Get Lean & Stay Lean Quickie: OTC Fat Loss Supps Under Scrutiny. Sleepless Yet Lean in India?! Sesamine - Falsely Forgotten? High Carb Nighttime Snacks for Fridge Raiders?

Without an optimized dietary routine, a sound training plan and tons of discipline no fat burner is going to get you abs like these (suggested read: The SBSG Fat Loss Support Routine)

I suppose by today, the last remnants of your turkeys should be gone and you and your relatives ~0.5kg heavier (Hull. 2006). Against that background it appears only logical to turn this week's installment of On Short Notice into another Get Lean & Stay Lean Quickie. Moreover, with the 0.5kg the average American gains in the course of the Thanksgiving holidays, I already have my (or should I say your? Be honest ;-) figure of the week, so that there is actually no reason why we could not dive right into the science of fat loss.

As you are about to see, this installment has more ineffective than effective fat loss treats. Why? Well, maybe due to the fact that it harbors two studies on commercially available supplements? But whom am I telling this... you already know that the main benefits of these so-called "thermogenics" are actually related to their appetite suppressing and stimulating effects, which can help you stick to your diet and workout regimen, and not to their ability to actively "burn" body fat.

Apropos stimulant: Were you aware that there could be methamphetamine in a common ingredient of some thermogenics? No? I'd suggest you check out the last news of this Get Lean & Stay Lean Quickie first, then. If you are not interested in "scandalous" revelations of which you don't even know if they have a bearing on the extracts that are used in your favorite Acacia rigidula supplement (I would actually hope you don't have one, but anyway), you may obviously start at the top, as well:

• Weight loss stack fails to produce results: Caffeine + BCAA + CLA + Green tea = soy bean oil placebo (Thomas. 2013) At the 9th Annual ISSN Conference and Expo, Daniel Thomas and his co-workers  presented a study in which they investigated the effects an commercially available multi-ingredient dietary supplement containing 99mg of caffeine and a proprietary blend containing 1510 mg of CLA, green tea extract (45% EGCG), L-leucine, L-iso-leucine and L-valine in 22 obese volunteers (placebo arm: age, 34 ± 12; BMI, 34.1 ± 6.1; active arm: age, 36 ± 11.1 years; BMI, 30.0 ± 4.9).
  
  The supplement / placebo had to be taken with breakfast and lunch (with two pills per serving this would amount to 400mg of caffeine per day and an undisclosed amount of CLA, green tea and BCAAs, of which you can yet probably safely assume that they were underdosed). Body composition and android fat (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry), waist and hip circumferences, blood pressure and heart rate were measured at baseline and after 8 weeks of supplementation. Aside from taking the supplement the participants were advised to stick to their regular dietary and activity patterns. Against that background it is not exactly surprising that the 'wonder pills' did not bring about any changes in body composition, android fat, waist or hip circumference; and in contrast to the acute effects of the  "hardcore" competition about which you can read in the last post of today's Get Lean & Stay Lean Quickie the product did not even increase the heart rate and blood pressure of the subjects.

• Blood sugar levels of Indian adolescents are not associated with insufficient sleep and yet not sleeping enough still takes its toll (Patel. 2013) -- You've read more than enough about the importance of sleep on the SuppVersity within the past couple of months (e.g. The SuppVersity Circadian Rythm Series) to be surprised by what Patel et al. conclude in the abstract of  their latest paper:
  

  "The current study indicates that inadequate sleep duration at night (<7 hrs) does not affect the blood glucose level of the Gujarati Indian adolescents of age group 13-20 years." (Patel. 2013)

  Unfortunately, this is yet again an instance where cursory skimming the abstract provides a  skewed image of the actual study results, which - as you can see in my plot of the actual results - did very well confirm previous observations of the same authors and the findings of the majority of studies which investigated the effects of insufficient sleep on body composition in Western adolescents.
  
  

  

  Figure 1: Body fat (%), fat free mass (FFM) and waist circumference in Indian adolescents (Patel. 2013)

  Statistically significant were the respective differences only in the male part of the study population. That's yet probably just a result of the low number of female participants which was not only significantly smaller (N=95 vs. N=237), but also very unevenly distributed as far as the ratio of female adolescents with adequate (N=90) and inadequate sleep (N=5) are concerned. Against that background you should also exert some caution with respect to the fat free mass values in the N=5 short sleepers. It would probably suffice to have one muscular athlete in this group to skew the whole results.
  
  Apropos "short sleepers": Can you imagine that only 14% of the male and 5% of the female Indian Gujarati adolescents actually didn't get their share of 7h+ sleep per day!? Makes me wonder about the number of smartphones, Playstations and cable TV channels in the Anand district where the 332 Gujarati adolescent school and and college students came from - the same goes for the respective interactions between nutrient quality, sleep duration and family income.

• Study shows addition of fish oil accentuates sesamin's 'fat burning effects' (Ide. 2013b) In what could be considered a follow up to the results of a previous study in which Ide et al. were able to show that the addition of arachidonic acid (ARA) to sesamin supplemented chow augmented body fat loss, and increased the expression of enzymes that are involved in the oxidation of fatty acids, Takashe Ide has just published another study, which shows that high dose fish oil (15-20g/kg chow) will illicit similar, if not even more pronounced effects on the expression of Carnitine palmitoyltransferase 2, which is necessary to transports fatty acids into the mitochondria, and the alpha and beta subunit of the trifunctional enzymes that are involved in their subsequent oxidation.
  
  

  

  Figure 2: Effects of Sesamin (SES) + fish oil or arachidonic acid (ARA) on mRNA expression of CPT, trifunctional enzymes alpha & beta, as well as serum lipids in rodents after 15/16 days on respective diets  (Ide. 2013a & 2013b)

  As the data in figure 2 goes to show you, these increases were accompanied physiologically relevant decreases in the concentrations of triglycerides, cholesterol and phospholipids in the blood of the 5-week old male Sprague Dawley rats, Ide used in his latest study. Moreover, the observation that the supplementation regimen enhanced increases in mRNA of the peroxisomal enzymes involved in fatty acid oxidation and
  a membrane protein (peroxin-11α) associated with peroxisomes without affecting enzymes associated with mitochondria and microsomal cytochrome P-450 4a1 expression indicates the "existence of a mechanism independent of PPARα to specifically induce the gene expression of peroxisomal proteins." (Ide. 2013b)  That's an unquestionably interesting observation; also because it could open up new avenues for the development of anti-diabesiety drugs or the identification of herbs and natural "fat burners".

• More scientific evidence: Eating carbs in the evening does not necessarily make you fat - even if you eat them instead of protein! (Eddy. 2013) While I would still be hesitant to recommend the ingestion of maltodextrin instead of casein or whey protein as a pre-bed snack, the results of a recent study by Eddy et al. clearly show that the sugar load right before bed did not have negative effects on the 59 sedentary, overweight and obese volunteers who were randomly assigned to ingest isocaloric amounts of maltodextrin (PLA), casein (CAS) or whey (WP) max. 30min before bed.
  

  

  Carbs Before Bed: What's good for overweight Israeli police cannot be bad for overweight Americans, can it? (photo by Mark Probst)

  "No significant group differences existed at baseline. There were no group x time interactions for RMR, hunger, satiety, desire to eat, fat mass, lean body mass, or weight (P< 0.05), although RMR displayed a trend towards significance with the PLA group decreasing by 74.3 ± 94.5 and WP and CP increasing by 235.73 ± 84.5 and 51.7 ± 79.4kcal/day, respectively (P=0.0559). Significant time effects were measured for satiety (pre: 31.5 ± 2.3, post: 40.6 ± 2.3, P< 0.008) and LBM (pre: 51.8 ± 0.1, post: 52.3 ± 0.1, P< 0.0001)." (Eddy. 2013)

  In view of the fact that it cannot be said if the absence of negative effects on hunger, satiety, desire to eat, fat mass, lean body mass, or weight was related to the obligatory supervised exercise sessions (3x/week; 2 days of resistance exercise and 1 day of high-intensity cardiovascular exercise) all participants had to attend, it does yet remain to be seen if similar results would be observed in obese (or lean?) subjects in the absence of a supervised resistance training and HIIT workouts. That said, as "non-significant" as the previously cited trend in resting metabolic rate ((RMR) may be, the increase in the amount of energy the obese subjects spent sitting around in both protein groups and the contrasting decrease in the maltodextrin group, is something to keep in mind .

  

  Ok, nighttime snacking increases LDL, but if you measure it in the morning after a high carb + high fat  snack that alone can contribute to the statistically "significant", but physiologically irrelevant LDL increase of 7mg/dL the scientists observed in their 11 healthy participants.

  Midnight snacking (Hibi. 2013): Whether eating right before bed is a good idea at all was not addressed in the study at hand and according to an even more recent paper by Hibi et al., postponing your 10am 192kcal snack (mean protein : fat : carbohydrate ratio of 5:50:45) to 11PM will significantly decrease fat oxidation (daytime snacking: 52.0 ± 13.6 g/d; nighttime snacking: 45.8 ± 14.0 g/d; P = 0.02) and increase total and LDL cholesterol significantly. How bad that actually is, is however likewise questionable, after all the blood glucose and insulin levels, snack and total energy intake, body weight, and energy expenditure of the 11 healthy women (age: 23±1 y; body mass index: 20.6 ± 2.6 kg/m²) who participated in the randomized-crossover trial were not affected by the switch from the daytime to the nighttime snack.
  Irrespective of any trends and non-significant differences, eating a heap of pure sugar (~35g - this is based on the assumption that the amounts were identical to another recent study by the same group which tested the acute effects of carbs and protein, cf. Kinsey. 2013) before going to bed has little to nothing to do with having a whole meal, with or without carbohydrates before bed -- and that this can increase not hamper weight loss, is something you as a SuppVersity reader are well aware of (see "Carbs after 6PM Will Make You Lean" & "Carbs After 6PM Reloaded").

• 

  Figure 3: According to a somwhat dubious study Acacia rigidula contains more than 44 "toxic amines and alkaloids" (data in ppm; Clement. 1998)

  Hi Tech Pharmaceuticals sponsored trial finds: Fastin RX is better than only two of its ingredients (Jacobs. 2013) -- I guess you won't be surprised to hear that the addition of  methlsynephrine, 1,3 dimethylamylamine ("geranium extract"), yohimbine HCL, naringen and theobromine to caffeine and Acacia rigidula extract potentiates the effects of either 300 mg caffeine (C) or 250 mg Acacia rigidula (AC) alone or in combination, right?
  
  Fine, 'cause this leaves more room for the important question, whether an additional increase in heart rate of 6.9 and 6.0bpm 2h and 3h after the ingestion of the extended release "fat burner" Fastin RX, a significant increase in systolic blood pressure of 33%, 26% and 19%, as well as increases in diastolic blood pressure that were 16.6%, 2.9% and 15% higher than in the caffeine (only) trial have any bearing on the efficacy of this product, when the 10.1%, 10.0% and 4% greater VO2 consumption (compared to AC and C, only) in the first three hours after the ingestion of the diet pill did no not show any significant main or interaction effects on resting metabolic rate? Probably not? Yeah... I would guess so, as well.

That's it for today... aside from the advice not to freak out over whatever amount of weight you may have gained in the past couple of days, I shold say: Trust me, it's not worth stressing yourself this is just going to make things worse. Just return to your regular nutritional habits, keep working out and it will be gone in no time. I'd also suggest you check out the latest  SuppVersity Facebook News on

• Aqueous dried barberry extract as a treat for acne vulgaris (learn more)
• Zinc + phytoestrogens vs. osteoporosis - a double- yet dull-edged sword  (learn more)
• Cold-water immersion beats passive recovery and contrast water therapy for recovery after an intense American football training (learn more)
• Study from the Boston University School of Medicine says: Female adolescents don't eat enough meat. (learn more)

and the other news I posted today and am going to post in the course of the next 24h. I guess that should suffice to bridge the time until I post tomorrow's full-length SuppVersity article. I'll see you tomorrow, then!

References:

• Clement BA, Goff CM, Forbes TDA. Toxic amines and alkaloids from acacia rigidula. Phytochemistry, Volume 49, Issue 5, 5 November 1998, Pages 1377–1380. 
• Hibi M, Masumoto A, Naito Y, Kiuchi K, Yoshimoto Y, Matsumoto M, Katashima M, Oka J, Ikemoto S. Nighttime snacking reduces whole body fat oxidation and increases LDL cholesterol in healthy young women. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol. 2013 Nov 21.
• Hull HR, Hester CN, Fields DA. The effect of the holiday season on body weight and composition in college students. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2006 Dec 28;3:44.
• Ide T, Ono Y, Kawashima H, Kiso Y. Interrelated effects of dihomo-γ-linolenic and arachidonic acids, and sesamin on hepatic fatty acid synthesis and oxidation in rats. Br J Nutr. 2013a Feb 28:1-14.
• Ide, T. Fish oil at low dietary levels enhances physiological activity of sesamin to increase hepatic fatty acid oxidation in rats. Journal of Clinical Biochemistry and Nutrition. 2013b; 51(3):241–247.
• Jacobs PL. Acute physiological effects of the commercially available weight loss/energy product, Fastin-XR®, in contrast with the individual effects of caffeine and acacia rigidula. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2013, 9(Suppl 1):P10.
• Kinseyet al.: The effect of acute ingestion of a protein beverage consumed late in the evening on metabolism, appetite, mood state, and blood lipid in overweight and obese adults. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 2013; 9(Suppl 1):P16.
• Patel MC, Shaikh WA, Singh AS. Association of sleep duration with blood glucose level of gujarati indian adolescents. Indian J Physiol Pharmacol 2013; 56(3):229–233.
• Thomas DD, Rawal S, Kinsey AW, Eddy WE, Fisher N, Spicer MM, Ormsbee MJ. The combination of green tea, caffeine, conjugated linoleic acid and branched chain amino acids have no effect on body composition and abdominal fat changes in overweight and obese men and women. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. 2013; 9(Suppl 1):P29

Does Your Diet Fail, 'cause You Sleep Too Little? 40 Minutes Extra Sleep Will Shed an Additional Pound of Fat in 6 Months

Image 1: Blindfolds are cheaper than light-tight curtains or shutters and they are more versatile ;-)

I have repeatedly emphasized the importance of quality sleep, here at the SuppVersity. Based on my own experience sleeping should be your your #1 priority if you want to look good, feel good and perform at your personal best on the cognitive and physiological level into your old age. Unfortunately, the number of controlled long(er)-term studies on the issue is quite small and the epidemiological data either unreliable, inconclusive or both (in most of the cases, the latter is the case; for a review see Nielsen. 2011). I was therefore happy to see that the results of one of the comparatively tightly controlled study from the Healthy Active Living and Obesity Research Group at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario Research Institute in Canada confirm my personal experience - even if the effect-size was not as pronounced as I would have expected. But let's take one thing after the other...

Take 123 overweight men and women and reduce their caloric intake by 600-700kcal ... 

... what is going to happen? Well, the answer to that question should be straight forward, right? These obese men and women, whose mean age was 41.1 years and who had an average BMI of 33.2kg/m², should begin losing weight, right? According to my previous post on "Busting the 3,500kcal = 1lbs Weight Loss Myth!" not necessarily 1lbs in 5-6 days but 1lbs in say 10 days should be the minimum. So, after the 24-week study period of trial Jean-Philippe Chaput and Angelo Tremblay conducted, the 90% of the participants who reported that they actually complied to the dietary prescription should be ~16.8lbs or 8.4kg lighter.

Figure 1: Lean mass and fat mass loss over the 24-week study period (left, calculated based on data + the information that the mean ratio of lean to fat mass loss was 3:10; Chaput. 2013); illustration of what min. and maximal weight loss would mean, if the data was normally distributed (right)

In view of the fallacy of the "calories-in-vs-calories-out" hypothesis and its logical consquence, the "eat less, lose more" diet trap, it should not come as a surprise that the average weight loss across all participants fell short of the expectations. In that, it is however interesting to remark that the expected 8.4kg are identical to the mean weight loss + one standard deviation of the same; now, if we assume a normal distribution (warning: scientific jargon! see figure 1, right for some illustrations ;-) of the data, this implies that ~16% of the subjects lost even more than my conservative prediction of 8.4kg would have suggested.

Never underestimate the fat-burning prowess of a good night's sleep!

The reasons the other 84% "underperformed", however, are manifold (keep in mind: Against the background that many obese people simply get more obese year by year even stagnation may have been progress for some). Those I consider the most important / likely ones are:

Table 1 (Chaput. 2013): This is the original table from the study and while it says "baseline characteristics" it is actually no wonder that the subjects did not lose more weight if their baseline energy intake was already as low as 1,310kcal (=5242kJ/day). After all, that would be what I would suggest as a good energy deficit (~20-30%) to lose weight, already.

• reporting to be compliant, when you actually are not - a 24h food recalls done every 2 weeks as in the study at hand are notoriously unreliable, even if subjects don't fake them intentionally.
• eating way too little - in view of the fact that the reported baseline calorie intake was only 1,310kcal the additional reduction of 600-700kcal put them in starvation mode; no wonder they hardly lost weight (I wonder if the authors did maybe enter the reduced energy intake into the "baseline characteristics table, accidentally; cf. table 1)
• not eating the right whole foods - people tend to think "if I go to starve I better starve on chocolate and pie than on broccoli and chicken filet", so that - in the absence of concrete meal plans - subjects would eat cream cake every day and still comply to their goal wrt to total energy intake

Non-compliance (suggested read: "High Carb vs. High Fat for Obese Type II Diabetics and What Really Happens, When Science Meets Real Life), over-dieting and food quality aside, there is a fourth factor which would have been on my list, as well, if it had not been on Chaput's and Tremblay's the research agend, anyways: SLEEP! Duration and quality.

Figure 2: Fat loss as a function of sleep duration (left) and sleep quality (middle; both based on Chaput. 2013); as well as the "normal" distribution of PSQI (sleep quality scores) among healthy people (right; from Buysse. 1998)

Interestingly enough, the total sleep duration remained a better predictor of dietary success, as defined by loss of pure body fat (r =0.26), than the actual sleep quality (r = -0.20; note: -1 or 1 would indicate perfect negative or perfect positive correlations) even after adjustment or age, sex, baseline BMI and the
change in total energy intake (r _Duration = 0.34 vs. r _Quality = -0.31; data not shown in figure 2). This may be surprising at first, but in view of the fact that only PSQI score greater than 5 are highly sensitive to determine whether you are or aren't a "good sleeper" it appears reasonable.

And still, my personal experience tells me that without a reasonably good sleep quality you will rather feel worse than better if you simply stayed in bed for another 83min. So my suggestion remains (see implications for more): Get yourself a blindfold and earplugs - it will make a huge change to your sleep quality and you ability to sleep longer and wake up more refreshed and don't worry about either the alarm clock or your partner. While you will hear the former anyway, your partner certainly won't mind if you are better rested and physically more attractive than ever, although that may mean that he or she will be nudging you more often to put the blindfolds to an alternative and certainly not less enjoyable use ;-)

Implications: The results of this study put another emphasis on the importance of good sleep (7-9h every night) in the context of losing weight, building a better physique and living an overall healthier and happier life. Aside from the previously mentioned ear-plugs and blindfolds, there are yet a couple of other things you can / should do to get the sleep your body needs

• go to bed with or as closely after sundown, whenever this is possible - don't worry if you are "up early" this is how life is supposed to be, not the other way around (note: alarm clocks are 100% non-paleo ;-)
• don't sacrifice your social life for sleep, but don't persuade yourself that you have to party everyday and thus cannot go to bed in time
• don't use your computer / mobile phone / social media in the vicinity of going to bed; it will delay your ability to fall asleep and the light of the small (often blueish) LCD screens will interfere with your circadian rhythm
• if anything have a shake or other readily digestible food before bed, otherwise digestion may interfere with  your sleep quality in the first 2h and losing 2 out of 8 hours of sleep could already cost you 1.4kg of body fat you would otherwise have lost (you know the figure is mere statistical shenanigan, right?)
• plan your TV consumption and set a deadline for when the boob tube must be off; even consider buying a timer switch to make sure it will be off
• consider using melatonin and light therapy for a short period of time (or strategically, when you are a shift worker) to get into the new rhythm (dosing 3-10 mg melatonin before bed, 15-45min bright light therapy when you wake up or strategically during night shifts; eg. Sharkey. 2001; Bjorvatn. 2007; Sadeghniiat-Haghighi. 2008)

There will be way more on this in the future, as I am - as some of the SuppVersity Facebook friends know - still working on a post / series of posts on the circadian rhythm and a couple of past experiences of my own - including the use of light therapy to tweak my biorhythm. For the time being I suggest that you go to the official PSQI website, download the test (click on "PSQI instrument"), fill out and evaluate the questionnaire, take the first 5 steps I have outlined above, and see if that's not already enough to get an even better night's sleep in the next two weeks to come. And just in case that's not enough or your partner has gotten so fond of the blindfolds that there simply is too little time left for sleeping during the night hours, you will soon find more information on the 6th bullet point and the whole theoretical background of circadian rhythmicity and how it can work for, but also against your... until then, good night!

References:

• Bjorvatn B, Stangenes K, Oyane N, Forberg K, Lowden A, Holsten F, Akerstedt T. Randomized placebo-controlled field study of the effects of bright light and melatonin in adaptation to night work. Scand J Work Environ Health. 2007 Jun;33(3):204-14. 
• Buysse DJ, Reynolds CF 3rd, Monk TH, Berman SR, Kupfer DJ. The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index: a new instrument for psychiatric practice and research. Psychiatry Res. 1989 May;28(2):193-213.
• Chaput JP, Tremblay A. Sleeping Habits Predict the Magnitude of Fat Loss in Adults Exposed to Moderate Caloric Restriction. Obes Facts 2013;5:561–566.
• Nielsen LS, Danielsen KV, Sørensen TI: Short sleep duration as a possible cause of obesity: critical analysis of the epidemiological evidence. Obes Rev 2011; 12: 78–92.
• Sadeghniiat-Haghighi K, Aminian O, Pouryaghoub G, Yazdi Z. Efficacy and hypnotic effects of melatonin in shift-work nurses: double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial. J Circadian Rhythms. 2008 Oct 29;6:10.
• Sharkey KM, Fogg LF, Eastman CI. Effects of melatonin administration on daytime sleep after simulated night shift work. J Sleep Res. 2001 Sep;10(3):181-92.

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

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

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

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

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

Facebook friends and followers of the SuppVersity Facebook Channel may be familiar with at least some of the recent articles on the negative impact of TV watching alone and in conjunction with sleep deprivation on the body composition and metabolic health of our children. My personal favorite in this regard is a letter to the editor of the British Journal of Nutrition, in which Travis John Saunders and Jean-Philippe Chaput argue that obesity prevention could be as simple as turning off the television and having a nap (Saunders. 2013). The authors reference a whole host of studies to support their hypothesis that TV consumption and the associated lack of sleep esp. during the early hours of the night contribute to the rise of the obesity epidemic:

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

"Pah, that's guesswork!" If that's what you think, when you hear about Saunders' & Chaput's hypothesis, you may want to take a look at another recently published study by Calamaro et al. who report that (1) children who consume caffeinated beverages (not even directly before bed) get 15min less sleep and (2) children with 3 technology items in their room got 45min less sleep (Calamaro. 2013). Significant correlations with BMI were yet present for the intake of caffeinated softdrinks, only!

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

Reducing TV viewing and/or getting adequate sleep require little in the way of resources or expertise, and may therefore be more sustainable than more traditional interventions focused on diet and exercise. If having a good night's sleep truly is better for your weight than watching TV, this would be a lifestyle modification which may be substantially easier to implement than adopting a new diet or exercise routine. This change of focus is certainly worth consideration, right after a short nap. (Saunders. 2013)

Assuming that you did not already take your nap or have exceeded your daily combined TV + Internet screen time, you will probably also be interested to hear that another recently published paper by Caroline Fitzgerald et al. reports that "a child who watches 18 hours of television (per week) at 4.5 years of age will by the age of 10 have an extra 7.6 milllimetres of waist because of his or her habits" (Fitzgerald. 2013). Does not sound much, but you know how things go, proper with 5, chubby with 10, obese with 20 and dead before 40... you don't really think your kid could have invested those 3.5 years(!) of he would have been sitting in front of his television screen into more productive, more healthy and more sustainable hobbies, do you?

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

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

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

Mustard, Horseradish, Black pepper & Ginger - Useless Thermogenics

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

If you are already not watching TV and getting enough sleep (see above) and still don't look as lean and jacked as you would like to, a group of Danish researchers has some suggestions on which supplements you should not waste any money on (Gregersen. 2013): Mustard, horseradish, black pepper and ginger! While the latter two did not exert any measurable effects on either diet induced thermogenesis or energy intake (obviously the intention was to reduce the latter), when they were administered at oral dosages of 1.3 g and 20g, respectively, the addition of 8.3g of horseradish or 21g of mustard to standardized brunch meal did at least have some effects on the 22 young (age 25y), normal-weight (BMI 21.8kg/m²) men in the randomized cross-over study by Gregersen et al.:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Figure 1: GI (measured according to ISO 26 642-2010) with and without addition of PGX viscous fiber supplement in 2x250ml water to the 50g carbohydrate meal (Brand-Miller. 2013)

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

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

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

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

Figure 2: Visceral fat mass and parameters of glucose and lipid metabolism after 10 weeks on the low fat control vs. the supplemented or unsupplemented high fat diet (data expressed relative to control; Togawa. 2013)

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

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

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

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

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

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

References:

• Brand-Miller JC, Atkinson FS, Gahler RJ, Kacinik V, Lyon MR, Wood S. Effects of added PGX®, a novel functional fibre, on the glycaemic index of starchy foods. British Journal of Nutrition, 2013; 108, pp 245-248
• Fitzpatrick C, Pagani LS, Barnett TA. Early childhood television viewing predicts explosive leg strength and waist circumference by middle childhood. Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2013 Jul 16;9(1):87.
• Gregersen NT, Belza A, Jensen MG, Ritz C, Bitz C, Hels O, Frandsen E, Mela DJ, Astrup A. Acute effects of mustard, horseradish, black pepper and ginger on energy expenditure, appetite, ad libitum energy intake and energy balance in human subjects. British Journal of Nutrition, Available on CJO
• Grover GJ, Koetzner L, Wicks J, Gahler RJ, Lyon MR, Reimer RA, Wood S. Effects of the soluble fiber complex PolyGlycopleX® (PGX®) on glycemic control, insulin secretion, and GLP-1 levels in Zucker diabetic rats. Life Sci. 2011 Feb 28;88(9-10):392-9.
• Jensen-Jarolim E, Gajdzik L, Haberl I, Kraft D, Scheiner O, Graf J. Hot spices influence permeability of human intestinal epithelial monolayers. J Nutr. 1998 Mar;128(3):577-81.
• Kochhar KP. Dietary spices in health and diseases (II). Indian J Physiol Pharmacol. 2008 Oct-Dec;52(4):327-54.
• Marshall SJ, Biddle SJ, Gorely T, Cameron N, Murdey I. Relationships between media use, body fatness and physical activity in children and youth: a meta-analysis. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2004
• Reimer RA, Pelletier X, Carabin IG, Lyon M, Gahler R, Parnell JA, Wood S. Increased plasma PYY levels following supplementation with the functional fiber PolyGlycopleX in healthy adults. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2010 Oct;64(10):1186-91.
• Saunders TJ, Chaput JP. Is obesity prevention as simple as turning off the television and having a nap? Br J Nutr. 2013 Jun 14:1-2.
• Thorp AA, Owen N, Neuhaus M, Dunstan DW. Sedentary behaviors and subsequent health outcomes in adults a systematic review of longitudinal studies, 1996-2011. Am J Prev Med. 2011 Aug;41(2):207-15.
• Veerman JL, Healy GN, Cobiac LJ, Vos T, Winkler EA, Owen N, Dunstan DW. Television viewing time and reduced life expectancy: a life table analysis. Br J Sports Med. 2011 Aug 15.
• Vuksan V, Panahi S, Lyon M, Rogovik AL, Jenkins AL, Leiter LA. Viscosity of fiber preloads affects food intake in adolescents. Nutr Metab Cardiovasc Dis. 2009 Sep;19(7):498-503.

Science Round-Up Seconds: Rare Sugar Syrup, HFCS 2.0? Body Recomposition W/ 7 Marathons in 7 Days!? Reduced REM Sleep With Intense Workouts in the Evening.

99% of the guys & gals on this photo are not going to see anywhere similar improvements in body composition from marathon running as the highly trained 7x7 runners in the Karstoft study.

It's Friday and that means its time for the wrap-up of yesterday's installment of the Science Round-Up on SHR. Well, let's see then what this weeks Round-Up of the Round-Up has to offer. Somehow I felt like picking up something we did actually cover in the live-show yesterday (download the podcast here). I guess I want to give everyone the chance to look at the data himself in order to decide whether "rare sugar syrup" (RSS) is going to be the savior of the Western world and the unfortunate rest who's currently "westernized" by the big Ms, the big As and the rest of the corporate alphabet soup with a vested interest in the prosperity of mankind, or - to be precise - that the part of mankind who owns their shares ;-)

Rare Sugar Syrup has 90% of the sweetness of regular sugar + "cleaner taste" than HFCS

(IIda. 2013) -- Assuming that you've by now all listened to the podcast, I will stick to some additional explanations, citations and graphs in this follow up.

While D-psicose is not the only fructose epimer in rare sugar syrup, it is probable the one with the most potent beneficial effects on blood glucose management (learn more). One potential caveats of RSS is that its d-psycose content is only 5% with te rest being other hexoses including D-allose, D-sorbose, and D-mannose,

As the scientists point out, the main intention of their study was to assess whether their rare sugar syrups would suppress

"body weight gain and abdominal fat accumulation in rats fed on diets composed of different carbohydrate sources: starch, starch + HFCS (50:50), and starch + RSS (50:50) were examined. (Iida. 2013)"

Accordingly, they maintained their rodents on otherwise identical diets containing (on a per weight not per kcal basis!) 57% carbs, 18% protein, 4% fat, cellulose, added methionine and a couple of vitamin and trace elements with either plain corn starch, corn starch and HFCS or cornstarch and rare sugar syrup (see figure 1, left).

Now, as mentioned in the show, there is no debating that this feeding regimen worked and with "90% of the sweetness of sucrose, and a more rich and clean taste than HFCS" replacing HFCS with RSS could even improve the taste of respective products, but let's be honest: How likely is it that we are going to see products without HFCS and 50% of rare sugar syrup actually making up the lion's share of the processed junk in the super market anytime soon?

Figure 1: Carbohyrate content of the diets and weight of different visceral fat pads after the 8-week dietary intervention in otherwise healthy rodents on a cornstarch only, cornstarch + HFCS or cornstarch + RSS diet (Iida. 2013)

Isn't it more likely that you will see labels like "now with rare sugars" on the front of the packaging and the hardly legible figure "contains 3% carbohydrates from rare sugars" hidden on its back? I would think so and the fact that neither this study nor the general existence of this HFCS substitution did as of now hit the media certainly doesn't refute contradict this hypothesis.

7 marathons (!) in 7 days - A marathon a day keeps the fat stores at bay?

(Karstoft. 2013) -- I probably don't have to preface this part of the seconds with a "don't do this at home" (or anywhere else ;-), but I think it's nevertheless newsworthy that accordingly trained people can actually run 7 marathons  in 7 days without the dreaded negative effects the average bro is expecting when he is just walking for 40min on a treadmill.

Figure 2: Body composition before and after the race (left) and changes in markers of muscle damage as well as hormonal changes and differences in markers of blood glucose management (right) in 8 experienced recreational runners participating in a multiple-marathon running event in which 7 marathons were completed on consecutive days (Karstoft. 2013)

Doesn't look so bad, ha? The reason I still stick to the initially voiced recommendation not to copy this protocol if you intend to lose body fat is pretty simple. The main reason "nothing" happened here is that the subjects were conditioned to run marathons.

That's the same "repeated bout effect, we have seen only a couple of days ago in the "No Pain No Gain" post (click here to go back) and the ~2kg of "muscle mass" are (despite being measured with DEXA) probably rather a result of glycogen hyper-compensation from tons of energy gels and pasta (the subjects did not follow a prescribed diet, but simply ate, drank and supplemented what had helped them on previous marathons), than structural increases in muscle tissue.

No high intensity training before a good night's sleep

Unless you have read the SuppVersity Circadian Rhythm Series, you have no right to complain about being overweight or undermuscled (read it ;-)

(Wong. 2013) -- After listening to the show, you know what you got to do once you got out of the bed, namely to switch on your bright light therapy lamp, but what do you have to do before you go to bed? I did actually discuss most of the things you should do (curtains, ear-plugs, turn the temperature down, etc.) in the Circadian Rhythm Series, but with the recent publication of a study by Wong et al. there is another thing you should - or in this case should not do and that's working out at a high intensity.

According to the results the researchers present in their soon-to-be-published paper in the Journal of Sports Science, a cycling exercise at intensities of  65% and 75% VO2Max lead to significant increases in light sleep and reductions in the recuperative REM sleep from 22.5% to 19& and 18.7% of the total sleep time.

Light exercise, in this study done at 45% and 55% of the VO2max, on the other hand did not have these side effects it did however not improve sleep, which is by the way an urban myth of which Driver and Taylor wrote in a Y2k paper in the Sleep Medicine Review that it "has yet to be established empirically" (Driver & Tailor. 2000).

---

That's it for today, unless you want to head over to the SuppVersity Facebook Wall and check out some of the news that are already available over there, e.g.

• 

  Newsweek title from the year 2000 - "Fat for Life?"; did his mother love her soy protein more than her son's health? (learn more)

  "High" dose supplementation with vitamin C and/or E increases cataract risk - 1,000mg of vitamin C increase the risk +36% and 100mg of vitamin E by 57% (read more)
• Aerobic fitness could have greater impact on academic achievement than obesity -- Although obesity is a concern for children, this study shows that aerobic fitness can have a greater effect on academic performance than weigh (read more) 
• Aqua Mel, Portuguese "folk medicine" works for the alleviation of simple symptoms of upper respiratory tract -- Effect probably mitigated by the phenols in the honey this product is made of (read more).
• Serum albumin carries cholesterol out of the cells -- Hitherto scientists thought that this was a prerogative of HDL (read more)

If you don't like these or the other ones I did not mention just wait for further news to be posted. Alternatively switch of the computer and your mobile devices and head off into a well deserved weekend!

Don't worry, there is going to be a whole heap of short news tomorrow, you won't get bored... ah, you don't get bored on the weekend, anyway - do you?

References:

• Driver H.S., Taylor SR. Exercise and sleep. Sleep Medicine Reviews. 2000; 4(4):387–402
• Iida T, Yamada T, Hayashi N, Okuma K, Izumori K, Ishii R, Matsuo T. Reduction of abdominal fat accumulation in rats by 8-week ingestion of a newly developed sweetener made from high fructose corn syrup. Food Chem. 2013 Jun 1;138(2-3):781-5.
• Karstoft K, James Solomon TP, Laye MJ, Pedersen BK. Daily Marathon Running for a Week - the Biochemical and Body Compositional Effects of Participation. J Strength Cond Res. 2013 Feb 25.
• Wong SN, Halaki M, Chow CM. The effects of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise on the sleep need of sedentary young adults. J Sports Sci. 2013 Feb;31(4):381-6.

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.

---

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.