 3: Duong at the beginning and end of his impressive12-week transformations I've seen in quite some time (click here to read more)!

And, by the way, if you want to support USPLabs' fight against the FDA and a group of notorious litigators, you better buy another bottle of OxyElite and a container of Jack3D, before spending a single buck on the false hope that the transient and highly individual (more than 40x difference between subjects; Alleman. 2011) increase in GH, Alleman (French for "the German" ;-) and his colleagues observed after the ingestion of one serving of PowerFULL would increase anything, but USPLabs non-DMAA dependent income.

Apropos, with methylhexaneamine (DMAA), as chemists sometimes refer to it, being banned in Europe as of now, everyone here in the EU who wants to give either Jack3D or OxyElite Pro a shot, to see similar results as Duong (cf. image 3), who used the latter during his awesome transformation, should better hurry. The products will disappear from the market, as soon as the retailers have sold their last stock.

Vitamin A Regrows Liver Tissue. Polydextrose Makes Dieting a Breeze. Exercise Blunts Negative Effects of High Fructose Diet. Diabetes Precipitates Female Sexual Dysfunction.

I did miss my own 1000-posts jubilee!

This week it's pretty easy to find the SuppVersity figure of the week. It's 1011 and that's the number of individual posts this "blog" currently holds. Actually, the very moment I hit the "publish" button on this one, it's going to be 1012 (see image on the right). I guess, I should have 'celebrated' that twelve posts before, but you know how I am, it's about the quality, not the quantity and though I am aware that the latter is unquestionably fluctuating, I would hope that each of you has found one or two 'pearls' - I mean, if you didn't why are you coming back regularly, then?

Apropos regularly, it's Saturday and thus about time for a couple of "On Short Notice" items. So let's not waste any time flattering and get to the science news business:

Vitamin A essential for liver regeneration. Plus: β-carotene and cancer even in non-smokers

So much for the vitamin A vs. D antagonism - in fact, one can't go without the other: Vitamin A & D synergize against liver cancer and increase survival rates by more then 75% (read more)

(Blaner 2013) -- Other than SuppVersity readers, the average slef-proclaimed health-conscious citizen probably thinks of (false) horror stories about vitamin A laden polar bear livers killing a handful of ravenous arctic explorers. The fact that the active form of vitamin A is actually one of the most important hormone-like substances in your body that's essential for the maturation process of stem cells, on the other had, got lost at least since vitamin D the supposed vitamin A antagonist became all the rage in the past decade. Scientists from the Coumbia University in New York and the Chernivtsi National University in Chernivtsi, Ukraine, are now going to publish a paper that should remind everyone (including the science community) that the contemporary black and white painting on D & A may well impair the progress we make in our understanding of our own physiology.

Missing half your liver? Not a problem if you got enough "liver building" vitamin A ;-)

In a mouse model which has been genetically modified so that the rodents weren't able to store adequate levels of retinoids  (yeah, there is a whole family of "vitamins A") in the liver, showed a delayed and incomplete regenerative response to partial hepatectomy (cutting away parts of the liver; PHE). As the scientists point out,

"[t]he requirement for proper retinoic acid signaling to allow for normal liver regeneration is underscored by studies of hepatocyte-specific RXRα-null mice [mice lacking the retinoid receptor]. When RXRα is ablated there is reduced hepatocyte lifespan, which is accompanied by premature hepatocyte death and the appearance of necrotic areas. RXRα ablation also results in delayed hepatocyte proliferation following PHE." (Blaner 2013)

At first sight this observation goes again the often cited liver-toxicity of vitamin A. In view of nature's favorite dose-response curve, which is bell-shaped and indicates that bad things (often similar or even identical ones) happen in both deficiency and toxicity states, it's only logical, though. Plus, similar effects have been observed for wound-healing decades ago (Gerber. 1982) and Ehrlich and Hunt report in a 1968 paper in the Annals of Surgery that the administration of vitamin A blunts the negative effects on cortisol on wound healing and appears to be necessary for optimal tissue regeneration (Ehrlich. 1968).

So, another good reason to pop vitamin A supplements?

Supplementation with very high doses of isolated beta-carotene could in fact induce a state of "vitamin A resistance" in response to the formation of a metabolite that blocks the RXR receptor just like a SERM like clomiphene citrate block the estrogen receptor (read more).

For a healthy person living on a paleo-esque diet supplements should not be necessary. The amount of vitamin A and its pre-cursor beta-carotene you get from a whole-foods diet is usually adequate, even if you don't consume liver or organ meat on a regular basis. The use of what you will generally get, when you go to a healthfood store and buy a "vitamin A" supplement, i.e. a high dose beta carotene, only, product is probably counter-indicated not just for smokers, where it appears to increase the risk of lung cancer development, but also in normal healthy individuals who usually get plenty of beta-carotene from the myriad of fortified foods your local supermarket has to offer - after all, one of the most recent meta-analyses showed that 20-30mg/day increase everyone's risk of lung cancer development by 16% and that of stomach cancer by 34% (Druesne-Pecollo. 2010).

Polydextrose has non-noticeable, but significant satiety effects

(Astbury. 2013) -- I know the headline sounds confusing, but basically that's the long and short of the results, Astbury, Taylor and MacDonald present in their most recent isse in the British Journal of Nutrition. The scientists fed 12 male and 9 female healthy university students (mean age 23.2y; BMI 22.3kg/m²) who had consumed identical breakfasts at 8:00am with isocaloric (210kcal) "preload" mid-morning snacks at 10:45am and 90min before they had a pasta-based test meal, of which they were supposed to eat as much as it would take to feel comfortably full.

Figure 1: Food intake (in kcal) after mid-morning snack with different amounts of polydextrose (left); caloric intake on the subsequent meals of the day (right; Astbury. 2013)

As the data in figure 1 indicates, the consumption of the liquid preload which contained either 0, 6.3, 12 or 21g of the sweet tasting polysaccharide that reaches the colon largely undigested, where 50% of the polydextrose molecules will be fermented to yield CO2 and volatile SCFA such as propionate and butyrate and the rest will be excreted intact in the feces lead to dose-dependent reductions in the amount of food that was consumed in the subsequent meal.

50% energy availability, a source of SCFA, tasty & easy to process - perfect diet 'food'?

With only 50% energy availability and 50% being fermented to short chain fatty acids (SFCA),  the 89% dextrose, 10% sorbitol & 1% percent citric acid molecule, polydextrose could actually be a better choice for dieters than WMHDP (learn more about the SCFA based fat burning effects of resistant starches and how to make fat burning pancakes)

Interestingly, the reduced energy intake was not brought about by a consciously noticeable reduction in either fullness, hunger or desire to eat in response to the test meal (the scientists assessed that by questionnaires). And despite the fact that the effect was only transient, it's actually good and important news that the men and women did not accommodate for the 12-23% (male participants) and 6-18% (female participants) reduction in energy intake on the subsequent meal.

If that worked with every meal and you could achieve a ~20% reduction in energy intake, this alone should help you shed some weight pretty effortlessly. And as if that was not enough, already the polydextrose drinks was even more palatable than the sugary original; with the highest polydextrose content being perceived as most "creamy" - bon appetit ;-)

Even shorter news - "On real short notice", so to say  ;-)

I am well aware that what began as short news has as of late turned into a bunch of regular news - well, almost. So I decided to try and cut the last two items in today's installment short, in order to have them fit into what you would actually expect from a "on short notice" ;-)

• Exercise nullifies bad effects of high fructose diet (Moraes-Silva. 2013) -- A paper by scientists from the University of Sao Paulo puts the "lack of exercise / insuficient activity" hypothesis of obesity back on the radar. Even with an otherwise highly detrimental liquid fructose overload of 100g/l in their drinking water, the rodents in the study Moraes-Silva et al. conducted, did have normal (within statistical limits) glucose tolerance, blood pressure and heart disease risk as the rodents in the sedentary and the exercised control groups.

  

  Figure 2: Regular exercise maintains insulin sensitivity, cardiovascular disease risk and blood pressure even in the presence of pathologically high liquid fructose ingestion (Moraes-Silva. 2013)

  The regular treadmill running also blunted the autonomic dysfunction that was characterized by "an approximate 50% decrease in baroreflex sensitivity and 24% in HR variability", as well as increases in sympathovagal balance (140%) and renal sympathetic nerve activity (45%). Now you tell me "it's all about diet", only. Let alone: "Exercise just makes you hungry!"

• Diabetes and female sexual dysfunction correlate (Pontiroli. 2013) -- We already know that diabetes is a, if not the #1 risk factor for male sexual dysfunction, these days. Now a recent meta-analysis that's going to be published in one of the future issues of The Journal of Sexual Medicine found a 150% increase in sexual dysfunction in type II diabetes. Whether or not this was related to the higher depression rates in diabetic women cannot be said. What is certain, though, is that the BMI was a positive predictor of the effect size. In other words, the negative impact on sexual function increased with the degree of adiposity.
  
  Additional read for those women who feel it's their husband's performance that's to blame for their anorgasmia: "Pedalium murex Linn. fruits more effective than sildenafil in the long run and increases testosterone by 125%" (read more)
   

Now that's it for today, but I am now going out on a limb and promise another serving of short news with a focus on exercise early next week - something like the previous "Health & Exercise"- or the "Get Lean & Stay Lean" quickies and for once I can even tell you about one news that's definitely going to be in there - something about working out with and without breakfast.

---

The obligatory reminder: In the mean time I'd suggest you devour the latest SuppVersity Facebook News @ www.facebook.com/SuppVersity. As usual they will receive a couple of updates way before the next official SuppVersity post is going to see the light of the day. Let's see, some of the most recent news are even remotely related to the On Short Notice items of today:

• Penis pumps - Scientists believe they are going to make a revival as a means of penile rehabilitation after surgery for prostate cancer (read more)
• Stress renders cancer immortal - What has just been observed in a rodent model of prostate cancer could have important implications for other cancers, as well (read more)
• PDE5 inhibitor for him, PDE-4 inhibitor for her? Study suggests: PDE-4 inhibitors could improve female sexual function (read more)
• Goose liver for the liver - When it's high in selenium goose liver could protect your liver from the assault of excessive alcohol consumption (read more)

As promised, there will be more. So in case you have not done so already,  you best like the SuppVersity right now so that the latest news will always appear in your news-feed.... ah, and about all that geeky science reading, don't forget that there is more to life than dieting and working out ;-)

References:

• Astbury NM, Taylor MA, Macdonald IA. Polydextrose results in a dose-dependent reduction in ad libitum energy intake at a subsequent test meal. Br J Nutr. 2013 Jan 23:1-9.
• Druesne-Pecollo N, Latino-Martel P, Norat T, Barrandon E, Bertrais S, Galan P, Hercberg S. Beta-carotene supplementation and cancer risk: a systematic review and metaanalysis of randomized controlled trials. Int J Cancer. 2010 Jul 1;127(1):172-84.
• Ehrlich HP, Hunt TK. Effects of cortisone and vitamin A on wound healing. Ann Surg. 1968 Mar;167(3):324-8.
• Gerber LE, Erdman JW Jr. Effect of dietary retinyl acetate, beta-carotene and retinoic acid on wound healing in rats. J Nutr. 1982 Aug;112(8):1555-64.
• Moraes-Silva IC, Mostarda CT, Moreira ED, Silva KA, Dos Santos F, De Angelis K, Farah VD, Irigoyen MC. Preventive role of exercise training in autonomic, hemodynamic and metabolic parameters in rats under high risk of metabolic syndrome development. J Appl Physiol. 2013 Jan 17.
• Pontiroli AE, Cortelazzi D, and Morabito A. Female Sexual Dysfunction and Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. J Sex Med. 2013 [e-pub ahead of print]