Fat Loss Principles That Work: 10g+ of EAAs W/ Every Meal. Do Energetic Costs of Protein Synthesis Trigger This Effect?

EAAs beyond whey: It may not necessarily look like this, but this salad (repicecorner) is an EAA power horse with cheddar cheese (25% protein, 0.49 EAA / P ratio), tuna (in oil, 29%,  0.45) and kidney beans (9%, 0.45). You see, it does not always have to be chicken breasts or whey to get beyond the 10g+ EAA threshold, I have repeatedly suggested as one of the fundamental rules of dieting for weight loss, maintenance and muscle gain.

Many people take it for granted that you become fat, when you get old. If you look at the statistics, you could even make a point that obesity has some protective effects with esp. with respect to CVD mortality. Scientists call this the "obesity paradox" (Kastorini. 2013). What's particularly paradox, at least in my humble opinion, is yet not the phenomenon itself, but rather the fact that it gets smart scientists derailed from working on useful dietary and exercise interventions to prevent the development of heart disease, cancer, metabolic syndrome etc. in early years. Instead, they argue ex-post, i.e. when the baby has already been thrown out with the bathtub by comparing sick lean (in parts even cachectic) and sick "obese" people, why their statistical shenanigan that's based on the useless BMI produces paradoxical results. And that, when studies such as the one Jacobs et al. did in 2010 clearly show that 50+ year old men and women with waist circumference >120cm and >110cm, respectively, have 2x higher all-cause mortality risk than their lean peers - irrespective of BMI (Jacobs. 2010)!

To get lean and stay lean, yet not thin and skinny fat is therefore a challenge everyone...

... from the child in the Kindergarten to the obese granny in the nursing home is facing. Against that background a previous study by Loenneke et al. comes to mind. The results of their analysis, which were published in Nutrition and Metabolism in January 2013 clearly show that the amount of times people eat meals with a 10g+ EAA content per day was inversely related to percent central abdominal fat (Loenneke. 2013). In previous studies EAAs have also been shown to improve glucose clearance without increases in insulin and in the absence of effects on the fat burnin and health promoting expresion of AMPK-alpha2 in skeletal muscle tissue (see "EAAs Stimulate Muscle Glucose Uptake by Exponentiating Insulin's Effect on GLUT4 Expression"). With the advanced publication of a study by Coker, Miller, Schutzler, Deutz and Wolfe in the online verison of the Nutrition Journal a couple of days ago, the notion that EAAs have a particularly beneficial effect on fat loss - in this case in obese elderly individuals - gets further support from a well-controlled randomized trial (Cooker. 2013).

EAA-rich protein increases fat loss to a greater extent than low EAA protein

The researchers from the Center for Translational Research in Aging and Longevity and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, AR, USA randomized 12 elderly individuals (mean age 69 years) to an 8 week, caloric restriction diet utilizing equivalent caloric meal replacements (~850 kcal/day; the exact nutrient composition can be found in figure 1) + ~400kcal from solid foods (total intake: ~1,250kcal/day; the subjects were free to chose their solid meals but were provided with a list of examples the should pick from, if possible).

Figure 1: Macronutrient composition of the meal replacements used in the study (Cooker. 2013)

The diet was designed to induce a 7% weight loss in two months. And while both,  the rate of weight loss (~1.6lbs per week), as well as the relatively high caloric deficit are certainly appropriate for someone with a 30+ BMI and ~40% body fat, leaner people will fare better with a less pronounced kcal deficit or (alternatively) have to add some strategically planned refeeds to the equation in order to minimize the loss of lean mass and, more importantly, avoid the ensuing reduction in energy expenditure (for the obese, the latter is actually less of the problem, because the downsides of being calorically deprived are at least partly counglucose tolerance and leptin sensitivity with every gram of body can actually help the body recognize that there is still plenty of energy that has just not been available (glucose) or "visible" (fat) before).

Figure 2: Changes in lean and fat mass (kg, left) and fractional protein synthesis rates (FSR) in participants receiving iso-caloric meal replacements with identical macronutrient compositions (see figure 1), but different amounts of essential amino acids (EAAs) content (Coker. 2013)

As the data in figure 2 goes to show you even the obese individuals in the study at hand lost a non-negligible amount of lean mass - unfortunately the body composition was measure with a sophisticated, but still body impedance based device, the trends are still accurate, but it is questionable in how much we are actually talking about ~2 and 2.5kg of muscle mass (figure 2, left), because somebody's "lean body mass" does obviously include more than just skeletal muscle.

When it comes to supplements, we are often like children on Christmas eve. About all the new stuff we get we tend to forget our former favorite and often way more fun to play with toys. Don't make this mistake and ditch your PWO whey (personally, I like a ~1.5:1 whey + micellar casein mixture) for EAAs, they don't come close... read more

Be that as it may - since the before and after values were taken with the same device the changes should be correct, so that both the slightly yet not statistically significantly ameliorated loss of lean body mass and, more importantly, the significantly higher degree of body fat loss in the EAA meal replacement (EAAMR) group speak in favor of the 5 servings of a the 170 kcal, 6g EAA per day. Moreover, "the sparing influence of muscle loss might have been demonstrated with a larger sample size", so that you can take it for granted that the preservation of precious muscle mass is an advantage of being choosy with your protein sources and preferring those with higher over those with lower essential amino acid contents.

On a related note: I don't know if you noticed, but with a total energy content of 850kcal and 30g EAA these 5 meal replacements did in fact have exactly those 10g+ of essential amino acids, I have repeatedly recommended to have with each of the 3 meals most people consume in the course of the day.

In all fairness, it should also be mentioned that despite not being significantly different at baseline, the body fat percentage of the subjects in the EAA meal replacement group was ~3% higher to begin with.This may seem irrelevant, since figure 2 compares lean mass and fat mass as absolute changes and not their percentages, but in the end, the amount of fat you you can drop within a given time-frame decreases with lower body fat percentages.

Do the energetic costs of protein synthesis drive fat loss?

Another interesting observation Coker et al. made is the close association between fat loss, on the one hand, and increased protein synthesis (55%), on the other hand. The researchers take this as an incentive to do one of the of the much loved calories in vs. calories out calculation and come up with the following hypothesis:

"Acute administration of EAAMR did promote a significant increase in skeletal muscle protein FSR compared to CMR. Assuming that the energy cost of protein synthesis is 3.6 kJ/g and the baseline GAIA-derived lean tissue mass was 56.4 kg for EAAMR and 54.4 kg for the CMR, we can extrapolate that the overall energy discrepancy between the two groups was roughly equivalent to 27,170 kcal or 3.5 kg of weight loss across the entire caloric restriction-based weight loss paradigm. Based on the amount of total lean mass in each group, this value takes into account a consistent intervention structure of five servings/day across an eight week period. In short, these calculations suggest that differences in the source of intact protein/formulation of EAA may have a significant influence on diet-induced energy expenditure that coincides closely with the greater reduction of adipose tissue in EAAMR compared to CMR." (my emphasis in Coker. 2013)

I usually discard fallacious calculations like this one if they are not highlight the stupidity of trying to eat exactly as much as some funky formula + the figure on your treadmill, pedometer, heart rate monitor or whatever fancy tool you may use to "measure" your energy expenditure suggest you would have burned in the last 24h. In this case, however, I made an exception, because I feel that the notion that protein quality is one of the myriad of parameters that are missing from this foolish calculation is important, for lean and obese people from all age groups who are trying to shed body fat.

Bottom line: The take away message of the study is in the end identical to the previously mentioned study by Loenneke et al.: Make sure you hit the 10g EAA threshold with each and every of your meals, if being lean and muscular not skinny yet fat is your goal.

References:

• Coker RH, Miller S, Schutlzer S, Deutz N, Wolfe RR. Whey protein and essential amino acids promote the reduction of adipose tissue and increased muscle protein synthesis during caloric restriction-induced weight loss in elderly, obese individuals. Nutr J. 2013 Dec 11;11(1):105. [Epub ahead of print]
• Jacobs EJ, Newton CC, Wang Y, Patel AV, McCullough ML, Campbell PT, Thun MJ, Gapstur SM. Waist circumference and all-cause mortality in a large US cohort. Arch Intern Med. 2010 Aug 9;170(15):1293-301.
• Kastorini CM, Panagiotakos DB. The obesity paradox: methodological considerations based on epidemiological and clinical evidence--new insights. Maturitas. 2013 Jul;72(3):220-4.
• Loenneke JP, Wilson JM, Manninen AH, Wray ME, Barnes JT, Pujol TJ. Quality protein intake is inversely related with abdominal fat. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2013 Jan 27;9(1):5.

Magic Numbers: 1g Protein per 2g Carbs + Circuit Training = The #1 Formula for Weight & Fat Loss in Obese Women?

If there is one thing about this study that's not debatable it is that eating whole foods, cleaning your diet from all sorts of junk and working out lifting weights and doing aerobics were the cornerstones of the weight loss success of these women, regardless of whether they consumed a low, medium or high amount of protein.

Roughly two years ago, when the SuppVersity opened its doors, it was pretty rare to find a scientist who would be willing to "waste" (that's probably how he or she would have said it ;-) precious time and the limited funds of his institution to study the effects of "high protein diets". Over the past couple of months, things have been changing, though: I've just checked and according to Pubmed, the number of publications containing the exact phrase "high protein diet", alone,  has increased by ~32% in 2011 and has remained on the same comparably high level ever since. That said a recent study from the University of Guelph in Canada is only the latest in the line of a whole host of publications that deal with the beneficial effects of high(er) protein diets on weight loss in overweight, (pre-)diabetic subjects; exactly those people who have previously been advised to stay clear of all fats, ignore the proteins and focus on the "healthy and satieting" low GI carbs, by the way.

Yet though the tides may be turning ...

... a paradigm shift within the scientific community usually doesn't come over night - a famous scientist and philosopher of science once said that it usually takes until the proponents of the old paradigm died out, before a new one is fully established. Since roughly two years and even two decades are hardly enough for this to happen, it is actually not surprising that Dawn. D. Campbell and Kelly A. Meckling, despite giving the high protein diet credit for having produced some promising results in the past, speculate that

"the combined effects of a normal protein: carbohydrate ratio with cardiovascular and resistance training would be more beneficial and easier to comply with than either the low- or high-protein diets in this target population of women with risk factors for the MetS" (Campbell. 2013)

In view of the fact that Rehm et al. conclude ther 2008 review of the literature with the statement...

"Diets moderately increased in protein and modestly restricted in carbohydrate and fat, particularly saturated fat, may have beneficial effects on body weight, body composition, and associated metabolic parameters." (Rehm. 2008)

... and against the background that the evidence of the real-world benefits of a higher protein intake is accumulating, and pertinent reviews and editorials have been appearing on a monthly basis, ever since (e.g. Hession. 2009; Keller. 2011; Acheson. 2013), the research hypothesis of the study at hand sounds a bit 'last year', not to say 'last decade' to me.

Do we have a bias here?

Moroever, with the research hypothesis being a good indicator of a built-in bias, we will have to pay pretty close attention to distinguish the actual data Campbell and Meckling measured from their interpretations of the latter. After all, every "good" SuppVersity student should remember that we have seen time and again how the differences between facts and interpretations often become somewhat blurry in the conclusions of way too many (for my liking) papers as of late. So let's see if Campbell's and Meckling's conclusion that...

"A diet with a 1:2 protein:carbohydrate ratio promoted better improvements than either the LP or HP diets, and may be superior in reducing long-term chronic disease risk in this population." (my emphasis in Campbell. 2013)

What can be said right away is that the protocol the scientists used, specifically the way they are working with macronutrient ratios instead of paradigmatic percentages of the RDA, is actually pretty progressive.

"Subjects were encouraged to consume whole foods as opposed to pre-packaged or processed foods and to restrict intake of whole-fat dairy, high-fat red meats, deep-fried foods, potato chips, cookies and refined sugar products. Instead, subjects were encouraged to choose whole-grain pro-ducts, lower-fat meats, fish, turkey, eggs, low-fat milk and cot-tage cheese, nuts, seeds, and a variety of vegetables, fruits and berries. Before beginning the study workout programme, subjects completed baseline fitness testing to assess muscular strength and cardiovascular fitness." (Campbell. 2013)

Instead of simply upping the protein intake from the 0.8g/kg body weight the RDA suggest would be optimal, Campbell and Meckling put their obese (mean BMI ~35kg/m²) female participants (of which only 54 completed the study) on calorically restricted diets (supposedly -30% below their habitual energy intake which had been evaluated by the means of a 7-day food record) which contained an equal relative amount of fat (<30%), but had different protein-to-carbohydrate ratios:

• low protein (LP) - 1g protein : 4g carbohydrates
• medium protein (MP) - 1g protein : 2g carbohydrates
• high protein (HP) - 1g protein : 1g carbohydrates

To put that in perspectve, a women who may have been consuming a baseline diet containing 2,300kcal per day would have had to restrict her caloric intake to 1,610kcal. Of these 1,610kcal, <30% would come from fat (60g), while the rest would be ingested in the form either 56g protein and 225g carbohydrates (LP), 94g protein and 188g carbohydrates (MP), or 140g protein and 140g carbs (HP).

There is no effective weight loss without exercise and a whole food diet!

In addition to the dietary regimen the 117 participants who initially met the eligibility criteria were supposed to particpate in a  supervised 12-week circuit training program at the University of Guelph Athletic Centre.

The 1 h study fitness programme was completed three times/week on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at a consistent time assigned to each subject. Subjects had to sign in for their workout sessions, and all exercises were supervised by a study coordinator and/or personal trainer. Subjects began their workout with a 9 min warm-up using springboard pads where walking in place, jogging or dancing took place. Then, subjects completed a 30 min circuit alternat-ing between resistance training and cardiovascular exercise bouts. All main muscle groups of the body were targeted throughout the thirteen resistance training machines. Starting weight values on resistance training equipment were 65 % of their calculated maximum strength as determined by their modified 1 repetition maximum. Subjects were instructed to complete one set of eight to fifteen repetitions on each piece of equipment to reach muscle fatigue."

The circuit training used a build-in progression with ~5% increases in weight, whenever the subject were able to complete 15 repetitions on a given exercise. The same goes for the aerobic parts of the workouts, where the

Subjects began exercising at 65 % of their maximum heart rate for the first 3 weeks and gradually increased the intensity by 5 % every 3 weeks to a maximum intensity of 80 % by week 12. 

As far as the aerobic part of the workouts was concerned, they alternated between a step, springboard pad and stationary bike. All workouts closed with some ab training (including a standard crunch, oblique crunch and a core-strengthening exercise called the plank, done to failure) and stretching.

"Hey, exercise is good for me!"

Other than you may have expected the 35 dropouts (which were equally distributed across all dietary groups) were not brought about by laziness or the unwillingness to get up and move. On the contrary, many subjects recorded that they had "more energy and felt better than before the study began" (Campbell. 2013). Aside from minor constipation (the scientists don't mention in which group this occured) and some minor shedding in one of the subjects in the low protein group (probably coincidence, by the way), the intervention went fine for those who had the guts, time and discipline to stick it and yielded - as the data in figure 1 goes to show - favorable results in all three arms off the study:

Figure 1: Changes in antroprometric data, blood pressure and heart rate after 12 weeks (based on Campbell. 2013)

If we were stupid enough to focus solely on the BMI reductions, we could even say that all diets were equally effective. Upon closer scrutiny and the use of some statistical shenanigan, it does however become clear that the scientists' initial hypothesis that the normal protein diet with a 1:2 protein to carbohydrate would have a small edge over both, the low protein diet (in terms of body fat loss and lean mass retention; p < 0.05) and the high protein diet (solely in terms of body fat loss; p < 0.05) seems to hold true. What's more, this trend in DXA measured improvements in body composition stands in line with noteworthy reductions in waist circumference (7.9, 11.6 and 8.6 cm in the LP, NP and HP), of which Cambell and Meckling write:

"Again, the decrease in the NP group was greater than that in the LP group. Further-more, hip circumferences decreased similarly (P < 0·05) in response to each diet with reductions of 7·4, 8·8 and 8·4 cm in the LP, NP and HP groups, respectively. Waist:hip ratios declined significantly (P < 0·05) after 12 weeks by 0·01, 0·04 and 0·01 in the LP, NP and HP groups, respectively, but reductions were greater in the NP v. LP (P=0·020) and HP (P=0·025) groups." (Cambell. 2013)

No group specific diet effects were observed for the reductions in blood pressure and heart rate. Now, this obviously raises the question, whether the existent changes may have been brought about by non-compliance.

"So maybe the protein eaters just didn't eat their protein?"

Non-compliance is, as SuppVersity students know, one of the major problems with all of these relatively uncontrolled dietary interventions (see "High Carb vs. High Fat: What Really Happens When Science Meets the Real World"). And in fact, with average caloric intakes of 3641, 3729 and 3633 kJ/d  in in the low, medium and high protein groups, the subjects were actually consuming 10% less energy than they were supposed to.

Suggested read for everyone who can't or doesn't want to believe that you can easily eat 157g of carbs (which is what the women in the normal protein group did) and still lose fat while retaining all your precious lean muscle mass: "Carbohydrate Shortage in Paleo Land: New Data for A Scientific Outlook at the Low-to-No Carb Paleo Confusion. Will More Than 125g of Carbs Make You Fat?" (read more)

Despite the fact that this type of non- or rather 'over-compliance' can also have detrimental effects on someone's weight loss efforts, there were no intergroup differences which would skew the ultimate comparison; and much to my surprise the majority of the subjects did even manage to come close to their macronutrient goals by adapting their previously almost identical protein to carbohydrate ratios of  1:3.5, 1:3.2 and 1:32 at baseline to 1:3.5, 1:2.1 and 1:1.3 by week 12. With respect to the total protein intake, this equals

• significant decreases in protein intake (82 and 88 g/d to 55 and 75 g/d) for the low and normal protein groups and
• significant increases in protein intake (from 84 to 100 g/d) in the high protein group

This does also mean that the percentage of subjects who met the 0.8g/kg RDA for dietary protein intake at the beginning of the study had dropped to zero in the low protein group by week 12.

The subjects in the normal protein intake group were about as close as you can get and those in the high protein group consumed significantly more protein than the 'well-meaning' authors of the dietary recommendations feel would be good for them ;-) Other changes the scientists observed were:

• a significant declines in carbohydrate intake in the normal and high protein group
• a decreased sugar intake in all groups (most pronounced in the HP group)
• a decreased fat intake in all groups (p<0.001)
• significant decreases in sodium intake in all groups 
• non-significant decreases in calcium, zinc and vitamin D intake

I guess, I don't have to tell you that none of the few existing inter-group differences discussed above appears to provide any reason to question the small, but statistically significant superiority of the normal protein diets compared to either the low protein or the high protein diets. And despite being the only study participants who were in a positive nitrogen balance, the subjects in the HP group did not see more beneficial effects on the retention of lean mass than the normal protein group.

So what?! Normal protein rules?

No matter how you look at the results of the study at hand, based solely on the data Campbell and  Meckling presented here, there is not a single argument to brought forward in favor of the 1:1 vs. the 1:2 protein to carbohydrate ratio. Moreover, the single most important determinant of (long-term) dietary success that is the ease with which dieters feel they can adhere to a given nutritional protocol also speaks in favor of the normal, not the high protein diet. The answer to the initially raised question, whether the scientists' conclusion that.. 

"[a] diet with a 1:2 protein:carbohydrate ratio promoted better improvements than either the LP or HP diets, and may be superior in reducing long-term chronic disease risk in this population" (my emphasis in Campbell. 2013)

...was biased by their own research hypothesis would therefore be "NO! It wasn't." -  Now, that does not change the fact that I personally am biased and would therefore have liked the ladies to get past the 90g of quality protein / day margin. This would incidentally not have been difficult, if these wannabe overachievers had not reduced their caloric intake from ~2,300kcal/day to ~1,360kcal, but had contended themselves with the planned -30% reduction. The difference of 230kcal/day would left more than enough room for two additional protein shakes per day!

Figure 2: Fat loss and lean mass gains of the police officers in the Demling study (Demling. 2000)

That a similar regimen consisting of an even milder -20% reduction in calorie intake and the consumption of 70-75g of whey or casein hydrolysate can produce magnificent results, when it is combined with regular strength training (4days per week 30-35min of liftin), has been shown by Demling and DeSanti 12 years ago, already (see figure 2).

It should be said, though that the 'success ratio' of carbs to protein in the Demling study was likewise ~1:2 (!) - the sole difference was that the obese police officers in the Demling study simply ate twice as much protein and twice as much carbs with a baseline fat intake of ~35g per day.

References:

• Acheson KJ. Higher-protein diets for health? European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2013; 66, 763–764.
• Brehm BJ, D'Alessio DA. Benefits of high-protein weight loss diets: enough evidence for practice? Curr Opin Endocrinol Diabetes Obes. 2008 Oct;15(5):416-21. 
• Campbell DD, Meckling KA. Effect of the protein:carbohydrate ratio in hypoenergetic diets on metabolic syndrome risk factors in exercising overweight and obese women. Br J Nutr. 2013 Nov;108(9):1658-71. 
• Demling RH, DeSanti L. Effect of a hypocaloric diet, increased protein intake and resistance training on lean mass gains and fat mass loss in overweight police officers. Ann Nutr Metab. 2000;44(1):21-9.
• Hession M, Rolland C, Kulkarni U, Wise A, Broom J. Systematic review of randomized controlled trials of low-carbohydrate vs. low-fat/low-calorie diets in the management of obesity and its comorbidities. Obes Rev. 2009 Jan;10(1):36-50.
• Keller U. Dietary proteins in obesity and in diabetes. Int J Vitam Nutr Res. 2011 Mar;81(2-3):125-33.

Aspartame's Anti-Insulinogenic Effects During a Workout; Optimal Protein Intake on a Diet is Relative. Plus: Folate Fortification, Spirulia, Succinate, Sucrose, Pork Brain & the Low Cholesterol-Suicide Connection Reviewed!

Unbelievable: The results of the latest study from the University of Western Sidney appear to suggest that you could keep your insulin levels at bay, if you mixed your sugary intra-workout supplement with aspartame-laden diet coke instead of water! The mechanism that's behind this phenomenon does yet still have to be elucidated.

You may be surprised to see a long headline, a long post and a couple of bullet points: "Looks like On Short Notice, reads like On Short Notice, but is not published on Saturday? What's that?" The answer to this question is easy. Lot's of interesting stuff I have come across as of late! And while some of them, like the study on the marginal utility of higher protein intakes on a diet would actually deserve their own post, I decided to give you the "long(er) version of a short notice" in order not to miss any of them... and yes, this means there is going to be more than today's news on the unexpected anti-insulinogenic effects of aspartame, the only partly expected outcomes of the US folic acid fortification program, the aforementioned protein study, the usefulness of spirulina, succinate and sucrose supplements for athletes and physical culturists and some brainy insights into a possible connection between low cholesterol, depression and suicide risk in men and women... ah, ok I see, you are already reading the aspartame item - well, go for it!

• The astonishing anti-insulin effects of intra-workout aspartame consumption Meanwhile even bodybuilders who are injecting and "supplementing" with all sorts of unquestionably unhealthy stuff are so afraid of the hitherto still rather vaguely established pro-carcinogenic effects of aspartame that supplement companies place huge stickers on the boxes of their products saying "ASPARTAME FREE!" Now, I am pretty sure that a recently published study that was conducted by scientists from the School of Science and Health at the University of Western Sydney in Campbelltown, Australia (Siegler. 2013), won't do much about that, but you will probably have to agree that it is still remarkable, to say the least, that the co-administration of an artificial sweetener which has not produced any glucose, insulin or whatever response in previous trials (cf. "Sweeter than your tongue allows") would do that!?

  

  Figure 1: While the mechanism is still unknown and the results need to be repeated in a second experiment, there is no question that the drop in insulin during the workout (see arrow(s)) which occurred during the carbohydrate + aspartame trial in the presence of identical glucose ingestion and blood glucose levels warrants further investigations (based on Siegler. 2013)

  During the four trials, which were separated by 7-10 days of rest, the 9 healthy, recreationally active males (age: 22±2 years; height: 180±9 cm; weight: 78.6±8.5 kg; participating in regular physical exercise at least twice per week) who had volunteered for this (in the eyes of some aspartame extremists, probably unethical undertaking ;-) cycled fasted for 60 minutes in a climate controlled laboratory. The only difference between the four sessions was the "intra-workout nutrition" the participants were fed, with...
  

  1. carbohydrate - 2% maltodextrin and 5% sucrose (figure 1, C),
  2. carbs + aspartame - 0.04% aspartame with 2% maltodextrin and 5% sucrose (figure 1, CA),
  3. water - plain water, only (figure 1, W), and
  4. aspartame + malto - 0.04% aspartame with 2% maltodextrin (figure 1, A)

  As it is common practice in studies like this, "all participants were instructed to follow the same diet and training schedule for the three days prior to each experimental trial." (Siegler. 2013, my emphasis)
  The respective intra-workout beverages were to be consumed in boluses of 4ml/kg body weight before and at 15-minute intervals throughout the trial. For the CHO groups this summed up to a total carbohydrate intake of 104.4±11.3g per participant and did - probably not to your surprise - cause a corresponding increase in insulin levels... with one exception, however: the intraworkout period in the CHO + Aspartame group (figure 1, red), when the insulin level dropped, during the exercise sessions and bumped back up to the same level as in the carbs only control afterwards (see figure 1).
  As the researchers point out, we do not yet have a mechanistic explanation for this phenomenon... nor can we even be sure that this was not some sort of strange artifact, so that
  

  "the disparity between insulin levels [does not only] warrant further investigation with a larger cohort of clinically relevant subject populations (e.g. metabolic syndrome, diabetes, etc.) [, but must also] be considered when designing nutrition-based, exercise intervention studies [in the future]" (Siegler. 2013

  That this observation could actually have very practical implications, both, in view of its potentially compromising effects on blood glucose levels in diabetics, where any insulin blocking effect of aspartame would probably reduce the already compromised glucose uptake even more, as well as in view of the anti-lipolytic (=blocks the release of fat from the cells) of insulin during a workout, which could actually be blocked with a minuscule amount of aspartame ... but alas, until the results have been confirmed and the mechanism behind this effect has been elucidated, what we are doing here is more or less intellectual masturbation - nothing to feel bad about, but still not the real deal ;-)

• 

  Figure 2: This is what the USDA expected to happen - more folic acid in food = higher intake (here in the elderly) = lower homocysteine levels; the reality looked pretty different, though, at least in adolescents the folic acid intake went up, but the homocysteine levels did not go down; moreover the B12 levels have declined as well... how much of this is related to confounding factors still has to be elucidated, but as of now it does not seem as if the fortification program was the success the USDA wanted it to be (Mc Bride. 2007).

  US adolescents and their "healthy grains" are now folic acid fortified, but are they also healthier? According to a study that has just been published in the Journal of Public Health, the great idea to put another artificial vitamin into our the food chain and fortify "healthy" cereal-grain products with folic acid, was so "successful" that the average US teen (14y at the time the fortification program began, 18y now) does now have 16% higher folate and 14% higher B6 concentrations.
  Instead of the expected decrease in homocysteine levels, of which scientists still believe that it plays in imminently important role in the development of heart disease, its serum levels did likewise increase by 17%, while the serum concentrations of vitamin B₁₂ decreased by 11 % post-fortification. The additional ~118 μg folate/d the subjects ingested from the fortified food products, appeared to be particularly useless (or even detrimental?) for boys / young men whose total homocysteine (tHcy) levels increased by 24%  to a much greater extent than in the girls / young women.
  Honestly, I don't really know what to make of these results at the moment, ... at least nothing better than to shake my head over the hilariousness of trying to turn junk(-food) into (good) food by simply enriching it with artificial vitamins. On the other hand, I am happy that even Daniel A. Enquobahrie and his colleagues feel that it is "warranted to investigate the significance of these improvements in folate status on clinical outcomes, in the post-fortification era." (Enquobahrie. 2013) - and that not just because the fortification program did not produce the desired results, but also because the folic acid intake already started to exceed the RDA in many of the subjects. This, and the alarming decrease in B12 levels of which Katherine L. Tucker had cautioned in the 2007 interview with Judy Mc Bride, already, that "better diagnosis for B12 deficiency should be given high priority"(Mc Bride. 2007) do not "warrant", imho, they rather make it imperative to follow the effect of this "nationwide health program" very closely.

• 

  Figure 3: The principle of relativity for protein based body recompositioning diets - When it comes to weight los, the word "high" in high protein diets must always be seen in the context of habitual protein intake and to whom we are comparing our dieters; or put simply: The average SAD dieter benefits from every gram, the average bodybuilder will hardly benefit from the 7th whey shake.

  Effectiveness of high(er) protein diets for weight loss depends on spread / change vs. baseline not on total protein intake That's basically how you could summarize the conclusion of the latest review of the existing data on the influnece of (high) protein intakes on changes in body composition by John D. Bosse and his colleagues from the University of Utah. To find out whether either the protein change (=high protein diets are only effective when the change in protein intake from baseline to intervention is large enough) or the protein spread theory (=those dieters within a cohort with the highest protein intake will see the most beneficial changes in body comosition) could explain the different outcomes of previous studies best, the researches collected an impressive dataset comprising 51 peer-review studies the analysis of which yielded the following two main results (Bosse. 2013):
  1. The 35 successful dietary interventions had on average 58.4% higher average protein intakes than those trials in which the authors had not been able to observe an additional beneficial of going high protein over the standard calorical restriction approach
  2. The 17 successful (=greater anthropomorphic changes than with calorie restriction alone) of the 25 studies, where the baseline protein intake of the subjects was available, the increase in protein intake was 28.6% (if you ate 100g protein per day before, that would mean you would eat 128.6g while you are dieting), minimal increases in 4.7% range, on the other hand, did not provide any additional benefit over energy reduction, alone.
  Overall, the review does therefore support the original hypothesis of the researchers that there are certain thresholds which have to be surpassed before dieters will see any benefits from an increase in protein intake. This does yet also mean, that for someone who is already eating 200g of protein on a daily basis, the addition of a protein shake with 20g of protein is probably not going to make so much of a difference as it would be way below the 28.6% change in protein intake, the protein change theory would prescribe (see [2] in the list above). As a matter of fact going higher and higher (e.g. like eating 300g of protein per day), will, if anything stall, not propel your progress, after all, there will be too little room for other nutrients, when you are already getting the lions share of your daily energy intake from protein... and NO you cannot lose weight without being in a caloric deficit, even if that is not readily calculable by the idiotic "calories-in-vs-calories-out" equation.
• The BMJ Supplement Review says: Thumbs up for sucrose, thumbs down for succinate and undecided  for spirulina In installment #36 of the A-Z of Nutritional Supplement Supplements, a series dedicated to review the pros and cons of purported ergogenic aids, the authors conclude that ...

  

  Figure 4: In view of the fact that the TCA or citric acid cycle is one of the #1 aerobic source of cellular energy (APT) and succinate is one of its intermediates it makes sense that supplementation could improve exercise performance, but hitherto this has not been confirmed.

  • ...the studies on spirulina fail to "study well-trained individuals", to use appropriate standardization regimen with relevance for physical culturists and athletes, identify the active ingredients and their effect on the antioxidant status, of which the respective scientists speculate that it would be the underlying mechanism of the observed ergogenic effects on chronic low-intensity exercise regimen
  • ...the research on succinate (only) supplementation is basically non-existent and claims with respect to its permanence enhancing effects is mostly based on theoretical considerations about its role in the TCA cycle 
  • ...despite the general trend within our society, where the overconsumption of sucrose (table sugar) is one of the major offenders to public health, "there may be value in, or at least room for, its inclusion in sports products targeting the provision of carbohydrate fuel during exercise"
  Nothing exciting, but a realistic and educative analysis, which has all the classic elements you should keep in mind, whenever you try to find out whether a product is worth its money: What research is there? What are the results? Are the positive results significant for me as a person? And... in the case of succrose: Could the use of this ergogenic aid be an obstacle for another goal of mine? I mean, you can benefit from guzzling tons of sugary drinks during your workouts, but if "looking good naked" is your primary goal and your performance only a means to an end - it is probably not wise to do so ;-)

• 

  Figure 5: Suicide risk in psychiatric patients /w (SA) or w/out (PS) prev. suicide attempt and surgical control (SC) in lowest, 2nd and 3rd cmp. to highest quartiles (Olié. 2011)

  Can pork brain in milk tell us something about suicide? Those of you who are on the SuppVersity Facebook news RSS channel will already know the image on the right. I only saw it today, but as Mark mentioned on my Facebook wall, he has used it (the image not the brain) in lectures before... be that as it may, that reminded me of an older study on the highly significant correlation between cholesterol levels and suicide attempts Emilie Olié and her colleagues observed in a 2010 study on the reliability of serum cholesterol levels as a predictor of the suicide risk in 3207 subjects [510 patients with a history of suicidal attempts (SA), 275 patients with no history of suicidal attempts (PC), and 2422 surgical controls (SC); Olié. 2011].
  The exact mechanism for the highly significant increase in suicide risk, esp. among women with previous suicide attempts in the lowest (1st quartile) is still not fully elucidated, Olié et al reference previous studies which suggest that low serum cholesterol levels, a "potentialmarker of central nervous systemcholesterol", impair the serotoninergic activity and" increase impulsivity" and thus precipitate to severe depression and the tendency and ability to pot a premature end to your life.
  In view of the fact that this and similar results were derived exclusively from analysis of psychiatric patients and considering that the cholesterol levels in the SA group were already significantly lower that in the PC and SC control (178±36 mg/dL vs. 217±43 mg/dL and 219±52 mg/dL, respectively) we should be very wary of transferring these results 1:1 to the "normal" people. 

I guess this is enough for today. After all, news are not so different than protein, it's the relative intake that makes all the difference - in other words: If I keep flooding you with those awesome posts, you won't appreciate each and every of them the same way you do now... and we don't want that to happen, do we? 

References:

• Bosse JD, Dixon BM. Dietary protein in weight management: a review proposing protein spread and change theories. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2013 Sep 12;9(1):81.
• Enquobahrie DA, Feldman HA, Hoelscher DH, Steffen LM, Webber LS, Zive MM, Rimm EB, Stampfer MJ, Osganian SK. Serum homocysteine and folate concentrations among a US cohort of adolescents before and after folic acid fortification. Public Health Nutrition. 2013; 15: 1818-1826.
• Mc Bride. Foods To Be Fortified With Folic Acid. USDA ARS. News. February 7, 2007. < http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/ar/archive/jun97/folate0697.htm > retrieved on September 14, 2013.
• Olié E, Picot MC, Guillaume S, Abbar M, Courtet P. Measurement of total serum cholesterol in the evaluation of suicidal risk. J Affect Disord. 2011 Sep;133(1-2):234-8.
• Siegler J, Howell K, Vince R, Bray J, Towlson C, Peart D, Mellor D, Atkin S. Aspartame in conjunction with carbohydrate reduces insulin levels during endurance exercise. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2013 Aug 1;9(1):36.
• Zemski AJ, Quinlivan RM, Gibala M, Burke LM, Stear SJ, Castell LM. A-Z of nutritional supplements: dietary supplements, sports nutrition foods and ergogenic aids for health and performance: Part 36. Br J Sports Med. 2013 Sep;46(12):893-4. 

Adelfo Cerame: Intermittent Fasting Done My Way - How I Break My Fast, Plan & Time My Macros and Use Caloric Zigzagging & Re-Feeds on a LeanGains Inspired IF Regimen

Image 1: Intermittent fasting, breaking the fast, macronutrient ratios and timing, caloric zigzagging and refeeds - learn how it can be done, learn how Adelfo does it!

Today's thursdaily SuppVersity post by Adelfo Cerame starts with an advertisement... "What? I thought the SuppVersity was ad-free!"... I see you are shocked!? Well, actually it ain't a real ad anyway, it's more a plug and what's best, I am plugging myself, or rather the new, likewise thursdaily radio show I am going to do with Carl Lanore. Those of you who have tuned in live or listened to the podcast (click here to download) last Thursday, when Carl was sitting alone in the studio going over the latest news-stories from the realms of health, nutrition and exercise science and I shot him an email, whether he did not want to call me to have some company, will probably already know what to expect. For the rest, I would say, the best way to describe what you will  hear today at 1PM EST on Super Human Radio would be "On Short Notice", or, in SHR-terms "Casual Sciency Thursday" - call it whatever you like, but don't forget to tune in live, or come back and download the podcast (update: click here to download the podcast), in case you already missed it

But now, without further delay Adelfo Cerame's Thursdaily Suppversity post for YOU to enjoy (the rest is ad-free, I guarantee ;-)

The intermittently fasted physique (re-)engineering nutrition 101 ;-)

If I had to name one question I get most, by clients, but even more so, by people who see me train in the gym or read my blogs, here at the SuppVersity is how I am timing my carbohydrates and meals. Especially with the folks who follow an IF style protocol, questions such as ...

• “When should I eat my carbs?”
• “How should I distribute my carbs?”
• “What should my carb intake be on training days & rest days?”
• “What about caloric zigzagging”

are things male and female gymrats appear to waste more time thinking about than about their significant others! As funny as that may sound - and to a certain degree it certainly is - there is actually an often overlooked correspondence between finding the ideal partner and the ideal nutrition regimen. Not only is it rarely your first love that you will end up marrying and spending a part if not your whole life with, it is also a matter of personal preference: Luckily, I mean if it wasn't all the guys would be chasing the same girl and all the girls would jump at just one guy ;-)

Image 2: When you are approaching this degree of leanness, you can still start worrying about all the intricacies of dieting many people waste far too much time on, when it would not even matter for them.

With nutrition things are not so much different and yet strangely people tend to lose themselves over details that would be equivalent of the size of your significant others right ear in comparison to her/his left one. What I am hinting here is that you must not lose sight of the big picture and lose yourselves in intricacies like these and their respective nutritional counter-parts before you haven't laid the nutritional foundations: Get rid of processed food, learn to cook, learn the basics about macronutrients and micronutrients how much you need and what your body needs them for and develop a sense for the energetic content of the foods you eat... "What? Calories, but I thought..."

Yeah, I know you thought "A Calorie is Not a Calorie" - that may be true, but only as long as you are referring to the black on white figures you see printed on the labels of the junk you can buy at the supermarket - intermittent fasting or not, at the end of the day, the most important determinant of whether you are or aren't progressing towards your goal is still the difference between the energy you derive from the foods you eat and the energy your body actually expends. 

You may notice that I am not talking about simple "calories vs. calories out" calculations you could do based on calorie tables and the figures your stupid heart rate monitor or treadmill are displaying. I am talking about the BIG PICTURE you always have to keep in mind and which must be set straight and be geared to your goals, i.e. weight loss, muscle or strength gains, etc., before you even start thinking about whether any those  "optimizations" of which I found that they work for me will work for you, as well.

My Twist to the Original Leangains Regimen

For those of you who have been following my Thursday Blogs for the past year or so, it won't be news that follow a 16/8 intermittent fasting protocol (this means 16h of fasting are followed by a 6h feeding window) - this protocol is based on the same fundamental principles as Martin Berkhan’s Leangains regimen. I don’t follow the exact protocol to a “T’’ (you know I am not changing Martin's girlfriend either ;-), but I stay along the guidelines, with added tweaks here and there to what’s suitable and work well for me… So here is what I prefer to do   when I break my fast and do my meal/carb timing during my 8 hour feeding window.

• When do I eat my carbs? On training days, I prefer a protein + fat meal before I train because I feel my body runs better on dietary fats, when I train as oppose to having a big carb meal – so a protein shake + coconut oil (as a sponsored athlete I obviously use Myotropics Physique 2.0 and while I would recommend you give it at least a try, you can certainly use your favorite protein powder - preferably no whey isolate, but something "slower", like milk or a protein blend). The nourishing and long-lasting mix of WM-HDP, milk protein + MCTs from the coconut oil  is more than enough for me to fuel my workouts.
  
  

  

  Image 3: As it turns out the "anabolic window" is more of a barnyard door, than ...read more

  When I am back home from my workout my first real meal of the day is the one, where I place the lion's share of my carbohydrate intake. So, the meals after I train are usually high in protein and moderate to high in carbohydrates, while keeping the fat intake very modest. The reason I use this strategy is to make full use of the repartitioning effect after the workout, when your muscles will suck up more glucose in the presence of relatively moderate insulin levels. Since this "post workout window" (suggested read "Opening the 'Anabolic Barn Door' With the Key of Exercise and Nutrition Science!") also happens to fall in the evening, I don't have to worry about (a) bunking later in the day or (b) overeating and feeling sluggish, I just fill myself up with carbs and relax... when I go to bed later, I am still happy and satiated and ready to get some quality sleep.

• Which carbohydrate sources do I use on workout days? While I am now going to give you a list, the latter is not supposed to be extensive - it's more to give you an idea of the broad range you can pick from without ever having to resort to the "carbage" that's making people fat and sick and has brought all carbs into disrepute.

  

  Figure 1: Recommended (mean) carbohydrate intake in %-age of total calorie consumption ... read more

  • sweet fruits like ripe bananas, pineapples, mangoes, cherries, papayas 
  • starchy carbs like sweet potatoes, organic russets, yams, colored potatoes, butternut squash, rice
  • variety of veggies
  If my macros allow for it and I can sneak it in – ice cream, Hawaiian bread, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, cheesecake, mochi - but occasionally!
  
  On non-training days I spread my macros pretty evenly across the 6h feeding window, with a lower carb intake on non-workout days and mostly being from veggies and fruits this will allow for optimal insulin levels all-day. Consequently, all my meals are high protein + high fat based; I've always fared very well with this strategy and feel that my body doesn’t need much carbohydrates on days I don’t train and those I do eat mostly come from...
  • a variety of veggies, which I always eat to satiety
  • a couple of slices of tropical fruits such as pineapples, papayas, plantains, kiwi, mango, coconuts, guava…
  In the end, most of my non-training day meals will thus be more or less "Vince Gironda"-ish, such as the food he consumed on his steak & eggs diet, or his Hawaiian diet that consists of a combination of lean meats and tropical fruits.
   
• Caloric ZigzaggingCaloric zigzagging is another one of those advanced techniques I hinted at in the introductory part of this blog, it can facilitate and optimize fat loss, but is neither necessary to make progress nor optimal for everyone.
  
  
  Caloric zigzagging is not a must and not for everyone, either: In my opinion, caloric zigzagging, is not a beginner technique and the benefits are too small to risk getting totally confused . For beginners or people that just get confused with tracking numbers its much easier to just diet down and incorporate re-feed days rather than having to remember “x amount of carbs on this day, and x amount of carbs on that day” … But for individuals like myself… I don’t mind. Plus, with the protocol I follow, where I eat starchier carbs on training days and more fibrous carbs on non-training days; my caloric intake will tend to be lower on rest-days, anyways.
  Rather than just following a regular downward spiral, where you continuously decrease a constant daily calorie intake (independ of whether you work out or not) over a pre-defined, short timespan (4-6 weeks), caloric zigzagging will add an andditional "zigzag" component to the regimen, where you will now vary your calorie (and macronutrient intake according to whether you train or rest on a given day: Basically the idea is you will eat a little bit more, when you train to make use of the priming effect workouts have on the departments (muscle vs. fat) your body is going to store the nutrients, respectively the energy it derives from it in. On non-training days, on the other hand you eat less, and have your body feed of his body fat stores. There is however one thing you must never forget: At the end of the day it’s still about energy in, energy out, and your overall food consumption. Caloric zigzagging is just another one of those little pieces to the BIGGER PICTURE in which, as Dr. Andro would say it,  "weight gain and weight loss are nothing but the two complementary and yet incommensurable sides of the same coin".
  
  So, for example, my training day macros can look something like this; 200g protein/ 150g carbs/ 65g fat – then my rest day macros would look like this: 200g protein/ <100g carbs/ 65g fat. And again, different scenarios or phases in your cut will dictate how you make your macronutrient adjustments. Sometimes I can start off doing caloric zigzagging and by the tail end of my diet; I’m back to the good old proven and effective downward dieting.
   
• How do I incorporate refeeds into my intermittent fasting routine? Re-feed days are usually incorporated into a diet once an individual starts to get leaner, calories are decreased, and metabolism starts to level out. In my experience, I did not have to incorporate re-feeds into my diet for the first 3 months. I had a cheat day, when Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years came around but those were the only cheat days I incorporated into my diet for the first 3 months from October – January. The rest of the days out of those 3 months, I did just fine.
  
  I didn’t start incorporating re-feed days until around maybe mid-January, when I was really starting to dip into the single digit body fat % range. I would then still follow my 16/8 protocol and break fast on Sunday as I would any other day, but the leaner I got, the bigger and more important my Sunday refeeds became - to the point, where I was starting my re-feeds and breaking fast @ 10am and ending my them at 11pm. Lol.
  
  During my first contest prep of this year my re-feed days were pretty ridiculous. I never kept track of what I ate on my Sunday re-feeds. The only guidelines I followed were keep protein moderate, fats low, and carbs HIGH! And I ate literally the whole day. I never kept track but one Sunday I was curious to see how much carbs I was taking in, and I must have had almost ate 800+ grams of carbs that whole Sunday! And just in case you’re curious about this type of re-feed type style, it’s called skiploading (google it, and you’ll get the concept of it)! Or you can just double back to one of my re-feed blogs from a couple months back.
  
  

  

  Image 4: It's not just the nasty subcutaneous water you can avoid, when you don't abuse your refeed days to binge like a maniac!

  During my 2nd contest prep of this year my re-feeds were a bit more controlled this time around. I learned from a couple of Dr. Andro’s articles (esp. "Carbohydrate Shortage in Paleo Land") that the average indidual would not need more than max. 400g of carbs  to refill his glycogen stores (needless to say that those must not all come from dextrose or be eaten in one meal).
  
  Moreover, our glycogen stores don’t get as depleted as we think. It’s damn near impossible to fully deplete your glycogen stores during a single workout. Even after an intense session of high volume training, I don’t think even 50% of our glycogen stores get depleted – So long story short, I realized that I didn’t need to go overkill on the re-feeds 400g is more than enough to fill glycogen stores.
  
  I stuck to this principle and it has not just always worked well for me, but also helped me to avoid the nasty bloating, the gastrointestinal distress and the all the other dreaded short term and often overlooked negative longterm health effects of stuffing yourself with carbage fooling yourself to believe you were "refuelling your glycogen stores".

I hope this helps you answer some of your questions, provide orientation and give you inspiration to design and tweak your own (intermittent fasting) diet routine. And while this is all I have for you today, SuppVersity readers you are of course welcome to post additional questions and comments in the comment area below! So, tune in next week for another session with yours truly ;-)

On Short Notice: Teas & Prostate, Metformin & Amenorrhea, Stevia & High, Omega-3 & Low Cortisol, Aminos & Weight Control, Nordic Hamstring Exercise & 20% More Power!

Image 1: This would be a case where metformin probably won't help you to get your menses back - unless this is just one of your "yous" and you are taking high doses of anti-psychotics, of course.

In view of the fact that I have piled up way more "On Short Notice" items than I can possibly squeeze into one installment, today's news on the right tea (green or black) for prostate cancer, the purported anti-obesity effects of leucine and alanine, which turn out to be inferior to those of whole protein, the anti-amenorrhea and weight loss effects of metformin in women on anti-schizophrenic drug and how this relates to PCOS, the surprising N=1 cortisol-raising, high blood pressure and water retaining effects of stevia, the stress and weight loss reducing effects of omega-3s and high DHA levels in the brain, and an effective yet rarely used hamstring exercise, the "Nordic hamstring exercise", will be complemented by another installment of "On Short Notice" either tomorrow (in case I don't find the time to write the next installment of the Circadian Rhythm Series) or earlier next week... but enough of these organizational matters, let's see what we have in stock, here:

• Differential effects of green and black tea on prostate cancer risk While we are, yet again, only dealing with epidemiological shenanigan in a population living in a, if not the juggernaut of the far east, the >50% increase in hazard risk in the 27,293 men from the Singapore Chinese Health Study Julia A. Montague and her colleagues report for men who drink 1 cup of black tea per day is somewhat alarming (Montague. 2013). The fact that the hazard risk decreases to +17% with more than 2 cups of black tea does yet suggest that this is nothing but a statistic outlier. That said, black tea is (at least based on the results of this study) overall probably as benign as green tea, which is totally devoid of statistical beneficial or detrimental effects on prostate cancer risk in this cohort of normal-weight men in their middle to late 50s.
  This result does by the way not conflict with previous research, which did - if anything - only suggest a "borderline significant" beneficial effect of green tea and absolutely no effect of black tea on prostate cancer risk (Zheng. 2013). Apropos prostate cancer, just in case you missed it I highly suggest you take a look at my brief write-up on the recently published "red meat will give you prostate cancer study" before you decide on whether or not you got to stop eating meat for the sake of your prostate.

• 

  Figure 1: If  ~50g of leucine and alanine /kg chow are good, then 500g of whey are magic; makes you wonder, why you would want to add just one amino acid, instead of more protein, no?

  "Dietary L-leucine and L-alanine supplementation have similar acute effects in the prevention of high-fat diet-induced obesity",  that's the somewhat ill-chose title of a recently published paper by Anne Freudenberg, Klaus J. Petzke, Susanne Klaus from the German Institute of Human Nutrition in Potsdam-Rehbruecke which does not show that the ingestion of l-leucine or alanine, but rather an isocaloric high protein diet version of the high-fat diets the researchers fed their 10-week-old male C57BL/6 mice, prevented them from getting obese (Freudenberg. 2013).
  While the high fat + complete protein mice hardly gained any body fat, the high fat + leucine and high fat + alanine (both diets were "adequate" in protein and contained 100g whey + 60g leucine and 100g whey + 45g alanine, respectively)  got only significantly less fat compared to their peirs on the 100g whey only diet control HFD diet. Now, the high protein mice (500g of whey per kg chow; =5x over baseline) simply consumed less energy, but so did the mice on the leucine and alanine enhanced diets, so that the title of the study is not just misleading, it also disguises the most important result of the study, which is high protein diets keep mice lean.
• "Cure-it-all-drug" metformin helps with anti-psychotic induced amenorrhea and weight gain, as well. If metformin was not (a) no longer protected by patent rights and (b) would not basically work via similar mechanisms as exercise I would really begin to smell fraud over the ever-extending list of pathologies this 1920s medication is good for (this is when it was originally discovered, it took however until 1958 before researchers realized the potentials and a pharma company introduced it to the UK market). New to the list are the negative side-effects women experience in response to anti-psychotic treatments. In a recently documented experiment, 48 women (ages 18-40 years) with amenorrhea and weight gain in response to clozapine, olanzapine, risperidone, or sulpiride (all anti-psychotic drugs administered to treat schizophrenia) received a dose of 1,000mg of the wonder-molecule per day (Wu. 2013). After 2 months 25% of the women had resumed menstruation, after another 2 weeks it were 80% and after 3 months all women were eumenorrheic, again (of the placebo group only 2 resumed menstruating). Instead of gaining another 2kg of body weight, they had lost 2kg and the previously thwarted prolactin, LH, and testosterone levels, as well as the LH/FSH ratio had normalized.
  Probably, some of you may now ask themselves: Will this work for me as well - though I am not taking anti-psychotics? I would love I could answer this question, but aside from polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), where we have a couple of trials in which metformin was used with success (cf. Velazquez. 1998; Bela. 2009; Palomba. 2009), the scientific evidence is scarce and in view of the fact that we know even less about the underlying mechanisms by which risperidone & co cause amenorrhea and weight gain than about the almost magical omnipotence of metformin I honestly can't tell. One thing that comes mind, where metformin is yet very unlikely to of any use is diet or exercise induced amenorrhea (overtraining and undereating), because this form of amenorrhea presents with a totally different hormonal profile, with low levels of basically all reproductive hormones.
• Stevia as cortisol promoter? Case study: Bloating, high blood pressure and malaise in a young previously healthy woman. Before I go on, let me briefly remind you that the events that are described in a recent case report from the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics may should be regarded with the degree of caution that is indicated whenever we are talking about case reports, specifically because stevia does actually have a pretty decent safety profile (aside from the occasional allergic reactions you will see with almost every foreign molecule you put into your body, obviously).

  

  Figure 2: If you block the 11bHSD2 enzyme that will convert cortisol into inactive cortisone, you are in trouble and a bloated tummy is certainly your least problem, not because "cortisol is bad", as common sense would dictate, but because not being able to manage it is bad (img. Michael. 2008)

  When a 32 year old Caucasian woman presented with generalized edema (feet, hands and face) that had persisted for over six months at her Dr office and was found to to suffer from pre-hypertension (138/88 mmHg) and hypokalemia (3.4 mM/l) that was brought about by a decline in serum aldosterone and plasma renin activity and corroborated by a concomitant  increase in the plasma cortisol/cortisone ratio, most Dr.'s would probably have thought of licorice intoxication. As it turned out, it were neither the glycyrrizinic acid, not the glycyrrhetinic acid from licorice which brought about these problem, but rather the stevia the lady had been using for over 9 months, now. Obviously, the sweetener (from an undisclosed brand) had blocked the 11 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase Type 2 (11-beta-HSD 2, see figure 2) enzyme that's responsible for the conversion (="deactivation") of cortisol to cortisone - with all the negative side effects of the subsequent 12x elevation of the ratio of active to inactive corticosteroids (Esmail. 2013).
  Now, I am certainly not suggesting that this is going to happen to everyone, but it could well be that the frequent reports of headaches people are developing after a couple of days "on stevia", could also be related to the effects the sweetener has on people with a certain genetic disposition. So, if you get a headache or start holding water like crazy, when you use stevia / stevia sweetened products, first try using a different brand (there have been issues with toxins in some products), make sure you have a pure stevia sweetener and not one with other sweeteners added (thx. to Amit for the reminder about erythritol that's in many products), switch to another preparation, e.g. from pure stevisoids to a a more "natural" extract and if all that does not help, just turn your back on it - you can live without it, I guarantee ;-)
• Omega-3's modulate adrenal activity What many people know from going overboard on fish oil has now been established in a recently published rodent study by Marie Hennebelle and her French (resident) colleagues (Hennebelle. 2013). The researchers fed a group of rodents a totally ALA free energetically restricted diet to produce male rats with brain phospholipid DHA levels that were 50% lower than those of the normal control. The 6 month-old rodents were then subjected to chronic restraint stress (6 h/d) for 21 days. As expected the rodents on the alpha linolic acid deficient diets had a much harder time coping with the torture they were exposed to and showed higher corticosterone levels, more pronounced behavioral abnomalies and slightly more pronounced weight loss in the 3-4 week of the 1-month experimental period. What's intriguing though is the the remarkable stress resistance (one could also say adrenal hypofunction ;-) in the rodents in a third experimental group, who had received an omega-3 enriched diet that boosted their brain DHA levels to 10% above normal: Compared to both the normal, as well as the omega-3 deprived rodents they had ~30% lower cortisol levels during week two and three of the experiment and lost only 50% of the weight their normal and ALA deprived peers did.
  That this is not necessarily a good thing for everyone is probably nothing I have to tell you. After all, the number of people who are hardly functioning due to over-supplementation with fish oil and (as this study would suggest) below normal stress responses is ever increasing. As with so many nutrients and supplements, it thus comes down to specificity and hitting the right ratios for you as an individual, again. And what's most important: Before you even start thinking about "fixing your adrenals" you should first take a look at the various stressors in your life. After all, the aforementioned fatigue is not simply a result of two much fish oil, but of its combination with a lifestyle which simply requires a robust and healthy cortisol response. You would not smoke weed to calm yourself down minutes before running away from a saber-toothed tiger, either, would you?

• 

  Video 1: These young ladies show you how it's done - well almost, you better go a little slower (click image to watch.

  Scientists confirm efficacy of nordic hamstring exercise - up to +20% increase in peak torque! What? You don't know the nordic hamstring exercise - I bet you do, but probably not by this name. Check out video 1 to the right and you will know what the 18 male players from a club in the English professional soccer leagues (mean±SD; age, 22.9±3.6 years; stature, 1.81±0.08 m; body mass 78.0±9.7 kg) did for 1x 2x5, 2x 2x6, 3x 3x6 and 3x 3x8 (sessions per week x sets x reps) during week 1-4 of the study period to improve their peak torque by up to 21% in all assessment conditions (90-61°, 60-31° and 30-0° of knee extension; cf. Iga. 2013).
  What is yet important is that you stick to an adequate temp and don't mess around and hurt yourself. In the study at hand, the velocity of the movement was standardized to 30°/s. If we assume that you go over the full ROM it must therefore take you 3s until your nose hits the ground (if you are afraid to hurt your nose, you may be interested in the SuppVersity EMG Series and the Best Leg + Hamstring Exercises ;-)

I hope you enjoy this more digestible format, having 20 of these items in one installment is - at least in my view - somewhat beside the point. Not that this would not be possible, but if I go by the average attention span of my real-life students, multiply it by 2x to accommodate for your superior cognitive abilities and personal interest in the topic, it appears prudent to call it a day for today. And if can't stand the 24h for the next SuppVersity news to be released, I suggest you simply like the SuppVersity Facebook Wall, where you will find another seven allegedly shorter news-items... about the wheat-allergens in soap (+ scary pic of what can happen, when you use those), for example or the news photo-based cholesterol test (a photo of your hands is all it takes), which is probably going to give the sales of statins another boost.

References:

• Billa E, Kapolla N, Nicopoulou SC, Koukkou E, Venaki E, Milingos S, Antsaklis A, Adamopoulos DA. Metformin administration was associated with a modification of LH, prolactin, and insulin secretion dynamics in women with polycystic ovarian syndrome. Gynecol Endocrinol 2009; 25:427–434
• Esmail S, Kabadi UM. Edema, Enigma: 11 B-Hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase Type 2 Inhibition by Sweetener “Stevia”. Open Journal of Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases, 2013, 2, 49-52.
• Freudenberg A, Petzke KJ, Klaus S. Dietary L-leucine and L-alanine supplementation have similar acute effects in the prevention of high-fat diet-induced obesity. Amino Acids. 2013 Jul 31.
• Hennebelle M, Balasse L, Latour A, Champeil-Potokar G, Denis S, Lavialle M, Gisquet-Verrier P, Denis I, Vancassel S. Influence of omega-3 Fatty Acid status on the way rats adapt to chronic restraint stress. PLoS One. 2013;7(7):e42142.
• Montague JA, Butler LM, Wu AH, Genkinger JM, Koh WP, Wong AS, Wang R, Yuan JM, Yu MC. Green and black tea intake in relation to prostate cancer risk among Singapore Chinese. Cancer Causes Control. 2013 Aug 3.
• Palomba S, Falbo A, Zullo F, Orio F Jr. Evidence-based and potential benefits of metformin in the polycystic ovary syndrome: a comprehensive review. Endocr Rev 2009; 30:1–50
• Wu RR, Jin H, Gao K, Twamley EW, Ou JJ, Shao P, Wang J, Guo XF, Davis JM, Chan PK, Zhao JP. Metformin for treatment of antipsychotic-induced amenorrhea and weight gain in women with first-episode schizophrenia: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study. Am J Psychiatry. 2013 Aug 1;169(8):813-21. 
• Velazquez EM, Mendoza S, Hamer T, Sosa F, Glueck CJ. Metformin therapy in polycystic ovary syndrome reduces hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, hyperandrogenemia, and systolic blood pressure while facilitating normal menses and pregnancy. Metabolism 1994; 43:647–654
• Zheng J, Yang B, Huang T, Yu Y, Yang J, Li D. Green tea and black tea consumption and prostate cancer risk: an exploratory meta-analysis of observational studies. Nutr Cancer. 2011;63(5):663-72.

Women Have a Much Harder Time Losing Body Fat Than Men, But Both Benefit From Doubling Their Protein Intake!

Image 1: Looks good, tastes good, is good - and contrary to zinc, ingesting 2x the RDA will help you lose body fat, instead of setting you up for insulin resistance.

Enough of useless (ALA, zinc) and useful (glutamin) supplements for at least 24h! Let's get back to what really counts: Training? No, not today,.. the other thing! The one, which is actually to be supplemented - your diet! Believe it or not - even after all those years, I am finding time and again that the food you put into your mouth has much more pronounced effects on the ways you look feel and perform than any of the countless useless and useful supplements. Accordingly and in response to the futile notion of "calories in vs. calories out" and the bomb-calorimeter representation of the human metabolism as a simple furnace, the past couple of years have seen an increasing public and (as of late) scientific interest in the effects varying macronutrient compositions will have on your ability to shed weight and, more importantly, to keep it off in the long run.

Submitted on December 30, 2011 and published in the latest issue of the Journal of Nutrition & Metabolism (9:55) the results of a "randomized clinical weight loss trial" comparing more or less isocaloric (-500kcal/day) weight loss regimen in 130 (58 male, 72 female) overweight middle-aged (40-56) subjects (BMI  =  32.5  ±  0.5 kg/m²) provide further insights into the real-world effects of  prescribed minimal protein intake levels on the outcomes of a 4 months weight loss and 8 months weight maintenance intervention (Evans. 2013).

RDA = 0.8g/bw vs. 2x RDA = 1.6g/bw protein - Round 1: Education & Adherence

In many of the previous posts on this issue (e.g. "High Carb vs. High Fat for Obese Type II Diabetics and What Really Happens, When Science Meets Real Life"), adherence or even an appropriate awareness of what "high protein" actually means turned out to be one of the main culprits as far as the significance of respective data is concerned (Krebs. 2013). In this respect, the subjects in the study by Evans et al. who were supported by a pretty extensive educational and support program that included

• the provision of electronic food scales and instruction on how to weigh and record food servings at all meals (logs were monitored for compliance on a weekly base!)
• a specific diet program with detailed instructions from a research dietitian including the menus, food substitutions and portion sizes
• an obligatory weekly 1 h meeting at the weight management research facility, where they received dietary counseling, had the ability to pose questions and instructions referring to the minimum of 30 min of walking 5 d/wk

constitute a positive exception from the average "study participant" who receives a handout with instructions and a clammy handshake for his/her willingness to step on the scale twice within a given time-frame.

Figure 1: Energy intake (total) from different macronutrients (left) and relative reduction compared to basesline in the 4-month weight loss and the subsequent 12 months "maintenance" period (based on Evans. 2013)

Based on the activity logs, the average amount of exercise was less than 100min/wk and not different between the two treatment groups. As far as the drop outs are concerned, there was yet a trend for lower drop out rates of the male participants in the protein compared to the carbohydrate group (9/28 vs. 18/30). 

Figure 2: Adherence to the prescribed macronutrient ratios was similarly "good" for men and women in both the high carbohydrate and high protein arm of the study (based on Evans. 2013)

The overall adherence to the prescribed nutrient ratios, i.e. 15% protein, 55% carbohydrates and 30% fat in the high carbohydrate and 30% protein, 40% carbohydrates and 30% fat in the high protein group was similarly good (the deviations were smaller than one standard deviation) among both men and women; and still, the net results of the study appear somewhat disappointing - at least if you make the all too common mistake of judging the outcome of an already intrinsically mislabeled "weight loss" intervention solely by the figures on your scale, which were, for the subjects in the study at hand, identical for both groups (PRO:-10.7  ±  6.8 %, CARB:-10.1  ±  6.2 %, expressed relative to body weight at baseline).

Feminists beware! Life is not fair...

A closer analysis of the data does yet reveal that despite an overall greater reduction in calorie intake in the high protein group (-31% vs. -22% in the weight loss phase and -27% vs. -16% in the maintenance phase) and slightly but statistically non-significantly greater body fat loss in the male participants on the high carbohydrate diet at the end of the maintenance phase, the "net" effect on the lean to fat mass ratio in men and women speaks in favor of increased protein intakes during phases of reduced energy intake.

Figure 1: It is obvious that compared to baseline the loss in body fat (expressed relative to baseline, left) was significantly more pronounced in the male compared to the female participants; the favorable effects of the high(er) protein diet on the lean to fat mass ratio (4% and 6% greater improvements) is yet of even greater importance for the ladies.

There is yet no denying that middle-aged women are - irrespective of their diets - having a substantially harder time losing body fat than men of the same age. In view of the fact that this is at least partly mediated by their significantly lower lean body mass to fat mass ratio (1.3 in women vs. 2.2 in men), the aforementioned protein sparing effects of "high" protein diets are of even greater importance for female dieters than for their male peers (cf. figure 3, right) - unfortunately, even the latter rarely rarely spare a thought about that, when their short-sighted and often likewise overweight Dr. tells them "you got to lose weight, if you want to see your grand children graduate, buddy!"

... and if you want sexual equality you got to lift weight and eat your meat ;-)

Against that background the results of the recently published exercise-only trial by Washburn et al. come to mind (cf. "Strength Training Ain't For Women -  Really!?" and Washburn. 2013). In the study at hand, The absence of at least a minimalist strength training regimen, as it was employed in the Washburn study, could in fact be one of the major reasons for the small overall effect size Evans et al. observed in their "walk in the park if you will" study. Eventually, the preservation of an already low amount of lean tissue mass is one thing, increasing the latter and thusly building the metabolic advantage of greater lean muscle mass, based on which the male study participants shed roughly 15% more body fat within the 12 month than their female peers is yet another one, of which I can hardly repeat often enough that it will not turn Angels into Divas over night (see image 2). And while you can easily regain 2 pounds of fat you lost, you will have to acknowledge that the lean mass you have either never built or lost over years of mainstream dieting, won't come back easily (cf. Beavers. 2011).

Image 2 (unkown Facebook source): Strength training and a high protein diet don't turn Angel's into Divas over night - what a pity ;-)

Bottom line: Regardless of whether you are a woman or a man, an angel or a diva, Homer Simpson, Peter Griffin, or Stanley Smith (cf. "Stocktaking, Goal Setting, -Tracking & -Resetting to Achieve a Healthy Weight & Shed Excess Body Fat"), greasy steaks, eggs, fish, dairy and a gym membership will not just have a much more pronounced impact on the outcome of your next diet, than all the diet products and books your money can buy, as an elementary part of your new lifestyle they will also lay the foundation of your future health - and what's even better: You will have more than enough extra years to spend all the money you would otherwise have spent on all those gimmicks, false promises, useless supplements and defacing cosmetic surgeries! Now you tell me eating a high(er) protein diet and spending time in the gym instead of the office was uneconomical ;-)

References:

1. Beavers KM, Lyles MF, Davis CC, Wang X, Beavers DP, Nicklas BJ. Is lost lean mass from intentional weight loss recovered during weight regain in postmenopausal women? Am J Clin Nutr. 2011 Sep;94(3):767-74. Epub 2011 Jul 27.
2. Evans EM, Mojtahedi MC, Thorpe MP, Valentine RJ, Kris-Etherton PM, Layman DK. Effects of protein intake and gender on body composition changes: a randomized clinical weight loss trial. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2013 Jun 12;9(1):55.
3. Krebs JD, Elley CR, Parry-Strong A, Lunt H, Drury PL, Bell DA, Robinson E, Moyes SA, Mann JI. The Diabetes Excess Weight Loss (DEWL) Trial: a randomised controlled trial of high-protein versus high-carbohydrate diets over 2 years in type 2 diabetes. Diabetologia. 2013 Apr;55(4):905-14. 
4. Washburn RA, Kirk EP, Smith BK, Honas JJ, Lecheminant JD, Bailey BW, Donnelly JE. One set resistance training: effect on body composition in overweight young adults. J Sports Med Phys Fitness. 2013 Jun;52(3):273.