Appetite Short News: Pavlovian Conditioning at Work in the Obese | Polydextrose as a Satiety Promoter | Parents, Just Like Their Kids, Fall for All the Tricks of the Food Industry

Too lean for Pavlovian Conditioning.

In today's "appetizing" installment of the short news, I have picked three of the latest publications from the scientific journal Appetite, of which I thought that they were newsworthy. In that, I cover the Pavlovian Conditioning of overweight individuals, the benefits of polydextrose on appetite control and the way product labels fool parents and children into buying unhealthy foods.

I have to admit: It's not all practically applicable, but who knows maybe you can use it to smart-ass during the holidays. Or maybe you bake some polydextrose enhanced super-satiating cookies for your family, ha?

More facts for your smart-ass sessions on the holidays ;-)

Bugs Dictate What You Crave

Sweeteners & Your Gut

Foods, Not Ma- cros for the Gut

Lactulose For Gut & Health

Probiotics Don't Cut Body Fat

The Macrobiotic MaPi2.0 Diet

• Hedonic food cue conditioning in the obese: You know the story about Pavlov's dog starting to salivate, when the bell rang that would usually accompany his next feeding?
  
  Well, a recent study confirms that something very similar is at work in obese, but not lean subjects. While the former remain calm and cool to a visual cue that had previously been given alongside some tasty chocolate milk, the latter began to swallow, a reliable sign of increased salivation. As the scientists from the Allaint International University in San Diego say, these "
  

  are the first results to show differential acquisition of Pavlovian conditioned responding in overweight individuals compared to lean individuals" (Meyer. 2014)

  The fact that the conditioning worked was yet not the only significant finding, Meyer et al. made. They also observed that hedonic food stimuli were significantly more effective 'conditioners' in the obese than neutral stimuli.
  
  Practically speaking the observations the researchers from the Allaint International University in San Diego made, may partly explain the difficulties obese individuals who may have been conditioned / conditioned themselves to hedonic food stimuli for their whole lives have when it comes to controlling their energy intake.
• Polydextrose as a satiety promoter: In their meta-analysis of the current literature on the effects of polydextrose on energy intake, researchers from the US and Finland found that...
  
  • polydextrose consumed with a mid-morning snack reduces energy intake (EI) at lunch time.
  • this reduction in EI at lunch time occurs in a dose-dependent manner.
  • but the energy intake during the rest of the day did not show any difference
  Now this probably wouldn't be newsworthy, then, if a a regression model had not been able to confirm a dose-dependent effect on the reduction of daily energy intake.

Added polydextrose reduces the insulin response to milk (Lummela. 2009)

What exactly is polydextrose? Polydextrose is a glucose polymer that is completely soluble in water. As a food additive it offers the texture of sucrose but provides only 25% of the equivalent energy, or 4 kJ/g. It has been approved for use in foods in over 60 nations and is recognized as a dietary fiber in more than 20 countries (FAO/WHO, 2009). Next to the reduced energy content it has another benefits of the fibrous substance is that its addition to foods like milk can reduce the insulinogenic response to this meals significantly - even in healthy individuals (Lummela. 2009).

• More specifically, the meta-analysis was able to show that the dose of polydextrose consumed correlated significantly with the reduction of nergy intake at lunch (−0.67 Polydextrose (g/day) | 80% correlation; P < 0.01), due to which the energy intake was reduced by 1% per 2.86g of polydextrose per day.
  
  As Ibarra et al. point out, the sex-specific results are consistent with results for the whole group - the effect is thus similarly pronounced in both men and women. Accordingly, the meta-analysis "supports the notion that the consumption of polydextrose reduces voluntary energy intake at a subsequent meal" and that "this reduction in energy intake occurs in a dose-dependent manner" (Ibarra. 2014).
• Parents of preschool children make (non-)sense of front-of-package visuals and claims on food - A recent study from the Colorado State University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign investigated what parents make of the colorful packaging of foods their kids like to buy and found that most of them tend to "accept misleading front-of-package claims when making quick food decisions" (Abrams. 2014).
  
  

  

  Parents fall for unwarranted claims, and misleading images children for cartoons.

  While playful visuals appeal to children, parents associate them with junk food. That does yet not mean that they would not fall for health claims, realistic graphics, and natural claims which make them classify the junkfoods that were investigated in the study at hand as healthier.
  
  Fruit graphics in particular were misunderstood to indicate that the respective foods actually contained fruit, when they were simply meant to communicate flavors, instead. Against that background it's not surprising that the unsettling result of this study in 28 women and 2 men revealed that "[parents may make unhealthy food choices as a result of front-of-package information" (Abrams. 2014).

Intensity is key to reduce the exercise induced increase in appetite | more

Bottom line: I understand very well that for most of you only news item #2 is of practical value. Item #1, on the other hand, is rather a description of the misery than a solution and #3 is something that you as a SuppVersity reader probably knew, already... that being said, simply adding more polydextrose to the foods dumb parents buy for their kids because there are fruits on the packaging is not going to help their kids becoming overweight adults who begin to salivate, whenever they see the right food cues. A long-term solution to the problem would thus have to start with the production of healthier foods by the food industry and the education of the public who would then no longer fall for the unwarranted health claims on the packaging of children and adult food products | Comment on Facebook!

References:

• Abrams, Katie M., Caitlin Evans, and Brittany RL Duff. "Ignorance is bliss: how parents of preschool children make sense of front-of-package visuals and claims on food." Appetite (2014).
• Ibarra, Alvin, et al. "Effects of polydextrose on different levels of energy intake: a systematic review and meta-analysis." Appetite (2014).
• Lummela, Netta, et al. "Effects of a fibre-enriched milk drink on insulin and glucose levels in healthy subjects." Nutrition journal 8.1 (2009): 45.
• Meyer, Monica D., et al. "Pavlovian conditioning to hedonic food cues in overweight and lean individuals." Appetite (2014).

Dietary Fiber - Friend or Foe? Addition of Hydroxpropyl-Methylcellulose, a Non-Fermentable Viscous Fiber, to Standard(!) Rodent Chow Reduces Fat Gain by -22%

Image 1: Just as about everything, these days, you can buy the semisynthetic non-fermentable viscous fiber Hydroxpropyl-Methylcellulose pound-wise from China - this is probably also where the producers of the junk food you hopefully are not eating get their E464 from ;-)

If the health and fitness community on the Internet was a battlefield (personally, I sometimes think it is ;-) one of the ongoing skirmishes would certainly be fought over the question whether the deliberate ingestion of great amounts of dietary fiber was a good or rather a bad thing. I must admit that I have not really made up my mind on the benefits and caveats of increasing or decreasing your fiber intake, partly because the available science appears to be quite inconclusive. This, obviously does not hinder the "ANTI faction" in the fitness and nutrition world to add "fiber" as the 1001 item on their never-ending list of ultimate dietary evils. My gut feeling does yet tells me this has more to do with the fact that mainstream dietary recommendations list dietary fiber as a "healthy food" to eat, than with a thorough research of the available literature, which has, as of lately, been extended by a particularly interesting study from scientists from the Department of Food Science and Nutrition at the University of Minnesota and the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (Islam. 2011).

When fiber ain't fiber, natural is not naturally better

Being aware of the partly contradictory results previous studies on the metabolic effect (as measured in the lab and not by the way your poo-poo looks or how often you have to go to the toilette, like the "experts" like to do it ;-), Ajmila Islam and her colleagues fed a group of 6 week-old male Wistar rats a standardized rodent chow (AIN-93G, composition see figure 1 in previous blogpost) with either hydroxypropyl-
methylcellulose (HPMC) or standard cellulose as a source of dietary fiber, which comprised 5% of the animals' otherwise totally identical diets. This obviously sounds nonsensical if you follow the usual black or white approach to nutrition (which btw. is propagated by the mainstream and the ANTIs, as well), after all fiber is fiber and should be good or bad!? Well, it turns out that there are more than subtle differences in

1. the viscosity of the fiber / fiber food mixture, and
2. the fermentability of different types of dietary fiber

Now, cellulose the main component in plant cell walls and "the fiber" most mainstream dietitians (and their ANTI opponents) have in mind, when they are talking about the beneficial / detrimental effects of "dietary fiber", is neither viscous nor readily fermentable. Hydroxypropyl-methylcellulose (HPMC) is also non-fermentable, but contrary to its naturally occurring cousin it has a high viscosity.

Hydroxypropyl-methylcellulose, short HPMC, is a semisynthetic, inert, viscoelastic polymer that is used as an ophthalmic lubricant, as well as an excipient and controlled-delivery component in oral medicaments, and has, under the disguise of the "E-number" E464, already found its way into a lot of commercially produced foodstuff, where it is used as an emulsifier, thickening and suspending agent, and as an alternative to animal gelatin.

While its artificial origin will obviously make the ANTI faction cry out loud, again, I suggest you first read about the effect HPMC had on the animals, before you totally discard it as being "not natural", "non paleo", "the work of Monsatan" or whatever...(btw. it is at least kosher ;-)

Figure 1: Changes in body composition (weights in g) after 6 weeks on standard diet with either non-viscous cellulose or viscous hydroxypropyl-methylcellulose as the primary source (5%) of dietary fiber (data adapted from Islam. 2011).

If you look at the data in figure 1, you will have to assert that the body composition of the lab animals did benefit from 6 weeks on the 5% HPMC diet. With a -29% reduction in the increases in purportedly "dangerous visceral fat", a -22% reduction in total adipose tissue gain and non-significant changes in lean mass accrual HMPC easily outperform the "Allis" and "Orlistats" of the pharmaceutical industry. Moreover, while the latter simply reduce the amount of dietary fat that is actually digested (an idiotic approach to weight loss, if you asked me), the non-fermentable viscous fiber in the Islam study worked its fat burning magic right via increases in AMPK, COX, citrate synthase, PGC-alpha, PPAR-delta and UCP3 expression, or, put simply: The 5% HPMC diet ramped up mitochondrial fatty acid oxidation.

Figure 2: Changes (relative to cellulose group) in gene expression in liver and soleus muscle of HMPC fed rats (data adapted from Islam. 2011).

Nevertheless, the slight, yet statistically significant smaller increases in bone density in the HPMC group (+6.4g vs. +7.4g) do suggest that in addition to these inert metabolic effect, the mere excretion of parts of the diets (with respect to bone density probably minerals like calcium and phosphorus), of which the animals in both groups consumed about identical amounts, could also have contributed to the otherwise beneficial effects of HPMC feeding, which, as the profound decrease (-41%) in liver PEPCK expression suggests, also included reductions in the hepatic rate of gluconeogenesis.

Figure 3: Changes (relative to cellulose group) in glucose metablism and adipokine expression of HMPC fed rats (data adapted from Islam. 2011).

The overall beneficial effects on glucose and fatty acid metabolism, by the way, are also reflected in the changes in blood glucose and adipokine concentrations I plotted in figure 3. The lower insulin and leptin levels in the presence of reduced body fat stores indicate increased insulin and leptin sensitivity and could be partly mediated by the marked increase in adiponectin expression, as the latter, as Islam et al. point out, has been found to have an "insulin sensitizing effect in both muscle and liver and a thermogenic effect (enhanced lipid metabolism) in skeletal muscle".

"Fiber is good, then! Right?"

Contrary to cellulose and fermentable viscous fiber, such as guar gum, of which a 2010 study by Isken et al. (Isken. 2010) found that it had, fed at 10% of the diet of mice, no effect on body fat levels in the short term (15 weeks) and even increased adiposity in the long-term (from 27 weeks to 43 weeks), short term feeding with 5% hydroxypropyl-methylcellulose (HPMC) exhibited unexpectedly profound beneficial effects on the metabolism of these otherwise healthy and normally fed (this is important, because we usually see fiber supplementation in the context of "high fat" diets) rodents.

Whether it would be advisable to deliberately look for the number E464 on the foods you consume is yet still highly questionable. For one, every food with an "E -number" on its ingredient list should disappear from your grocery list, anyways. I do not care which number it is, but if food has "E"'s in it chances that this is highly processed garbage are 99% and in that case the supposedly insignificant amount of HPMC will not turn junk into health food. And secondly, and certainly more importantly, we are just beginning to understand how the viscosity of the foods we eat and their susceptibility to fermentation interact and which impact(s) these characteristics have on our digestion and metabolism. After all, it could well be possible that, just as in the Isken study, this beneficial short term effects eventually fire back and the formerly lean HMPC rats suddenly start gaining weight (and body fat) like crazy... you see, as usual things are more complicated than the innocent (yet actually invalid) question "Is fiber good or bad?" might suggest.

Weightloss Threesome: TV or Sleep, Black Pepper, Ginger, Horseradish or Mustard, PolyGlycopleX (PGX) or Psyllium?

Image 1: True or false - Is three really better than two?

Since the On Short Notice columns turns out to be a major success, I decided that I could put out studies in packages of shorter items, on a more regular basis - at least if I stumble across pairs such as those in today's Fat Loss Threesome and have time to compile them in to a comprehensive blogpost. But enough of the prelude, let's get right to our threesome: Television or Sleep, Black Pepper, Ginger, Horseradish or Mustard, PolyGlycopleX (PGX) or Psyllium - What do you think, which of these is will spice up, which will water down your weight loss efforts; and for the bros out there: Can you stack all of them or do they have to be cycled?

TV Watching and Insufficient Sleep - A Dynamic Duo for (Childhood-)Diabesity

Image 2: Watching TV eating junk is only part of the equation; what's missing here is the lack of sleep kids don't get, when they watch TV canned with coke and energy drinks all night.

Facebook friends and followers of the SuppVersity Facebook Channel may be familiar with at least some of the recent articles on the negative impact of TV watching alone and in conjunction with sleep deprivation on the body composition and metabolic health of our children. My personal favorite in this regard is a letter to the editor of the British Journal of Nutrition, in which Travis John Saunders and Jean-Philippe Chaput argue that obesity prevention could be as simple as turning off the television and having a nap (Saunders. 2012). The authors reference a whole host of studies to support their hypothesis that TV consumption and the associated lack of sleep esp. during the early hours of the night contribute to the rise of the obesity epidemic:

• TV viewing burns energy at a slower rate than most other waking activities and yet still most available evidence suggests that it may be energy intake, rather than expenditure, which leads the scientifically established association between screen time and weight gain, Saunders and Chaput ascribe to several confounding factors such as
• TV viewing provides opportunities for snacking & food eaten in front of the TV is generally high in calories and low in nutrients (Thorp. 2011)
• TV commercials reinforce the unhealthy dietary habits
• Sleeping also burns less energy than regular waking activities, but reducing sleep time usually increases, not decreases weight gain, due to
• increased consumption of high energy, specifically high sugar foods to compensate for the lack of energy (cf. "Fat Content Per Energy Drink 0g, Body Fat Gain Per Energy Drink 18g!")
• decreased energy expenditure through fatigue-related reductions in physical activity and lower basal metabolic rates

"Pah, that's guesswork!" If that's what you think, when you hear about Saunders' & Chaput's hypothesis, you may want to take a look at another recently published study by Calamaro et al. who report that (1) children who consume caffeinated beverages (not even directly before bed) get 15min less sleep and (2) children with 3 technology items in their room got 45min less sleep (Calamaro. 2012). Significant correlations with BMI were yet present for the intake of caffeinated softdrinks, only!

In other words, although both are characterized by physical inactivity TV watching and sleep "exert opposing influences on energy balance and body weight" - an observation which leads the authors to humorously conclude that

Reducing TV viewing and/or getting adequate sleep require little in the way of resources or expertise, and may therefore be more sustainable than more traditional interventions focused on diet and exercise. If having a good night's sleep truly is better for your weight than watching TV, this would be a lifestyle modification which may be substantially easier to implement than adopting a new diet or exercise routine. This change of focus is certainly worth consideration, right after a short nap. (Saunders. 2012)

Assuming that you did not already take your nap or have exceeded your daily combined TV + Internet screen time, you will probably also be interested to hear that another recently published paper by Caroline Fitzgerald et al. reports that "a child who watches 18 hours of television (per week) at 4.5 years of age will by the age of 10 have an extra 7.6 milllimetres of waist because of his or her habits" (Fitzgerald. 2012). Does not sound much, but you know how things go, proper with 5, chubby with 10, obese with 20 and dead before 40... you don't really think your kid could have invested those 3.5 years(!) of he would have been sitting in front of his television screen into more productive, more healthy and more sustainable hobbies, do you?

Implications: The best way to avoid TV & sleep related weight gain and / or propel your weight loss is to start planning your screen time instead of simply planting your (fat?) ass on the sofa, whenever you have a minute to spare.

1. Go to one of the free online TV magazines and create a schedule pick only those shows you really feel you have to see and try to reduce your screen time by 20min every week. 
2. Never eat in front of the television spontaneously, if you have a planned, healthy meal, make sure you don't have more on your plate than you plan to eat(!), and don't have anyone tell you cannot enjoy the SuperBowl or the latest Hollywood blockbuster without chips, popcorn and a soft-drink. 
3. Get yourself a time-limit switch program it so that it the TV has no power, after 9PM, which is when you will be grabbing your new blindfolds and earplugs and head to bed, weeknights.

If you stick to those simple rules and use your iPhone or iPad only for your obligatory daily class at the SuppVersity you will not just improve your physique, you will also live a couple of extra years! After all, scientists from the University of Queensland calculated in 2011 that "every single hour of TV [i.e. one hour per day] viewed after the age of 25 reduces the viewer's life expectancy by 21.8 min" (Veermann. 2011)!

Mustard, Horseradish, Black pepper & Ginger - Useless Thermogenics

Image 3: Although it's more effective than horseradish, black pepper or ginger It would probably take more hot mustard than your tummy can handle to get ripped to the shreds.

If you are already not watching TV and getting enough sleep (see above) and still don't look as lean and jacked as you would like to, a group of Danish researchers has some suggestions on which supplements you should not waste any money on (Gregersen. 2012): Mustard, horseradish, black pepper and ginger! While the latter two did not exert any measurable effects on either diet induced thermogenesis or energy intake (obviously the intention was to reduce the latter), when they were administered at oral dosages of 1.3 g and 20g, respectively, the addition of 8.3g of horseradish or 21g of mustard to standardized brunch meal did at least have some effects on the 22 young (age 25y), normal-weight (BMI 21.8kg/m²) men in the randomized cross-over study by Gregersen et al.:

• 8.5g of horseradish decreased the postprandial heart rate and increased the blood pressure to a statistically significantdegree, while
• 20g of mustard increased the thermogenic response to the testmeal by 14%

Now, while the former sounds dangerous and the latter as if "Mustard-o-burn (TM)" was just around the corner, none of these statistically significant effects were physiologically relevant. After all, it would take roughly 1 years to shed an additional lbs of body weight from the +14% increased diet induced thermogenesis from mustard (even if that lasted 24/7), because +14% added to 13kcal/h are only 1.82kcal/h. Even if we assume that you eat 5 meals a day this would hardly amount to more than 10kcal/day or 1.5min of light jogging... but hey, we all know how futile calculations like these are - no? Well, then you should check out my "Busting the 3,500kcal Equals 1 Lbs of Fat Loss" post!

Implications: If anything the use of tons of spices will render your food so unpalatable that you will simply eat less. Aside from those anorexic effects the use of copious amounts of spices, as they would obviously be necessary to illicit significant thermogenic effects, will probably produce more negative than positive (side) effects and could thus even contradict the established beneficial effects of having a "normal" (=tasty) amount of spices in your diet (Kochhar. 2008).

And in case you still insist on "spicing" up your fat loss regimen beyond the reasonable level your taste buds (and gastrointestinal mucosa; cf. Jensen-Jarolim. 1998) can handle, the topical route as in "Topical Fat Loss: Capsaicin Cream Blunts Weight Gain in Rodent Model and Increases Leptin, Adiponectin, Lipolysis and Fatty Acid Oxidation in Visceral Fat Depots" could in fact be worth a try.

Viscous Weight Loss Alternatives: Psyllium Seed Gum and PGX^(R)

Now it would be unfair if I left you with "nothing" else but the advice to switch of the TV, get more sleep and refrain from spicy food (unless you eat it simply 'cause you like it). Luckily, there are yet two additional hitherto unpublished FirstView Articles in the queue of the British Journal of Nutrition which do suggest that dietary fibre, viscous dietary fiber, to be precise could make a valuable addition to your no-TV + lots of sleep regimen.

Figure 1: GI (measured according to ISO 26 642-2010) with and without addition of PGX viscous fiber supplement in 2x250ml water to the 50g carbohydrate meal (Brand-Miller. 2012)

When you ingest it prior to bread, rice, boiled potatoes, french fries cornflakes or instant outs (GI range 65-84) it, a novel dietary fiber supplement that goes by the ingenious brandname PolyGlycopleX
(PGX) leads to dose dependent reduction in the GI of a subsequent carbohydrate meals of 16.5% and 31% for the 2.5g and 5g dose of PGX, respectively - or, physiologically speaking, a 15-33% reduction in blood glucose elevations in the 120min after the consumption of the test meals.

Now that certainly does not sound earth-shattering, but a previous human study has already established that the reduced postprandial glycemia goes hand in hand with increases in PYY expression (Reimer. 2010) and reduced food intake on subsequent meals (Vuskan. 2009). Moreover, earlier rodent studies have established that PGX can improve glycaemic control and protein glycation (Grover. 2011), most probably due to the far-reaching metabolic effects of increased glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1; read more about this incretin hormone in  "Eat More, Burn More and Lose Fat Like on Crack with GLP-1!?") levels.

Will eating 25g of psyllium /day reprogram your genes to burn not store fat?

What's even better though is that the last FirstView Article in today's fat SuppVersity news clearly suggests that you don't have to buy InoviBiologic's patented purified polysaccharide supplement that is extracted from konjac, sodium alginate and xanthan gum by the means of a proprietary process the company calls EnviroSimplex^®, to benefit from those health and weight loss effects. If the results Togawa et al. observed in their C57BL/6J who were kept on high-fat (40%) diets with or without the addition of 5% psyllium (as psyllium seed gum, PG-200) for 10 weeks translate to humans, the only reason I could see to spend the extra money would be the whopping dose of ~25g/day (0.32g/kg body weight; learn how to calculate Human Equivalent Doses).

Figure 2: Visceral fat mass and parameters of glucose and lipid metabolism after 10 weeks on the low fat control vs. the supplemented or unsupplemented high fat diet (data expressed relative to control; Togawa. 2012)

If the results do translate to human beings, you can stomach this amount of fiber without negative side effects and are still able to consume adequate amounts of "real" food, though, the data in figure 2 will probably have you hack "psyllium fibre buys" into google in no time. After all, the profound upregulation of genes involved in fatty acid oxidation and lipid transport Naoyuki Togawa and his colleagues from the Yokohama Corporate Research Laboratories and the Laboratory of Food and Nutrition, Graduate School of Horticulture at the Chiba University in Chiba, Japan, detected in fat and skeletal muscle tissue of their lab animals were not just statistically, but also physiologically significant. So significant, in fact, that the mice who consumed ~148g of the psyllium enhanced high-fat diet before they were euthanized at the end of the 10-week study period did not just gain 10% less body weight than their unsupplemented peers, they also had lower cholesterol, lower triglyceride and above all lower visceral body fat masses than the "control" animals on the supposedly healthy low-fat diet.

Image 4: Fiber or no fiber - those abs want to be worked out.

Implications: While ginger, pepper, horseradish and cool are still "hot", dietary fiber is (pun intended) somewhat poopooed upon by many of the "everything mainstream must be wrong" nutrition gurus and fitness enthusiasts. From a scientific perspective, however, it does make more sense to spice your meals up with fiber than with spices that burn away your intestinal mucosa and turn your gut into an open barndoor (cf. Jensen-Jarolim. 1998) for all sorts of things you should better leave where a huge amount of the fiber will go - in the toilet bowl.

That being said, we need further studies to elucidate if and at which dosages similar epigenetic changes as they were observed by Togawa et al. occur in human beings before making any definite recommendations. For the time being, I will simply repeat my advice to

1. fill yourself up with fiber-laden veggies and consume a balanced (!) amount of saturated, mono- and polyunsaturated fats from whole foods,
2. aim for a mild energy deficit (~20%) and a reasonable carbohydrate intake of roughly 700-900g per week; either by low-carbing + refeeding (e.g. 6x 50-75g + 1x 250-400) or a constantly low intake of preferably low(er) GI carbs (don't count carbs from green veggies and co!)
3. eat at least 20-25g of a complete protein (count only meats, fish, eggs and dairy) with every meal and supplement with protein powders / bars, whenever you have no whole food source with 10+g of EAAs in it at hand
4. follow a sound workout regimen (e.g the "Fat Loss Support Routine" from the Step By Step Guide), don't do hours of "cardio" in the non-existent fat burning zone and cherish the fat-burning effects of glycogen depleting strength and HIIT workouts without overtaxing your central nervous system

If you follow 1-4 on 330 of 365 days of the next year you even the ugliest blubber that may still be covering your abs should disappear - and guess what!? All that without patented or non-patented viscous fiber supplements ;-)

References:

• Brand-Miller JC, Atkinson FS, Gahler RJ, Kacinik V, Lyon MR, Wood S. Effects of added PGX®, a novel functional fibre, on the glycaemic index of starchy foods. British Journal of Nutrition, 2012; 108, pp 245-248
• Fitzpatrick C, Pagani LS, Barnett TA. Early childhood television viewing predicts explosive leg strength and waist circumference by middle childhood. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2012 Jul 16;9(1):87.
• Gregersen NT, Belza A, Jensen MG, Ritz C, Bitz C, Hels O, Frandsen E, Mela DJ, Astrup A. Acute effects of mustard, horseradish, black pepper and ginger on energy expenditure, appetite, ad libitum energy intake and energy balance in human subjects. British Journal of Nutrition, Available on CJO
• Grover GJ, Koetzner L, Wicks J, Gahler RJ, Lyon MR, Reimer RA, Wood S. Effects of the soluble fiber complex PolyGlycopleX® (PGX®) on glycemic control, insulin secretion, and GLP-1 levels in Zucker diabetic rats. Life Sci. 2011 Feb 28;88(9-10):392-9.
• Jensen-Jarolim E, Gajdzik L, Haberl I, Kraft D, Scheiner O, Graf J. Hot spices influence permeability of human intestinal epithelial monolayers. J Nutr. 1998 Mar;128(3):577-81.
• Kochhar KP. Dietary spices in health and diseases (II). Indian J Physiol Pharmacol. 2008 Oct-Dec;52(4):327-54.
• Marshall SJ, Biddle SJ, Gorely T, Cameron N, Murdey I. Relationships between media use, body fatness and physical activity in children and youth: a meta-analysis. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2004
• Reimer RA, Pelletier X, Carabin IG, Lyon M, Gahler R, Parnell JA, Wood S. Increased plasma PYY levels following supplementation with the functional fiber PolyGlycopleX in healthy adults. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2010 Oct;64(10):1186-91.
• Saunders TJ, Chaput JP. Is obesity prevention as simple as turning off the television and having a nap? Br J Nutr. 2012 Jun 14:1-2.
• Thorp AA, Owen N, Neuhaus M, Dunstan DW. Sedentary behaviors and subsequent health outcomes in adults a systematic review of longitudinal studies, 1996-2011. Am J Prev Med. 2011 Aug;41(2):207-15.
• Veerman JL, Healy GN, Cobiac LJ, Vos T, Winkler EA, Owen N, Dunstan DW. Television viewing time and reduced life expectancy: a life table analysis. Br J Sports Med. 2011 Aug 15.
• Vuksan V, Panahi S, Lyon M, Rogovik AL, Jenkins AL, Leiter LA. Viscosity of fiber preloads affects food intake in adolescents. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2009 Sep;19(7):498-503.

3x15g/Day E401, Sodium-Alginate, Increase Weight Loss and Reduction in Body Fat % on Mild Caloric Deficit by 30-40%! The GPA (Gut-Brain Axis) Makes it Possible.

Image 1: The small amounts of sodium-alginate, aka E401 many chocolates and commercially produced foods contain is obviously not enough to ward off obesity. Otherwise the obesity rates should have fallen not risen with the increase in crappy foods.

Aside from the ubiquitous stimulant based fatburners there is another class of weight loss supplements emerging as of late. Those of you who have read Adelfo's Thursday post, here at the SuppVersity, may have seen his plug for Myotropics' WM-HDP based "new Fat Burning Carbohydrate" ThermiCarb(TM). Now as hilarious as it may sound, this resistant starch is in fact as much of a "fat burner" as any of the 1001 currently available stims is. After all, none of those products actively burns fat. What still makes them effective, though, is their ability to shift substrate utilization away from glucose and towards fat, to curb appetite and to deliver the energy you need to do what it takes to shed body fat, i.e. to function normally while eating slightly less and working out.

Contrary to the good old (and certainly not obsolete) stims, these new "fat burners" act on the gut-brain axis, instead of HPA (the hypothalamus-pituatary-adrenal axis), by stimulating the release of a whole host of peptides from the gut. Among those, the  incretin hormones GLP-1 & co. (cf. "Eat More, Burn More and Lose Fat Like on Crack with GLP-1!?") are probably the best understood among these mis-understood "satiety hormones" with their profound  downstream effects on overall energy expenditure, glucose and fatty acid metabolism (Mudaliar. 2012). 

Is alginate, a polysaccharide from marine brown algae, a novel "fat burning fiber"?

Next to designer-starches such as WM-HDP there is also an increasing interest in the effects natural fiber / fiber extracts, such as the 15g alginate from brown algae the obese subjects (0–55y; BMI 30-45kg/m²) in a recent study from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark had to consume before each of their three meals in the course of a 12-week double-blind randomized parallel-intervention (Jenson. 2012), exert on the endocrine signals from your gut.

Image 2: Popsticles are not the only products containing sodium alginate (E401) as a thickener and stabilizer. If you take a closer look at the ingredients of the stuff in the supermarkets, you will notice that  many commercially produced low fat dairy products, ready made sauces, gravies, dressings, puddings, pies and pastry fillings contain it, as well.

What is alginate? Alginate is a gelling polysaccharide (gelling = it forms a gel which passes slowly through your digestive tract) that is extracted from marine brown algae. In seaweed the mannuronic and guluronic acid based components are responsible for the mechanical strength and flexibility. During the regular extraction process alginate is bound to sodium. The result, sodium alginate, has been used a E401 in various foodstuffs to stabilize, gel or viscosify it for years now (Brownlee. 2005). The appetite reducing effects of sodium alginate and other marine-derived fiber are widely known, but the underlying mechanism is still not completely elucidated. According to the current paradigm, it is related to the interaction of sodium-alginate and calcium during the digestive process and the subsequent changes in viscosity of the gastric content, which has been associated with slowed gastric emptying and a reduction of postprandial glucose and insulin response. Of these the latter, i.e. the prolonged influx of glucose, the absence of blood glucose spikes and the overall reduction in insulin levels is currently believed to be at the heart of the observed satiety effects (Cani. 2009).

What is interesting about this study is that according to the self-set goals of the scientists, which lay at the ground of their "Intention-To-Treat analysis" (ITT), which evaluated the changes in body weight and overall body composition, as well as the improvements of metabolic risk factors as a whole, yielded no differences between the two study arms.

Figure 1: Changes in body weight and body composition in response to caloric reduction (-300kcal/day) with or without supplemental alginate (15g/day) after 12 weeks (large graph); actual weight development over the whole 12-week study period (small graph; directly from Jenson. 2012)

If you do yet take a closer look at the actual study data (see figure 1), you will see that there were very important differences between those dieters who simply consumed 300kcal/per day less (control group) and those who followed the exact same calorically reduced dietary regimen yet with an additional 15g of fiber from sodium alginate before every meal (alginate group)!

Lose more weight, more fat and do this at a constant rate beyond week 9!

Despite the fact that onlye the differences between the reduction in total weight and body fat percentage reached statistical significance, this and the absence of the "weight loss plateau" in week 9+ (see figure 1, right) in the alginate group clearly suggest that much contrary to what Jenson et al. had apprehended, the previously demonstrated short-term weight loss benefits of fibrous algae extract and other dietary fiber (Paxman. 2008; Odunsi. 2010; Peters. 2011; Wanders. 2011) did not disappear after an initial adaptation phase. On the contrary! The 40% greater reduction in body weight, as well as the 36% greater reduction in body fat percentage would be of little value if the body weight stagnated after only -6.78kg weight loss in week 9 and left the dieters with an average BMI of 32kg/m² well in the obesity / danger zone.

Figure 2: Changes in glucose metabolism and ghrelin (left) and lipid metabolism (right) in response to caloric reduction (-300kcal/day) with or without supplemental alginate (15g/day) after 12 weeks (large graph); actual weight development over the whole 12-week study period (small graph; directly from Jenson. 2012)

Looking back at the exact weight development in figure 1 (right), we may thus speculate that the observed improvements of the measured markers of blood glucose management and lipid metabolism of which only the HbA1c (not shown in figure 2) showed a statistically significant inter-group difference (+0.01% in control -0.01% in alginate; p < 0.024) would have reached statistical significance after 16-20 weeks. This is particularly true for the insulin levels, for which the difference between control and alginate group is already borderline significant (p < 0.062) after 12 weeks of alginate supported dieting.

Bottom line useful for the obese, safe, well tolerated, but...

Image 3: Duong Nguyen from the first installment of the SuppVersity Student Spotlight at the beginning and end of his amazing 12-week transformation!

As usual we do however have to remember that the subjects in this study were more than just a little chubby, with body fat percentages in the >40% range a reduction of -5.8% (control) and -8.2% (alginate) is easier achieved than a (from a merely mathematical standpoint) equal -12% of the body fat content from 12% to 10%. So, while healthy dieters don't have to care about the minimal, but statistically significantly lower reduction in blood pressure in response to weight loss with sodium-alginate (the scientists ascribe this to the relatively high sodium content of the alginate supplement), the will probably not benefit in the same way as Jenson's obese subjects from the additional 45g of fiber per day. Well, unless, it exerts similar effects effects as they have been observed for hydroxypropyl-distarches (cf. "Waxy Maize Reloaded") on the expression of GIP, GLP-1 and the whole host of the initially mentioned incretin hormones, and adipokines (Sánchez. 2012) and don't just curb appetite and slow digestion.

If it had all those GBA (gut brain axis ;-) effects, seaweed derived sodium-alginate supplements could however make an ideal adjunct to a ~20% reduction in food intake, a reasonable fat loss workout (e.g. "Step By Step Guide to Your Own Workout Routine - Part V: Example Routines - Round 2: Fat Loss Support Routine") and a stimulant-based fat burner of your choice, whenever you strive to cut a few pounds of body weight. I mean, just imagine if Duong (see image 3), who likewise dieted for 12 weeks would have lost 35% more fat mass - yeah you're right, he would probably have been "disgustingly" lean, as Adelfo likes to call it ;-)

References:

1. Brownlee IA, Allen A, Pearson JP, Dettmar PW, Havler ME, Atherton MR, Onsøyen E. Alginate as a source of dietary fiber. Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr 2005;45:497–510.
2. Cani PD, Lecourt E, Dewulf EM, Sohet FM, Pachikian BD, Naslain D, De Backer F, Neyrinck AM, Delzenne NM. Gut microbiota fermentation of prebiotics increases satietogenic and incretin gut peptide production with consequences for appetite sensation and glucose response after a meal. Am J Clin Nutr 2009;90:1236–43
3. Jensen GM, Kristensen M, Astrup A. Effect of alginate supplementation on weight loss in obese subjects completing a 12-wk energy-restricted diet: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2012 Jul;96(1):5-13. Epub 2012 May 30.
4. Mudaliar S, Henry RR. The incretin hormones: from scientific discovery to practical therapeutics. Diabetologia. 2012 Jul;55(7):1865-8. Epub 2012 May 4.
5. Odunsi ST, Vazquez-Roque MI, Camilleri M, Papathanasopoulos A, Clark MM, Wodrich L, Lempke M, McKinzie S, Ryks M, Burton D, et al. Effect of alginate on satiation, appetite, gastric function, and selected gut satiety hormones in overweight and obesity. Obesity (Silver Spring) 2010;18:1579–84.
6. Paxman JR, Richardson JC, Dettmar PW, Corfe BM. Daily ingestion of alginate reduces energy intake in free-living subjects. Appetite 2008; 51:713–9.
7. Peters HP, Koppert RJ, Boers HM, Stro ¨m A, Melnikov SM, Haddeman E, Schuring EAH, Mela DJ,Wiseman SA. Dose-dependent suppression of hunger by a specific alginate in a low-viscosity drink formulation. Obesity (Silver Spring) 2011;19:1171–6.
8. Sánchez D, Miguel M, Aleixandre A. Dietary fiber, gut peptides, and adipocytokines. J Med Food. 2012 Mar;15(3):223-30. 
9. Wanders AJ, van den Borne JJGC, Graaf EJMF. Effects of three dietary fiber on food in real life setting. Appetite 2011;57:544.

True or False: Xanthan Will Reduce The Glycemic Index of Your Meals, Increase Satiety and Have an Overall Beneficial Effects on Your Metabolic Health (Glucose, Lipids, Waist, ...)

Can xanthan reduce the glycemic response to "sweet treats" like this?

Have you ever heard of xanthan? Yep that's E-number E415. What? If it has an E-Number it can't be good? Well, what about vitamin C, then? That's E-Number E300. Does this make it "bad" for you? If so, I'd suggest you skip today's SuppVersity article and avoid xanthan out of principle. Otherwise, I would like to offer you to join me for another "True or False" Session (find more of these | RSS-compatible browser or plugin for Chrome like SlickRSS needed) at the end of which we will know whether the statement "Xanthan Will Reduce Your Meals Glycemic Index, Increase Satiety and Have Overall Beneficial Effect on Your Metabolic Health" is true, or false.

You can find more True or False articles at the SuppVersity

Pasta "Al Dente" = Anti-Diabetic

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Teflon Pans Will Kill You!

Yohimbine Burns Stubborn Fat

You Can Wash Pesticides Away

High Volume Diet = Success

When it's added to juice (alongside with beta-glucans), xanthan will reduce the glucose response and thus help stabilize blood sugar levels (Paquin. 2012).

Figure 1: Mean (S.E.) changes of hunger, fullness, desire to eat, and prospective consumption after ingestion of 325 ml of a thin and thick shake. Ratings were provided on nine-point category scales. “*” indicates a significant difference in ratings for the two shakes (Mattes. 2001).

The stabilized blood sugar levels, in turn, will will eventually have beneficial effects on 24h satiety.

This goes, even though Julie Paquin and her colleagues did not detect an acute increase in their 2012 study on the effects of xanthan and β-glucan enriched juices on the glycemic response and satiety of healthy men. Previous studies suggest that the viscosity of a liquid meal, which is increased by the addition of xantham, may be an important determinant of the hunger response.

Mattes and Rothacker (2001), for example reported significantly greater and more prolonged reductions in hunger with thicker, but otherwise identical replacement shakes.

Marciani et al. (2001) even found that the viscosity of their high- vs. low-viscosity shakes with different macronutrient and energy content had a greater impact on the satiety than the fat, carbohydrate or energy content of the test meals.

Food Volume Matters!

SuppVersity Suggested Read: "True or False: High Volume + Nutrient + Low Energy Foods Keep You Lean. Bonus-Question: Will a High Volume Make Your Stomach Go Baggy & Mess Up Your Satiety Response?" | read more - Just in case you've already forgotten that I've covered the beneficial effects of a "high volume, high nutrient, low energy" diet and the corresponding increase in gastric volume in one of the last installments of the True or False Series | go trough previous installments.

The scientists from the University Hospital, Nottingham were also able to show a direct correspondence between the gastric volume of the viscous meal ad the satiety response. These observations support the dual hypothesis, i.e. that more viscous fibres exert their effect owing to distention in the gastric antrum and/or altered transport of nutrients to the small intestine, Caroline Hoad et al. put forward in their 2004 paper in the Journal of Nutrition (Hoad. 2004).

Table 1: Viscosity AUC values for solutions containing select dietary fibers during gastric digestion simulation

In view of the fact that a comparison of the total viscosity per gram of 12 different fiber types Dikeman et al. published in the Journal of Nutrition in April 2006 indicates that xanthan has by far the highest viscosity of all 12 tested types of dietary fiber (Dikeman. 2006), it appears to be certain that the polysaccharide, which is secreted by the bacterium Xanthomonas campestris, will exert significant beneficial effects on both the volume of a given liquid meal and the time it takes to pass through the digestive tract - and this will, as we have just learned, improve fullness and satiety, and decrease the energy intake of every dieter.

Why does glycemia even matter? Aside from the fact that extreme glucose excursions after a meal are partly responsible for the development of diabetes, avoiding them will (1) stabilize your energy levels and curb your cravings, (2) decrease inflammation and oxidative stress, (3) help you maintain healthy blood lipid and body fat levels, (4) reduce your cancer and heart disease risk, and so on. You see, if xanthan can help you stability your blood sugar levels, this alone would have a long string of beneficial health consequences.

At this point, I could probably cite the dirty dozen of studies that support the appetite suppressing effects of PGX®, a combination of xanthan, sodium alginate and glucomannan (e.g. Jenkins. 2010; Tao. 2010; Kacinik. 2011; Reichert. 2013).

Figure 2: Postprandial glycemia in healthy subjects after the consumption of various breakfast meals (Jenkins. 2008) similar beneficial effects in response to the addition of a 70% glucomannan and 30% xanthan blend to the buiscuits were observed in diabetic subjects, as well.

In view of the fact that we are interested in the individual effects of xanthan, and not in the promotion of an expensive, albeit scientifically proven fiber supplement where xanthan is only one (but probably one of the most important) ingredients, I will leave the PGX-related evidence behind and turn to "xanthan only" studies to substantiate my assertion that xanthan gum is a beneficial, albeit not necessary, addition to the dietary regimen of both, lean and overweight physical culturists.

Warning! Xanthan is safe for adults (Eastwood. 1987), but probably not safe for infants. This is at least what a report from the US Food and Drug Administration in the Journal of Pediatrics would suggest (Beal. 2012). According to the USDA, the potential for thickened feeds to increase risk of necrotizing enterocolitis (NEC), a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in neonates, has not been thoroughly assessed. Nevertheless, the occurrence of 202 cases of NEC in formula-fed (obviously) infants over 12 years should yet be reason enough to keep your xanthan stash far away from your newborn, irrespective of the fact that the case series Beal et al. present cannot prove an association between the xanthan-containing thickening agent SimplyThick and NEC.

Odutola Osilesi and colleagues from various US Universities and the USDA were among the first to propose and demonstrate the potential usefulness of xanthan gum in dietary management of diabetes mellitus (Osilesi. 1985). In the corresponding experimental trial, they supplied 9 drug-free diabetics with moderately elevated serum glucose and four nondiabetic controls controls with - you guessed it - muffins that contained 12g of xanthan gum.

Figure 3: Muffins w/ 12g xanthan/day have significant beneficial effects on glucose management in diabetics and beneficial, but non-significant effects on fasting and post-prandial blood sugar in healthy subjects (Osilesi. 1985)

The subjects were randomly assigned to to a "xanthan first" or "control first" group for 2x six weeks. Before the study and at the end of the xanthan and xanthan-free periods, the scientists analyzed the blood before and 2 h after an oral glucose load.

Figure 4: Effect of the guar (G), xanthan (X), locust bean gum (LBG), and 1: 1 mixtures of X and LBG (X/LBG) and X and Meyprodyn (X/Mey) on the movement of radiolabeled glucose in the mixture (concentrations in % | Edwards. 1987)

You can see the results of this undertaking in Figure 4. Basically, what the researchers found were...

• significant reductions in fasting and postload serum glucose and reduced fasting levels of total plasma cholesterol in diabetic subjects, as well as
• lower fasting and postload levels of gastrin and gastric inhibitory polypeptide (GIP) and fasting levels of total and VLDL triglyceride and cholesterol in VLDL and LDL fractions

Moreover, all subjects reported a sense of fullness after consuming xanthan muffins but no severe digestive symptoms. The latter will usually become more prevalent, when xanthan is mixed with other fibres like galactomannan in a (successful) effort to promote its anti-cholesterol effect (Yamamoto. 2000).

In view of the fact that mixing with (obviously) lower viscosity fibers will not necessarily increase the hypoglycemic (glucose improving) effects, of which Edwards et al. (1987) demonstrated that they depend almost exclusively on the viscosity of the chyme, it appears unwarranted to spend the extra bucks on galactomannan or other fibers... Unless you are battling high cholesterol levels and would like to see a similar beneficial effects on your blood lipids as the rodents in the Yamamoto study, of course.

Yes, xanthan will increase satiety and have beneficial effects on glucose metabolism. Whether it is a "necessary" addition to everyone's diet, on the other hand, is questionable. It's a supplement and supplements are, as their name implies "supplemental".

A single teaspoon will already make a protein shake really thick! And remem- ber: more xanthan = high viscosity = slow gastric passage, high satiety, but slow nutrient release

There are, moreover, also situations, where you may not even want to reduce the transit of a liquid meal through your digestive tract. After a workout, for example, xanthan should be used only people who go hypogylcemic in response to the whey (+sugar) induced insulin spike in response to their post-workout shake.

As part of a high protein snack, on the other hand it does really make sense to combine xanthan, whey and maybe some resistant starch (RS4) into a energy-laden power-"shake"... just be careful: If you use more than a teaspoon your "shake" will easily turn into a pudding and you can spoon-feed yourself a fluffy protein pudding ;-)

Reference:

• Beal, Jennifer, et al. "Late onset necrotizing enterocolitis in infants following use of a xanthan gum-containing thickening agent." The Journal of pediatrics 161.2 (2012): 354-356.
• Dikeman, Cheryl L., Michael R. Murphy, and George C. Fahey. "Dietary fibers affect viscosity of solutions and simulated human gastric and small intestinal digesta." The Journal of nutrition 136.4 (2006): 913-919. 
• Edwards, C. A., et al. "Viscosity of food gums determined in vitro related to their hypoglycemic actions." The American journal of clinical nutrition 46.1 (1987): 72-77.
• Eastwood, M. A., W. G. Brydon, and D. M. W. Anderson. "The dietary effects of xanthan gum in man." Food Additives & Contaminants 4.1 (1987): 17-26.
• Hoad, Caroline L., et al. "In vivo imaging of intragastric gelation and its effect on satiety in humans." The Journal of nutrition 134.9 (2004): 2293-2300.
• Jenkins, Alexandra L., et al. "Comparable postprandial glucose reductions with viscous fiber blend enriched biscuits in healthy subjects and patients with diabetes mellitus: acute randomized controlled clinical trial." Croatian medical journal 49.6 (2008): 772.
• Jenkins, Alexandra L., et al. "Effect of adding the novel fiber, PGX®, to commonly consumed foods on glycemic response, glycemic index and GRIP: a simple and effective strategy for reducing post prandial blood glucose levels-a randomized, controlled trial." Nutrition journal 9.1 (2010): 58.
• Kacinik, V., et al. "Effect of PGX, a novel functional fibre supplement, on subjective ratings of appetite in overweight and obese women consuming a 3-day structured, low-calorie diet." Nutrition & diabetes 1.12 (2011): e22.
• Marciani, Luca, et al. "Effect of meal viscosity and nutrients on satiety, intragastric dilution, and emptying assessed by MRI." American Journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology 280.6 (2001): G1227-G1233.
• Mattes, Richard D., and Dana Rothacker. "Beverage viscosity is inversely related to postprandial hunger in humans." Physiology & Behavior 74.4 (2001): 551-557.
• Osilesi, Odutola, et al. "Use of xanthan gum in dietary management of diabetes mellitus." The American journal of clinical nutrition 42.4 (1985): 597-603.
• Paquin, Julie, et al. "Effects of juices enriched with xanthan and β-glucan on the glycemic response and satiety of healthy men." Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism 38.4 (2012): 410-414.
• Reichert, Ronald G., et al. "Meal replacements and fibre supplement as a strategy for weight loss. Proprietary PGX® meal replacement and PGX® fibre supplement in addition to a calorie-restricted diet to achieve weight loss in a clinical setting." Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering Reviews 29.2 (2013): 221-229. 
• Tao, Wendy. "A clinical observational study on PGX® conducted at the Canadian Centre for Functional Medicine." Alternative Medicine Review (2010) 15.1: 68-75.
• Yamamoto, Yukiko, et al. "Improved hypolipidemic effects of xanthan gum-galactomannan mixtures in rats." Bioscience, biotechnology, and biochemistry 64.10 (2000): 2165-2171.

Leucine & HMB - Similar, Yet Different. BCAA, B6 & NAFLD - It's About Ratios. Eccentrics, Mitochondria & GLUT-4 - No Pain, No Fat Gain. Fiber & Diabesity - Useful, But Not Magic.

"Potatoes" have the "pot-" from "potassium" not just in their name, they also got plenty of it in them. A medium sized potato (147g) contains 926mg of highly bioavailable potassium and covers ~26% of your daily requirements... and no, normal potatoes are not pro-diabetic unless you over-process them (learn more in the Potato Manifesto)

5.93 mm and 3.7 millimeters those are the SuppVersity Figures of the Week and the average heights by which the systolic and diastolic blood pressure of dropped in 21 controlled trials in the course of which the subjects simply increased their daily potassium intake (Aburto. 2013). Results like these, which were published in the latest issue of the British Medical Journal rarely make it to the mainstream news and if they do than just as a marginal note to the paradigmatically blinded message that we all had to dramatically reduce our salt intakes if we did not want to end up in the emergency room.

Now, aside from the fact that Maillott et al. have demonstrated only recently, that "the 2010 Dietary Guidelines for sodium were incompatible with potassium guidelines and with nutritionally adequate diets, even after reducing the sodium content of all US foods by 10%" (Mailott. 2013), both a dramatic reduction in salt and significant increase in potassium intake could be achieved if people simply stopped eating convenient, but blatant and thus salt- and sugar-laden products of the food industry and bought fresh products instead.

Leucine and HMB both work, but they work via different pathways / mechanisms.

If you want to learn more about the usefulness of HMB, check I suggest take (another) look at my article about the results of a 2012 dissertation (read more)! And in case you feel you need to learn more, browse the SuppVersity archive for the key-words leucine and HMB and educate yourself.

(Wilkinson. 2013) A group of researchers from the UK and Canada has recently found that "leucine (Leu) possesses the most marked anabolic characteristics in acting as a trigger element for the initiation of protein synthesis". In that it is even superior to its best-known metabolite β-hydroxy-β-methylbutyrate (HMB), which has a 40% less pronounced stimulatory effect on protein synthesis (110% leucine; 70% HMB; after oral supplementation).

The reason it may still have merit to supplement with (additional?) HMB is its non-insulin depended effects on skeletal muscle breakdown (-57%), which would up the rate of protein retention, i.e. the difference of protein synthesis (70%) and protein breakdown (-57%) to 127% and should thus result in superior net gains in skeletal muscle protein compared to pure leucine.

Bottom line: Whether you actually "need" HMB, is a whole different question, though. After all studies comparing a simple 30g whey protein shake and an HMB supplement are missing and whether the addition of HMB to the whey would yield benefits is questionable. Doing just that with leucine has, after all, already been shown not to yield any additional benefits.

Fatty liver from 50%+ of the currently available dietary supplements? 

(Kaimoto. 2013) If we go by the results of a soon-to-be-published rodent study from Japan the chronic consumption of BCAA containing supplements could in fact result in an increased hepatic lipid and cholesterol deposition and would thus pave the way to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (Kaimoto. 2013).

Figure 1: Changes in body composition & organ weight, serum and liver measures after 21 days on BCAA (BCAA(+)) and/or pyridoxin (B6(+)) enriched diets (Kaimoto. 2013)

If you take a look at the data in figure 1, you will yet also realize that the triglyceride and cholesterol deposition in the liver the scientists observed, when the rats were fed with a show that contained comparatively low supplemental amounts of 2%, 1.5% and 1.25% leucine, valine and isoleucine and thus the human equivalent of ~3-4g of BCAAs, was ameliorated when the diet contained sufficient amounts of vitamin B6 aka pyridoxin. Since the corresponding human equivalent dosages for B6 were ~3-4x higher than the RDA of 1.3mg/day but still way below the amount of B6 almost every currently available BCAA supplement contains, you probably don't have to worry about fatty liver or a shrinking thymus and compromised immune system.

Tired, exhausted, had to cut your workout short today? Is it the flu, or just too much BCAAs?

As a seasoned SuppVersity reader you will however be aware that the hailed anti.catabolic muscle builder is by no means free of nasty side effects, when consumed in excess - suggested reads:

• High Dose BCAA Supplementation Can Inhibit Serotonin Metabolism & Cause Anxiety (read more)
• Chronic High Dose BCAA Supplementation Reduces Endurance Performance by 43% Plus: How Ammonia, Glutamine, Arginine & Low Carbing Could be Involved (read more)

If you want to know more about the established benefits of leucine, valine and isoleucine, I suggest you simply go through the archives and pick whatever yo are interested in.

Bottom line: The latest BCAA news don't negate their established ergogenic effects, but they do support the notion that the "more is more" and "better take them with every meal" principles are not worth following - even if you get your BCAAs for free, by the way.

More dietary fibre lovin' ... but rightly so?  

(Dall'Alba. 2013) A recent study from the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil confirms that the consumption of additional 10g of soluble dietary fiber (/-re) in the form of partially hydrolysed guar gum can have beneficial effects on some of the markers of metabolic syndrome.

Figure 2: Relative changes compared to baseline in 44 patients with type 2 diabetes (males 38·6 %, mean age 62 years, diabetes duration 14.2y) after 4 and 6 weeks on diets w/ or w/out 10g of additional guar gum (Dall'Alba. 2013)

The results of the study (figure 1) do yet also show that the benefits are modest at best. Even the statistically highly significant increase in HDL after 6 weeks on the guar gum diet is not necessarily physiologically relevant and if it was not for the higher baseline energy intake in the supplementation group, and the greater reduction in HbA1c (indicating a better blood glucose stability), you could even argue that the addition of the 10g/day of dietary fiber was totally useless (suggested read: previous articles about fiber).

Bottom line: While dietary fiber has its merit. It's not much different from veggies. If you just add it / them on top of you junkfood diet, the effects you can expect are modest - if not non-existent.

Eccentric exercise it's not all productive that induces damage

More reasons for a GLUT-4 boosting EAA smoothie post workout (learn why)

(Magalhães. 2013) According to a study that has been published ahead of print in the online version of the Journal of Applied of Physiology, eccentric exercise (downhill running) did not jst lead to highly significantly increases in plasma creatine kinase activity, myoglobin and interleukin-6 content of the muscle of 12-week old mice, it also impaired state 3 and respiratory control ratio of the mitochondria and increased their susceptibility to mitochondrial permeability transition pore (MPTP) which can lead to cell sqelling and eventually cell death. Accordingly, Mangalhães et al. observed an increase in cell swelling amplitude, lower time to maximal swelling velocity, and calcium release immediately after the end of exercise annd conclude that

"prolonged EE [eccentric exercise] transiently impaired mice skeletal muscle mitochondrial function and increased susceptibility to calcium-induced MPTP opening"

Now you can certainly argue that this is the necessary training effect your cells need in order to adapt, in view of previous findings from human studies (just randomly selected examples, here)...

• 

  Figure 3: Glycogen snythase  (in mmol/mg protein per min) 4h after postexercise (10 x 10 eccentric or concentric isokinetic leg extensions after previous glucose depleting cycling exercise) carbohydrate feeding depening on G6Pase levels (Doyle. 1993)

  -37% reduction in insulin-mediated glucose disposal rate in 6 healthy, but untrained men after 30min downhill running (Kirwan. 1992)
• -11% reduced glucose uptake and glucose necessary to maintain euglycemia during maximal insulin stimulation, as well as -39% lower basal = non-insulin triggered GLUT-4 expression and in seven healthy subjects even 48h after one-legged eccentric exercise (Asp. 1996)
• significantly reduced glycogen synthase after eccentric vs. concentric training in ten moderately trained subjects after 10 sets of 10 repetitions of either concentric or eccentric contractions in opposite legs and the ingestion of 0.4g carbohydrate/kg body wt every 15min (Doyle. 1993; see figure 3).

... you should yet reconsider to which extend the "no pain no gain" principle is going to yield the healthy lean mass and performance gains you are probably looking for.

Bottom line: While the broscientific wisdom "You won't grow, if you're training like a puss'!" may have its limited merit, the equation "maximal damage = maximal growth" many of the bros derive from this supposition is not just unsustainable and counterproductive, but potentially unhealthy and fattening.... How's that? Just imagine bulking while you are constantly insulin resistant for daily eccentric exercise.

---

Aside from the obligatory Facebook news that's it for today's installment of On Short Notice!  So once, you've checked out the following news over @ www.facebook.com/SuppVersity ...

Aside from coffee and nutrition in general, vitamin A is another potential regulator of the peripheral  (non-light regulated) circadian clock - especially in the liver (learn more)

• Some light exercise can shed some heavy fat -- Weight loss success of healthy, but sedentary women demonstrates: as long as you are not fixated on what the scale says you will be surprised by how powerful even moderate physical activity is (read more) 

• Treating type I diabetes with GABA -- In a 2011 rodent study the administration of the amino acid and neurotransmitter helped repair damaged pancreatic beta cells (read more)

• Undereating + (over-)training is the most effective endocrine disruptor -- At least among natural stressors, the aforementioned combination is far "superior" to regular stress (read more)

• Don't forget about vitamin A -- Scientists identify the mechanism behind the anti-Alzheimer's effect of retinoic acid (read more).

...it's high time to get your behind off the couch or computer chair and enjoy a well-deserved active and social, yet regenerative weekend.

References:

• Aburto NJ, Hanson S, Gutierrez H, Hooper L, Elliott P, Cappuccio FP. Effect of increased potassium intake on cardiovascular risk factors and disease: Systematic review and meta-analyses. BMJ 2013;346:f1378.
• Asp S, Daugaard JR, Kristiansen S, Kiens B, Richter EA. Eccentric exercise decreases maximal insulin action in humans: muscle and systemic effects. J Physiol. 1996 Aug 1;494 ( Pt 3):891-8.
• Dall'Alba V, Silva FM, Antonio JP, Steemburgo T, Royer CP, Almeida JC, Gross JL, Azevedo MJ. Improvement of the metabolic syndrome profile by soluble fibre – guar gum – in patients with type 2 diabetes: a randomised clinical trial. British Journal of Nutrition. April 2013. [Epub ahead of print]
• oyle JA, Sherman WM, Strauss RL. Effects of eccentric and concentric exercise on muscle glycogen replenishment. J Appl Physiol. 1993 Apr;74(4):1848-55.
• Kaimoto T, Shibuya M, Nishikawa K, Maeda H. High Incidence of Lipid Deposition in the Liver of Rats Fed a Diet Supplemented with Branched-Chain Amino Acids under Vitamin B6 Deficiency. J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo). 2013;59(1):73-8.
• Kirwan JP, Hickner RC, Yarasheski KE, Kohrt WM, Wiethop BV, Holloszy JO. Eccentric exercise induces transient insulin resistance in healthy individuals. J Appl Physiol. 1992 Jun;72(6):2197-202.
• Magalhães J, Fraga M, Lumini-Oliveira J, Gonçalves I, Costa M, Ferreira R, Oliveira PJ, Ascensãoa A. Eccentric exercise transiently affects mice skeletal muscle mitochondrial function. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 10.1139/apnm-2012-0226. 
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