Particle Size & LCAT Analysis Shows: Three Whole Eggs per Day Improve Lipid Profile in Men & Women W/ MetSyn. Plus: Up to 700% Increased Lipid Oxidation in Hardboiled vs. Fresh Omega-3 Eggs From Hens on Fish Oil Enriched Diet

"Not the yellow part of the egg!", is the literal translation of "Nicht das Gelbe vom Ei!", which is German and means "not exactly brilliant" - telling isn't it?

As a regular here at the SuppVersity you will probably have come across a line like "make sure to get at least 20g of quality protein (meats, poultry, eggs, fish, dairy) with every meal!" at least once. If we discard the fish, which is, outside of the occasional discussions about mercury and other heavy metals in our food chain, about the only of these highly nourishing foods, the various experts appear to agree is healthy for you, all of them are to be consumed only "on occasion", "in moderation" and preferably in their "lean" or "low-fat" varieties. And while you (should ;-) have read about the beneficial effects of full-fat dairy, yesterday, and about the actually not so bad "bad meats" in the "Meat-O-Logy" post from August 17, 2013, I thought I'd take the forthcoming publication of a paper by Christopher N. Blesso, Jeff Volek et al. as incentive to remind you not to make the mistake and flush the yolk, the best part of the egg, down the toilette.

Recipe for disaster? Take 20 men and women with metabolic syndrome, 5040 whole eggs...

With 40 men and women aged 30–70 years who had been classified with metabolic syndrome the researchers from the University of Connecticut and University of Antioquia in Medellin, Columbia, intentionally picked a representative sample from the ever-increasing number of people with metabolic syndrome for their 12-week dietary intervention trial. I mean, who if not the men and women in this high risk group should suffer from the negative side effects of the cholesterol-laden yellowy, orange-yellow heart killers in disguise?

AHA Definition of Metabolic syndrome

according to Grundy. 2004

Abdominal obesity (waist)
Men	>102 cm
Women	>88 cm
Triglycerides	≥150 mg/dL
HDL cholesterol
Men	40 mg/dL
Women	50 mg/dL
Blood pressure	≥130/≥85
Fasting glucose	≥110 mg/dL

The assumption that subjects with established metabolic syndrome (for the "official" criteria check out the table on the right) is however one of the very few things the study at hand and studies like the one that triggered such an upheaval in August (see Sciencedaily. 2013) have in common. Instead of relying on total, low density and high density lipoprotein levels in the sera of their study participants, Blesso et al. conducted a differential analysis that included paricle number, size (measured by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy), apolipoproteins (apos), oxidized LDL (oxLDL), cholesteryl ester transfer protein (CETP) and lecithin-cholesterol acyltransferase (LCAT) activities at baseline and after 12-weeks on a carbohydrate-restricted diet (25%–30% energy) that contained either  3 regular whole eggs/day (EGG, n = 20) or the volume equivalent in form of a yolk-free egg substitute (manufactured by Sysco Corporation, Houston, TX).

Accordingly, the subjects in the "real egg group" (EGG) consumed approximately 534 mg cholesterol, 0 g carbohydrate, 16 g protein, 12 g fat per day (186 kcal) from hole eggs, while a single serving of the cholesterol and fat-free substitute (SUB) contained approximately 2 g carbohydrate, 14 g protein, no fat, no cholesterol and only 60 kcal.

To minimize possible confounding factors and allow for "blinding" (you can't tell me you don't taste the difference between egg whites and whole eggs, but alas...), the eggs / egg supplements were prepared in advance.

"Compliance was monitored by use of weekly questionnaires and collection of empty product containers. Participants were asked to maintain their normal physical activity, medications, and dietary supplement usage upon starting the 12-week study." (Blesso. 2013)

To be able to track the dietary intake of the subjects, all participants had to fill out 5-day dietary intake records (3 weekdays + 2 weekend days) at baseline, week 6 and week 12 of the study period. Based on the analysis of the respective data, the scientists determined that

• increased relative protein intake from 17.3%± 3.0% to 23.9%± 4.1%
• increased relative fat intake from 38.6%± 6.4% to 45.7%± 7.4%

• reduced total energy intake of -24% for all participants
• reduced relative CHO intake from 40.9 ± 7.4 to 28.3 ± 9.5% of total energy 
• reduced absolute CHO intake from 211.9 ± 51.8 to 114.5 ± 55.0 g/d 

Moreover, there were "significant differences between groups for dietary cholesterol intake (EGG vs. SUB, P < 0.0001) and dietary choline intake (EGG vs. SUB, P < 0.0001)"

• Δ cholesterol intake +106% in EGG vs. -38% in SUB
• Δ choline intake +52% in EGG vs. -12% in SUB

In that, it is important to point out that these changes and their metabolic effect should not be seen in isolation, because choline plays a major role in the metabolism, transport and incorporation of cholesterol into the cell membrane (read more about choline in "Old School Supplements - Choline: Stronger, Faster, Leaner & More Muscular, or Just Another Dumb-and-Barbell Story?").

"So, the men and women in the egg-group did not die?"

Not exactly, no. Rather than being as bad as cigarettes (as the aforementioned "study" that was published roughly 2 months ago would make us believe; Spence. 2013), the consumption of three eggs per day lead to rather favorable changes in the lipoprofile of the EGG consumers:

Figure 1: Lipoprotein serum levels (left), particle size and ratio of LDL to HDL count (right) of the 37 participants who completed the 12-week trial (data expressed relative to baseline; calculated based on Blesso. 2013)

Contrary to the lipoprotein metabolism, which showed differential (and general positive) effects in response to whole egg consumption, the reductions in circulating insulin, HOMA-IR and triglycerides did not show statistical significant inter-group differences:

triglycerides: -29% vs. -18%
• insulin: -21% vs. -14%
• HOMA-IR: -22% vs. -18%

The existing changes were yet on average still somewhat more pronounced in the EGG group, which is an observation you could interpret as joint effect of low carb dieting + egg eating.

The same goes for the increase in LCAT activity the researchers observed only in the EGG group. Since LCAT is critically important in facilitating HDL particle stability and HDL maturation, its elevation in the EGG group

"[...] could be indicative of an enhanced capacity for HDL maturation and may help explain the shift towards larger HDL particles seen with egg feeding" (Blesso. 2013; my emphasis)

and would thus favor enhanced HDL-mediated reverse cholesterol transport from (e.g. the endothelium of your coronary heart arteries) back to the liver.

What about the lipid oxidation?

If we assume that part of the negative effects that have been ascribed to the consumption of egg(-yolks) are brought about by oxidized fatty acids and respective byproducts, it appears wise not to hard-boil your eggs, because the prolonged heat exposure during hard-boiling increases the oxidation of fatty acids. Aside from temperature and duration of the heat exposure, Cortinas et al. also identified the fatty acid composition of the eggs and their vitamin E content as crucial factors that will influence the formation of oxidized lipids. Since the fatty acid composition of the eggs depends on the diet the hens are fed, you would be particularly ill-advised to hard-boil eggs from hens who were fed a diet enriched in fish oil.

As you can see in the figure above the "fish oil eggs" with their readily oxidized long-chain PUFAs had by far the highest  TBA values (expressed as ng MDA/g dry matter) - specifically, if the hens did not receive additional vitamin E that would be transfered to the eggs and reduce the heat-induced oxidation of the long-chain PUFAs in the "omega-3 eggs" during cooking.

So what's the verdict? In conjunction with the aforementioned additive effects on glucose management and the slightly more pronounced decrease in oxidized LDL (both are probably rather a result of the -12% reduction in carbohydrate content of the participants' diets than the effect of the eggs), the statistically significant improvements in LCAT activity in the EGG eater group speak in favor of the notion that three whole eggs a day will still help you keep the doctor away. Whether they will suffice to throw his statins away, as well (see "Eat Whole Eggs All Day and Throw Your Statins Away?"), will yet have to be elucidated and appears overall questionable - and this goes regardless of whether you belong or don't belong to the relatively small subgroup of people who actually benefit from taking a statin, or not.

What stands out of question, however, is that the "side effects" of three egg yolks per day are quite distinct from those of cigarettes, the consumption of which the headline of the aforementioned ScienceDaily.com article implicitly equates with "egg yolk consumption". And just like smoking and eating eggs are two very different pairs of shoes, there is a huge difference between this well-controlled trial, on the one hand, and the undifferentiated observational hokum that got Spence et al. so much media attention back in August, when they concluded "Our findings suggest that regular consumption of egg yolk should be avoided by persons at risk of cardiovascular disease." (Spence. 2013), on the other hand.

References:

• Blesso CN, Andersen CJ, Barona J, Volek JS, Fernandez ML. Whole egg consumption improves lipoprotein profiles and insulin sensitivity to a greater extent than yolk-free egg substitute in individuals with metabolic syndrome. Metabolism. 2013 Sep 26.
• Cortinas L, Galobart J, Barroeta AC, Baucells MD, Grashorn MA. Change in α-tocopherol contents, lipid oxidation and fatty acid profile in eggs enriched with linolenic acid or very long-chain ω3 polyunsaturated fatty acids after different processing methods. J. Sci. Food Agric. 2003; 83: 820–829.
• Grundy SM, Brewer HB Jr, Cleeman JI, Smith SC Jr, Lenfant C; American Heart Association; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. Definition of metabolic syndrome: Report of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute/American Heart Association conference on scientific issues related to definition. Circulation. 2004 Jan 27;109(3):433-8.
• ScienceDaily. Egg yolk consumption almost as bad as smoking when it comes to atherosclerosis, study suggests. August 13, 2013 < http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2013/08/120813155640.htm > accessed on October 03, 2013.
• Spence JD, Jenkins DJ, Davignon J. Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque. Atherosclerosis. 2013 Oct;224(2):469-73.

Science Round-Up Seconds: "Tomatorade(R)" or Why Tomato Juice is the Better Intra- & Postworkout Beverage. Up to 90% B12 Deficiency in Vegetarians & Vegans. Aluminum in Your Testes? Not With Vitamin E & Zinc.

Can't find "Tomatorade(R)", at your local supplement store, yet (surprising, right ;-)? The guys over @ SimplyRecipes have an easy and tweakable recipe describing how you can make your own "Tomatorade" or however you want to call it (photo by SimplyRecipes).

If you listened live to yesterday's installment of the SuppVersity Science Round-Up on Super Human Radio, you will probably have noticed that due to the technical problems and my teacherly tendency to talk for hours, Carl Lanore and I did not cover all the topics (click here do download the podcast if you haven't already done so)... but hey, that leaves more stuff for today, doesn't it?

I guess I will best package the newsitems into three servings, starting out with the one I like best, namely my Tomatorade(R) aka plain tomato juice news... but before I do so, I must thank Maxim Okhrimenko who corrected the statement I made about vodka in Russian babies' tea or other beverages. Normal Russians don't this. I actually did not intend to make that sound like "common practice" - sorry if it got across like that.

My sincere apologies for promoting prejudices like that. From a science perspective you could even argue that the Brits came up with the idea. In the 1850s William Woodward "invented" a concoction of dill seed oil, sodium bicarbonate and alcohol, called it "gripe water" and sold it as a soothing remedy for gastrointestinal troubles (Agarwal. 2000).

Tomatorade(R) - Tomato Juice turns out to be the ideal periworkout carb drink

What's LDH and CPK? While the former stands for lactate dehydrogenase and the latter is identical to CK, which is creatine kinase, both are considered markers of muscular exertion (LDH) and damage (CK) due to exercise. Very high levels of LDH occur for example in hemolytic situations, i.e. at times your red blood cells disintergrate or after a major trauma to a muscle (incl. a myocardial infarction), the same is true for CK, for which most laboratories will analyses tissue specific isoforms with CK-MB being the one that's indicating muscle damage from the minor DOMS after a leg workout to full rhabdomyolysis.

I know many of you will probably be shuddering, right now. "Carbohydrate drinks? I don't care if it's Tomato- or Gatorade, I don't want any of them." Still, what would you say, if I told you that "Tomatorade(R)", which consists of nothing else but 100% tomato juice could not just replenish your muscle glycogen levels, but would also reduce and even normalize LDH and CPK levels? Allow you to regenerate faster, train more frequently and eventually increase your performance and muscle gains- specifically if you are into weight lifting or other anaerobic activities? I see, now, I got you interested.

According to a paper that is going to be published in the next issue of Food Chemistry and Toxicology, the administration of tomato juice instead of a commercial exercise beverage to 9 out of 15 anaerobically trained athletes (11 men, 4 women) with elevated LDH (>300mg/dl) and CPK(>210mg/dl) baseline levels (as the scientists have it a clearcut sign of "endothelial dysfunction through oxidative stress" (Tsitsimpikou . 2013)) returned the LHD ad CPK levels back into the normal range in the course of the two months study period.

Figure 1: Effects of two month on an isocaloric amount tomato juice (here jovially called "Tomatorade(R)" ;-) vs. the regular carbohydrate workout drink the subjects usually consumed during and after their workouts (Tsitsimpikou. 2013)

Moreover, the consumption of vitamin, mineral and polyphenol-laden superdrink, in place of the athletes regular carbohydrate drink (the scientists made sure that the energy content was identical) also reduced the highly health relevant markers of whole body inflammation, homocysteine and C-reactive protein (CRP; see figure 1) - whether the mainly lycopene induced reductions in homocystein is actually protecting against endothelial damage or not, is yet still (or I should say, again) a matter of scientific debate (cf. Xaplanteris. 2013).

Brief update:  Just got a question from Sofeen on facebook about simply eating tomatoes. Now, you would have to eat plenty of them to see the effect, but in essence it should work. Nevertheless, when I contemplated the question I came up with an even better alternative: Tomato paste! When Tomatorade(R) is the carb beverage, then the paste would be one of those fancy carb gels - a gel, by the way, which has a 2.5x higher bioavailability for lycopene than you would get from regular tomatoes (Gärtner. 1997).

Vitamin B12 defieciency is rampant among vegetarians and (even more) vegans

I have previously pointed out that unless you are at least lacto-ovo-vegetarian, which means that you eat dairy products and eggs, you are going to have a very hard time building and maintaining the physique of your dreams. As a recent meta-analysis and review study by Pawlak et al. suggests, not being the leanest and most muscular on stage should yet actually be your least concern.

Suggested Read: "Want B12 But Hate Meat? Drink Milk!" Even some of the more advanced supplements cannot compete.

According to the data the researchers from different US institutions collected, the deficiency rates for "normal" vegetarians are

• 62% among  pregnant  women,
• between  25% and almost 86% among children,
• 21–41% among adolescents, and
• 11–90% among the elderly

Even higher rates, bordering the 90%+ range, when they were measured by holo-transcobalamin II essays were reported for vegans (adults). On top of that the scientists did not find any confounding factors,:

"The main finding of this review is that vegetarians  develop  B12 depletion or deficiency  regardless  of demographic  characteristics,  place of residency,  age, or type of vegetarian  diet. Vegetarians should thus take preventive measures to ensure adequate intake of this vitamin, including regular consumption of supplements containing B12." (Pawlak. 2013)

As preferable dietary sources the researchers suggest, the aforementioned dairy products and eggs:

• milk, which contains between 0.3 and 0.4 mg/100 g of B12, with an absorption rate of about 65%.
  
• the B12 content of cheese or cottage cheese ranges from 20 to 60% that of milk.
• the amount of B12 in a whole egg is between 0.9 and 1.4 mg/100g

Unfortunately, the amount of B12 is profoundly reduced during the heating process. For milk the B12 loss amounts to up to 30-50%, when you boil it and I bet you won't be much better off with hard boiled (yolks = hard) eggs.

If you avoid meat not for ethical reasons, but because you are afraid it's bad for you, read the "Meat-Ology" post

The scientists also point out that the vegan myth that your body a great ability to store B12 and it would take years if not decades for them to be depleted:

"Studies do not support the position that it takes up to 20 or 30 years to develop a deficiency.7 According to Donaldson, 47% of the sample developed a deficiency, and most of these individuals had adhered to a raw vegan diet for between 23 and 49 months or about 2–4 years. In a study conducted by Herrmann et al.66% of German participants who had adhered to a vegetarian diet for at least 2 years were found to be B12 deficient." (Pawlak. 2013)

Since the whole problem is further increased by the lack of hydrochloric acid (low-to-no intrinsic factor production, which is necessary for the absorption of B12), low iron induced damage to the gut mucosa and subsequent nutrient malabsorptions, I'd suggest that all of you who insist on following a vegetarian life-style go, have their levels checked and get some B12 injections if you are where Pawlak et al. believe you are: Rock bottom.

Protect your testes, rescue your sperm and testosterone production

A recently published paper has taken yet another look at ways to prevent testicular damage / toxicity subsequent to heavy metal exposure. Other than usual, the "suspect" is yet not lead, but rather aluminum, which was administered in toxic doses to male albino rodents.

Figure 2: Relative levels of testosterone, FSH, LH and prolactin in aluminum (50mg/kg) treated male albino rats after the administration of zinc, vitamin E or both; data expressed relative to healthy (non-Al intoxicated) control (Rawy. 2013)

As the data in figure 2 goes to show you, the Saudi-Arabian researchers were able to counter much of the detrimental effects on testicular morphology, spermatogenesis and hormone production by administering either zinc sulfate or vitamin E alone or in conjunction at human equivalent doses of 8mg/kg zinc sulfate (I may remind you that these were 8mg/kg of zinc sulfate, not of elemental zinc, so that we are talking about ~1.8mg/kg elemental zinc) and 2.4mg/kg vitamin E (~1,200-1,500IU), respectively.

---

Now while that's it as far as today's Seconds are concerned, tomorrow is Saturday and in case you are into those shorter news items, you better make sure to come back for another installment of On Short Notice. And just in case you have not done so already, I would also suggest that you take a peek at the following recent Facebook news:

Older tomato news: The dehydrotomatine, α-tomatineand trigonelline from green tomatoes has fat burning effects (read more).

• Galactooligosaccharides increase bifido bacteria content in obese patients and result in positive effects on the immune response, and insulin, total cholesterol and triglyceride concentrations (read more). 
• Women with brittle bones cannot squat? False! They must squat, recent study says (read more)
• The fries a mother eats during pregnancy predispose her kids to become obese and develop metabolic syndrome syndrome - at least if the oil was (as it almost always is) oxidized during the heating process (read more).
• The Zinc equation: For every doubling in Zn intake, the difference in Zn serum or plasma concentration is 6% - this assumes zinc intakes in the normal range of <30mg/day (read more).

As usually there will be more for you to read in the course of the next 24 hours - so just "like" the SuppVersity Facebook page to make sure you are not missing out on anything important ;-)

References

• Agarwal KN, Gupta A, Pushkarna R, Bhargava SK, Faridi MM, Prabhu MK. The gripe water story.J R Soc Med.2000;93:172-174.
• Gärtner C, Stahl W, Sies H. Lycopene is more bioavailable from tomato paste than from fresh tomatoes. Am J Clin Nutr. 1997 Jul;66(1):116-22.
• Pawlak R, Parrott SJ, Raj S, Cullum-Dugan, D Lucus, D. How prevalent is vitamin B12 deficiency among vegetarians? Nutrition Reviews. 2 JAN 2013 [epub ahead of print]
• Rawy SM, Seif Al Nassr FM. Zinc sulphate and vitamin E alleviate reproductive toxicity caused by aluminium sulphate in male albino rats. Toxicol Ind Health. 2013 Jan 2.
• Tsitsimpikou C, Kioukia-Fougia N, Tsarouhas K, Stamatopoulos P, Rentoukas E, Koudounakos A, Papalexis P, Liesivuori J, Jamurtas A. Administration of tomato juice ameliorates lactate dehydrogenase and creatinine kinase responses to anaerobic training. Food Chem Toxicol. 2013 Jan 3.
• Xaplanteris P, Vlachopoulos C, Pietri P, Terentes-Printzios D, Kardara D, Alexopoulos N, Aznaouridis K, Miliou A, Stefanadis C. Tomato paste supplementation improves endothelial dynamics and reduces plasma total oxidative status in healthy subjects. Nutr Res. 2013 May;32(5):390-4.