A "Question of Faith": Do Multivitamins, Antioxidants and Mineralsupplements Improve Your Quality of Life?

Image 1: Do you believe that you could solve this profound imbalance by randomly adding more people to both sides of the seesaw? No? Well, why are you taking a high-dose multivitamin then?

As the name of this website already implies, I am an outspoken believer in the usefulness of "supplements" (as in "to supplement" = to add to something, where it makes sense). There is however a particular group of "supplements", which is a real thorn in my side... Yes, I am talking about those one-size-fits-it-all-multivitamin-multimineral-multi-whatever products with "high quality ingredients" the ratios of which are based on either the "recommended dietary allowances" of the omniscient USDA (actually a way better name would be "random dietary allowances") or the even more idiotic maxime that "if some is good, then more is probably even better". These days every major supplement company has at least one of these formulas in their line-up and obvoiusly they all will claim that only their product will provide you "with all the vital nutrients you need".

Wtf!? How do those guys know which nutrients I need? 

Even if those formulas were perfectly balanced - which they certainly are not, because we simply don't know what the "perfect balance" is, yet - the chances that anyone of you, my educated, well-nourished whole-food eating readers, has a full-blown, all across the board nutrient deficiency that would be fixed by any of those products are probably one in a million. What is much more likely, though is that you have a small or (oftentimes due to "healthy supplements") profound nutrient imbalance.

Let's say you are an aspiring male fitness athlete and have been taking your ZMA religiously for years. At the same time you have heard that copper is not only bad for you, but that "we all" would get way too much copper in our diet, anyways. So you have been avoiding copper like a plague and ingesting 30mg of zinc from your ZMA everyday... now chances are that you have already set off the natural (and optimal) ratio of copper to zinc in your body. Let's say the optimal ratio was 1:12 (copper to zinc, and again - we do not even know what the optimal ratio would be). With your high zinc and low copper intake you are now at 1:20, i.e. 60% off! Now the nice guy from your local GNC convinces you that it would be prudent to add the brand new "Male Super-Power Vitamin" to you supplement regimen if you wanted to live a long and healthy life. Chances are that the guy who designed that product will also have heard that zinc is good for men and that we all get way too much copper (and even if he knew better, he will be aware that his formula won't sell if it does not follow conventional stupidity... ah, I mean wisdom). So, the product will have 200mcg of copper and 30mg of highly bioavailable zinc - I mean it's a "high quality product"! What is going to happen now? What? Right! The well-formulated product will exasperate you existing imbalance... Your multi does not do that? How come you think so?

"Ever since I take my multi, I have not become sick and feel way better!"

Right, you feel better... and you are not alone! In fact many of the 8112 participants in a well-controlled randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, primary human intervention trial which was conducted by a group of scientists from Paris (Briancon. 2011), also felt that the capsule with 120 mg vitamin C, 30 mg vitamin E, 6 mg beta-carotene, 100 µg selenium and 20mg zinc, they had been taking for 76 months(!) improved their overall well-being.

Warning! I suggest you don't continue reading the following paragraphs if you do feel that your vitamin product works and do not want to take the risk that it will stop working as soon as you have finished reading this blogpost ;-)

What is pretty strange, though, is that this effect did not depend on whether the subjects actually received the anti-oxidant + mineral combination, or not. Rather, the main determinant of the the results of the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaire in this sample of healthy French adults was whether the subjects, who, as it is right and proper for a "placebo-controlled" trial, obviously did not know whether they were ingesting a capsule with the active ingredients or the placebo (it had been established in a previous study that the two capsules were indistinguishable; cf. Hercberg. 1998), believed that they were in the active arm of the study (cf. figure 1, believers vs. non-believers):

Figure 1: Perceived effect on global health (VAS) in subjects who had "no idea" whether they received the active or the placebo treatment and subjects who thought they received the active ("believers") or placebo ("non-believers") treatment (data adapted from Briancon. 2011)

What is also interesting, is that women were slightly more susceptible to placebo effect than men (not to the nocebo effect though), although this difference did not reach statistical significance.

Multivitamins are like religion: Believe in it and it works!

A pros pos statistical significance, as far as the "real" markers of health and disease are concerned, the "key message" (I use the words of the scientists ;-) of the SU.VI.MAX was that "long-term supplementation with antioxidant vitamins and minerals has no effect on quality of life" - in other words, although there were not measurable improvements, the study did not provide further evidence for the hypothesis that long term supplementation with anti-oxidant supplements, selenium and vitamin E in particular, had any negative effect on objectively measurable health markers (if you want to read more about the flawed analysis of and biased media reports on the data from the SELECT trial, read my previous blogpost on this issue).

Image 2: Add a body made of animal products to this guy and you have all the nutrients you need ;-)

It should be mentioned here that in a previous analysis of other data from the same cohort, the scientists had found a small, but statistically significant decrease in cancer and all-cause mortality among the male study participants of the active arm of the SU.VI.MAX trial (Hercberg. 2004). So, while the quality of life did not improve, the miserable life of some of the male subjects was at least extended by a few years ;-) All sarcastic jokes aside, even the scientists realize that in the presence of conflicting evidence, the "major implication for public health of the present findings is that a lifelong diet rich enough in vitamins and min-erals may be preferable to supplementation that is likely not to be efficacious and has the potential to be harmful." - sound advice!

Those of you for whom this is not the first visit, here at the SuppVersity, will be aware, that, as a trained scientist, I don't content myself with the conclusions my "colleagues" (from another branch of science) draw. Therefore, I dug a little deeper into the actual data that comes with the study and - alas! - I was able to find a statistically significant (p<0.014) increase in the reported "vitality" among the women who actually received the vitamin + mineral supplement (cf. figure 2):

Figure 2: Real (difference between treatment and placebo) and perceived (difference between "believers" and "non-believers") of antioxidant + mineral supplement (data calculated based on  Briancon. 2011)

What is strange though, is that of all statistically significant differences between women who believed they received the supplement and those who did not, just this one is the least distinct. Moreover, in all the other variables, where there was a statistically significant difference between believers and non-believers, the "real" data (meaning the comparison of subjects who actually received the treatment vs. the placebo group) could not confirm the positive self-assessment of the believers. Among the male subjects, there was even a trend toward reduced quality of life measures in the real data, where the "believers" thought that it was the "supplement" they were taking that soothed their bodily pain, improved their general health or overall physical performance (physical summary scale).

So what? Am I wasting my money?

These additional observations do yet not falsify any of the three main conclusions, Serge Briacon and his five colleagues from Nancy University, the Metz University, the University Paris Descartes, the University hospital of Nancy and the French Department of Public Health draw based on their interpretation of the data:

1. [t]here is no proof that supplementation with these vitamins and minerals is beneficial in participants whose dietary intakes are already sufficient
    
2. [t]he perception that supplementation improves general well-being is not supported by this trial.
    
3. [a] reverse causal pathway may even be advocated (healthier participants may have been more likely to believe they were in the supplement group).

What this means for you is that if your multivitamin "works", chances are that you are doing something right as far as your general lifestyle, your diet and your exercise regimen are concerned. If despite taking your multi religiously, you still feel miserable, you better take a closer look at what your real problems are instead of switching from one band-aid-fits-it-all "solution" to the next one.

Commercially Available Teas "Not Suitable For Human Consumption": Potentially Hazardous Amounts of Lead, Aluminum, Arsenic & Co in Every Cup

Would all commercially available teas have to be labeled like this?

I am usually not a fan of articles with titles like this one (see above) - they have what you call in Germany "Bildzeitungsniveau" (the German tabloid with news like "World about to disappear in a black hole, when CERN starts operating). It is however hard to resist the urge to use a headline like the one above, if the it fits the results of peer-reviewed scientific paper so well, as it is the case with the relatively recent paper from the University of Alberta and the Luleâ University of Technology in Sweden this SuppVersity article is (almost) all about.

The corresponding experiment, the results of which were published in the peer-reviewed open-access Journal of Toxicology in October 2013, already, addresses the increasing concern about contamination of foodstuffs and natural health products. With the emphasis being on foodstuff and health, it's only logical that tea, or more precisely all currently available off-the-shelf varieties of black, green, white, and oolong teas sold in tea bags were used for analysis in the said study.

So what did the researchers do?

Schwalfenberg, Genius (no joke, the 2n author is a real 'Genius by name') and Rodushkin conducted a three-step analysis in the course of which they analyzed the content of previously identified tea contaminants like aluminum, fluoride, mercury, lead, cadmium and arsenic (Fujimaki. 2004; Lung. 2008; Wang. 2008; Alvarez-Ayuso. 2011; Tan. 2012) in commercial tea preparations.

Table 1: There are not just bad, but also healthy minerals in tea!

Before we get to the "bad stuff", though, let's start with the positive findings of their investigation. The data in Table 1 is after all evidence enough that there are also "healthy" minerals in tea - the amount is not high enough to cover your RDA, but this does not mean that it could not be at least partly related to the undeniable health benefits researchers all around the world report for people who consume uncontaminated tea on a regular base. As a loyal SuppVersity readers you know most, if not all of them from previous articles on tea. The reason I still believe it's worth enumerating them again is that I don't want you to give up on your beloved (?) tea too easily - I mean, Coke is not an alternative and for coffee fungi and other stuff could make a similarly unhealthy "supplement" to your breakfast beverage:

• Cardiovascular benefits - When we are talking about health in general and heart health in particular, most people will think of green tea. That's pretty unfortunate, because there is ample research for all varieties of teas that they can lower blood lipids, provide "clean" and thus heart healthy energy, and exert antithrombotic and anti-hypertensive effects.
• Anticancer effects - Despite the fact that the anti-cancer effects have mostly observed in in-vitro studies, there is plenty of epidemiological evidence that tea drinkers have a lower cancer risk, than the average coke guzzler (not necessarily breast cancer, though ➫ SuppVersity Facebook News).
• Metabolic syndrome - While more recent studies clearly suggest that the active weight loss effects of tea, in general, and green tea, in particular, have been totally overblown, there is still a host of controlled trials, where adding tea (not necessarily green tea) improved the effects of a energy restricted diet. Compared to the rodent trials which are still fueling the myth of the potent thermogenic effects of (green) tea, the real world results in human beings are however downright disappointing.

• 

  A green tea marinade will keep your meats fresh | learn more

  Anti-infective properties - Only few people (SuppVersity readers included - of course) know that green tea can be used as a mouthwash and is currently researched as an anti-bacterial food additive by researchers all around the world. According to a paper by Steinmann et al. (2013), the anti-infective effects are mediated by the antiviral, antibacterial, and antifungal properties of Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG). The same EGCG about which you've read only recently on the SuppVersity that it is not exactly as useful as a fat loss adjuvant, as the hype would have you believe.
• Other beneficial effects - Under "Miscellaneous Effects", Schwalfenberg et al. also list the nephropotective effects of green tea, which could come very handy if you guzzle mercury contaminated green tea, everyday (unfortunately, mercury is your least problem with tea), the anti-depressive researchers have observed in people consuming 4+ cups of tea per day and the hitherto unconfirmed hypothesis that tea drinkers are (better) protected against Alzheimer’s and neurological decline.

In view of these benefits it's only logical that the Canadian + Swedish research team chose to repeat  the dichotomous health effects of drinking tea in the title of their paper "The Benefits and Risks of Consuming Brewed Tea" (my emphasis in Schwalfenberg. 2013)

Organic is not better than regular tea

To obtain a dataset that would be as comprehensive, accurate and practically relevant as possible the authors bought 30 different organic and non-organic white, green, oolong, and black teas from the the shelves of Canadian supermarkets and analyzed (a) the "raw" tea leaves (LEAF), (b) tea that had been steeped for 3-4 minutes (3MIN), (c) tea that had been steeped for 15–17 minutes (15MIN).

Know your teas: As a SuppVersity reader you will probably know that all teas come from the same plant. It's the processing that determines if we call it "white", "green", or whatever else:

• White tea: young leaves or new growth buds, withered, uncured, baked dry 
• Green tea: steamed or dry cooking in hot pans to prevent oxidation; dried tea leaves may be separate leaves or rolled into pellets (gunpowder tea)
• Oolong tea: withering of leaves under sun and warm winds with further oxidation standard between green and black teas
• Black tea: leaves are completely oxidized, withered

Due to the processing of the leaves tea from the same camellia sinensis plant can contain different amounts of contaminants depending on whether you buy it as white, green, oolong or black tea, or shredded green tea supplement.

Still, the main determinant is and remains the soil it was grown on (see Table 4)?

All tea samples underwent the same standardized procedures before they were analyzed in their raw form (cut / shredded leaves) or as an infusion that had been prepared with only one tea bag (containing 2-3g of tea) in 250 mL of distilled water in fine bone china cups.

As you will already have expected, the scientists did not just detect the previously mentioned "good minerals" (exact values see Table 1), and a host of other beneficial trace elements, i.e.

• boron 19–115µg/L, cobalt 0.4–3.56µg/L, 
• copper 26–106µg/L, chromium 0.2–14.6µg/L, 
• iron 19–62.5µg/L, manganese 534–6351µg/L, 
• molybdenum 0.03–0.131µg/L, 
• selenium <0.1–0.34µg/L, 
• vanadium <0.01–0.151µg/L, and zinc 44.6–187µg/L,

in their samples. Schwalfenberg et al. found highly significant and, more importantly, physiologically relevant amounts of toxic elements, as well:

Table 2: Established toxicant limits in supplements (µg/day).

If you look at the value in Table 3 and compare them to the limits in Table 2, there is one thing you should keep in mind: These limits have been set by average exposure, not based on toxicity tests - that sounds very comforting, right?

"Public health warnings or industry regulation indicated" -- It sounds pretty fearmongering and I would not have used it as a subheading right beneath the introduction, if the statement "Public health warnings or industry regulation might be indicated to protect consumer safety." (Schwalfenberg. 2013) was no literal citation from the conclusion of the paper I have here right in front of me.

Table 3: Levels of mercury (Hg), lead (Pb), aluminum (Al), arsenic (As) and cadmium (Cd) in tea infusions after 3-4 or 15-17 min of brewing; all values in µg/L (Schwalfenberg. 2013)

A brief glimpse at the data in Table 3 does moreover confirm there are plenty of toxins in the average Canadian super market tea, but it does not tell you how problematic the contamination actually is. To understand that you'd have to cimpare those values to the established toxicant limits Table 2, which do - and this is and will always be ridiculous -  obviously depend on where you live *sarcastic laughter*... but enough of the unproductive sarcasm, let's see what we've got:

"All teas contained significant amounts of aluminum. Tea  leaves contained from 568 to 3287 ng/g of tea. All brewed teas steeped for 3 or 15 minutes contained detectable levels of aluminum. The range was 1131µgm/L to 8324µgm/L steeping for 3 minute and 1413µgm/L to 11449µgm/L steeping for 15 minutes. Only 2 teas had levels above acceptable limits at 3 minutes of brewing but 6 of the teas had levels greater than the upper acceptable daily limit of 7000µgm/L. Clearly letting tea steep for longer than 3 minutes is not advisable. Two of the organic green teas had levels above 10,000µgm/L brewed for 15 minutes."

In view of the fact that tea is by far not the only aluminum source you are expose to, the high levels of this toxic metal that easily accumulates in the body should be reason enough not to brew your tea - especially not organic tea - for more than 3 minutes.

Organic tea is a worse offender than regular

If you take a look at the amount of lead in the various tea samples it becomes even more obvious that "organic" tea is not necessarily better for your organs, as well. This is particularly true for the best-sellers green and black tea, both of which contain significantly more lead in the "organic" vs. "regular" variety.

Table 4: Toxicant levels according to origin; Pb: lead, Cd: cadmium, Al: aluminum, As: arsenic (Schwalfenberg. 2013)

Probably the main factor that influences the toxicant levels of teas is the place of origin, thoug. As you can see in the overview in Table 4, the highest amount of arsenic, was detected in Chinese oolong teas (organic or regular). The total arsenic levels in all teas, which ranged from 0.06µgm to 1.12µgm/L for tea that had been steeped for 3 minutes to 0.08 to 1.27µgm/L for tea that had been steeped for 15 minutes was highest in white tea - obviously also from China. And last but not least, ...

"...[a]ll tea leaves had detectable levels of cadmium. 21 teas had detectable levels after 15 minutes brewing while only 18  teas had detectable levels after 3 minutes brewing suggesting that there is further leaching of this toxicant into the water over time. [As the overview in Table 4 already suggests] the highest level was 0.067µgm/L found in standard oolong tea from China." (Schwalfenberg. 2013)

Not listed in the tables are the levels of tin, barium, antimony and thallium, which were detected in all tea samples, but at levels of which the authors state that they don't have to be "considered to be of concern" (Schwalfenberg. 2013).

Should you stop drinking tea? You know that I don't like to tell people what to do. Unless, obviously I am 100% sure that I am convinced that there is a serious health risk involved.

In the case of green, black or white tea, the evidence that this is the case is yet insufficient. Personally, I will still make sure to check the geographic origin of the tea leaves (not where it was processed and packaged!) and avoid all products with the bad 5-letter word C-H-I-N-A on the label.

Bottom line: "Not of concern" is not exactly what I would say about the overall results of the study at hand. I mean, in the end, the high levels of toxicants in some of the commercially available tea preparations - specifically those from China - could actually explain why the real-world results with commercially available teas and tea supplements often fall short of the rodent studies, which are often conducted with highly purified green tea products from companies like Sigma Aldrich.

Ah, ... one last thing to keep in mind is that 18 out of 30 tested commercial tea preparations contained mercury in amounts that were as high as 20 ng/g, but did not make it from the leave to the tea. With your digestive tract being a much more efficient nutrient and (unfortunately) toxicant extractor than hot water, tea supplements could pose an even greater risk of heavy metal exposure than tea.

References:

• Álvarez-Ayuso, E., Giménez, A., & Ballesteros, J. C. (2011). Fluoride accumulation by plants grown in acid soils amended with flue gas desulphurisation gypsum. Journal of hazardous materials, 192(3), 1659-1666.
• Hayacibara, M. F., Queiroz, C. S., Tabchoury, C. P. M., & Cury, J. A. (2004). Fluoride and aluminum in teas and tea-based beverages. Revista de Saúde Pública, 38(1), 100-105.
• Lung, S. C. C., Cheng, H. W., & Fu, C. B. (2007). Potential exposure and risk of fluoride intakes from tea drinks produced in Taiwan. Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, 18(2), 158-166.
• Steinmann, J., Buer, J., Pietschmann, T., & Steinmann, E. (2013). Anti‐infective properties of epigallocatechin‐3‐gallate (EGCG), a component of green tea. British journal of pharmacology, 168(5), 1059-1073.
• Tan, Z., & Xiao, G. (2012). Leaching characteristics of fly ash from Chinese medical waste incineration. Waste Management & Research, 30(3), 285-294.
• Schwalfenberg, G., Genuis, S. J., & Rodushkin, I. (2013). The Benefits and Risks of Consuming Brewed Tea: Beware of Toxic Element Contamination. Journal of toxicology, 2013.
• Wang, X. P., Ma, Y. J., & Xu, Y. C. (2008). [Studies on contents of arsenic, selenium, mercury and bismuth in tea samples collected from different regions by atomic fluorescence spectrometry]. Guang pu xue yu guang pu fen xi= Guang pu, 28(7), 1653-1657.

Ask Dr. Andro: Are Vitamin Supplements Bad For Me (2/2)? 3+1 = 666! The Raw Data Truth about the "Vitamins Kill!" Offspring of the Iowa Women's Health Study

Image 1: "Please Dr. Andro tell me I can keep taking my essential multivitamin! I am just too busy to eat healthy..."

I must admit that I feel kind of awkward as I am about to defend one of those supplements, I consider to be the most dispensable within the dietary regimen of a physical culturist: the so-called multi-vitamin! In essence these small, and lately more often than not large pills do not even fall into the category supplement. With dose-equivalents way beyond what you would actually need, "multivitamins" are not even "replacements", they are madness or, I should say, the mad outgrowth of the prevalent "more is more" mentality that is beginning to harm us on every level of our society... but I am digressing, here. Let's take a look at the actual study which brought about such an upheaval in the supplement-addicted health community on the Internet.

Dietary Supplements and Mortality Rate in Older Women

Image 2: Is this you? No? Maybe she is "The Average American", then? No? Well, but the study says "vitamins are bad for YOU" and she could be one of the subjects (img. medscape.org)

The title alone, actually made me click the study away, back in the day when I first hit upon it, on one of my regular searches for new stories on the medical databases of the World-Wide-Web; and unless you are an old women (I would hope there were some older women reading the SuppVersity, but I guess there are none), you should have disregarded the study, as well. After all, we all know how the game changes after menopause and guess what, of those women, 98.6% were post-menopausal (in case you ever see studies done on ovariectomized rodents, remember that those are "menopausal", too ;-). Ah, and in case you are a post menopausal women with Africa-American or Hispanic background, there is likewise little reason for you to read on, because 99.2% of the women in the study were white (if you question whether or not ethnicity really matters, when it comes to the health effects of vitamins, I suggest you take a look at some reviews like Carmel. 1999).

Now, if you are still with me at this point, I guess that you either are a post-menopausal white woman, or - and I suppose that this will be the case for the majority of you - you have been agitated by the heated debate on the net (and even regular mass-media) in the last couple of days and want someone to tell you that you did not reduce your life-expectancy by -15% by religiously taking your "essential" *rofl* multi-vitamin, everyday. We will see, whether I can be this person (in case it turns out I am not, I have seen more than enough "gurus" you will tell you exactly that, if you promise to buy their "all natural" or "superior source" product in the future).

The Iowa Women's Health Study - Mrs "not so average" American

So, let's see. What we have here is an offshoot of the Iowa Women's Health Study (IWHS), which is one of those highly over-estimate surveys, the media loves, because they boast of ten-thousands of "participants". In the case of the IWHS, "41836 women aged 55 to 69 years"... well, at least that were the women the scientists send their little questionnaires to back in 1986. Interestingly, this is also where the first bias (i.e. a deviation from "objectivity") came into play:

Respondents were slightly younger, had lower body mass index (calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared), and were more likely to live in rural areas compared with nonrespondents.

So instead of the average American "older woman", the scientists suddenly had the "slightly younger" not just as obese, better off American older women, as their study object. Moreover, the number of participants dropped to 38772 women or, in other words, the scientists "lost" 7.3% of their study population even before the study actually began. Now, of those, the Mursu et al. selected 29230, who were the "elite" which responded to both the initial 1986 and the 2nd 1997 follow-up questionnaire.

Failure 1: Not representative of "The Average American"

"Ladies, give me as little information about your supplements as possible, please!"

The latter, i.e. the questionnaire, assessed the use of 13 supplements:

• multi-vitamins; 
• vitamins A, beta-carotene, B6, folic acid, B complex, C, D, and E; 
• iron, calcium, copper, magnesium, selenium, and zinc

Now, the scientists show off their wealth of knowledge and state that "[d]ifferent forms of vitamin D, cholecalcif-erol (D3) or ergocalciferol (D2), were not distinguished". While this is obviously important, it would have been even more important to distinguish between different forms of vitamin B6 (pyridoxin vs. P5P), B complex (you can have a complete one, one with equal doses, one particularly high in one B vitamin, etc.), vitamin E (I suppose you read the first installment?), iron (heme, non-heme, chelated, etc.), copper / magnesium, selenium, and zinc (oxide, chelated, etc.), because we know that these different forms of vitamins and minerals are not only differentially absorbed, but also exhibit differential effects on our health and well-being.

Failure 2: Ignorance towards the fact that
not all vitamins / minerals with the same label are created equal

And as if this had not been enough, the scientists did not even care if the ladies popped 1 or 23 of their beta carotene (I hope you do not still believe you can take endless amounts of that orange poison), magnesium, folic acid and B-complex pills.

Failure 3: Careless ignorance towards dosages

Raw foods are dangerous and so is raw data

Hence, the scientists got a set of data that was full of holes from a group of women who are by no means representative of "The Average American" (let alone every human being) - what did they do next? Well, obviously "raw data" is as dangerous as raw meat (or even raw milk), that is why the next step for every good scientists is data processing. In that Mursu et al. were particularly skilful as far as not revealing what they actually did was concerned:

In the minimally adjusted model, we adjusted the association for age and energy intake; in multivariable adjusted model, version 1, we additionally adjusted for educational level, place of residence, diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure, body mass index, waist to hip ratio, hormone replacement therapy, physical activity, and smoking status. For multivariable adjusted model, version 2, we added intake of alcohol, saturated fatty acids, whole grain products, fruits, and vegetables.

Even, or I should say, especially for a physicist, who is a 75% mathematician, the idea that by some sort of mathematical magic you could reliable subtract out all those influence, so that you get the "real picture" of what is going on, with an average human being is so hilarious that I avoid any further comment. Everything that goes beyond the "minimal adjustment" is so full of speculative hypothesis and mainstream paradigms (like "Whole grains are good for you! The more, the better!") that I will simply ignore this data... unfortunately these results of "3+3 = 666" mathematical manipulation were what the scientists (in their press releases) highlighted as their main results and what was accordingly taken up by the laymen (initially I wanted to write idiots, but that would be unfair, because laymen they are) in the editorial offices of the mass media.

Failure 4: Over-"analysis" of the data

Let's get to the raw truth

This would not be the SuppVersity, if I did not have something to offer that goes beyond the angry rants and criticism (see above) you probably have read elsewhere, anyways. So, I went through the pains of compiling and comparing the "real", i.e. the N=X data and not the calculated hazard ratios for you.

Figure 1: Raw data and minimally adjusted (age and caloric intake) data on the effect of taking vitamin A, beta carotene, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, and finally the multivitamins on overall mortality (data calculated based on Mursu. 2011)

Now, I want you to take a close look at the data for vitamin A, beta carotene, vitamin C, vitamin D, vitamin E, and finally the multivitamins. I don't know what you see, but I see only vitamin A and beta carotene scratching at the increased mortality margin of 1.0 (cf. dotted red line in figure 1). And, just for a better understand, two examples:

• the 1.04 as for vitamin A (minimally adjusted) in 2004-08 indicates a +4% higher risk and 0.80,
• the 0.80 for vitamin E (raw data) in 2004-08 indicates a -20% decrease in mortality risk

So, what would you say, how "dangerous" is taking vitamin pills if you do not process the data to death? Interestingly, things get really nasty, from here. And moreover, they get nasty, where you probably would not have expected it unless you are a very diligent student of the SuppVersity and are thus aware that messing with the methylation cycle via B6 or folic acid supplementation for no reason is not a good idea.

Figure 2: Raw data and minimally adjusted (age and caloric intake) data on the effect of taking vitamin B6, folic acid, B-complex, calcium, and magnesium on overall mortality (data calculated based on Mursu. 2011)

Given the fact that an increasing amount of "old" people are taking magnesium supplementation, I would say that in this case the age-adjustment is probably necessary - if you also consider that back in the 1980s this bias was smaller, since people were not told that taking mg supplements would be necessary for older folks, the respective adjustment will be "too small" and thus I would simply ignore the fact that the 1996 value still signifies a +2% greater risk of dying when you take a magnesium supplement (add to that that the study participants could have taken magnesium in the 10x recommended dosage and the scientists would not know that /see comment on dosage, above). What really surprises me, though is the enormous benefit that is (even in the raw data) associated with calcium supplements - 22% reduced risk according to raw data and 21% reduced risk with age/energy adjustment - impressive!

Figure 2: Raw data and minimally adjusted (age and caloric intake) data on the effect of taking iron, copper, zinc, and selenium on overall mortality (data calculated based on Mursu. 2011)

Last but not least - the worst offenders, the dreaded "heavy metals" ;-) Ok, I guess iron really is a bad guy (at least for post-menopausal women), but even copper, which has gotten such a bad rep, lately turns out to come pretty handy in the female part of the aging American population, ... interestingly only in the early to late 2000s - how come? I'll leave it up to you to make up your mind on this and other questions, but I assume that now, that you know the raw truth, you will not blindly follow Bjelakovic's campaign to "wake up [regulatory authorities] to their responsibility to allow only safe products on the market" (Bjelakovic. 2011), but rather scrutinize his "invited comment" to the Mursu study, which was published in the same issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine and has caused such an upheaval among the increasingly health conscious American and International public.

Urban Gardening: 12x More Cadmium in Your Tomatoes Than in the Conventional Produce? Plus: Domestic vs. Foreign & Conventional vs. Organic - What's Healthier?

Image 1: Allotment gardens are the new trend among young families in Germany, 45% of the 1,000,000 allotment gardens that were previously the territory of stuffy men and their garden goblins are already in their hands - that equals a total "acreage" of 21,000hectar - let's hope none of these gardens is right next to a street.

Those of you who have listened to the "Urban Gardening" episodes Alisa Profumo did on Super Human Radio back in 2011 (click here to download Part I and Part II) may remember that it is not impossible to grow your own vegetables, herbs and more - and that not just in a large garden. In fact, "urban gardening", which has here in Germany long been regarded as antiquated and "for grandmas and grandpas only" has become fashionable again, as more and more people enjoy the comfort of "knowing what they eat". Unfortunately, a recently published German study shows that believing does not mean knowing; or do you believe that people who knew that their homegrown tomatoes have 5.7x more nickel, basil more than 5.4x more anorganic chromium and their carrots 4.2x more cadmium than their conventionally grown counterparts from the supermarket around the corner would still not unsettle their faith in the general and unquestionable superiority of home-grown produce?

From the exhaust pipe into your garden and from your garden into your mouth :-(

Just to make sure that we understand each other: This is no anti-gardening post, it is just a brief reminder of the differences between hearsay and nostalgia, on the one hand and facts and reason, on the other. In that, it is very reasonable to assume that the constant pesticide assault is a problem, it is however not reasonable to assume that veggies and herbs you grow in the toxic environment of a major city like Berlin or its rural outskirts are per se "pollutant free".

Figure 1: Main importers of vegetables, root and tubers in 2011 (ITC calculations based on UN COMTRADE statistics)

Did you know that Katz et al. have shown in 2008, that...

• the pesticide residues in domestic (US) produce (fruits and vegetable) were significantly higher for 11 pesticides while imported exposures were higher for the remaining four. 
• all five pesticides that were found in potentially hazardous (yet on a per serving base still licit level) were the higher in US than in imported produce
• the mean daily exposure estimate for one pesticide, methamidophos, was above the reference dose for domestic fruits and vegetables while slightly below the reference dose for imported fruits and vegetables

... probably not, right? If you want to avoid pesticides, all-together it is advisable to chose organically grown produce, anyway - also for it's slightly higher nutrient content (see next infobox)

This is all the more true in view of previous exploratory studies, which have already shown that horticultural crops in urban or peri-urban areas are generally exposed to a higher level of pollutants of both inorganic and organic origin than the conventional produce they are supposed to replace (Shinn. 2000; Alloway. 2004). And as Ina Säumel and her colleagues point out,

"the contamination of urban horticultural products can exceed the precautionary values, and a dietary exposure to trace metals can result in significant human health risks." (Säumel. 2012)

That said it was only logical that the researchers from the Technische Universität Berlin and their colleague from the Botanical Garden of the Khmelnitskij National University in  Khmelnitsky, Ukraine, set out to compare the positive view the public has on urban- and peri-urban gardning (according to a survey among gardeners, producing "fresh and healthy fruits and vegetables" is one if not the main motivations for gardening; cf. ) to the actual level of potentially hazardous substances in their produce.

The samples were collected from 28 randomly chosen sites within inner city neighborhoods in Berlin, Germany. As the authors point out,

"[t]hese sites represent a mixture of different local settings of horticultural plantings within Berlin’s centre  and were characterized according to the following parameters: (a) overall traffic burden (otb) within a radius of 1 km around planting sites [...] (b) traffic burden of the nearest road per day [...], (c) distance to nearest road (d; in meters); and (d) presence or absence of barriers between planting sites and next street which might reduce airborne pollution." (Säumel. 2012)

In combination with the data on the planting styles of the individual produce this allowed for a very detailed analysis of the confounding factors that influenced the the zinc, copper, lead, cadmium, chromium and nickel concentrations of the 12 different horticultural crop species (tomatoes, green beans, carrots, potatoes, kohlrabi =Brassica oleracea var. gongylodes, white cabbage, nasturtium, parsley, chard, basil, mint, thyme).

Figure 2: Trace metal content of 12 different horticultural crop species from 28 randomly chosen sites within inner city neighborhoods in Berlin, Germany; data expressed relative to conventionally produced produce from the local supermarket, the dotted black line indicates the respective 100% content of the conventional produce - everything thats above this "demarcation line" has more, everything below less of the metal (calculated based on Säumel. 2012)

If you take a look at the results you may initially be shocked - 12x more cadmium in "home-grown" tomatoes than regular produce? The currently allowed maximal level of this toxic trace metal depends on the respective legislation (I guess I don't have to rant about what those differences tell you about the arbitrariness of "allowances" & co) and is in the range of 0.1mg/kg for vegetables with 0.12mg/kg the mean content is thus already right at the red line of the official "danger zone" - the maximal detected value of 0.79mg/kg is 7.9x higher and certainly no healthy alternative to the conventional supermarket tomatoes with 0.01mg/kg (i.e. 10x below the tolerable limit) of cadmium in them.

Figure 3: Soil, overall traffic burden and the distance to the nearest road are all confounding factors that will influence how much unwanted trace metals your pesticide-free produce will contain.

As you may already guess, both the overall trace metal load as well as the high discrepancies between individual vegetables and herbs are largely dependent on their individual traffic exposure with zinc, lead, nickel and chromium showing statistical significant correlations with the overall traffic burden and lead, chromium and cadmium with the distance to the nearest road.

Plant away from roads and/or behind fences or walls + other things to protect your crops

Did you know that one of the latest meta reviews confirmed the superiority of organic vs. conventionally grown produce as far as its nutrient content is concerned? According to Hunter at al. the nutrient content of organically grown vegetables was 5.9% higher, that of legumes 5.7% (for fruits the 6.5% difference did not reach statistical significance; cf. Hunter. 2012). There is however a significant difference between screened and non-screened trials, with the former having a clear-cut bias towards an even higher difference than the latter (mean difference 8%). It is however at least questionable how valuable a classification like this is, when the "superior" mineral content of organically grown veggies, for example, is mediated among others by a statistically significant +6% higher phosphor content, the level of calcium and magnesium, however is only non-significantly higher (0.6% and 3%, respectively).

Aside from planting further away from, or next to low traffic streets, placing your plants behind fences, walls or other protective barriers can be a valid method to reduce the trace metal content of your crop. Moreover, Säumel et al. point out that regardless of the traffic burden,

"[...]the vegetables planted in urban soil beds were less likely to have lead values above the critical values than vegetables planted in pots or beds that had been supplemented with commercial garden soil. This might result from the use of compost, which increases metal solubility, but more research is needed to reveal underlying causes as we could not analyse soil trace metal contents." (Säumel. 2012)

This does not necessarily mean that planting in the local soil must be better, nor is it certain that the commercial garden soil was already contaminated, it should yet raise your awareness that even when you are planting outside of the 10m danger-zone of the next street in which 67% of the analyzed crop has lead values that exceeded the standards of the European Union, the lead, cadmium, nickel and what not could already be in the soil of your garden or be accidentally introduced by the commercial garden soil you bought and used to increase your produce (for tips on safer ways than the next best fertilizer from the garden center, listen to the initially mentioned gardening episodes of Super Human Radio).

Picking the right crop, such as kohlrabi, green beans or basil and installing extra fences using the back instead of the front yard are other means that would allow for "safer gardening" even in the inner city. When you are living right next to the highway, all that will yet probably be useless. I don't know if you have something like that wherever you are from, but the good old German "Schrebergarten" (=allotment garden), is becoming increasingly popular, over here - and, as I initially mentioned, not just among old stuffy men and their garden goblins; for me personally that would not be an option, but who knows, maybe it is for you?

Bottom line: Done right, i.e. not directly next to a high traffic street and without the use of standard commercial soils and fertilizers, yet fully aware that neither the "remarkable taste" of your tomatoes, carrots & co, nor being able to say "I produced it in your own garden" let alone "on my own balcony" will  protect you from the toxins that may be present in what your 100% pesticide free produce, gardening does still offer a safe and above all self-empowering alternative to buying all your goods at the farmers market, super market or wherever else you prefer to shop.

References:

• Alloway, BJ. Contamination of soils in domestic gardens and allotments: a brief review. Land Contamination and Reclamation. 2004; 12:179-187
• Burda GmbH, 1993. Wohnwelten und Gärten in Ostdeutschland: Alltagsästhetik, Wohnmotive, Wohnstile, Gartenwerte und Gartenstile in den neuen Bundesländern. ein Forschungsbericht der Burda-GmbH, Offenburg, und Sinus, Heidelberg, 108 p. (German).
• Hunter D, Foster M, McArthur JO, Ojha R, Petocz P, Samman S. Evaluation of the micronutrient composition of plant foods produced by organic and conventional agricultural methods. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2011 Jul;51(6):571-82.
• Katz JM, Winter CK. Comparison of pesticide exposure from consumption of domestic and imported fruits and vegetables. Food Chem Toxicol. 2009 Feb;47(2):335-8. Epub 2008 Nov 27. 
• Säumel I, Kotsyuk I, Hölscher M, Lenkereit C, Weber F, Kowarik I. How healthy is urban horticulture in high traffic areas? Trace metal concentrations in vegetable crops from plantings within inner city neighbourhoods in Berlin, Germany. Environ Pollut. 2012 Jun;165:124-32. Epub 2012 Mar 22.
• Shinn NJ, Bing-Canar J, Cailas M, Peneff N, Binns HJ. Determination of spatial continuity of soil lead levels in an urban residential neighborhood. Environmental Research. 2000; 81:1-7.

On Short Notice: PWO EAA Supps for Young & Old, Indoor Pools & Low Testosterone, Life-Savingly Low T3/rT3 Ratios, Copper-Zinc-Manganese, Lifting for Prostate Health +More

Image 1: It's neither just as much, nor just as serious, but I would still venture the guess that it will take you more than 30s to digest today's installment of "On Short Notice" - despite the fact that the new format has no lengthy "short news", anymore ;-)

For this installment of "On Short Notice" I have decided to go a somewhat different route than before: Originally, the first post you would have read after this short introduction would have dealt with the potential negative health effects of homogenized milk. What was intended as a "on short notice" item, did however become lengthier and lengthier, until it finally turned into an "almost full-length post" (a slightly extended version of this article is going to be published on Monday). This "incident" made me revisit the last installments of this series only to realize that the majority of the supposedly "short" On Short News items had become "almost full-length posts" and were thus either somewhat overblown or still to short for what the study / topic had to offer...

To cut a long story short, I decided to stick to the very short items, formerly known as "On Very Short Notice" from now on.  If you have any reasonable objections against this practice, feel free to use the comment area of this post to complain. Do not forget, however, that you can still request a longer article on any particularly interesting topic or simply discuss the blurbs with me and others here or on the SuppVersity Facebook wall... Ready? Let's roll!

• 

  Figure 1: Ratio of muscle intracellular leucine to blood leucine concentration in response to
  resistance exercise and ingestion of 20 g of essential amino acids in young and older men.

  Older physical culturists can't "eat to grow" benefit from EAA ingestion - at least not to the same extend younger lifters do. And while this alone would hardly qualify as "news", the, or I should say one of the underlying reasons Jared M. Dickinson and his colleagues discuss in a paper that's scheduled to be published in the next issue of the Journal of Clinical Nutrition certainly is (Dickinson. 2012).
  One hour after the 7 young (30 ±2yr) and 6 old (70 ±2yr) male "recreationally active" study participants had performed a standardized leg training program consisting of 8 sets of 10 reps on a Cybex leg extension machine at an intensity of 70%RM (3 min rest between sets) Dickinson et al. supplied them with a 500ml of a fluid that contained 20g of leucine enriched essential amino acids (EAA) (exact composition: histidine 8%, isoleucine 8%, leucine 35%, lysine 12%, methionine 3%, phenylalanine 14%, threonine 10%, and valine 10%). In the hours following the leg training the scientists measured the amino acid flux and took muscle biopsies from the vastus lateralis to quantify the amino acid transporter (the "shuttle" that carries the amino acids from the blood stream into the muscle) expression in the trained leg muscles of their subjects.
  Contrary to what happened in the younger subjects, the expression of the transporter proteins was not further augmented (over exercise alone) in response to the ingestion of the EAA supplement in the older study participants. Consequently, the restoration of the intra- to extracellular amino acid ratio which was complete after 5h in the young subjects took more time and was not completed, when the third biopsy was taken at T=5h in the older subjects (see figure 1). A result, which (re-)emphasizes the paramount importance of physical activity in older people not just to become stronger, but also to ward off sarcopenia (=muscle loss) and subsequent frailty!

• 

  Figure 2: Unadjusted (top, middle) and adjusted (bottom) testosterone levels in adolescent boys depending on their exposure to chlorinated indoor-pool water before the age of 7y (bottom) and 10y (top, middle) respectively.

  Michael Phelps & Co at high risk of low testosterone - That's at least what we'd have to conclude from a 2011 paper that was published in the International Journal of Andrology by Nickmilder et al. who found that there is a clearcut association with early life exposure to chlorinated indoor-pool water and low testosterone levels in adolescence (and probably later in life, although that was not part of the study; cf. Nickmilder. 2011)
  As the data in figure 2 shows, the association with lower testosterone levels is most pronounced (p < 0.01) when the data was adjusting for inhibin B, FSH, age, time of blood sampling and breastfeeding (figure 2, bottom). With p < 0.05 (=5% chance that this is just coincidence) even the unadjusted values for pool water exposures of >250h before the age of 7 years were however statistically significant and as the scientists point out probably a result of the prolonged exposure of the "highly permeable scrotum" (Nickmilder. 2011)  to chlorinated water.
  

  Intriguingly, Bob Weinhold mentions in his otherwise rather critical comment on the study that Shanna Swan, a professor of preventive medicine at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, did not just criticize the "paucity of evidence from other studies", but also her hint at "effects from bath water exposures" as potential confounding factors (Weinhold. 2012). Against that background I suggest you go and take a very close look at the label of whatever cosmetic products you pour into your (male) children's bathwater.

• 

  Image 2: The dreaded low T3/rT3 ratio appears to be life-saving for critical ill patients. And when you come to think about it, it could well be a "natural mini coma" by which your body diverts all available resources to the one thing that's certainly more important than having a six pack: SURVIVAL!

  Low T3/rT3 ratio protects critical ill from death! While 1000s of visitors of various bulletin boards and discussion groups on the Internet are whining about a too low ratio of the "active" to the "inactive" form of triiodothyronine, the observation Marijke Gielen and her colleagues made, when they studied the chance of critically ill patients to be released early and alive from hospital, would suggest that rT3 is way more than a nasty millstone around the neck of (over-)dieters. After all, Gielen et al. found that the patients with the best blood glucose control and lowest T3/rT3 ratios had a +19% increased chance of being released early and alive (Gielen. 2012). An increase in the T3/rT3 ratio, on the other hand, was independently of glucose management, associated with a -14% lower chance of being released early and alive!
  I guess that this should be reason enough to rethink the generally touted "uselessness of rT3", wouldn't you agree? After all, it could well be that it is the rT3 induced metabolic slowdown that allowed for optimal recovery - much similar to the artificial coma physicians will induce in burn victims or other critically patients to have them recover faster / at all. This would yet also imply that having a very low T3/rT3 ratio is - as I've previously mentioned, by the way - a good indicator of other, non-thyroid related pathologies you should better try to spot and take care of before they will eventually show up and turn you into a subject for a follow up study for Gielen et al. (related: "T4+T3 Combination Therapy Instead of T4 Mono-Therapy")

• 

  Figure 3 (Zhu. 2012): Vitamin D3 is converted to the active metabolite 1,25(OH)2D3 by sequential 25-hydroxylation and 1a-hydroxylation.

  Slow conversion of D3 to 25-OHD in the obese suggests: Low vitamin D is a result of obesity - not vice-versa! Within the past decade(s) many scientists have observed correlations between higher adiposity and lower vitamin D levels (e.g. Arunabh. 2003). Only within the last 5 years or so, however, those results have been interpreted as "scientific evidence" that low vitamin D levels play a causative role in the current obesity epidemic. First evidence for the opposite, i.e. a causative relationship between obesity and the occurrence of chronically low systemic vitamin D levels in obese individuals (90%+ of the obese women in the study had 25OHD level <50 nmol l⁻¹; Wamberg. 2012), does yet come from a study that has been published in the International Journal of Obesity a couple of weeks ago.
  According to the Wamberge et al. present in their paper, the occurence of low 25(OH)D levels in the sera of obese individuals is a direct consequence of the sluggish bioactivation of vitamin D3 in the subcutaneous adipose tissue of obese patients. The latter is due to the -71% and -49% reduced expression of the two of the enzymes from the cytochrome P450 enzyme cascade (25-hydroxylase and 1α-hydroxylase, to be precise, see figure 3), which are responsible for the conversion of dietary or skin-derived (after sun exposure) vitamin D3 to 25(OH)D, which is the form of "vitamin D" your doctor will usually measure, and the "active" form of vitamin D, 1α,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)(2)D(3) aka calcitriol.

• 

  Image 3: That's what active prostate cancer prevention can look like - no vaccine necessary!

  Heavy lifting protects against prostate cancer! This is the result of yet another of a whole host of studies which finally acknowledge the value of weight training with respect to all sorts of health benefits that have previously been ascribed to aerobic training only (Teixeira. 2012). Published ahead of print in the online version of the Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports the paper by Teixeira et al. is the first one to report that strength training can reduce the risk of prostate cancer by (re-)establishing a healthy balance between natural cell death and growth.
  In the course of a 91-day period a group of rodents were exposed to a daily "weight lifting regimen" (=jumping, 4x10 jumps with 50–70% of their body weight strapped to the thorax and 60–s rests between sets). This torture lead to an increase in corticosterone (=cortisol), DHT and testosterone levels, and brought about a healthier ratio of cell growth to apoptosis in the prostates of the animals than it was present in the age-matched sedentary control.

• 

  Figure 4: Building muscle requires more than just pumping existing fibers full of protein (click on the image to read up on the details)

  Scientists confirm Intermittent Thoughts on Building Muscle: Myostatin allows cells to "blow up", but does not facilitate structural changes. What's funny though, is that Lee et al. obviously feel that this is a great thing; and while it may actually be in the context of sarcopenia (pathological muscle dystrophy), where agents that block myostatin could proof very valuable tools, it just confirms that these agents are of little use, if not counterproductive for athletes and physical culturists who would always have to be on the look-out not to outgrow the necessary (re-)construction process, of which I have argued in the Intermittent Thoughts on IGF-1 an Its Splice Variants, already that it is necessary to keep the ever-growing muscles functional.
  So, in case you have a few vials of a real myostatin inhibitor lying around (not the hilarious egg-derived supplement that was sold a couple of years ago by snake oil vendors), you better talk to your medical practitioner about some growth hormone, as well, if you don't want to end up huge, but so weak that you can't make it up the five stairs in front of your gym ;-)

• 

  Image 4: While some experts say otherwise it appears illogical that the increase in breast tissue density, that's characteristic of women with a non-android body fat distribution would increase breast cancer risk. The majority of studies still ascribes a much higher increase in cancer risk to abdominal obesity (=android fat).

  Silicon boobs? Not necessary if you stay in shape! While the overall size still is a matter of genetics, the density of the female breast shows such a strong negative association with the android : gynoid ratio in young women (one standard deviation up corresponds to a -20% reduction in dense breast tissue; Dorgan. 2012) that it would seem as if simply staying in shape and thus avoiding the accumulation of body fit in the "unfemale" android areas could would (other factors like breastfeeding etc. aside) save one or another woman from a still very much underestimated and by no means just monetarily costly operation (cf. Bolton. 2012). And let's be honest: What are those silicon balls worth anyway, when the blubber starts shortly beneath? What certainly is bad news for the adolescent obesity generation , though is that childhood obesity is an even stronger predictor of low amounts of dense breast tissue. Even after adjustment for adult obesity each BMI z-score, i.e. one standard deviation upwards, was associated with a -27% decrease in tender breast tissue.
  Against that background it appear dubious, whether or not the often touted association between dense breast tissue and breast cancer risk is by any means a causative one... after all Abu-Abid et al. report in their review on the literature that abdominal obesity, i.e. an android body fat pattern is one of the best predictors of increased risk for all cancers (Abu-Abid. 2002).
• Are manboobs a sign of intelligence? Could be if we put any faith into the relation between the size of your hippocampus and your intellectual capacity, the findings Janine Bayer and her mostly female colleagues (this could be important, who knows maybe this is a feminist conspiracy!?) report in their latest paper on the effects a certain genetic polymorphicism (rs700518) in the aromatase enzyme CYP19A1 will have on both systemic as well as hippocampal estrogen levels and had the volume of the posterior hippocampal gray matter (Bayer. 2012). Unfortunately most manboobs today are a simple result of overaromatization due to obesity and whether this is a hallmark feature of superior intelligence appears at least questionable to me (suggested read: "Chest Fat, Bitch Tits, Chesticles and How to Get Rid Off Them")

• 

  Image 5: 1x 1g of taurine = 1.5% faster 3k-times in trained middle distance runners - another benefit of the underrated sulfur amino acid, taurine

  Taurine works for 3k-runs as well that's the simple message of a recently published study by Balshaw et al. In the randomized, double-blinded crossover experiment the ingestion of 1,000mg of taurine immediately prior to a 3km run increased the time-trial performance of the eight trained middle-distance runners by statistically significant 1.5%, on average (Balshaw. 2012); this does allegedly not sound like much, but if you take into consideration that this was a single serving effect it is actually quite impressive compared to the the ~1% performance increment in the narrow range of 90-120s activities that has recently reported to come out of weeks of beta alanine supplementation.
  So, if the testosterone boosting, anti-diabetic effects of taurine (see "Up to 180% Increase in Testosterone & More From Taurine") did not already convince you to invest the ~$20 for a 500g batch of this sulfur amino acid, maybe these results and a couple of hours in front of the TV watching track & fields events at the Olympic Games '12 can ;-)

• 

  Figure 5: Glucose metebalism markers of oxidation and nitric oxide (top) calculated artheorscleortic risk (bottom, left) and body weight gain (bottom right) in the different groups

  Differential and common effects of zinc, copper and manganese supplementation on body weight gain, glucose metabolism and cardiovascular health have recently been reported by scientists from the Usmanu Danfodiyo University in Nigeria. In their paper that has been published in the Journal of Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity Muhammad et al. report that the provision of high copper (4mg/kg), high manganese (10mg/kg) and high zinc (20mg/kg) diets or the addition of all three supplemental minerals to the diets of salt-loaded hypertensive male Wistar rats all offered at least some protection against the oxidative stress, dyslipidemia, and insulin resistance that's associated with hypertension.
  As the data in figure 5 goes to show, the provision of additional copper does yet appear to exert the most benefits. In view of the short duration of the study, it would yet be more than premature to recommend copper only supplementation regimens in the absence of proven and most importantly specific deficiencies. Rather than that those of you who are suffering from the triumvirate of elevated blood pressure, insulin resistance and dislipidemia would probably be better off if they increased their overall intake of these trace minerals.

• 

  Image 6: Sounds stupid, but if you are concerned about your dopamine receptor count, you better make sure to eat the bun and order an extra large coke (the original with tons of sugar, of course ;-)

  High fat / low carb = reduced striatal dopamine receptor availability this is the quintessence of a short communication that has been published in the International Journal of Obesity three days ago. According to E van de van de Giessen and his co-workers, rats on a high fat high fat diet (this is no typo but the way of the researchers to acknowledge that the "original high fat diet" as it is interpreted by most scientists is almost equally high in carbohydrates (calorie-wise) as it is in fat; not so for the "High Fat High Sugar High Fat" (HFHS hf) diet in the van de Giessen study. Compared to the regular high fat diet, the HFHS-hf diet ameliorated the increase in energy intake, but reduced the availability of D2 & D3 receptors in the nucleus accumbens.
  Overall, the ratio of fat to carbohydrate in the diet and not as it has previously been speculated the degree of adiposity or the total energy intake were the most and only significant correlate of the central dopamine receptor downregulation the researchers observed in their test animals (Giessen. 2012). In view of the fact that Fetissov et al. speculated in 2002, already, that "[l]ow D2 receptor expression may be causal for an exaggerated dopamine release observed in obese rats during food ingestion" (Fettisov. 2002) this is bad news - as it would indicate that the low carb induced reduction of dopamine receptor density could precipitate to reward driven episodes of overeating... an emphasis is on the conditional, here, as the majority of low-carb dieters will probably confirm my gut feeling that during the low carb diet, the exact opposite appears to be the case (at least as long as we are talking about even more fatty foods ;-).

• 

  Image 8: According to Hwang et al. it does not matter how you cook your broccoli, if you want to keep the glucosinolates intact. The main point is that you do it fast!

  Cooking your veggies without water reduces cholesterol oxidation and improves potassium status that's what a group of Japanese researchers who declare they do not have any affiliation with the producer of multi-ply cookware, Vita Craft Japan Ltd, found in a 2-week intervention study in the course of which both the "just eat your veggies" and the "eat your veggies, but cook them without water in multi-ply cookware(TM)" (the product reference is #5123) increased their beta carotene and vitamin C levels and decreased their LDL and total cholesterol levels, but only the "without water cookers" had significantly reduced oxidized LDL and profoundly improved (=lower) Sodium : Potassium ratios in their urin (Mori. 2012).
  Now, while this sounds as if it would make sense to buy this cooking "gear" things look somewhat different, when you take a look at the absolute differences and outcomes. While the oxidized LDL levels did in fact improve more in the muli-ply group this brought them just back into the exact same range where they were hovering in the other groups, as well. Similarly, the Na:K ratio was better, but it did improve in the "regular cooking" group as well and would thus probably end up in the same range, after another 2-6 weeks of vegetable eating - regardless of whether you cook them with water or not. Things would probably not be much different for the glucosinolate content of broccoli of which Hwang et al. report in the same issue of the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition report that, they decreased significantly and time-dependently during boiling, steaming and microwaving (Hwang. 2012)
• Black tea, lemon and honey: Can you stack it? Yes, you can! Camellia sinensis, Citrus limon and Apis mellifera all have a record of being potent antioxidants, but according to a paper in the August issue of the International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition lemon-flavoured black tea becomes an even more potent health drink, when you "spike" it with honey (Pereira. 2012).
  Moreover, Pereira et al. found that the darker species of the different honeys from Lavandula stoechas, Erica sp. pl. and other indigenous floral species from north-east Portugal they tested were more potent than the light amber varieties.

• 

  Image 9: The powdery Matcha tea is not only already high in catechines, it will also release>130x more of it's EGCG content into the brewing water than most regular green teas! And as if that wasn't enough, it has a 64% higher caffeine concentration (6.4 vs. 3.9mg/g), as well.

  Matcha tea has an uber-potent 137x increased EGCG content! This is one of the "oldie but goldie" studies I hit upon when I did "colleteral research" in response to a Highbrow Paleo member complaining that the over-potent Matcha tea literally blew him away. Actually not very surprising in view of the fact that it contains 137x more EGCG than regular green tea (brand China Green Tips; cf. Weiss. 2003). And while the selection of a specifically catechin rich fraction will figure here, as well, much of the effect is probably simply a result of the increased surface area and thus the greater efflux of the bioactive ingredients into the brew the tea is steeped in.
  In view of the previously reported negative effects very high doses of green tea catechins can have on your testicular health all matcha lovers out there should better limit their daily consumption to one or two cups of the exclusive brew (see "20% Reduction in Testosterone with 5 Cups of Green Tea").
• Oral anti-oxidants restore glutathione in diabetic skin At least in rodents this works pretty damn well. According to Sokmen et al. all it takes to restore the natural antioxidant defense system in the skin of streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats (model of type II diabetes) are 250 mg/kg vitamin C, 250 mg/kg vitamin E and 0.2 mg/kg selenium (Sokmen. 2012). The human equivalent of these orally supplied antioxidants would be 40mg/kg vitamin C, 45 IU/kg vitamin E and 30µg/kg selenium - all much too high to benefit anyone who is not diabetic, by the way.

• 

  Image 10: Usually I am really enthusiastic about new technologies, but looking at how careful physicists handle nanomaterials, and how food designers and the cosmetic industry unleash them on the costumers, like the US and UDSSR unleashed the a-bomb radiation on their own soldiers, ignorant of the (un?)known dangers.

  Nano-sizing fish oil doubles absorption - This is the result of a recently conducted rodent trial by Tanmoy kumar Dey the results of which are soon going to be published in Food Research International (kumar Dey. 2012). The more than +50% increased absorption the scientists found for their nano emulsified fish oil in the small intestine of the lab rats is - at least in my humble opinion - somewhat frightening. Firstly, I am really not sure we really need the hilarious amounts of fish oil, where the use of respective products would make sense (it should be said, though, that this new formula has been developed for parenteral nutrition, specifically). We have, secondly, not the slightest idea if those nano-sized fish oil molecules behave anywhere similar to their fluffy large brethren - who tells us that they don't have the exact opposite effect on our health?
  And third and lastly, if nano-sized fish oil is absorbed 100% more efficiently, all other nanomaterials - especially those that are nor increasingly popular in the cosmetic industry - will have a similarly increased "bioavailability" and could thus not only reach places in our body they were never intended to reach, but do just that in very significant amounts!

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