Conditioning Research

via Science Daily In a paper published May 17 in Cell Metabolism, scientists from Salk's Regulatory Biology Laboratory reported that mice limited to eating during an 8-hour period are healthier than mice that eat freely throughout the day, regardless of the quality and content of their diet. The study sought to determine whether obesity and metabolic diseases result from a high-fat diet or from disruption of metabolic cycles. The abstract is at Time-Restricted Feeding without Reducing Caloric Intake Prevents Metabolic Diseases in Mice Fed a High-Fat Diet

A new review has jsut been published looking at the ability of caloric restriction (CR) to improve multiple parameters of health and to extend lifespan. The whole thing is available as a PDF .  I've not read it yet but if you are interested in the subject there might be material of use to you. Impact of caloric and dietary restriction regimens on markers of health and longevity in humans and animals: A summary of available findings

Just to draw attention to this one: Late-onset intermittent fasting dietary restriction as a potential intervention to retard age-associated brain function impairments in male rats.

An interesting one for those of us with an interest in intermittent fasting Alternate-day fasting reverses the age-associated hypertrophy phenotype in rat heart by influencing the ERK and PI3K signaling pathways.  In this context, ........... ADF (alternate day fasting) , might help to reduce pathological hypertrophy stimuli and to rescue an important cardioprotective pathway, possibly opening new preventive and therapeutic perspectives in age-related heart failure.

This abstract looks interesting (and I know it is rats...and you really need to read the whole study....) Benefits from calorie restriction while maintaining decent protein intake.  I wonder if they would get the same benefits from IF (intermittent fasting)? Effect of fast dietary proteins on muscle protein synthesis rate and muscle strength in ad libitum-fed and energy-restricted old rats.

For those of us with an interest in fasting - like the 2 Meal Solution for example -will find this interesting.  I've pointed in the past  ( here and here ) to studies that indicate that fasting might be a good tactic in caner treatment. Fasting vs dietary restriction in cellular protection and cancer treatment: from model organisms to patients. The dietary recommendation for cancer patients receiving chemotherapy, as described by the American Cancer Society, is to increase calorie and protein intake. Yet, in simple organisms, mice, and humans, fasting-no calorie intake-induces a wide range of changes associated with cellular protection, which would be difficult to achieve even with a cocktail of potent drugs. In mammals, the protective effect of fasting is mediated, in part, by an over 50% reduction in glucose and insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-I) levels. Because proto-oncogenes function as key negative regulators of the protective changes induced by fasting, cells e...

While I think such long life is probably just a Black Swan, random thing, I thought this was interesting: World's oldest man dies at 114 - Walter Breuning was born in 1896 and put his longevity down to eating just two meals a day and working for as long as he could Sounds like the 2 meal solution works....

I spotted this one today. Periodic Fasting Improves Blood Lipids More support for the benefits of intermittent fasting (like the 2 Meal Solution or Eat Stop Eat )

Here are a couple of other apps for the iPhone that I've been playing with.  Both are free : The Gymboss Interval Timer -  simple, flexible interval timer.    There are some programmed intervals and also the option to set up your own.  Basic, straightforward and it works. IF Timer -  a very simple timer that you can set up to time your fasting.  Click when you finish your last meal and choose how long you will be fasting.  It tells you how long you have left and how long the fast has lasted.  Basic....you could use your watch.....but it was free!  Perfect for Eat Stop Eat style fasts .

Spotted this one this morning: Big Breakfast Generally Doesn't Help Weight Loss Dr Volker Schusdziarra, from the Else-Kröner-Fresenius Center of Nutritional Medicine, conducted a study on over 300 people who were asked to keep a journal of what they usually ate. Within the group sometimes people ate a big breakfast, sometimes small, and sometimes skipped it all together. Schusdziarra said that "the results of the study showed that people ate the same at lunch and dinner, regardless of what they had for breakfast," this means that a big breakfast (on average 400kcal greater than a small breakfast) resulted in a total increase in calories eaten over the day of about 400kcal. The only difference seen was the skipping of a mid morning snack when someone ate a really big breakfast, however this was not enough to offset the extra calories they had already eaten.  Interesting stuff....but nothing new.  Time to check out Leangains or the 2 Meal Solution .... Mike's 2 ...

This is from wikipedia: Hormesis (from Greek hórmēsis "rapid motion, eagerness," from ancient Greek hormáein "to set in motion, impel, urge on") is the term for generally-favorable biological responses to low exposures to toxins and other stressors. A pollutant or toxin showing hormesis thus has the opposite effect in small doses as in large doses. A related concept is Mithridatism, which refers to the willful exposure to toxins in an attempt to develop immunity against them. Favourable responses to stressors.  That is interesting.  One of the things that Erwan talked about this weekend was the benefit of occaisional hardship or challenge, for example exposure to cold or missing a meal ( intermittent fasting anyone ?)  I've had stuff up here before about cold showers . I thought of all this again when I saw this abstract. Inflammatory modulation of exercise salience: using hormesis to return to a healthy lifestyle The whole study is available as a pd...

Fasted training is an idea that pops up a lot among the paleo crowd.  Art DeVany is supportive for example.  Anyway, in that context I thought this was interesting.....as I read it you recover better if you train fasted. Comments?  Training in the fasted state facilitates re-activation of eEF2 activity during recovery from endurance exercise Nutrition is an important co-factor in exercise-induced training adaptations in muscle. We compared the effect of 6 weeks endurance training (3 days/week, 1–2 h at 75% VO2peak) in either the fasted state (F; n = 10) or in the high carbohydrate state (CHO, n = 10), on Ca2+-dependent intramyocellular signalling in young male volunteers. Subjects in CHO received a carbohydrate-rich breakfast before each training session, as well as ingested carbohydrates during exercise. Before (pretest) and after (posttest) the training period, subjects performed a 2 h constant-load exercise bout (~70% of pretest VO2peak) while ingesting carbohydr...

I first came across Patrick Diver via the Body By Science Blog where he was commenting regularly and posting some videos of his training.  I was intrigued at a high level endurance athlete training with  short HIT style sessions.  That led to this interview.  I hope you enjoy it and get as much from it as I have.  There is some great material in here! Patrick , normally in these interviews I start off by asking a little about your background: how you got into training and how you developed your particular approach.  Who are you? Pushing Hard on the bike Hi Chris, my name is Patrick Diver and I’ve had a personal training business, Greyhound Fitness , for nearly 9 years now in Orlando, Florida. I also have a couple other websites including patrickdiver.com a nd fitnessgod.com.  The latter, funny URL and all, has a new weblog I just started (also to be found at patrickdiver.blogspot.com ).   As far as philosophy is concerned, first ...

 What do you do about baldness? This one may seem a bit different from the normal posts, but bear with me:   it is relevant and has lots of connection with the sort of diet and life principles that I tend to highlight here.    The Healthy Hair Diet The other day Danny contacted me to ask if I'd like to review his new book - The Healthy Hair Diet .  Now I've been reading Danny's blog for a while learning of how he had been seeking a valid and effective treatment for baldness.    I was interested in his research and recommendations so was happy to agree to review his new book on this blog.  He has been on quite a journey with stops at a carnivorous diet and also a paleo approach before he got here. So what do you get? THHD is sold as a pdf file, at 109 pages, 20 of which contain the 260 references which Danny uses to support the arguments he is making.  I used to be a bit ambivalent towards pdf books, finding paper easi...

Mike O'Donnel has been around the internet for a while writing about several things but particularly Intermittent Fasting.   A couple of years ago I bought his book - The IF Life - and enjoyed it very much as a good accessible introduction to the science and practice of intermittent fasting. He has spent a lot of time recently updating his book.  It is now called The 2 Meal Solution .   As a previous customer I got a free update. It is really a totally new book and I would really recommend that you check it our - definitely worth the money. What I like about the book is that it doesn't make IF the solution to all your problems - it is clear that there are times when it might not be a good idea.  Like Robb Wolf it emphasises that sometimes IF cold be an additional stressor that you don't need.  The idea of 2 meals is also a nice take on IF, stressing the eating not the fasting. The historical quotes are interesting too, putting a case forward that in many...

interesting..... The Effects of Consuming Frequent, Higher Protein Meals on Appetite and Satiety During Weight Loss in Overweight/Obese Men The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of dietary protein and eating frequency on perceived appetite and satiety during weight loss. A total of 27 overweight/obese men (age 47 ± 3 years; BMI 31.5 ± 0.7 kg/m2) were randomized to groups that consumed an energy-restriction diet (i.e., 750 kcal/day below daily energy need) as either higher protein (HP, 25% of energy as protein, n = 14) or normal protein (NP, 14% of energy as protein, n = 13) for 12 weeks. Beginning on week 7, the participants consumed their respective diets as either 3 eating occasions/day (3-EO; every 5 h) or 6 eating occasions/day (6-EO; every 2 h), in randomized order, for 3 consecutive days. Indexes of appetite and satiety were assessed every waking hour on the third day of each pattern. Daily hunger, desire to eat, and preoccupation with thoughts of food were...

(apologies for any offense to the Irish). Here is one for Brad Pilon Nice joke on Intermittent Fasting: An Irishman was very overweight, and so his doctor put him on a diet. "I want you to eat regularly for 2 days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for 2 weeks. The next time I see you, you should have lost at least 5 pounds. When the Irishman returned, he shocked the doctor by having lost nearly 60lbs! "Why, that's amazing!" the doctor said, "Did you follow my instructions?" The Irishman nodded..."I'll tell you though, by jaesuz, I t'aut I were going to drop dead on dat 3rd day." "From the hunger, you mean?" asked the doctor. "No, from all the bloody skippin"

Now I don't think cholesterol is evil... in fact I am a fan ....but spotted this the other day. I have not had much up here about intermittent fasting / IF for a while. (For those interested I like both Brad Pilon and Martin Berkhan 's approaches). Anyway, this report indicates that fasting prompts an enzyme that turns off the body's generation of fats and cholesterol. As I said I don't think dietary cholesterol is a problem, and I'd disagree with some of the stuff in the article about a high fat diet, but this is an interesting finding for those who practice intermittent fasting. When Food Intake Stops, Enzyme Turns Off Production of Fats, Cholesterol "This study is significant because it explains the signals that tell the body to burn fat in response to fasting or dieting," says David Sinclair, PhD, a professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School (HMS) who helped discover the genes that code for sirtuins but was not involved with this MGH-led stu...

Here is an interesting study that indicates that Intermittent Fasting - as prescribed in Brad Pilon's Eat Stop Eat - works well for fat loss. ( Interviewed Brad Pilon here ) There are some good thoughts on the study here from the researchers: The results defy the notion that fasting or dieting leads to gorging later; they also counter the idea that people have a genetically determined set point weight. However, the study suggests a new strategy for losing weight. Although chronic lifestyle changes (eating healthier foods and getting more exercise) are preferable ways to lose weight, Levitsky said, a weekly fast might be another way to go. Since it takes 10 to 14 days to recover the body tissue lost from a one-day fast, "Going without food for one day each week should produce a significant reduction in body weight over time," Levitsky said, now that we know that "fasting does not lead to overeating, and total recovery of body tissue does not occur within the week....

I haven't had anything on fasting for a while, but just spotted this: Fasting and cancer treatment in humans: A case series report Fasting while having chemotherapy seems to lessen some of the side effects.