Category Archives: Advanced nutrition

Research studies, hypotheses, data, etc.

Study: protein & seafood. They work!

Posted on August 15, 2018 | Leave a comment

I liked this study for a couple reasons:

Effect of combined use of a low(ish)-carbohydrate, high-protein diet with omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation on glycemic control in newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes: a randomized, double-blind, parallel-controlled trial (Liu et al., 2018)

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There were FOUR groups: 1) high-carb, low protein (HCLP, aka CONtrol group); 2) LCHP; 3) HCLP+n3; and 4) LCHP+n3. So, instead of just taking a group of people, putting them on LCHP+n3 and comparing the results to baseline, they actually controlled for the variables independently.

 

 

All groups were assign 30% fat and the protein was either 17% or 28%. THIS WAS CONFIRMED with serum urea nitrogen and you know how much I like biomarkers! n3 status of the n3 groups were confirmed with plasma n3’s and you know how much I like biomarkers!

Some more details on the study design…

For the rest of this article and more, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

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20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE. 

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else. 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Energy balance, Fish, insulin, Protein

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Anabolic Heterogeneity Following Resistance Training: A Role for Circadian Rhythm?

Posted on July 23, 2018 | Leave a comment

YES!

Resistance exercise stimulates muscle growth, strength, and functionality (Camera, 2018), although the inter-individual variability in response is hyooge. People used to think there were “responders” and “non-responders,” although now we know everyone benefits but there’s a wide spectrum. WHY?

[Patron link]

 

 

 

Exercise timing? There are definitely circadian clock genes and rhythmic expression of many genes involved in muscle growth, strength, and functionality.

Physical inactivity and sedentary behavior in general is bad. Physical activity is good. Load-bearing resistance is exercise is better. Is proper circadian timed exercise even better? Can you get slightly better benefits at the same workload?

WHY is this important?!

For more on that and what you can do about it, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month gets you access to all articles and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

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20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE. 

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else. 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, circadian, Exercise, muscle, strength, Sun

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Salty blood, sweat, and tears. But do I need to supplement sodium?

Posted on July 15, 2018 | Leave a comment

This was meant to be a neutral boring non-tweet:

 

But it was met with a hella-backlash. I was being half-serious: in undergrad and grad school, we learned about many different diets, the studies that supported or debunked them, and whether they made sense nutrition-wise. We didn’t spend much time at all on the DASH diet, sodium-supplemented or -restricted diets, etc.

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Sodium chloride vs. potassium bicarbonate? Maybe.

 

 

During the mineral portion of one class, yes, we studied the role of sodium in biology. And in a section on nutrition for the elderly, we learned the ability to “taste” declines with age, Tl;dr: old people stop eating meat because it tastes like cardboard and their health is improved by going from zero meat intake to some meat intake, and monosodium glutatamate (MSG) as a seasoning agent helps in this #context.

 

But as performance aid?

…I’m not anti- or pro-salt. If you like it on your food, have at it! There are no magic tricks. Some of the backlash I received on Twitter was concerns that ultra-endurance athletes use up sodium faster and sweat out more, therefore need to supplement it. Well, not really….

Are there other reasons to take some minerals like magnesium? Maybe.

For more on the logic and the studies that back it up, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month gets you access to all articles and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

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20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE. 

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else. 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, endurance, Exercise

“The Big Breakfast Study” !

Posted on July 7, 2018 | 1 comment

Chrono-nutrition influence on energy expenditure and body weight (Ruddick-Collins et al., 2018) HT/ Robb Wolf

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“A growing body of evidence highlights the importance of the biological clock as a modulator of energy balance and metabolism. Recent studies in humans have shown that ingested calories are apparently utilized more efficiently in the morning than in the evening and this is manifest through improved weight loss, even under iso-energetic calorie intake.” YES!!!

Book recommendation: Why We Sleep

 

 

People eating 3 square meals a day shouldn’t be ingesting >40% of their calories late at night. <33% prior to sunset is more like it.

“The SCN of the hypothalamus, the ‘master clock,’ is primarily regulated by the light/dark cycles in order to synchronise the body to the light cycle or solar day…” but it also must by sync’d to the peripheral clocks! aka ‘food-entrainable oscillators’ (FEO).

Sure, caffeine and exercise can influence the liver and skeletal muscle clocks, respectively, but for full central & peripheral co-entrainment: FOOD and LIGHT in the morning (exercise and caffeine are optional for this).

Intermittent fasting? Time-restricted feeding? For more on all that, head on over to Patreon! Five bucks a month gets you access to all articles and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

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20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE. 

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else. 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, circadian, Energy balance, Ketosis, Protein, Sun

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Intermittent Fasting and Goalposts

Posted on June 30, 2018 | Leave a comment

I may come across as harsh on Intermittent Fasting (IF) and I’d like to be clear about something. I’m not saying IF will make you gain body fat or die a slow and painful death. I am saying the quality of evidence presented in human studies suggesting it will benefit you somehow is #weaksauce. Further, I don’t really like the idea of huge refeeds. Like, how can 2000 kcals in one sitting be remotely healthy?

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Metabolic. Mayhem.

 

 

You may have noticed many guru’s sliding away from “intermittent fasting” and “skipping breakfast” and toward promoting a more circadian-appropriate feeding pattern. That’s because it’s about when you eat, not the precise duration of the feeding window.

The studies have been done:

 

Which brings me to the current IF study #weaksauce du jour and it’s implications. But for that you’re gonna have to head on over to Patreon! Five bucks a month gets you access to all articles and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

calories proper

Affiliate links: It’s 2018, join Binance and get some cryptoassets or download Honeyminerand get some Bitcoins for free! And now you can mine Bitcoin from your Chromebook!

Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE. 

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else. 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, depression, diabetes, Dopamine, melatonin, nicotine, sex, sleep, Sun, vasopressin, Vitamin D

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New study: very low carb diets don’t impair high intensity interval training (Cipryan et al., 2018)

Posted on June 16, 2018 | Leave a comment

Effects of a 4-week very low-carbohydrate diet on high-intensity interval training responses (Cipryan et al., 2018)

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Relevant study design details: 18 young, healthy, moderately-trained males. First, this was a study on exercise performance. Had it been on glucose management in patients with type 2 diabetes or obesity, this is not the population they would have selected. Second, they needed at least a moderately-trained population otherwise both groups would’ve made big n00b gainz which may have out-weighed any differences incurred by ketoadaptation in 4 weeks.

 

 

Third, 4 weeks is a good duration for this kind of study because maximal ketoadaptation occurs in about 3 weeks and doesn’t get stronger thereafter (gains seen beyond 3 weeks are more associated with training effects).

On to the dietary protocols, results, and 2 other relevant new studies… but for that, head on over to Patreon! Five bucks a month gets you full access and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

calories proper

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Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE. 

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else. 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, endurance, Energy balance, Ketosis, muscle, Protein, strength

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Watch the Clock, Not the Scale

Posted on June 8, 2018 | 1 comment

I’ve been known to say intermittent fasting is #weaksauce because most of the human studies show little or no effect and people frequently report being hungry (yes, even if LCHF). Human studies, not “n=1’s.”

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Well, now we know why. Time-restricted feeding (TRF) only really works when the feeding window is early (eTRF), as demonstrated by the recent Sutton study which showed, miraculously, great benefits achieved sans weight loss. Calories were strictly controlled in that study to prevent weight loss. AND when the participants were on eTRF, they actually reported less hunger in the evening.

 

 

We know from the studies by Jacobs and Hirsh that under ad lib AND isocaloric conditions, people lose more weight eating all their food for breakfast than those eating all their food for dinner.

 

 

That’s cuz metabolism is gimped at night. Lower metabolic rate and greater propensity to store fat.

Melatonin sensitizes the system, preparing it to optimally partition nutrients in the morning.

For the rest of this awesome article, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

Affiliate links: It’s 2018, join Binance and get some damn cryptoassets or download Honeyminer and get some Bitcoins for free!

Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE. 

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else. 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, Energy balance, Ketosis, melatonin, muscle, sex, sleep, vasopressin

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Dopamine regulates systemic glucose metabolism in humans

Posted on June 1, 2018 | Leave a comment

In Four. EPIC. Experiments (ter Horst et al., 2018)

Tl;dr: sunlight & breakfast in the morning.

[FULL ARTICLE ON PATREON]

Dopamine receptors are downregulated in obese patients and are restored in long-term weight loss patients after bariatric surgery. It’s better to get your dopamine hit via sunlight than sugar duh.

This is some amazing science.

 

 

Experiment 1. 50-year old dude with severe OCD gets diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and is only able to get his glucose under control with metformin and 226 IU insulin. At 53, his OCD is treated with deep brain stimulation (DBS). His insulin requirements declined to 180 IU. He didn’t lose weight but went off quetiapine, so maybe coincidence because: 1. quetiapine is diabetogenic; and 2. DBS induces dopamine release.

Two-step hyperinsulinemic euglycemic clamp when DBS is turned off and turned on. BOOM! When it’s on, lower fasting insulin, and better insulin-induced suppression of liver glucose output, free fatty acids, & muscle glucose disposal! DBS improved insulin sensitivity in liver, adipose, and skeletal muscle.

For the rest of the discussion on these super-interesting experiments, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options. It’s ad-free and you can cancel if it sucks 🙂

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Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE. 

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else. 

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calories proper

 

 

Cycloset (bromocriptine)

 

 

Go for a walk.

And #eTRF.

 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, angiotensin, Bromocriptine, Cabergoline, chronopharmacology, circadian, clamp, depression, diabetes, Dopamine, melatonin, muscle, nicotine, sex, sleep, Sun, testosterone, vasopressin

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Intermittent fasting is homeopathy-level #nothingsauce

Posted on May 24, 2018 | Leave a comment

From all of the published human studies and “n=1’s” I’ve seen on online forums, intermittent fasting is #nothingsauce. Don’t @ me.

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When people lose weight via IF, it’s because of caloric restriction. There’s no metabolic advantage, and if anything, maybe the opposite. Restricting your feeding window to a very short period = metabolic mayhem.

2000 kcals in one sitting?

*smh*

 

 

I believe “early Time-Restricted Feeding” #eTRF showed promise in that recent study because of the “early” part; no so much on the “TRF” part. I believe this, in part, because the large majority of our population suffers from some degree of circadian arrhythmia. Social jet lag, too much artificial light at night, skipping breakfast, etc., etc. An EARLIER feeding window is one way to re-align circadian rhythms.

 

 

It STARTS with Sleep. Wanna improve body comp and make mindlessly better food choices? Fix your circadian rhythms.

Now onto the one of the weirdest, but potentially most revealing human studies on time-restricted feeding…

For the rest of this article and more, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for full access and there are many other options.

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Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE. 

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else. 

Start your OWN Patreon campaign!

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, chronopharmacology, circadian, Dopamine, melatonin, muscle, Protein, strength

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“early Time-Restricted Feeding” #eTRF FTW

Posted on May 17, 2018 | Leave a comment

I feel exonerated!

Early time-restricted feeding improves insulin sensitivity, blood pressure, and oxidative stress even without weight loss in men with prediabetes (Sutton et al., 2018)

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Tl;dr: 8 prediabetic men, 5 week crossover study. When on eTRF, the only rule was basically dinner no later than 3 pm and no snacking thereafter. It was isocaloric because: 1) studies on meal timing and weight loss have been done; and 2) they wanted to test meal timing specifically, not confounded by weight loss.

 

Also, I think the results are due to meal timing, not fasting duration per se, because of the studies by Jacobs & Hirsh. In brief, they tested meal timing with similar fasting durations and showed people who ate one-meal-a-day all at breakfast lost more weight than people who ate one-meal-a-day all at dinner. First they showed this in an ad lib context and then again in an isocaloric context. Metabolism is gimped at night.

For a discussion of these exciting new data, head over to Patreon! Five bucks a month for access to all articles and there are many other options.

Affiliate links: It’s 2018, join Binance and get some damn cryptoassets or download Honeyminer and get some Bitcoins for free!

Still looking for a pair of hot blue blockers? Carbonshade and TrueDark are offering 15% off with the coupon code LAGAKOS and Spectra479 is offering 15% off HERE. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, read this then this.

20% off some delish stocks and broths from Kettle and Fire HERE. 

If you want the benefits of  ‘shrooms but don’t like eating them, Real Mushrooms makes great extracts. 10% off with coupon code LAGAKOS. I recommend Lion’s Mane for the brain and Reishi for everything else. 

Start your OWN Patreon campaign!

Join Earn.com with this link and get paid to answer questions online.

 

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#eTRF

 

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Posted in Advanced nutrition, chronopharmacology, circadian, insulin, melatonin, Sun

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