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Diet, Nutrition & Supplements

Diet, Nutrition & Supplements (30)

Niacin – a.k.a vitamin B3 – the neglected broad spectrum cholesterol drug!

Niacin - vitamin B3 - when taken in high dose acts as a powerful cholesterol drug. Niacin is unique among all available cholesterol drugs because it has beneficial effects across the entire lipid/lipoprotein spectrum, including the three components of atherogenic dyslipidemia. 

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Artificial Sweeteners and Diet Sodas - do they Help or Hinder Fat Loss?

The potential benefits and risks of artificial sweeteners and diet sodas are hotly debated. Critics state that artificial sweeteners and diet sodas are fueling obesity [1, 2], increasing the risk for diabetes and cardiovascular disease [2, 3], and of causing metabolic derangements.[2]
 
A popular argument against consumption of sweet-tasting but non-caloric or reduced-calorie food and beverages is that this interferes with appetite and physiological energy intake regulation.[2]
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Fish Oil for Fat Loss - can it really help you get in shape?

Fish oil is most known for its beneficial heart and cardiovascular effects, and continues to top the list of health promoting supplements. Fish oil is unique in its ability to protect against heart disease and promote cardiovascular health in all people, regardless of age or baseline health status [1, 2].
 
Fish oil improves the blood lipid profile and is especially effective at lowering triglycerides (a.k.a. blood fats).[3] It also has beneficial effects on blood platelet activity, blood thickness, as well as blood vessel (endothelial) function [4-11], blood vessel elasticity [12], and blood pressure [13, 14], among other things.
 
In 2004 FDA approved a prescription fish oil preparation for treatment of high triglycerides (hypertriglyceridemia) [3, 15, 16]. Accumulating research shows that fish oil also has other beneficial effects, which are more visually notable… notably, fat loss!
 
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Red Meat - Good or Bad for Fat Loss?

 

Consumption of red meat has been associated with fat gain (weight gain) because of its high fat and calorie content. Even though the old idea that “a high fat intake causes body fat gain” has been completely debunked in medical research [1-9], red meat still is a food that's on the forbidden or avoid list in most diet plans. And for some reason, women tend to be especially afraid of eating meat…
 
While there are studies showing an association between meat intake and obesity [10-12], there are also studies not showing this [12-14]. And when digging deeper in the data, many of the studies that did report a significant association with meat intake and fat gain / obesity have several flaws that invalidate their conclusions....
 
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Vitamin D - what's the optimal blood level and how to achieve it?

 
Until just a few years ago, it was thought that vitamin D is only needed for building and maintain strong bones.
 
However, over the past decade an impressive body of scientific research has demonstrated the importance of optimal vitamin D status for wide array of health conditions.
 
Vitamin D is interesting for several reasons:
 
1. The role of vitamin D for health promotion has undergone a paradigm shift. Adequate vitamin D levels are necessary to prevent many diseases, especially cardiovascular disease (including high blood pressure), endothelial dysfunction, diabetes (both type1 and type-2), the metabolic syndrome, muscle weakness, cancer, chronic inflammation, osteoporosis (including falls and fractures), cognitive dysfunction and mental illness, autoimmune diseases (e.g. multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis), infectious diseases, as well as infertility and adverse pregnancy and birth outcomes [1-26]. 
 
Vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency is associated with increased all-cause mortality [1, 27], and vitamin D supplementation has been shown to decrease mortality [28, 29]. It has been estimated that doubling blood vitamin D levels in the general population (from 21 ng/mL to 44 ng/mL) would reduce  vitamin D-related disease mortality rate by 20%, and increase life expectancy with about 2 years [30]. 
 
2. Insufficient levels of vitamin D also have direct implications for fitness enthusiasts and athletic performance, due to the importance of vitamin D for muscle function (I will cover this in much more depth in an upcoming article) [31-42].
 
3. In contrast to most other vitamins, vitamin D deficiency/insufficiency is very common (more on that below).
 
4. The vitamin D requirement for health promotion and protection against all-cause mortality and muscle dysfunction is much higher than the dietary recommendations (RDA), which only consider for bone related outcomes [4, 43-48].
 
Having heard about all the vitamin D benefits you might wonder what is the optimal vitamin D blood level? How low is too low? How common is vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency? 
 
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Nitrate supplementation – ramp up the less well-known NO pathway to boost performance and health

 

Nitric oxide (NO) boosting “pre-workout” supplements based on L-arginine have been – and still are – quite popular among many fitness enthusiasts and athletes. While it’s true that arginine is a nitric oxide (NO) precursor and NO is a potent vasodilator [1, 2], most studies in healthy adults have not unequivocally supported the marketing hype that arginine supplementation increases muscle blood flow and/or performance [3-5]. In my previous article “The Arginine Paradox” I explained why.
 
In this article I will cover the less well known, albeit highly significant, NO generating process, the nitrate-nitrite-NO pathway. This new NO producing pathway holds a lot of promise and supplements that target it will probably replace the current arginine based NO boosters in the near future[6, 7].
 
The nitrate-nitrite-NO pathway is especially interesting in that it not only has performance enhancing effects in healthy folks – as well as in people with risk factors – but also offers cardiovascular protection, regardless of baseline health status [7-10].
 
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Red Meat and Health - have we been blaming the wrong thing?

 

Frequent consumption of red meant and processed meats has been shown in population studies to be associated with cardiovascular disease, cancer and type 2 diabetes [1-3]. It has also been suggested that eating meat increases all-cause mortality [4]. Hence, a high meat intake (regardless of its fat quantity and quality) is generally perceived to be unhealthy and something that should be avoided. 
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The Arginine Paradox - do L-arginine based NO boosters really work?

 

Some of the most popular supplements today are the so called pre-workout nitric oxide (NO) boosters [1, 2]. These contain a panoply of ingredients, but one the main ones is arginine. The rationale goes that L-arginine is a nitric oxide (NO) precursor and NO is a potent vasodilator [3, 4]. Theoretically this would increase blood flow and nutrient/oxygen delivery to exercising muscles and thereby boost performance, as well as recovery. 
 
While it is true that L-arginine supplementation may be beneficial for various clinical populations (see below), studies in healthy adults have not unequivocally supported the marketing hype surrounding arginine supplementation and nitric oxide boosters [1, 5, 6]. Why? Let's take a look under the hood...
 
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Dietary Guidelines on Fat Intake - has there ever been any evidence to support the low-fat recommendation?

In an effort to slash heart disease, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans [1] have since 1977 been urging people to: 
 
1. Reduce total fat consumption to 30% of total caloric intake.
 
2. Reduce saturated fat consumption to 10% of total energy intake.
 
Government issued dietary guidelines are highly authoritative and regarded by a majority as being backed by solid research. However, as it turns out, this is not the case… 
 
Dietary recommendations regarding intake of total and saturated fat are highly controversial, and the debate is heating up. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis of six studies that were available 1977, when the first version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans was published, shows: [2]
 
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Fish Oil for Muscle Growth and Prevention of Muscle Loss with Aging

 
A key hallmark of aging is a progressive loss of muscle mass, which occurs independently of health status.[1] Exercise and nutrition are the two main anabolic stimuli for muscle growth and its maintenance throughout the life course.[2-11]
 
It is clear that maintaining high physical activity and exercise levels throughout ones lifespan reduces aging related loss of muscle mass and function, compared with living a sedentary life.[12-19]
 
However, even active older adults and master elite athletes still experience some loss of muscle and physical performance with advancing age.[8, 13, 20]
 
When it comes to nutrition, high protein intake [2, 3, 10, 21] and creatine supplementation [4-8, 22] are two of the best documented interventions, which together with resistance exercise training, result in greater increases muscle mass and strength in both young [21-23] and older people [2-8, 10], and prevent its loss with aging. Here I will present the relatively unknown effevts of fish oil (most well-known for its cardiovascular health promoting effects) on muscle growth (anabolism) and its possible contribution to prevention of aging related loss of muscle mass and function...
 
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