I joke about hormesis a lot because it has little-to-no scientific proof. Maybe it’s true, but it’s really hard to prove experimentally.
Imo, whatevs. But I do walk the walk: Hormesis of the AGEs.
disclosures: I’m a horrible food photographer… it’s really hard to take pictures while actively blow torching food! (and not burning down the house)
and 2) bowls don’t last forever, especially mine.
My weapon of choice: this and these
The new study by Zinn and colleagues doesn’t debunk ketoadaptation. And the authors agree!
In brief, it was 5 ~50-year old recreational endurance athletes. They’ve been training a lot for a very long time. In other words, one way to view this study is the opposite of n00b gainz. Experienced exercisers don’t typically make gains in 10 weeks without drastically changing their training program or increasing protein intake – neither of which occurred in this study.
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More on physical performance and ketoadaptation
On that sweetener in the new Quest Hero bars: allulose (formerly known as D-Psicose).
1. I’m sure they were quick to adopt the alternate nomenclature because it’s hard not so say Piss-cose lol
2. Nutrition-wise, Hero bars are basically Quest Lite. A bit less fibre. But I really think they’re getting much better at texture.
3. On to allulose. It’s not really like sugar – even though the FDA says it must be labeled as such – because it carries virtually no calories and actually blunts the blood glucose spike from a meal.
Exhibit A. n=20 healthy peole: 7.5 g D-psicose alone, 75 g maltodextrin alone, 75 g maltodextrin + 2.5, 5, or 7.5 g D-psicose (Iida et al., 2008)
amazeballs
Exhibit B. n=26, zero or 5g psicose with a standardized meal (Hayashi et al., 2010). Note: there are ~12 grams of allulose in a Hero bar.
It works better in diabetics.
They did a 12-week study where psicose was dosed 3 times a day, 5 grams each time, and showed it was perfectly healthy. Some markers even improved.
Exhibit C. Psicose metabolism (Iida et al., 2010)
In doses ranging from 5 to 30 grams, up to 70% is excreted intact and the rest does not go to farts.
It’s virtually calorie-free:
and is barely fermentable (compared to FOS):
compare to other low carb protein bars here, get the new Quest bars here, or just buy some straight allulose and experiment with it!
Mechanisms? 1) it’s not sugar, but it still enhances glucose disposal; and 2) some animal studies show it enhances liver glucose uptake. Idk.
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Posted in Advanced nutrition, diabetes, diet, Energy balance, fermentation, fiber, insulin, Protein
Tagged calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, insulin, protein, sugar
Hey Fam, announcement: I’m moving to Patreon soon — will still post about 4-5 articles per month with at least 1 open to the public. The rest will be for Patrons. I’m still trying to figure it out and I’m open to suggestions!
I loved this – when describing the two study diets, which differed markedly in carb content (10% vs. 53%), the authors said they were similar in energy, protein, and “FOOD PROFILE,” meaning low-processed, lower-glycemic foods.
Non-industrial foods.
BOOM!
Visceral adiposity and metabolic syndrome after very high-fat and low-fat isocaloric diets: a randomized controlled trial (Veum et al., 2016)
What happens when you give up industrial foods and start following a Hunger-free Diet (regardless of carbz)?
EVERYBODY LOSES WEIGHT
And le saturated fat? Industrial foods are the problem, not saturated fat. One group went from 48 to 31 grams per day (LFHC), the other group went from 42 to 81 (VLCHF): all metabolic parameters improved in both groups.
Even their livers shrank:
My only qualm: everyone lost a bit of muscle. NOT SURPRISING when you cut calories & protein and don’t exercise. Protein dropped by about ~25 grams in both groups. When you cut calories, you need to up protein or start lifting heavy shit otherwise you’ll lose muscle. The ketonez won’t help.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, empty calories, fat, insulin, liver, muscle, Protein, strength
Tagged body composition, calories proper, carbs, empty calories, energy balance, fat, ketones, nutrition, protein
1. Whether it’s Balsamic, sherry, red wine, apple cider, or even plain distilled white, vinegar is a great condiment (P<0.05). Try cutting your favorite with a more concentrated one for more fun (be careful, it can burn you; I’d start with 1:20 or 5%).
2. It reduces the glucose and insulin response to a meal.
World’s coolest fatty acid?
[Patreon link] (open access)
Exhibit A: 20 g apple cider vinegar, 40 g water, and 1 tsp saccharine two minutes prior to “a white bagel, butter, and orange juice (87 g total carbohydrates)” (Johnston et al., 2004)
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diabetes, diet, fermentation, insulin, microbiome, microbiota, TPMC
Tagged calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, insulin, nutrition
-Basically, any beginner can make decent gains upon starting a new exercise regimen… it’s actually hard not to. Noob gainz.
-What’s easier than doubling exercise volume? PROTEIN.
Patreon link https://www.patreon.com/posts/exercise-protein-12248945
Protein Supplementation to Augment the Effects of High Intensity Resistance Training in Untrained Middle-Aged Males: The Randomized Controlled PUSH Trial (Wittke et al., 2017)
Four groups: 1) high intensity training (HIT); HIT + high protein diet (HIT+P) (1.6 g/kg/d); HIT + high volume (HVHIT); and control. Baseline protein intake was ~1.2 g/kg, so it was about a ~33% increase.
Duration: 22 weeks, which is long enough to actually make some measurable noob gainz.
Results:
Exercise alone (HIT) wasn’t particularly effective but doubling the volume worked. What’s easier than doubling the volume? PROTEIN. Protein is better than doubling the volume for n00b gainz in LBM.
More gainz in leg & arm muscle mass and strength. Doubling the volume was slightly better for fat loss. CICO? Energy intake declined slightly in HIT but remained stable in HIT+P & HVHIT.
My take? Protein is way easier than double-volume high intensity training.
Protein & exercise, man. Protein & exercise.
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.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Exercise, muscle, Protein, strength
Tagged body composition, calories, calories proper, energy balance, energy expenditure, exercise, fat, muscle, protein
Extra-virgin olive oil ameliorates cognition and neuropathology of the 3xTg mice: role of autophagy (Lauretti et al., 2017)
I think the whole point of this study was to show-off their swanky EVOO.
“The EVOO was from the olive growing area of Apulia region (Torremaggiore, Foggia, Italy). Olive fruits from the cultivar “Peranzana” were processed immediately after harvesting and EVOO obtained by crushing the olives under mechanical cold pressure to preserve all the nutritional components, and meet the stringent criteria of the premium quality level (free acid content < 0.3 g%, peroxide value < 7 mEq/Kg, K232 < 1.85).”
Which may or may not be from this company.
Peranzana: it’s a single varietal olive oil, meaning it’s made from only one type of olive – similar to buying varietal wines, eg, malbec – it specifies the grape, but not the location, producer, wine’s name, etc., etc. You can actually get a Peranzana EVOO or olives online.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Dietary fat, Energy balance, fat
Tagged calories proper, fat, nutrition
Some semi-random thoughts (ie, I might’ve had too much coffee haha)
-I’ve never really been a fan of the concept of “hormesis,” because you can basically say it of just about anything. Kinda like “vestigial,” because, like, you technically don’t need your legs…
-We’ve seen actual human trials on AGEs, I even wrote a relatively mature blog post about ’em (this isn’t gonna be like that). Tl;dr: they really do some bad things in experimental settings. No, not bad like playing in traffic; bad like inflammation, oxidative stress, etc.
-Some say the ability to cook was a major evolutionary factor. Improved digestibility, nutrient bioavailability, energy extraction, reduced toxins, etc. I don’t know, maybe it was just seafood/DHA. Whatevs, I don’t really buy this line of reasoning anyway. Maybe AGEs are not hormetic and are outright harmful; but cooking was better for our species because we died from other things long before the AGEs got us… or maybe this is a good reason to eat more baked mushrooms (as per Roncero-Ramos et al., 2016) haha.
-I follow the BTD (Blow Torch Diet™)* so seared meat and to a lesser extent plants can’t be unhealthy, right?
*seriously, I use this and these all the time.
I have a somewhat specific definition of “Good Calories.” Foods that, when added to your diet, cause a spontaneous reduction in intake of something else. Like nuts.
And more recently, mushrooms!
Side note: ‘Mushrooms Every Day’ is part of my long-term anti-cancer strategy.
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diet, Energy balance
Tagged body composition, calories proper, diet, energy balance, nutrition, prebiotics
Remission of pre-diabetes to normal glucose tolerance in obese adults with high protein versus high carbohydrate diet: randomized control trial (Stentz et al., 2016)
n=12/group
Duration = 6 months
Diet: all food provided. Mucho gusto!
Critique #1: if my calculations are correct, we’re comparing low protein (0.675 g/kg) to adequate (1.35 g/kg) (not “high”).
The diets were decent:
Results:
Author’s conclusion was that this was due to high protein alone, but I’d say it was at least partially due to weight loss. BOTH groups lost weight and improved insulin sensitivity. Statistically significant in both groups.
Glucose (A) and insulin (B) in response to a 75g OGTT (red is high protein, blue high carb):
I still say weight loss was the primary driver, but must concede, however, that protein did have a little magical effect: high carb group actually lost slightly more weight, but insulin sensitivity improved more in the high protein group. The high protein magic: reduced insulin secretion yet still greater reduction in glycemia.
Well, maybe not magic…
Despite having more insulin, high carbers lost slightly more fat mass but way more muscle. THAT’s high protein magic lol
However, the meal tolerance tests show a slightly different trend:
We expect glucose and insulin excursions to be greater in HC (blue), because they had a high carb meal whereas the HP group had a high protein meal. From this perspective, if we graphed the results as “change from time zero,” I think the reduction in glycemia from baseline to 6 months would be similar in both groups suggesting weight loss as bigger factor. We’d still give some props to high protein because it lowered glucose just as much despite having less insulin. High protein magic.
Note to self: gotta stop saying this was “high protein.” 1.35 g/kg is not “high,” seriously. But still, High protein magic haha
Oh and one other thing, high protein usually induces greater weight loss:
Randomized trial on protein vs carbohydrate in ad libitum fat reduced diet for the treatment of obesity (Skov et al., 1999)
High protein vs high carbohydrate hypoenergetic diet for the treatment of obese hyperinsulinemic subjects (Baba et al., 1999) (not ad lib)
Comparison of high-fat and high-proein diets with a high-carbohydrate diet in insulin-resistant obese women (McAuley et al., 2005)
The effect of a low-fat, high-protein or high-carbohydrate ad libitum diiet on weight loss maintenance and metabolic risk factors (Claessens et al., 2009)
Posted in Advanced nutrition, diabetes, diet, Dietary fat, Dopamine, insulin, muscle, Protein, strength
Tagged calories proper, carbs, diet, energy balance, insulin, muscle, nutrition, protein