Conditioning Research

    In response to my Pale(Br)o Science post Sol pointed to his (?) website Examine.com which I have been checking out.  Examine.com is a science-focused compendium on supplements, nutrition, fitness, and health.  Akin to Wikipedia, we are a site that allows people to contribute to the site. Unlike Wikipedia, we have editors that oversee and approve all content. There is all sorts of stuff on there, well referenced and researched and well worth reading and referring to.

h/t OldHolborn

Scientists do some great studies..... Effect of Sleep on Excessive Belching: A 24-Hour Impedance-pH Study. or this one about fart gas Methane and the Gastrointestinal Tract.

I saw this excellent joke on the Crossfit NYC blog . This is of course worth remembering when reading scientific studies. Just because x goes up if y goes up it doesn't mean that y causes x to go up. There are lots of examples especially in the world of diet.....

This is quite disturbing...... Junkfood science points out an effort by scientists specialising in......obesity ......to have it classified as a disease. · Obesity is a complex condition with many causal contributors, including genetic ones and many environmental factors that are largely beyond individuals’ abilities to choose or control. · Obesity causes much suffering. · Obesity causally leads to many aspects of ill health, to functional impairment and reduced quality of life, to serious disease, and to greater mortality... · Obese persons are subject to severe societal discrimination.. That doesn't make it a disease!

If you thought that GM food was a little sinister, then you will be appalled by the implications of an article in the Guardian today. It looked at the science of nanotechnology and how it could revolutionise food. How do you fancy tucking into a bowl of ice cream that has no more fat than a carrot? Or eating a burger that will lower your cholesterol? If you are allergic to peanuts, perhaps you'd like to fix your food so that any nut traces pass harmlessly through your body. Welcome to the world of nanofoods, where almost anything is possible: where food can be manipulated at an atomic or molecular level to taste as delicious as you want, do you as much good as you want, and stay fresh for ... well, who knows? A world where smart pesticides are harmless until they reach the stomachs of destructive insects; where food manufacturers promise an end to starvation; where smart packaging sniffs out and destroys the micro-organisms that make good food go bad. In short, a food heaven to th...

Peter over at the Hyperlipid blog has put up a good post tracking through some recent papers showing again and again that scientists keep reporting that low cholesterol levels are associated with cancer and indeed "with all-cause mortality, showing significant associations with death through cancer, liver diseases, and mental diseases." Of course, the scientists really don't like to admit this..... Check it out at Colorectal cancer and cholesterol

Here is another one of those pieces of research that seem almost obvious: In summary, if the coach wants to maximize the athlete performance in 1 specific resistance exercise, this exercise should be placed at the beginning of the training session. So if you want to improve your deadlift......do it first before you get tired. OK so far, so good, so straightforward. There is something buried in this abstract that is quite interesting though - the research asserts that "preexhaustion" training - beloved of "high-intensity" bodybuilders etc - isn't worth doing? Our findings suggest that performing pre-exhaustion exercise is no more effective in increasing the activation of the prefatigued muscles during the multi-joint exercise. Effects of Exercise Order on Upper-Body Muscle Activation and Exercise Performance ABSTRACT Effects of exercise order on upper-body muscle activation and exercise performance. J. Strength Cond. Res. 21(4):1082–1086. 2007.— With the pur...

This comes from Dr Briffa : Conventional medical thinking is that high levels of cholesterol in the blood stream cause ‘atherosclerosis’ – a furring up of the arteries through the build of fatty deposits there. Atherosclerosis is believed to be the underlying process in pretty much all heart attacks, and about 85 per cent of strokes (15 per cent of strokes are caused by bleeding rather than vessel blockage). Logic would dictate that the if cholesterol causes atherosclerosis, then higher levels of cholesterol should increase the risk of both heart disease and stroke deaths. The fact that this appears not to be the case appears to have left the researchers who unearthed this data a little nonplussed. Read more......

I've said before that I am a cholesterol sceptic and I've also pointed towards Dr Malcolm Kendrick. There is a related argument here, again that low cholesterol is a problem: Low cholesterol levels and premature babies This is on a similar theme, but a bit funnier: While I do not think that saturated fat is bad, the evidence is mounting that there may be problems associated with (too many) carbs and carbs of the wrong type .

I like it when I look through the different abstracts that I get to find interesting bits and bobs for this blog, and come across something totally random and a bit odd. Now I've noted before that there is now a little debate about whether or not antioxidants are really good for you or not. Well OK, but if you accept the orthodoxy you will be aware that there are occasionally stories that tell us that chocolate / cocoa is good for you because it contains all sorts of (supposedly) beneficial antioxidants and polyphenols etc. However, what happens when you make a coca drink? You put milk in! But does adding milk ruin the cocoa's benefits? In this study scientists helpfully thought about that and decided to see whether or not adding milk was a good or a bad thing in terms of the antioxidants. Fascinating! Read on: The effect of milk protein on the bioavailability of cocoa polyphenols. In order to determine whether milk proteins interact with cocoa polyphenols to modulate t...

Just thought I'd flag up a really interesting site / blog that I have come across. It is worth putting in your RSS feed Behind the headlines Behind the headlines provides an unbiased and evidence-based analysis of health stories that make the news. Each day the NHS Choices team selects health stories that are making headlines. These, along with the scientific articles behind the stories, are sent to Bazian, a leading provider of evidence-based healthcare information. Bazian's clinicians and scientists analyse the research and produce impartial evidence-based assessments, which are edited and published by NHS Choices. It is from the NHS so it is pretty orthodox - you won't see them bigging up low carb diets or supporting cholesterol sceptics like me, but the scientists there do a good job at analysing the various health stories that are hitting the headlines and giving a better - and more critical - idea of what they actually say. You might be interested in their take ...

Sometimes we expect scientific research to give us clear answers and prescriptions. Unfortunately science is not always that helpful. Take this research - the conclusion is basically that ..... "it all depends on the individual!" Still, note that there are again clear benefits from high intensity interval exercises. I'll try to get hold of the full paper and see what else it says. Nonconsecutive- versus Consecutive-Day High-Intensity Interval Training in Cyclists. APPLIED SCIENCES Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 39(9):1666-1671, September 2007. GROSS, MICAH; SWENSEN, THOMAS; KING, DEBORAH Abstract : Purpose : We compared the effects of a high-intensity interval training (HIT) program completed on three consecutive or nonconsecutive days per week for 3 wk on V[spacing dot above]O2peak, peak aerobic power output (PPOa), and 5-km time trial (TT5k) performance in trained cyclists. Methods : Fifteen trained cyclists completed a TT5k and an incremental test...

That is maybe a strange title for something on this blog where so often I just quote a scientific article's abstract. However I often do not put much commentary up and would like you to think about. We need to be a bit sceptical about the science and the motivation and presuppostions of those who are writing. I have my own presuppositions and bias for example - I am putting things up here that support my position : intense infrequent exercise; a lower carb / paleo diet; occasional intermittent fasting; the need for functional movements; and an accessible approach that fits into the average person's everyday life. However there are probably scientific articles out there that would disagree with what I am saying. I was reminded of all this by a post by Michael Eades that you should read. He refers to a recent study that got a bit of publicity. From his point of view (and mine to be honest) it was from the Dark Side - it said that red meat was bad and eating it could l...

I can see this study on advertising material already.....In case you are wondering, I am not a big fan of supplements. I tend to see them as over priced placebos generaly bought by desperate young men who haven't yet realised that the reason that Mr X or Mr Y is a top bodybuilder or rugby player or whatever, is due to genetics and often a more serious intervention than a protein shake. They also do not fit into my aim of eating a "natural" diet. I suppose there is a lesson here about the value of er.....food! Effects of a multi-nutrient supplement on exercise performance and hormonal responses to resistance exercise Abstract The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of a comprehensive multi-component nutritional supplement on performance, hormonal, and metabolic responses to an acute bout of resistance exercise. Nine healthy subjects ingested either Muscle Fuel™ (MF) or a matched placebo (PL) for 7 days. Subjects then reported to the laboratory, ingest...