Can 5 Cups of Coffee Boost Testosterone to Estrogen Ratio in Overweight Men Transiently by Almost 200%? Plus: SHBG Its Own Receptor and Its Role in Prostate & Breast Cancer

Testosterone booster in men and estrogen amplifier in women? As if there were not already enough good reasons to get your daily dose of the 'kingly' brew ;-)

You would not have to be a diligent student of the SuppVersity to know: Coffee is a truly remarkable brew. Even mainstream media has gotten wind of the multitude of beneficial effects a moderate intake of the former drink of the kings and popes can have on your health and if it was not for the authors and newscasters blind reliance on whatever the press release guys are telling them, it would probably not even have been necessary for me to broach the beneficial effects coffee can have on your metabolic health and overall well-being in posts like "Coffee - 3 Cups a Day Keep Insulin at Bay", "Pre-Workout Caffeine: Fat Liberator, Substrate Modulator, Trans-Fatty Acid Eliminator & Performance Upregulator!" and many more.

So what is it this time? What else can coffee do for you?

I guess something only few people others than SuppVersity readers will be aware of is the fact that caffeine  and therefore coffee makes a nice testosterone booster (Beavon. 2008; study was discussed briefly as part of a longer post on June 20, 2013 an mentioned previous times in other posts) -- at least if you stick to moderate doses of ~300-400 mg before a workout. So, unless you are a newbie or missed the respective news, you should not be surprised that a recent study from the Harvard School of Public Health (Wedick. 2013), which had actually been designed mainly to investigate the effects of 5x 6-ounze cups caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee (both instant coffees; brand: Nestlé’s Taster’s Choice) on serum levels of sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), found that the consumption of both 'real' and 'fake' (=decaffeinated) instant coffee did lead to increases in total and free testosterone and profound decreases in estradiol (bound and free).

Figure 1: Levels of SHBG, testosterone, free testosterone, estradiol, free estrogen, the testosterone to estrogen ratio and DHEA in the male participants of the study expressed relative to a caffeine abstinent control group (based on Wedick. 2013)

As the data in figure 1 goes to show these changes were unfortunately transient and the impressive +189% increase in the testosterone to estrogen ratio which occurred during the first month of treatment totally disappeared within the next four weeks. On the other hand, the effects on SHBG the scientists had expected based on the assumption that both SHBG and caffeine intake have been found to be associated with lower risk of type II diabetes in large epidemiological studies, was non-existent in the first and second 4 weeks of the study... at least in the male subjects who were all overweight, nonsmokers and habitually coffee consumers, who had been required to abstain from caffeine intake for at least 2 weeks before the study was conducted.

Figure 2: Levels of SHBG, testosterone, free testosterone, estradiol, free estrogen, the testosterone to estrogen ratio and DHEA in the female participants of the study expressed relative to a caffeine abstinent control group (based on Wedick. 2013)

If you take a look at the data from the female participants (likewise overweight non-smokers, habitual caffeine consumers and, at the beginning of the study, 'dried out'; see figure 2), a different image emerges, in the women we do in fact see a transient rise in SHBG, which goes hand in hand with a decrease in testosterone, de to which the T/E ratio drops by -36% and -54% in the groups drinking caffeinated and noncaffeinated coffee respectively. Just as in their male counterparts, the levels did go back up in the second part of the study so that all values, including the SHBG levels were back in to normal after 8 weeks (please note changes in the 20% range are irrelevant and could be due to having a meal before the test, bad sleep, whatever).

The relative data tells only part of the story

Figure 4: Absolute values of the testosterone to estrogen ratio after 4 and 8 weeks; baseline levels were 16.2, 15.8, 18.2 in the caffeinated coffee, decaffeinated coffee and control group respectively. The data clearly shows: Coffee needs a PCT ;-)

If we do now take a closer look at the actual data and discard the comparison to the control group the scientists the picture becomes even more complex. After all the data in figure 4 clearly indicates that we are dealing with a combined effect here. It is correct that the ingestion of the caffeinated beverage had pronounced effects on the T/E ratio especially in the male participants, what the data in figure 1 does yet not tell you is the fact that this effect was also so pronounced, because simply stopping to drink caffeine reduced the T/E ratio from 18.1 to 8.4, i.e. by 54%(!).

Now this certainly reduces the effect size, but it does not totally negate the effect. After all the 'real' coffee drinkers (w/ caffeine) did still increase their T/E ratio from 16.2 to 24.2 -- a certainly likewise noteworthy increase of +29% that is however still far away from the exorbitant +189% increase compared to the poor guys who did not just lose their coffee, but also their virility.

So what does this tell use?

How cares about SHBG anyways? You should! After all there is relatively conclusive evidence that normal (not exorbitantly high!) SHGB levels have a protective effect against breast cancer in women and mechanistic evidence that they increase the risk of prostate cancer in men. In both cases SHBG acts independently via the largely ignored SHBG receptor that modulates the action of estrogens. Co-activation of SHBG and estrogen receptor in the prostate induces similar effect on prostate specific antigen secretion as DHT (Nakhla. 1997). Since estrogen alone does not have this effect, it is no wonder that stinging nettle root (Urtica dioica), with its SHGB inhibiting effect is a viable tool in the treatment of benign prostatic hyperplasia (Hryb. 1995). In the female breast, on the other hand, SHBG seems to " trigger a 'biologic' anti-estrogenic pathway" (Fortunati. 1999) and does therefore exert anti-instead of pro-carcinogenic effects.

I guess there are more than just the following three lessons to learn from this study, but at the moment these appear to be the most important ones for me:

1. The beneficial effects habitual coffee intake has on type II diabetes risk are, contrary to the scientists hypothesis, not mediated by its effect on SHBG.
2. In overweight men caffeine has a very shortlived beneficial effect on testosterone and the testosterone to estrogen ratio. After 4 weeks the levels do yet return to baseline, so this cannot explain the long-term benefits of habitual caffeine consumption either (maybe you should cycle caffeine instead of testosterone booster < I am just kidding ;-).
3. In overweight women, there is a similar, yet negative effect on testosterone levels, which is likewise transient and lasts less than 8 weeks. 
4. The caffeine ads to the 'pro-testosterone' effects, but even decaffeinated coffee has some effects.
5. Stopping "cold turkey" is not a good idea, when you are "on caffeine"

Now, what is important here is that we are dealing with overweight individuals, in whom the endocrine millieu is usually off. In particular, men tend to have reduced, women tend to have increased androgen levels (think PCOS). The effects we see after short-term withdrawal and the subsequent consumption of a non-negligible amount of 5 cups of coffee everyday could actually have corrective effects on the endocrine milieu, of which both, men and women could benefit, if they would last for more than 4-6 weeks. The detrimental effects of stopping, on the other hand, could be due to the sudden absence of the benefits of caffeine.

Regardless of whether you stop or start drinking coffeine, the endocrine "disturbances" are relatively short-lived and only further testimony to the fact that our bodies will always try to find a new "steady state" in what they consider normal.

Bottom line: There are a myriad of good reasons to drink coffee, getting more manly or more feminine is yet not one of them. Disappointed? Well, on the other hand this means coffee is no endocrine disruptor - and at least in this overweight population it seems to have a marginally beneficial baseline effects (thus the detrimental effects of abstinence).

References:

• Beaven CM, Hopkins WG, Hansen KT, Wood MR, Cronin JB, Lowe TE. Dose effect of caffeine on testosterone and cortisol responses to resistance exercise. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2008 Apr;18(2):131-41. 
• Fortunati N, Becchis M, Catalano MG, Comba A, Ferrera P, Raineri M, Berta L, Frairia R. Sex hormone-binding globulin, its membrane receptor, and breast cancer: a new approach to the modulation of estradiol action in neoplastic cells. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 1999 Apr-Jun;69(1-6):473-9.
• Hryb DJ, Khan MS, Romas NA, Rosner W. The effect of extracts of the roots of the stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) on the interaction of SHBG with its receptor on human prostatic membranes. Planta Med. 1995 Feb;61(1):31-2.
• Nakhla AM, Romas NA, Rosner W. Estradiol activates the prostate androgen receptor and prostate-specific antigen secretion through the intermediacy of sex hormone-binding globulin. J Biol Chem. 1997 Mar 14;272(11):6838-41.
• Wedick NM, Mantzoros CS, Ding EL, Brennan AM, Rosner B, Rimm EB, Hu FB, van Dam RM. The effects of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee on sex hormone-binding globulin and endogenous sex hormone levels: a randomized controlled trial. Nutr J. 2013 Oct 19;11(1):86.

Adelfo Cerame: How to Manage Training & Nutrition Around a Busy Life. Plus: Science Round Up Sneak Preview

If there is a one body part, where Adelfo has really made awesome progress in the last months, it's his back - by the wa that's a different "back" than in "training back-to-back" of which you'll read in this installment of his now biweekly posts ;-)

It probably sounds strange, but last week I have really been missing Adelfo's update. Not because it's more work for me to write yet another blogpost... ah, whatever. There's another one today and there will be the next one in two weeks time from now :-)

Before we are getting to more details on how Adelfo's contest prep and the rest of his increasingly busy (as you will see in a very positive kind of way) life, let's get to the sneak peak on today's SuppVersity Science Round Up. I felt the show last week was awesome and must pad my own shoulder for having the ingenious idea to simply pack those news that did not fit in, as well as "bonus material", into a written follow up on Friday - a new segment if you will, the SuppVersity Science Round-Up Seconds.

SuppVersity Science Round Up: Sneak Preview

Long story short, if you are interested in any of the following and Carl and I don't discuss them today on The SuppVersity Science Round Up live on Super Human Radio at 1PM EST (for Europeans that's 19:00 GMT+1), don't worry, they will be in the "Seconds" tomorrows... so, let's see what's the most likely to make it exclusively to the live show and the podcast that's published ~1-2h later and will automatically appear in the side-bar under "Physical Culture for Your Ears":

• The rewarding effects of exercise and how they will calm your greed
• Omega-3, telomere length, endocannabinoids and how enzymes link them all
• Premature ejaculation and how only two hormones seem to make a difference
• Personalized prostate cancer vaccine and Harvard scientists build it from scratch
• Supps vs. medications and how healthy supps and necessary drugs form deadly duos

Ther is more, but  you know an hour is short and I am not a friend of rushing through a topic, so I'll stick to those, because even if we don't get off on a tangent (which is usually an interesting one), this is going to be a tight schedule. That said, I have taken up already way too much room of this, Adelfo's blogpost. So let's get him back on the grind!

Adelfo Cerame: Back to the grind and busier than ever

These past months I have been blessed with great opportunities to further my ambitions in chasing a career in the fitness and health industry and being able to do what I love and have a passion for. As of late, life for me has been very busy; and productivity in achieving my future goals has increased 10-fold. With my final three months of school approaching before graduation, and working two part-time jobs, I still have to find a way to juggle in my training and nutrition regimen while still being efficient.

How I  manage my training around the mandatories of life

If your are among the newbies here at the SuppVersity you may want to go back on read up on Adelfo's history, and how "A Terrible Accident Paved His Way to Competitive Bodybuilding"

With my current hypertrophy/strength training split + the incorporation of using an RPE scale, and given that my daily workouts are basically full body workouts but with a dominant day of either pulls or push movements. I would have to say that my workouts during my training days are pretty dense. I rest in-between workout days. This gives me four workouts/week, which makes it easy for me to adjust my schedule around my training hours or vice versa.

Life sometimes demands for last minute tweaks, and it requires sure instincts to make that work for you, can't work out in the morning as planned? Fine go in the evening hours, but don't forget to tweak your feeding window appropriately...

With my work schedule being all over the place, I have to plan my workouts on the fly nowadays. I still have a predetermined plan of attack but I also have to be able to adjust on the fly while at the same time not hindering my productivity. So there are times when I train in the morning, at night, and sometimes I even have to split my workouts because I don’t have enough time to finish my workout so I would have to finish the other half later. There are also times when I’m training back-to-back days training the same body parts because that’s the only time I can squeeze it in.

At first I feared that it would be counter productive to train back-to-back days training the same body parts, but coach Alberto said it would be fine in the beginning stages of my prep but once I started getting leaner and dipping into the lower body fat percentile, I would take the rest as needed whether it be one or two days.

And I’m not doing it all the time, just when my work and school schedules are off alignment with my predetermined plan of attack. Also with the whole issue of training back-to-back days; I’ve read and heard that Olympic power lifters basically train the same movements and muscles on a day-to-day basis to practice their craft, and it doesn’t seem like it hinders their progress? Allegedly, I’m not an Olympic power lifter and training at a different cadence and volume, but I am not training like that everyday... anyway, just sayin… I don’t think there would be a big issue training the same body parts back-to-back days once in a while. And if it is, you will be the first to know, after all you will see me stagnate (assuming you keep following this series)

How I manage my nutritional regimen around the mandatories of life 

Actually, one of the beauties of intermittent fasting is that there is not much to manage. Granted, my schedule has become busier, but overall this had very little effect on my nutritional regimen or routine. I’m still able to maintain my IF – 16/8 protocol, and to be honest it actually works very well with my schedule since I’m always on the go.

My tricks to nourish myself appropriately while I am on the go:

• I make sure to stock the bare essentials in my car that I need to hit my macros – These foods don’t require cooking, and have a prep time of less than 3-5 minutes; to me the simplest and most convenient on the go food sources for (A) Protein = Whey protein, and beef jerky (B) Carbohydrates = Bananas, rice cakes, RAW honey and (C) Fats = Nut butters
• I have a space in my trunk where I have a cooler and a box to put my foods in.
• I also keep extra supplements in my car (Whey, creatine, BCAA’s..)
• I always keep a gym bag or a spare gym bag with all my equipment and workout clothes – I always want to have that ready at all times.
• I keep a digital food scale in my car so I can weigh out my foods – It’s a bit weird but you gotta do what you gotta do son!
• And last, I have a myfitnesspal.com-app on my smart phone, so I can log my foods and keep track of my macros wherever I’m at.

Basically the only adjustments that I have to make once in a while is training fasted when I train in the morning (well I have bcaa’s + Creatine… so maybe semi fasted), but I have not noticed any issues with it so far. 

The one thing I have noticed too though is that I haven’t been consistently hitting my fiber goals and eating my fruits and veggies. There are days where I’m just drinking my foods from protein shakes and just get 1 whole food meal… I still get in my minimum of 1 serving/ day of fruits and veggies, but not enough for my liking,. So I remembered one of Adel's favorite sentences:

"Supplements are called 'supplements', because you take them to supplement your diet with all the stuff you would otherwise be lacking." 

 I have taken that to heart and stopped taking all multivitamins and other supplements, when I have more time to prepare my meals. And so I am now that I am missing out on some of the vites and lack fiber in my diet and have begun to take a basic multivitamins and fiber supplements from time to time. Bananas, rice cakes, and nut butters, like almond or peanut butter have also become pretty good companions of mine when I need some on-the-go carbs and fats to go with my protein shake. They’re easy to just store in the back of your trunk and always accessible to me.

My regimen ain't yours, but still...

... despite the fact that we are all different and no single optimal diet and training regimen exists, I hope there may be one or another thing in my regimen you think could be useful... even if it's just that you give up the unwarranted fear of the negative consequences of training back-to-back once in a while ;-)

Have a nice week and feel free to leave me comments, those of you who made use of this opportunity in the past already will know that I am answering all of them -- and did I mention that I actually enjoy the feedback?

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.

Meat-Ology: A Brief Glance at the Latest Data on The Link Between Red Meat, Cooking Techniques & Prostate Cancer

Image 1: The mass media is already sharpening its knifes - finally some sensational headlines on the negative side effects of red meat! But is your prostate really at risk? Should you already tell your urologist to sharpen his surgical knife and schedule your operation? I have compiled the data for you, now it's up to you to decide.

I guess most of you will have noticed the upheaval around the latest egg-bashing study by Spence et al. that made the rounds a couple of days ago. In view of (1) the authors' outright statement that their intention was to go against the hazardous disregard for the potential dangers of cholesterol laden eggs that was spreading so rapidly (sounds more like pamphlet than like a study, right?), (2) the fact the authors present data with standard deviations that are larger than the actual differences in carotid plaque areas between the different quantiles of weekly egg intake and (3) the superior (lower total and LDL and higher HDL) cholesterol levels in those participants who ate the most of the oh-so-unhealthy eggs, I decided to leave it to a brief comment on the SuppVersity Facebook Wall, instead of a full blogpost (Mark from Mark's daily apple was not as lazy as me, so if you are interested check out his critique). When I hit onto a ScienceDaily article on its "red meat counterpart" today, though, I felt compelled not to leave you hanging with the sensational "red meat causes prostate cancer" reports of which I am pretty sure that they will soon pop up on all mass media outlets.

What's that about red meats, burgers and steaks?

Notes on the methodology: The scientists evaluated the raw data for their two cohorts, Los Angeles County site (LA), and San Francisco Bay Area (SFBA), individually.

The scientists excluded over- (>6,000kcal) and undereaters (<600kcal) and applied two different models with...

• model 1 adjusting for age (years), BMI (<25, 25-29, ≥30), total calorie intake (kcal/ day) and family history of PCA (yes/ no) and  
• model 2 adjusting for age (years), BMI (<25, 25-29, ≥30), total calorie intake(kcal/ day), family history of PCA (yes/ no), total fat intake (g/ day), alcohol consumption (g/ day), cigarette smoking (pack-years),total fruit consumption (g/ day), total vegetable consumption (g/ day)

Data was acquired by "professional interviewers" in home interviews.

Dietary data was queried by food frequency questionnaires and commonly used cooking module that would elicit the degree of doneness and browning (participants were given photos to pick from).

According to what I bet you have already or will soon read (and probably even see on TV), researchers from the UCLA have finally identified why red meat is so bad for you - it's the frying! Strangely, though, it's only bad if you fry hamburgers and what's more, you better be Hispanic if you want to make sure it will give you prostate cancer (see image 3)... if we take the ScienceDaily article on the matter as a reference, we will yet find this information only, if we are not satisfied with the "gist" the author gives us as an introduction:

"Research from the University of Southern California (USC) and Cancer Prevention Institute of California (CPIC) found that cooking red meats at high temperatures, especially pan-fried red meats, may increase the risk of advanced prostate cancer by as much as 40 percent."

And you bet that 90% of the readers will do just that: They read "40% increase in prostate cancer risk" and tell themselves either"I will finally go vegan, like Steve jobs" or "F*** it, I love my red meat!" The 10% who are still undecided will then go on and find a few neat quotes like

"The observations from this study alone are not enough to make any health recommendations, but given the few modifiable risk factors known for prostate cancer, the understanding of dietary factors and cooking methods are of high public health relevance"

- Mariana Stern, associate professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC

Which show us that (contrary to the mass media) the scientists are well aware of the exploratary nature of their study, so take the following elaborations of the study not as a critique of Stern, Joshi, Corral, et al. whose study is exemplary in the way they are finally going beyond the "all red meats are created equal" approach that is so prevalent in epidemiological studies, but as an example of why third-hand information (even if this is my hand ;-) is never absolutely reliable.

What statistical significant findings were there actually?

I won't bore you any longer with additional moralizing and try my very best to refrain from too much interpretation... ah, let's just take a look at what we have

• age is a factor for LA residents, not for San Francisco residents (older = more cancer)
• cigarette smoking makes a significant difference only in LA
• race is highly predictive in both LA and the San Francisco bay area
• high dietary fat intake increases the risk significantly in LA and borderline significantly in SFBA
• alcohol intake, fruit, veggies, and dairy don't make a difference

So far for the baseline characteristics, now what about the hazard ratios for meat consumption? What's going to make your prostate grow? Well, let's start with what won't make it grow, or I should say, "parameters that did not show significant increases in hazard ratios (HR)":

Image 2: The total amount of red meat (irrespective of how it was prepared) did not stat. significant increase prostate cancer risk

• the absolute amounts of red meat, hamburgers, steaks, poultry, processed meat, bacon, sausages and homemade gravy regardless of how it's processed
• red meat, when it is grilled, broiled or baked
• hamburgers, when they are well done
• steaks, when they are well done or high temperature cooked
• poultry, when it is grilled, oven broiled, pan-fried, baked, high temperature cooked or well-done
  

Similarly, in a non-genomic analysis across all ethnicities, none of the purported meat mutagens, i.e. HCA 29amino919methyl1969phenylimidazo[4,59b]pyridine (PhIP), PAH Benzo9a9pyrene (BaP), HA 2-amino-3, 8-dimethylimidazo[4, 5-fquinoxaline (MelQx), DiMelQx or the total mutagenic activity had statistically significant influence on the the hazard risks (they did for G/C genotype and C/C genotype, but the results are inconclusive, because median intakes of were associated with increases of up to 50%, while very high intakes were associated with decreases in of up to 40% specifically in the C/C genotype of the PTGS2 SNP (rs20417), a gene that controls inflammatory processes and has been implicated in the etiology of various cancers)

So where are those 40% increases then? I see only statistically insignificant stuff!

You do in fact have to get your glasses out to find p-values with p < 0.05, which mean that the chances that the given increase in the risk of developing prostate cancer are just coincidence are below 5% and therefore "statistically significant"... now I did just that for you, got my glasses and hope I did not overlook one of the few that are actually in there - and since this is what the laypress considers the most important, I even drew a graph for ya ;-)

Figure 1: There are exactly three items in the study, for which the scientists observed statistical significant increases in advanced (an only advanced not total!) prostate cancer risk - red meat cooked at high temperatures (low = 0.0-9.4, medium = 9.4-16.9, high = 16.9+), hamburgers cooked at high temperatures (low = 0.0-4.9, medium = 4.4-7.9, high = 7.9+) and red meat low = 0.0-5,0, medium = 5.0-9.8, high = 9.8+ that was fried in a pan; intakes in g/1,000kcal diet (data based on model 2 from Joshi. 2013)

At first it my appear schizophrenic that red mead cooked at high temperatures, which obviously includes pan-fried red meat, has it's own category and is associated with a higher increase in hazard ratios than it's pan-fried counterpart . If you do yet take a closer look at the quantiles you will realize that the +40% increase in advanced cancer risk in the high red meat group is brought about by intake of more than 16.0g/1,000kcal, the +30% increase from pan-fried meat, on the other hand, is the result of only 9.6g/1,000kcal per day of pan-fried red meat.

Image 3 (getty images): The hispanic guy in the back could increase his  PC risk by 40, 80 and 160% (low, medium, high intakes), almost 2x more than non-hispanic whites; African Americans are "immune" against high-temperature cooked burgers -20, -10 and +10% nonsignificant changes in HR (p = .725)

Without knowing exactly how the scientists processed their data, which is by the way based on assessments of photographs of the food the study participants ate (make up your own mind about that!?), I will just treat it as a statistical artifact that the model yields a +40% increase in advanced cancer risk for total "high temperature-cooked meat", when two of the individual sub-categories, grilled meat and oven broiled meat did not yield a statistical significant association and the third one, i.e. pan-fried meat had a very clear association, albeit for a lower increase in hazard risk. Be that as it may, since I am about to conclude this mini-overview with the benefits that were spit out by the very same statistics, and artifacts like that are actually one of the reasons it is never prudent to think of statistical associations or correlations as if they were causations, I won't dig further into it.

Things you won't hear in the news: "Bad meat" that will reduce your prostate cancer risk

If we thus put faith in the negative news, we should yet also appreciate the positive ones of which you probably won't read anywhere else but at the SuppVersity. Actually quite a pitty, as even among the "bad red meats" there appear to be some that are not so bad after all - at least if you prepare them correctly:

• poultry - 10-30% reduced hazard ratios (HR) for advanced prostate cancer for Q2, Q3 and Q4 intakes of poultry with the highest (=30% reduction) for Q4, and a daily intake of more than 35.7g / 1,000kcal
• home made gravy - 30% reduced HR for local prostate cancer risk (borderline significant p = 0.06) after adjustment for age, BMI, calorie intake, family history of prostate cancer, total fat intake, alcohol, smoking, fruit and veggie consumption.

I guess by now you will have read enough to see the shades of grey and even the little white there is, so I'll leave it up to you to decide, whether or not you are from now on living on poultry and home made gravy, only. As funny as it may sound: If we took at the results for a "T" that and not veganism would namely be the "ultima ratio" ;-)

Current Age	10 Years	20 Years	30 Years
30	0.01	0.32	2.49
40	0.31	2.52	8.30
50	2.30	8.30	14.40
60	6.62	13.36	16.11
70	8.50	11.97	N/A

Table 1: Percent of U.S. Men Who Develop Prostate Cancer over 10-, 20-, and 30-Year Intervals According to Their Current Age, 2005–2007 (according to Altekruse. 2010)

Putting things into perspective: I know that I said, I would refrain from overt commenting and just give you the facts, but I won't let you get away without at least some quantitative considerations that will help you to put data like +30% advanced prostate cancer risk from the consumption of more than 9.6g / 1,000kcal energy intake per day into perspective. I mean, let's be honest 9.6g/1,000kcal per day? If we assume that the average piece of meat you would eat has ~120g that would mean that even if you had a piece of pan fried red meat every 12 days, only, you would still end up in the medium intake category and have a +20% increase in cancer risk.

In view of the fact that the average omnivore male human being probably eats way more meat it may no seem as if 90%+ of us were doomed to develop advanced prostate cancer and that may well be the case if we would not be talking about  if we were not talking about increases in hazard risk from a certain baseline. If we take the 2010 study by Altekruse et al. as a baseline (see table 1) our +30% increase in hazard risk would thus mean that a man who is now 40 years old would have a +0.1% increase of developing cancer in 10 years, a +0.8% increase to suffer from prostate cancer when he is 60 and a +2.5% greater risk with 70 (please remember that this data is at best of qualitative nature as calculations like this are outright unscientific and that's not just because the "average American" who is captured in the SEER data from 1975-2007 will definitely be a red meat eater ;-)

References:

• Altekruse SF, Kosary CL, Krapcho M, Neyman N, Aminou R, Waldron W, Ruhl J, Howlader N, Tatalovich Z, Cho H, Mariotto A, Eisner MP, Lewis DR, Cronin K, Chen HS, Feuer EJ, Stinchcomb DG, Edwards BK (eds). SEER Cancer Statistics Review, 1975–2007, National Cancer Institute. Bethesda, MD, based on November 2009 SEER data submission, posted to the SEER Web site, 2010.
• Joshi AD, Corral R, Catsburg C, Lewinger JP, Koo J, John EM, Ingles S, Stern MC. Red meat and poultry, cooking practices, genetic susceptibility and risk of prostate cancer: results from the California Collaborative Prostate Cancer Study. Carcinogenesis. 2013 Jul 20.
• Spence JD, Jenkins DJ, Davignon J. Egg yolk consumption and carotid plaque. Atherosclerosis. 2013 Aug 1. 
• University of Southern California - Health Sciences (2013, August 16). Pan-fried meat increases risk of prostate cancer, new study finds. ScienceDaily. Retrieved August 17, 2013, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­ /releases/2013/08/120816170404.htm#.UC3I26LCdzU.facebook

Science Round-Up Seconds: DHA, Algae Oil, Fish Protein, Insulin Sensitivity, Fat Loss & Muscle Gain. Plus: Night Shifts & BPA = Pro-Carcinogenic From Breast to Prostate

It's somewhat ironic that Nurse's are one of the three high risk groups for breast cancer, because they work night shifts to help others. Who the other two groups are? Female military personnel and flight attendants on international flights.

If you did already listen to yesterday's installment of the Science Round-Up, you should actually be able to connect the dots between both, the first and second course of today's installment of the Science Round-Up Seconds, and the studies on the effects of DHA on fatty acid metabolism, as well as the fallacies of insufficient, interrupted, or irregular sleep Carl and I have been addressing, yesterday.

If all that does not ring a bell, I suspect you missed the show and have not had a chance to listen to the podcast (as usual the Science Round-Up starts in the 2nd hour of the show), yet. In this unfortunate case, I'd suggest you do at least start downloading the file while you take the first bite of today's two course menu ;-)

More things fishy from proteins with funky names to DHA and fish protein

Pollachius virens (Photo: Tino Strauss) is king, when it comes to the n:3/n:6 ratio, but with <1% of fat you will still be hard pressed to get tons of omega-3s from eating pollock... but is more really better, let alone necessary? Learn how to make the right fish choices here.

(Lane. 2013; Vikøren. 2013) -- Actually I wanted to title this one "Some Things Fishy", but then I remembered that there is already a SuppVersity post with this title, one I am still not able to make head or fin... ah, pardon tail of, by the way, because it clearly suggest that the consumption of oxidized fish oil is not a problem. Be that as it may, these are the SuppVersity Science Round Up Seconds, so the "more" does not refer to the said SuppVersity post on oxidized fish oil, but rather to the 70x* increase in the expression of a protein called Angiopoietin-like 4, which controls the availability of fatty acids for fuel I mentioned during the podcast (*the differential response for DHA was elucidated in a separate study on isolated rat hepatic cells, the general effect was however observed in a human trial, where all tested fatty acids, not just DHA, produced 11-12x ANGPTL-4 increases).

In view of the more of less undisputed benefits of having reasonable amounts of DHA (400mg) in your diet, it would obviously be nice if we could increase our intake of this relatively scarce omega-3 fatty acid in our diet, without having to resort  to fish and fish oil caps. A recently published overview of vegetarian dietary sources of omega-3 fatty acids by Katie Lane and her colleagues does however confirm what you've heard both Carl and me say on previous episodes of the SuppVersity Science Round Up, already.

The conversion of alpha linolic acid (ALA, the short-chain version of omega-3) from nuts (walnut) and seeds (flaxseed, echium) to DHA is literally zero. 

According to he researchers' review of the literature, only the ingestion of oils that were derived from micro-algae provide some, albeit preliminary evidence to support their usefulness as dietary source of DHA. The number of studies is yet relatively limited and "further research is necessary to evaluate optimal doses" (Lane. 2013) of respective supplements and/or food additives for "functional foods" (how I hate this word)

Micro-algae oils are not fish, though, and thus you would once more be missing out on the unique synergy only real foods have to offer: The fish proteins!

If you are not one of the many new visitors who have found their way to the SuppVersity only recently, the keyword "fish protein" should actually ring a bell... exactly! That's the stuff that has previously been shown to have astonishingly pronounced effects on glucose metabolism. Effect that have initially been observed in rodent studies and are not being replicated in human trials. Trials such as the one by Vikøren and his colleagues from the University of Bergen who report in their latest paper that was February issue of the British Journal of Nutrition that the provision of 3 g/d of a cabbed fish protein supplements for the first 4 weeks and 6 g/d for the last 4 weeks of a 2 months placebo controlled intervention study effectively and significantly

• 

  Table 1: Amino acid composition of fish, whey and casein protein (Hall. 2003; Vikøren. 2013)

  lowered the values of fasting glucose
• 2 h postprandial glucose and glucose-area under the curve,

• increased the important early insulin and 
• decreased the detrimental late insulin response to glucose ingestion 

• reduced the amount of  LDL-cholesterol (P< 0·05) and

• led to increases in lean (+0.8%) and decreases in fat mass  (-1.6%)

compared to the calorie-free placebo. Pretty impressive results, right? That's particularly true in view of the fact that neither the food intake nor the physical activity levels changed in the course of the 8-week intervention period.

What's that: Fish protein + fish oil? (Almost) whole fish, right!

Fish happens to be a way better source of taurine than the sperm of this Belgian Blue. There is in fact so little taurine bull sperm that it is "supplemented" with this amino acid in order to keep it fresh and stable and have it survive refrigeration. Apropos, you do remember that taurine can boost testosterone levels up to 250% - at least in rodents?

The obvious question therefore is: How does that work? The scientists don't provide a satisfactory explanation and to be honest, I have nothing more than a couple of half-assed hypotheses either. My best bet, and I am suggesting that despite the fact that a recent post of mine was entitled "Don't Judge a Protein By Its Amino Acid Content", would in fact be the amino acid content. If you take a look at table 1 it is obvious that the cod protein the scientists used in the study contained one amino acid you as a SuppVersity reader should by now be familiar with and neither whey, nor casein or any of the other standard proteins has to offer: Taurine!

Yet despite the fact that taurine has the potential to boost testosterone levels, increases insulin sensitivity and has in fact been shown to actively reduce body weight in a 2003 human study by Zhang et al. (Zhang. 2003), I am not sold on the idea that the relatively minor total quantity of taurine in the already low amount of fish protein (I mean 8g?) is the only reason for the non-negligible health benefits the scientists observed in their 10 male and 10 female participants (BMI 31-37kg/m²). Maybe it's another of those funky di-peptides you've read about in the context of the nutrient repartitioning effect of whey protein hydrolysate, only lately.

Regardless of what exactly it may be that facilitated the improvements in blood glucose management and the minor, but significant improvements in body composition, the health benefits you can derive from the consumption of cod protein make the notion of fish oil, let alone micro-algae oil supplementation appear even more retarded, when eating fish once or twice a week offers a way more natural and unquestionably more tasty solution to satisfy your DHA requirement.

Night shifts and breast, BPA and prostate cancer

There are two clockworks operating parallel in your body. The one in the brain has to be hacked by light exposure (learn more about "Sunlight a la Carte"), the one in your liver and other peripheral organs, on the other hand, can be (re-)set by specific feeding strategies, like Intermittent Fasting (learn more)

I simply assume that you have by now downloaded and listened to the podcast and are thus aware of what I said about the importance of rythmicity (if you did not really get the notion, I suggest you read up on the posts in the SuppVersity Circadian Rhythm Series to get a better grasp of the different clocks that are ticking in your body ;-) Exactly this kind of rhythmicity is continuously disturbed when you are either switching back and forth from day- to night-shifts or work the night-shift continuously and dare having a social life that's simply not compatible with sleeping all day and waking all night.

That the life of a nurse, for example takes it's toll on your health and precipitates not just the development of breast cancer (+36% after 30 years of rotating night shifts; Schernhammer. 2001), but colorectal cacers (+35% after 15 years of rotating night shifts; Schernhammer. 2003) and endometrial cancer (+47% after 20+ years and even +109% in obese women; Viswanathan. 2007), as well, has been debated ever since the early years of the 21st century.

With the recent publication of two meta-analyses the debate probably will not be over; and that despite the fact that even the less unsettling analysis by Kamdar et al. reports increases in breast cancer risk of +21% for women "with ever night-shift work exposure" (Kamdar. 2013).

"Subgroup analyses suggested that flight attendants with international or overnight work exposure and nurses working night-shifts long-term were at increased risk of breast cancer." (my emphases in Kamdar. 2013)

While the Kamdar study also included observational data, this 2nd meta-analysis, which was likewise published less than a week ago, included only case-control and cohort-studies yielding risk increases of +32% and +8%, respectively (Jia. 2013). Somethin else thatg may be worth mentioning is the fact that both, the studies the scientists ranked as "high quality" research, as well as the only existing study involving female military personnel observed even higher risk increases of +40%.

Despite methodological differences and slightly different outcomes of the two meta-analyses, both research groups do reach very similar conclusions stating that the evidence is still "weak", but does "support previous reports that night-shift work is associated with increased breast cancer risk" (Kamar. 2013) and that "large-scale epidemiological studies are needed" (Jia. 2013).

From breasts to prostates ;-)

Figure 1: Effects of 4-days of BPA injections at different dosages on systemic hormone levels (Castro. 2013)

I know the subheading sounds somewhat gross, but there are certain parallels. For one, there is the same need for large-scale epidemiological studies on the connection between BPA exposure and the development and malignancy of prostate cancer as it is the case with breast cancer and night shifts. On the other hand, BPS of which a recent study was now able to show that it messes with the aromatase and 5-alpha reductase activity in the prostate and can thus precipitate prostate cancer even in adulthood (Castro. 2013), is unquestionably relevant for the development of breast cancer, as well.

What's more, the reductions in 5α-R1 and 5α-R2 Castro et al. observed in their previously healthy, adult rodents after only 4-days of BPA injections at doses of 25, 50, 300, or 600 µg/kg per day and the concommitant increase in the expression of the third isoform of 5-α reductase (5α-R3) does not only precipitate cancerous growth, it's also a recently proposed as a biomarker of cancer malignancy. In conjunction with the quasi-reversal of hormones (see figure 1), the results of this study, which happens to be the first one to demonstrate such profound detrimental effects on mature mammals, should remind us of the fact gestation and early childhood are not the only time-points in our lives, we have to beware of endocrine disruptors.

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That's it for the Seconds and in case you are missing the information about fruits and vegetables, I will serve those tomorrow as part of the as of in fact short, but way more numerous "Short News". In case you are still hungry for more, I suggest you make take a slight detour to the SuppVersity Facebook Wall before you you sally into the weekend. There are a couple of appetizers waiting for you there:

• 

  "Does the Usefulness of Vitamin E Supplementation Depend on Your Activity Level?" While the marathon runners in the facebook study took only 50IU, 400IU is what most supplements have to offer as a minimum. Is that too much, for you? Do athletes need more? What about the hormetic response to exercise - it it even hormetic? (learn more)

  EGCG is an "anti-folate" - You still don't have to worry, nature has made sure that those who value the synergy of whole foods, or in this case drinks, won't be harmed (read more)
• LOW(!) doses of vitamin C & E (125mg & 50IU) don't diminish the benefits of exercise - On the contrary, in marathon runners that's enough to blunt the neutrophil damage (read more)
• Smart Kids = Lean Adults  - General intelligence as assessed in childhood has a significant and direct effect on adult obesity risk (read more)
• Valine, vanadium and oxygenated water - All useless for athletes. That's at least what the latest installment of the "A–Z of nutritional supplements" says (read more)

When you are done with those, it's about to start news fasting, for a couple of hours until tomorrow's morning news (for you probably today's late evening news) will be published on Facebook. Have a great "Post-Valentine's Day", everyone - I just  hope your spouses were happy with their presents ;-)


References:

• Castro B, Sánchez P, Torres JM, Preda O, Del Moral RG, Ortega E. Bisphenol A Exposure during Adulthood Alters Expression of Aromatase and 5α-Reductase Isozymes in Rat Prostate. PLoS One. 2013;8(2):e55905.
• Hall WL, Millward DJ, Long SJ, Morgan LM. Casein and whey exert different effects on plasma amino acid profiles, gastrointestinal hormone secretion and appetite. Br J Nutr. 2003 Feb;89(2):239-48.
• Jia Y, Lu Y, Wu K, Lin Q, Shen W, Zhu M, Huang S, Chen J. Does night work increase the risk of breast cancer? A systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiological studies. Cancer Epidemiol. 2013 Feb 8.
• Kamdar BB, Tergas AI, Mateen FJ, Bhayani NH, Oh J. Night-shift work and risk of breast cancer: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Breast Cancer Res Treat. 2013 Feb 12. 
• Lane K et al. Bioavailability and potential uses of vegetarian sources of omega-3 fatty acids: a review of the literature. Critical Reviews in Food and Science Nutrition. February 2013 [Epub ahead of print].
• Schernhammer ES, Laden F, Speizer FE, Willett WC, Hunter DJ, Kawachi I, Colditz GA. Rotating night shifts and risk of breast cancer in women participating in the nurses' health study. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2001 Oct 17;93(20):1563-8. 
• Schernhammer ES, Laden F, Speizer FE, Willett WC, Hunter DJ, Kawachi I, Fuchs CS, Colditz GA. Night-shift work and risk of colorectal cancer in the nurses' health study. J Natl Cancer Inst. 2003 Jun 4;95(11):825-8. 
• Vikøren LA, Nygård OK, Lied E, Rostrup E. Gudbrandsen OA. A randomised study on the effects of fish protein supplement on glucose tolerance, lipids and body composition in overweight adults. British Journal of Nutrition. 2013; 109:648-657.
• Viswanathan AN, Hankinson SE, Schernhammer ES. Night shift work and the risk of endometrial cancer. Cancer Res. 2007 Nov 1;67(21):10618-22.
• Zhang M, Bi LF, Fang JH, Su XL, Da GL, Kuwamori T, Kagamimori S. Beneficial effects of taurine on serum lipids in overweight or obese non-diabetic subjects. Amino Acids. 2004 Jun;26(3):267-71. Epub 2003 Dec 15.