The Starch Satiety Shootout: Potatoes, Baked or Mashed, Pasta, Brown Rice or Even White Bread? What's the Best After a 12h Fast? Plus: Science Round-Up Preview!

Pasta! From a satiety perspective even white bread would be a better choice for breakfast.

It's one of those Thursday's where I am alone here at the SuppVersity - no Adelfo Cerame Jr. guest lecture today. But don't worry, there will not only be another guest post next Thursday, but both, today's SuppVersity post, which is actually related to Adelfo's "Carbophobia" post from last week, as well as the SuppVersity Science Round-Up  with Carl Lanore (live at 1PM EST on the Super Human Radio Network), will compensate at least somewhat for Adelfo's absence.

Apropos Science Round-Up, I am absolutely not sure where today's show will be heading to, but I can tell you that by now it looks as if we would start out with a very recent study on the leucine <> leptin connection and it's role in getting big and ripped.

It stands to reason that the big "L"s are not going to get the job done without some sort of workout, we will then segue into the acute hormonal effects of doing cardio before vs. after a workout - something I suppose many of you who have listened to the last installment and read the follow-ups (the Seconds and the post on PGC-1 alpha-4), here at the SuppVersity, will be intrigued to hear and something on which I want to provide a little more background information with respect to the role of fasting, overall energy intake, glyogen depletion, stress and a couple of other things that will primarily effect your luteinizing hormone levels and are thus equally important for male and female SuppVersity students.

I am honestly not sure how much time will be left, afterwards, but either live at 1PM EST, or as part of tomorrows "Seconds" you will also get the chance to learn something about the little known link between nicotine (as in cigarettes) and brain aromatase, the muscle building effects of exercise induced nNOS and the certainly not advisable, but probably likewise anabolic effects of capsaicin injections. And while there is more on the list, I guess this is enough for a preview... unless you were waiting for me to mention the endocrine disrupting effects of bottled water? No!? Well, then let's finally get to the actual post ;-)

Judging carbohydrates by their GI is like adopting another man's prejudice

As I already mentioned today's post is in a way an indirect follow up on Adelfo's confession that his love-and-hate affair with carbohydrates turned into a true friendship now. I mean starches are carbs and though Adelfo explicitly said that he says a place (in moderation) for all of them in his diet, it would be nice to know a little more about the differences between the dreaded potatoes, of which I have argued before that it is in your own hands whether they will (French fries, meshed potatoes, puree, etc.; "The Potato Manifesto") turn into a problem, or not, the demonized white bread and the "healthy" - since organic and brown - starch from pasta and rice.

I guess Allan Geliebter Michelle, I.-Ching Lee, Mariane Abdillahi and James Jones from the New York Obesity Nutrition Research Center at the St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center that's part of the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, when they devised the experimental procedures for their latest study (Geliebter. 2013). And in fact their approach to the problem appears to be pretty down to earth. Instead of just measuring insulin, glucose and what-not - we have had other scientists do that before - they simply fed their twelve healthy normal-weight participants (6 male, 6 female; mean age 25.6 years,  mean BMI 22.4kg/m², mean percent body fat 19.0%) who were recruited from the Columbia University community equienergetic portions (240kcal) of starch-rich side dishes:

• baked potato, no skin - nutrient composition as
• mashed potato, instant - Betty Crocker Idaho potato buds
• brown rice - Carolina natural whole grain brown rice
• pasta - Bionature organic pasta
• white bread - Wonder Classic Giant*

As the (*) indicates, the white bread was in there mainly as a GI standard (you usually supply GI values w/ reference to either glucose or white bread) and in order to make sure that it had it's 50g of carbs, just like all the other meals, the scientists needed so much that the overall caloric value of this "standard" meal was 33kcal higher (keep that in mind, thats ~12.5% and could therefore very well make a difference). In order to exclude any confounding variables, the water content (400g) and salt content were likewise standardized - both were added if necessary.

Pasta, rice and potatoes for breakfast?

In know, its not realistic that you have only pasta, rice, potatoes or white bread ... hold on, I know a couple of people in fact a large amount of my students eats nothing but white bread right from the baker for breakfast in their first lecture of the day :-( So it's not that unrealistic: At least we could ask ourselves would they be better off, if they ate potatoes, pasta or rice as their first meal after a 12h overnight fast, when maximal satiety is what we are looking for?

Figure 1: Hunger ratings and desire to eat from 10min before to 120min after the breakfast (Geliebter. 2013)

Well let's see, what do we have here? First off, one thing that's not in any of the graphs is the statistically significant gender bias, with the women experienced greater fullness across the test meals than men (p < 0.01). As far as the rest is concerned, the ...

• AUC of the appetite ratings from 10 minutes before to 120min after the ingestion of the meal did not differ, and still there was a...
• lower ‘desire to eat’ AUC following bakedpotato compared to pasta (p = 0.027) and brown rice (p = 0.004) and a much less significant advantage for rice over pasta (p = 0.041);
• changes in fullness, however, did not differ between test meals (not shown in figure 1)

So, obviously the baked potato, which was incidentally the only food that had no nutrition label (all the rest was packaged branded and labeled), was the subjectively most satiating starch source, followed by rice and trailed by the mashed potatoe and the distant (given the overall difference) "healthy" pasta.

So, to get back to my research question, whether my real students (not you, but those at the University), would be better off eating another bland starch instead of their buns, the answer would be yes - in the long run, both brown rice and baked potatoes would qualify. 

Potato-ish insulin spikes and low GI white bread

What is interesting though, is that the spike in the "How much food could you eat now?" graph in figure 2 coincides with the early insulin spike in response to the potato meals. If you are into grazing like a cow, i.e. if you like to eat bazillions of small meals, all day long, potatoes may therefore be not your best choice.

Figure 2: Insulin after breakfast,estimation how much the participants believe the could eat and calculated GI values (based on the measured glucose response; Geliebter. 2013)

What could be downright surprising for some of you, I guess, is yet probably the fact that anyone adhering to a low GI diet, would actually have to copy my students and eat the white bread, which had the lowest GI of all the test meals ... but I guess this and the fact that pasta by far the least satiating of the 4 meals had an only 7.6% higher GI should be the nail to the real-world relevance of the glycemic index, anyway.

The non-significance of the glycemic index  was also evident during the following lunch, where the subjects were allowed to chose or simply eat both of an on an individual base already non-manageable amount of chicken or tuna salad with mayonnaise, celery, salt, and pepper that were served "in covered serving containers with openings on top to reduce visual feedback" (Geliebter. 2013) and bundled with six slices of wheat bread and six slices of seedless rye bread:

"The group mean IAUC glucose and GI using the white bread standard and adjusted for the glucose load standard are listed in table 2 . Mashed potato had the highest GI of the side dishes. The correlation between the group mean fullness AUC and the group mean GI was 0.59. The correlation between the group mean fullness AUC and the group mean lunch energy intake was –0.21. These corrrlations are not significant." (Geliebter. 2013)

Remember Peter Czerwinski, aka Furious Pete's 900g of protein in 3:30min binge (Furios Pete, 2010)? No? In that case the fact that whey is more insulinogenic than white bread is probably news to you, as well, after all, the video was part of the SuppVersity post discussing that.

So, if you intend to become friends with starches and other carbohydrates, just like Adelfo did, don't judge them by the GI value you've found in whatever online or print source. Don't fear potatoes and if you need something to count to satisfy your OCD tendencies, count total amount carbohydrates (not the rice crumbs), keep the simple sugars in check and match both of them to your personal preferences / needs.

The GI is not the "unit of food quality"

And if that's not enough counting for you, what about counting the nutritional labels on the stuff you buy? The less you have, the better your diet - after all, whole foods you buy at the farmer's market or wherever else you can still get non-industrialized real food, does not have nutritional labels ;-)

References:

• Geliebter A, Lee MI, Abdillahi M, Jones J. Satiety following Intake of Potatoes and Other Carbohydrate Test Meals. Ann Nutr Metab. 2013 Dec 4;62(1):37-43.

Is Hypoglycemia Obesogenic? Is the GI Totally Worthless? Is Mild, But Chronic Stress Behind the Diabesity Pandemic? Is Leptin Obesogenic? And How Do You Calculate the Energy Requirements of Diabetics?

One of the mistakes researchers and dieters make time and again, using the scale as their only guide

Since I had a couple of interesting, but not earth-shatteringly exciting studies on obesity, body weight gain, the GI, leptin and a couple of other things lying around, I thought I'd compile a brief potpourri for you to get you on par with the helplessness with which researchers are still facing the diabesity pandemic. So don't expect any of the one-size-fits-it-all solutions the scientists still appear to be looking for from any of the following items. What you may find, however, is some inspiration when you read between the lines or follow up on the suggested reads, I mention. And if that's not the case, you can still browse previous articles on fat loss or simply go to the gym and try the fat loss example routine from the SuppVersity "Step By Step Guide for Your Own Workout Routine" or simply go to be early to preserve your circadian rhythm.

• Going "Hypo" time and again will make you fat (McNay. 2013) -- Usually you think of hyogylcemia as a sign of a lack of energy, yet despite the fact that this may well be the case this very lack in energy has recently been shown to exert obesogenic effects in a rodent model.
  
  

  

  Often a picture says more than 1000 words: Normal (left) and repeatedly hypoglycemic rodents after 8 months of weekly insulin injections (McNay. 2013)

  The weekly injections Ewan C McNay and his colleagues administered to their rodents and the subsequent episodes of hypoglycemia lead to profound weight gain in the absence of diabetes, hyperphagia, changes in hypothalamic NPY or POMC mRNA expression and  the other usual suspects that could explain this phenomenon. The one thing that's left is therefore what the researchers call a "multi-faceted deficit in metabolic regulation" (McNay. 2013) - interestingly enough the 69.5% higher body weight at 12 months went hand in hand with the usual laziness (-25% activity) of people whose brains are starving in abundance (e.g. type II diabetics).
  
  What remains to be seen, though, is whether similar effects would occur in response to "regular" non-insulin induced hypoglycemia. In view of the easy with which crash dieters and people with roller-coaster blood glucose levels gain weight, it is yet not unlikely that it is actually the avoidance of (reactive) hypoglycemia and not so so much the prevention of hyperglycemia that makes low GI diets successful for weight maintenance (for weight loss the picture is more complicated, since this will require a energy deficit and that's a game changer).

• Dietary glycemic index and load are not associated with type II diabetes risk in 12,403 Europeans (Sluijs. 2013) -- Apropos GI, scientists from the University Medical Center in Utrecht did not find statistical significant correlations dietary glycemic index and/or glycemic load and the risk to develop type II diabetes in in a subcohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Study (n = 12,403 participants).
  
  Even when they compared participants in the highest and lowest quantiles, the increase in risk was only 5% and 7% for GI and GL respectively. Since this is by no means the first study that suggests that the still propagated concept of the beneficial health effects "low GI diets" is faulty, I would suggest you rather watch the actual food items, than their respective glycemic indexes if you intend to ward off obesity and diabetes. Potatoes for example may have a high GI (including sweet potatoes, by the way), but their high potassium and overall mineral content, as well as the mere fact that you can hardly eat the same amount of total carbohydrates you can easily annihilate, when you are eating pasta still makes them one of the best sources of starchy carbs you have (learn more in the Potato Manifesto, Part I & II).

• 

  Figure 1: There were no statistically significant difference in terms of weight gain or loss, but the 2-week re-feed had a greater impact on blood glucose and insulin levels in the high GI group (Lagerpusch. 2013)

  There is use for the GI on a bulk or after a diet, but only if you are concerned about insulin sensitivity (Lagerpusch. 2013) -- While the general value of the GI as a means to distinguish good from bad carbohydrate sources is certainly questionable, the recently published results from a study that was conducted at the Institute of Human Nutrition and Food Science, of the -Albrechts University in Kiel, Germany, does suggest that monitoring the GI of your diet and adding additional fiber to reduce the insulin response to your meals can come quite handy, in phases, where you are particularly prone to store body fat. On a bulk, for example, or even more so when you have been dieting and are trying to return to a normal caloric intake.
  
  According to the results Lagerpusch et al. present in the November issue of the British Journal of Nutrition even healthy young men who were subjected to a 3-week diet phase (-50% in caloric intake) and subsequent overfeeding (+50% in caloric intake) the subjects in the high GI study arm had a 135% higher increase in fasting insulin levels during the refeed than those in the low GI group. In view of the fact that the glucose clearance (measured in an oral glucose tolerance test) was identical, it is not only no wonder that the weight gain did not differ either (see figure 1), but also unlikely that we would see significant differences as far as the fat gains are concerned (the latter were unfortunately not measured in the study at hand). At the same time, longer hyper-caloric high GI diets are certainly a risk factor for both insulin resistance and obesity, so that you are probably still at lower risk with 65g instead of 27g of fibre per day and a mean GI of 40 vs. 74.
  
  If you are interested in the influence of different diets on weight gain and health during overfeeding, I suggest you check out the following two SuppVersity posts: "194 Bananas in Three Weeks" and "A Tale of Macro- and Micronutrient Modifications".

• 

  Figure 2: Chronic mild stress leads to an overactivation of the HTPA and subsequen metabolic dysregulations (Takahashi. 2013)

  Further evidence that chronic mild stress is to blame for the obesity pandemic (Takahashi. 2013) -- As researchers from the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine in Japan report in the latest issue of the  American Journal of Physiology - Endocrinology & Metabolism, the localized re-setting of the clock genes in the liver, yet not the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nuculeus (SCN), of BALB/c mice in response to chronic mild stress exposure elevated and phase-shifted serum corticosterone levels (see figure 2).
  
  Takahashi et al. argue that the observed changes are indicative of an overactivation of the HPA axis, which induced disturbances in the rhythmic expressions of core clock genes, e.g. Clock, Npas2, Bmal1, Per1 and Cry1 in the liver and subsequently circadian patterns of glucose and lipid metabolism-related genes such as the proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) family which favor the storage and hamper the oxidation of fatty acids.
  
  If you want to learn more about clock genes and how you can modify them, (re-)read the SuppVersity Circadian Rhythm Series!

• Scientists develop improved formula to calculate the resting energy expenditure of diabetics (Ikeda. 2013) -- While I would hope that you don't belong to the group who would have to use the new and improved formula scientists from the Department of Diabetes and Clinical Nutrition at the Kyoto University in Japan have now proposed, you may have clients or relatives who could benefit from its high predictive validity (78% +/- 103kcal vs. 50% for Harris-Benedict; 38% for Oxford, 42% for Liuand 63% for Ganpule):
  
  
  What you should keep in mind though, is that this equation was tested on Japanese individuals. Since we know from other studies that there are certain metabolic differences between people with different ethnic backgrounds I would remain a "healthy skeptic" as far as the outcomes of this equation are concerned - the same obviously goes for any other equation, e.g. the ones for athletes I provided in part III of the Female Athlete Triad series.

• 

  If you are interested in ways to modulate your leptin levels that may facilitate weight gain, I suggest you take a look at my second "Carbs Past 6PM Won't Make You Fat" post.

  Leptin induced weight gain? 13% more body fat in 2 weeks, when it hits the wrong part of the brain (Harris. 2013) -- With the mixed results from intervention trials, the enthusiasm around leptin has abated over the past months, the general consensus is yet still that leptin and leptin resistance loom large in the metabolic dysregulation that's at the heart of the diabesity pandemic. Against that background, the results Ruth B.S: Harris presents in her latest paper in the American Journal of Physiology - Endocrinology & Metabolism are unquestionably surprising.
  
  When Harris injected twice the amount of leptin (0.6 µg leptin/day) that had previously been shown to decreased 24 food intake, body fat and lean tissue, when it was injected into the third ventricle of the hindbrain, into the fourth ventricle of her lab rats, the rodents gained an almost incredible amount of 13% body fat within only 2 weeks! And that in the absence of statistically significant change in daily food intake, suggests an "increase in efficiency of energy utilization" (Harris. 2013). Fortunately, further experiments showed that the pro-obesogenic effects of leptin in the 4th ventricle was antagonized when both the 3rd and the 4th ventricle were exposed to leptin. In this scenario the leptin exposure of the 4th ventricle did even protect the lean mass of the rodents from the negative effects the exclusive exposure of the 3rd ventricle had. Overall, the study is yet somewhat chaotic and a clearcut message aside from "look people things are even more complex than we already thought", is probably not going to contribute to a solution of the obesity dilemma in the near future. 

There are, as usual more news on Facebook, some of them, such as the relation between hypothyroidism during pregnancy and the diabetes risk of the offspring later in life, are even related to the topic at hand. And if that's nothing you are interested, you may want to read about ...

• the non-existent effects of coffee consumption before bed on the sleep quality of habitual coffee drinkers (read more),
• the problem with inaccurate vitamin D tests and the absence of a reliable and scientifically sound definition of "vitamin D deficiency" (read more), or
• the strength promoting in-vitro effects of sodium bicarbonate, or in other words, a rather alkaline milieu on muscular force production (read more)

... and if neither of those can satisfy your thirst for more information from the realms of exercise and nutrition sciences, you can still wait for the next serving of facebook news or tomorrow's SuppVersity article :-)


References:

• Harris RB. Leptin-induced increase in body fat content of rats. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2013 Dec 4.
• Ikeda K, et al. A new equation to estimate basal energy expenditure of patients with diabetes. Clinical Nutrition. 2013 [article in press] 
• Lagerpusch M, Enderle J, Later W, Eggeling B, Pape D, Müller MJ, Bosy-Westphal A. Impact of glycaemic index and dietary fibre on insulin sensitivity during the refeeding phase of a weight cycle in young healthy men. Br J Nutr. 2013 Nov 28:1-11.
• McNay EC, Teske JA, Kotz CM, Dunn-Meynell A, Levin BE, McCrimmon RJ, Sherwin RS. Long-term, intermittent, insulin-induced hypoglycemia produces obesity without hyperphagia or insulin resistance: a model for weight gain with insulin therapy. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2013 Nov 20.
• Sluijs I, Beulens JW, van der Schouw YT, van der A DL, Buckland G, Kuijsten A, Schulze MB, Amiano P, Ardanaz E, Balkau B, Boeing H, Gavrila D, Grote VA, Key TJ, Li K, Nilsson P, Overvad K, Palli D, Panico S, Quirós JR, Rolandsson O, Roswall N, Sacerdote C, Sánchez MJ, Sieri S, Slimani N, Spijkerman AM, Tjønneland A, Tumino R, Sharp SJ, Langenberg C, Feskens EJ, Forouhi NG, Riboli E, Wareham NJ; on behalf of the InterAct consortium. Dietary Glycemic Index, Glycemic Load, and Digestible Carbohydrate Intake Are Not Associated with Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Eight European Countries. J Nutr. 2013 Nov 28.
• Takahashi K, Yamada T, Tsukita S, Kaneko K, Shirai Y, Munakata Y, Ishigaki Y, Imai J, Uno K, Hasegawa Y, Sawada S, Oka Y, Katagiri H. Chronic mild stress alters circadian expressions of molecular clock genes in the liver. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 2013 Dec 4.

Jump Squats 80% Type-II Fiber Activity, Cold Thermogenesis Better Fasted, Tuned Swiss Ball Crunch, 5-HTP vs. Asthma, HIIT Before Strength & High vs. Low GI Meal Pre Workout

Image 1: Few of the things the average trainee does in places that call themselves "fitness studios" has little to do have will actually promote fitness, as in being athletic. "Mr. check out my biceps", for example would be similarly lost ding this as the sedentary computer nerd "Mr. biceps" loves to laugh about.

I know from time to time I am not 100% in time when it comes to delivering promised articles, but after an exhaustingly hot day, I am pretty much in-time with the 2nd installment of "On Short Notice" for today and the third for this weekend. Since I felt that it looked awkward to have three posts with the "On Short Notice" in front posted one after the other, I did however decide to ditch that (at least for today) and get straight down to ... well, "business" with posts on the revealing type II fiber specific muscle-damage from jump squats, the reason why you better sit in your ice-tub fasted if you want to practice cold thermogenesis, the superiority of Swiss Ball Crunches with resistance bands over the classic ab machine, the surprising anti-asthmatic effects of super high doses of 5-HTP, the way women benefit equally from a progressive strength training regimen with or without HIIT or steady state cardio before the strength workout, and, lastly, the futility of fretting about the acute effects of high vs. low GI meals before a workout and how that relates to childhood obesity. And while I do, believe it or not, have material for at least another episode, I am not going to bore you with even more short news pieces for this weekend. Don't worry ;-)

• Plyometrics for type II muscle fiber(-damage) It probably depends on your individual take on the usefulness of muscle damage, if the headline to this "On Short Notice" got you excited about plyometric training or not. When I am now telling you that the participants in the recently conducted trial by Macaluso et al. were previously untrained (N=8; age = 22 ± 1 years, height = 179.2 ± 6.4 cm, weight = 78.9 ± 5.9 kg) and the creatine kinase levels (a marker of muscle damage and the subsequent leakage of the creatine kinase enzyme into the blood) peaked at only 529.0 ± 317.8 U/L (that's high, but way below the 1,000er range you often see in untrained subjects after nothing but a couple of eccentric biceps curls being performed to failure) after the exercise intervention, I'd guess that most of you will appreciate that the researchers observed significantly more severely damaged type II than type I fibers (on average 85% vs. 27% of the respective fiber type).

  

  Image 2: The effect of plyomtetrics on your fitness & physique is still  underrated by the most fitness enthusiasts; and that despite the facts that plyos are the bread and butter of many athletes whose physical feats they are admiring.

  If we now make the reasonable assumption that the ~60% higher rate of muscle damage in both the glycolytic and oxidative subtypes of the type II fibers was indicative of the fact that they were the ones which shouldered the main workload of the 10 x 10 jump squat regimen the young men had to perform, this is unquestionable good news for everyone trying to get big and buffed. After all, these fibers, which are also known as type IIa (86% severely damaged) and type IIx fibers (84.% severely damaged vs. just 27% of type I fibers), are the ones that allow bodybuilders to get lean and muscular - not just one or the other... if that got you intrigued about what plyometrics are and if there is more research on it, I suggest you take a(nother) look at my previous posts on "ploys", such as "Building the Jack-of-All-Traits Legs Workout With Squats, Jump Squats and Body Weight Plyometrics?" or even the "Turbo-Fire vs. Insanity ShootOut" from one of the previous installments of "On Short Notice".
• Cold thermogenesis is not for everyone, but if it works for you, better do it fasted! That the amount and in many cases even the presence of the metabolically active brown adipose tissue and with it the thermogenic response to cold exposure is a very individual thing, is something you, as a diligent SuppVersity student will be aware of after all you have already read my previous post of the matter (cf. "Cold Thermogenesis vs. Ephedra").

  

  Figure 1: Cold thermogenesis in postprandial (PP) vs. fasted state (FF); dark areas indicate high 18F-FDG uptake (=high metabolic activity; Vrieze. 2013)

  Since there are still way too many people who actually seem to believe that sitting in a cold bathtub for a couple of minutes everyday would be all it takes to get you ripped and jacked, I thought it prudent to give them the chance to make it actually work and advice them to do it fasted! According to a recently published study from the Department of Internal Medicine at the Academic Medical Center in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands (Vrieze. 2013), the metabolic activity of the brown fat in all 6/10 of the 10 healthy, lean male volunteers (18-32 y; body mass index, 20-24 kg/m²) who participated in the study was about twice as high when they sat in a room which was cooled down to 16-18°C for 2h fasted (13.1 g/mL glucose uptake) vs. in the postprandial state (6.8 g/mL).
  Aside from the usual non-responders (40%) and the huge heterogenity with respect to the thermogenic response (6.1 - 27.6g/L), which are typical for these experiments there is a similarly large intra-individual difference with respect to the increase in BAT activity in the fasted state with the highest responder going from 11g/L in the post-prandial to 27.6g/L in the fasted state and the "fasting non responder" with a statistically non-existent (the term "non-significant" would not be bold enough ;-) "increase" in cold induced thermogenesis from 5g/L to 6g/L.

• 

  Video 1 (askthetrainer.com): The Swiss ball crunch with resistance bands takes some "tweaking" to be done correctly. After all you usually don't have the equipment set up in the way you would need it at your gym (click image to watch).

  Swiss ball crunch with resistance bands effective and saver than ab machine While I am not sure how "effective" the ab-machine in the study by Sundstrup et al. actually was, I can tell you that done with resistance bands the allegedly hilariously looking swiss ball crunch is not just at least as effective in recruiting the musculature of the rectus abdominus (104±3.8 vs 84±3.8% nEMG, respectively) as one of those machines, where your legs are locked in a way that the rectus femoris will do take do way too much of the work (2x more activity than in the swiss ball crunch with resistance bands) and you thus set yourself up for future lower back (=lumbar pain).
  Against that background and in view of the fact that Sundstrup et al. found that "both men and women, younger and elderly, and individuals with and without pain benefitted equally from the exercises" (Sundstrup. 2013), it is probably well worth taking the 2-3 min to get the equipment in position and do 3-4 sets of this unquestionably unconventional exercise (check out the SuppVersity EMG Series and my post on "Integrated Core Exercises For 6-Pack Abs" for additional ab exercises).
• 

  A couple of statistics on the current asthma rates in the US
  

  • asthmatic adults: 18.7 million (8.2%)
  • asthmatic children: 7.0 million (9.4%)

  In 2010, most U.S. children aged 17 years and under had excellent or very good health (82%). However, 8% of children had no health insurance coverage, and 5% of children had no usual place of health care. Seven percent of children had unmet dental need because their families could not afford dental care. Fourteen percent of children had ever been diagnosed with asthma. An estimated 8% of children aged 3–17 years had a learning disability, and an estimated 8% of children had ADHD. (Bloom. 2011; based on data from 2010)
  5-HTP switches allergic asthma off No good news for the average Olympian athlete who would then lose his script for his beta-agonists (clenbuterol & co, see also SuppVersity Facebook news from Aug 01, 2013), but probably something those of you who suffer from allergic rhinitis or full-blown asthma will appreciate: The administration of 5-hydroxy-tryptophan an orally available precursor to serotonin over the course of  led to a profound reduction (70-90%!) reduction in allergic lung inflammation in a rodent model (Abdala-Valencia. 2013). While the supplement left all sorts of side-effect related parameters unchanged and did not lead to weight gain, which is an often touted side effect of SSRIs - mostly unjustly, by the way! - the hilariously high dosage of 5mg 5-HTP per kg body weight the rodents received did reduce the allergen-induced transglutaminase 2 (TG2) expression, the migration of immune cells into the lung tissue, the local synthesis of serotonin and the subsequent serotonylation of proteins (serotonin conjugation of proteins) which is a key feature of allergic asthma.
  Regardless of the fact that Abdala-Valencia explicitly point out that these effects "occured without systemic increases in serotonin" (Abdala-Valencia. 2013), which could have led to vasoconstriction and other negative side-effects, I strongly caution against the ingestion of a whole bottle of 5-HTP tabs per day... when the researchers from the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine publish a follow up study on humans, I'll let you know, though - in view of the ever-increasing asthma (see infobox on the right) research in this area could not just offer a valuable new treatment strategy, but also insights into the underlying reasons of this epidemic.
• Young women can combine strength training with either steady state or HIIT and still make progress - Somewhat related to my post earlier this week on doing cardio before instead of after your strength workout are the results of a recent study by Silva et al. who found that young women (age ~23y) make identical strength gains, regardless of whether and which type (HIIT sprinting or steady state cardio on the cycle ergometer or classic jogging) they perform before with their twice a week full-body training (Silva. 2013). Just as in the Di Blasio study, the "cardio" sessions, which were performed in a 1 min all-out vs. 1 min active recovery (HIIT) or 95% of the ventilatory threshold (SST) fashion for 20-30min (progressing from 20-30 over the course of the 11 weeks), were performed before the weight training (note: changes in body composition were not evaluated in detail, but I would be very surprised, if the concomitant training regimen, and in that specifically the HIIT protocol, did not outperform the resistance training only protocol in this respect).

  

  Image 3 (rippedfitness.com): You will certainly remember Wednesday's news on doing cardio before weights, well, here you have more evidence that even doing 20-30 min of HIIT won't hamper the gains of fit female beginners on a twice a week full-body regimen with built-in progression regimen - neither will steady state cardio "in the zone", by the way.

  If you are a young, fit woman (or man) without years of competitive athletics under your belt and don't train all too often (~2-3 times per week), it does thus obviously not harm your strength gains on a classic strength training program with built in linear progression from 15-18RM to 8-10RM, if you concomitantly work on your conditioning - whether the results would be identical if the subjects were not just fit and healthy but had been training for years and were working out 5x instead of 2x a week, is yet questionable. On the other hand, it is very unlikely that seasoned athletes (and this goes out to the gentlemen, in particular) will lose muscle and ruin their strength gains, whenever they move further than the bench to the squat rack - it's all a matter of total volume and running out of puff due to bad conditioning can just as well keep you from pulling those additional 10kg off the floor as the exhaustion from doing too much cardio.
  This, by the way, brings me back to the notion of "fitness" vs. "being fit", I alluded to in the caption of image 1, already: If you want to exploit the 100 year credit your genes have granted you (see "Exercise for Life Extension" in today's first installment of "On Short Notice"), you better focus on "being fit". Try different things and don't get stuck in a rut.
• High GI, low GI, ... f*** GI! When you, a healthy, more or less well-conditioned individual are about to engage in a high intensity exercise protocol that simulates a football match (bouts of walking (31-39 s), jogging (41-46 s), cruising (41-45 s), sprinting (16-21 s) and standing), it make absolutely no difference whether you ingest a high (=80) or low (=44) pre-workout meal (total energy=377 kcal; CHO=79 g; Fat=3 g; Protein=13 g) 3.5h before your workout (Hulton. 2013).

  

  Image 4: Add Lucozade + Akash rice for high GI (80) or apple juice and basmati for low GI (44) and you have two isocaloric test pre-workout meals

  That's at least what the results of a recent study by Hulton et al. which did not find any differences in blood glucose, fatty acids (FA), glycerol, β-hydroxybutyrate, lactate and insulin (assessed before, during, and after the exercise bout), rates of CHO and fat oxidation (determined at 4 time points during the protocol) or 1 km time trial performance. It should be mentioned, though, that this was not a liquid meal, but consisted of either Lucozade + akash rice (high GI) or apple juice + basmati rice (low GI) with an identical chicken breast + tomato sauce "base" and identical macro-nutrient and calorie content.
  That the long-term consequences on your body composition may still be different is a different cattle of fish though and how "beneficial" liquid sugar, ah... I mean energy drinks, such as Lucozade are is something at least those of you who read my "Fat Content Per Energy Drink 0g, Body Fat Gain Per Energy Drink 18g!" post from June 30, 2013. Whether apple juice is much better is still debatable, though. Wojcicki & Heyman, for example, argue (finally, as I would like to add) in their latest paper that "excessive fruit juice consumption is associated with increased risk for obesity" and the ingestion of "sucrose [...]without the corresponding fiber, as is commonly present in fruit juice, is associated with the metabolic syndrome, liver injury, and obesity". Reason enough for the two pediatrics from the University of California to recommend that the "US Department of Agriculture's Child and Adult Food Care Program, which manages the meal patterns in childcare centers such as Head Start, promote the elimination of fruit juice in favor of whole fruit for children." (Wojcicki. 2013)

Before I eventually call it a week, I would like to remind everyone of the daily mini-news on the SuppVersity Facebook wall. Only few of them will also make it into the "On Short Notice" column (actually the "Exercise for Life Extension" in today's first installment was an exception), so that even the few of you who don't suffer acute short news withdrawal symptoms, may want to stop by from time to time ;-)

References

• Abdala-Valencia H, Berdnikovs S, McCary CA, Urick D, Mahadevia R, Marchese ME, Swartz K, Wright L, Mutlu GM, Cook-Mills JM. Inhibition of Allergic Inflammation  by Supplementation with 5-hydroxytryptophan. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol. 2013 Jul 27.  
• Bloom B, Cohen RA, Freeman G. Division of Health Interview Statistics Summary Health Statistics for U.S. Children: National Health Interview Survey, 2010. U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics. Hyattsville, Maryland December 2011. DHHS Publication No. (PHS) 2013–1578.
• Hulton AT, Gregson W, Maclaren D, Doran DA. Effects of GI Meals on Intermittent Exercise. Int J Sports Med. 2013 Jun 15.
• Macaluso F, Isaacs AW, Myburgh KH. Preferential Type II Muscle Fiber Damage From Plyometric Exercise. J Athl Train. 2013;47(4):414-20.
• Silva RF, Cadore EL, Kothe G, Guedes M, Alberton CL, Pinto SS, Pinto RS, Trindade G, Kruel LF. Concurrent training with different aerobic exercises. Int J Sports Med. 2013 Aug;33(8):627-34. Epub 2013 May 4.
• Sundstrup E, Jakobsen MD, Andersen CH, Jay K, Andersen LL. Swiss ball abdominal crunch with added elastic resistance is an effective alternative to training machines. Int J Sports Phys Ther. 2013 Aug;7(4):372-80.
• Vrieze A, Schopman JE, Admiraal WM, Soeters MR, Nieuwdorp M, Verberne HJ, Holleman F. Fasting and Postprandial Activity of Brown Adipose Tissue in Healthy Men. J Nucl Med. 2013 Jul 31. 
• Wojcicki JM, Heyman MB. Reducing childhood obesity by eliminating 100% fruit juice. Am J Public Health. 2013 Sep;102(9):1630-3. Epub 2013 Jul 19.