Conjugated Linoleic Acid (CLA), is a naturally occurring free fatty acid found mainly in meat and dairy products, in small amounts. CLA was accidentally discovered back in 1978 by Michael W. Pariza at the U of Wis. CLA occurs naturally in foods such as milk, cheese, beef, and lamb as well as many processed foods.

Research has proven that CLA helps build muscle, reduce body fat, and induce an optimum cellular environment for improved health! Since this research has surfaced, a more economical and efficient way to get the required amount of CLA has been developed. Through advanced lipid technology, a CLA synthesizing process allows for proper dosage through supplementation. Allowing for precise CLA intake throughout the day without the high calorie food consumption. Not only has CLA been shown to increase muscle mass while reducing body fat, studies have also shown remarkable anti-catabolic, antioxidant, and immune enhancement benefits.

In the past most performance nutrition experts ignored fats, assuming they didn’t have any useful role in nutrition. Instead, experts focused on the protein-sparing and energy-producing effects of carbohydrates, and studied how amino acids and various proteins might affect nitrogen retention, anabolism, and catabolism. Nutritionists have now shown us how fatty acids are not only essential for proper health, but also how their use may have numerous positive effects. The consensus now is that fatty acids will directly influence the body’s growth-promoting hormones.

Pariza, director of the Food Research Institute at the University of Wisconsin said, “A growing body of data indicates that CLA is a newly recognized nutrient that functions to regulate energy retention and metabolism.” CLA can best be described as a Growth Factor.

CLA has a affect on food intake efficiency, and has been shown in studies to increase growth rate through increased efficiency. In controlled studies, animals that had their diets supplemented with CLA increased their lean muscle tissue while at the same time, had a significant decrease in body fat. This all occurred while supplementing their diet with CLA, while food intake was decreased. The lean mass increased even though they were eating less! This indicates that CLA increases feed efficiency and also points to a potent nutrient repartitioning effect.

This significant change in body composition can also be attributed in part to CLA’s effect on immune function. CLA has been shown to inhibit the lean tissue wasting caused by high levels of these cytokines.

CLA may be the most significant bodybuilding nutrient discovered in this decade. With anti-catabolic effects rivaling even the strongest pharmaceutical compounds, CLA is a naturally occurring nutrient with the ability to help you pack on lean muscle, reduce body fat and at the same time possesses health-promoting properties.

The athlete looking to add more muscle and drop body fat, CLA is a unique discovery that will make accomplishing this easier and faster, along with having the positive effects on immune function and antioxidant status.

The amount of CLA that is typically found in capsules or softgels is between 600 mg and 1000 mg. All preliminary evidence shows that CLA is nontoxic and safe at recommended dosages, which range from 3,500-5,000 milligrams a day depending on body weight.

With all this said imagine what would happen if you added strength training to this. I will have information on increasing strength using “Time Under Tension” and more on other supplements next post.

-Don

Tags: CLA, Fitness, Fatloss, Muscle,

I came across this article on ABC news website and I think it is a good lead to my next post. The article is titled “A Good Trans Fat?” by Keith-Thomas Ayoob.
This article is a good introduction into talking about CLA (conjugated linoleic acid) a fat that helps with lowering LDL cholesterol and many believe in CLA’s ability to help with fat loss. This article will help with a better understanding of the different kinds of fats, and the effects they have, also where to find them. I will go into more detail in a post tomorrow on CLA and CLA supplements. Here is the link to the article, read and learn.

A ‘Good Trans Fat?’ Story at ABCnews.com

Last post I mentioned the Krebs cycle, the body’s energy cycle. There are a few things that help you increase the efficiency of the Krebs cycle in turn improving your energy levels during your workouts. There are a couple of minerals in certain forms that will help with improving energy and  with muscle endurance. Magnesium will help increase energy; works even better as citrate, taurinate, glycinate, malate and succinate forms.

What it does:

Magnesium is an essential mineral, necessary for producing and storing energy (ATP), allowing muscles to relax, activating over 300 key metabolic enzymes, controlling calcium levels in bones and teeth, and regulating electrical activity in nerve cells. Potassium is the other important mineral that aids in energy and muscle contraction.

What it does:

Potassium is a mineral that, in combination with sodium and calcium, helps maintain normal heart rhythm, regulates the body’s water balance, and is responsible for the conduction of nerve impulses and the contraction of muscles. Potassium as aspartate, succinate, citrate, malate, ascorbate, glycinate, fumarate, and ketoglutarate  are the forms that work best for churning the Krebs cycle and helping with ATP production.(additional AKG (Alpha- Ketoglutarate) will also help with energy)

Chromium is also an important factor in this formula:
Chromium is a trace element, which may work closely with insulin to help facilitate the uptake of glucose into cells. I recommend the as polynicotinate (Chromate) form which is a niacin bound form. Chromium will help with the glucose conversion in the Krebs cycle to ATP in the mitochondria for energy.

Other Aids:

Alpha-Lipoic Acid is a powerful antioxidant that is soluble in both fat and water. It directly recycles vitamin C and indirectly recycles vitamin E, providing additional antioxidant protection. It is also an important component in the energy production process in the cells. Alpha-lipoic acid is a coenzyme that assists in the conversion of pyruvate to acetyl-coA. Acetyl-coA is the beginning point for the Krebs cycle, one of the body’s main energy production cycles, which produces the high-energy molecule ATP. Alpha-lipoic acid supports the immune system and also supports healthy liver function.

L-Carnitine is an amino acid found in high levels in muscle tissue. Carnitine plays an essential role in fat metabolism, by transporting long-chain fatty acids into the mitochondria of the cell, where they are burned for energy in a process called beta-oxidation. Beta-oxidation is especially important for our muscles, which largely depend on fatty acids for energy.

Coenzyme Q10 (ubiquinone) is essential to human life. It plays a role in the electron transport chain, one of the body’s energy-producing cycles that convert food into energy. There are several benefits to taking Co-Q10 besides for increase energy, which I will discuss in another post.

B-Complex also helps with the Krebs cycle and some Vitamin C as well.

This is a great combination for increasing energy without adding caffeine or other central nervous system stimulates. I would look for formulas with this combination or most of it in one. Here are a few that are close by Source Naturals Life Spark Metabolic Energizer, Triathlete, Muscle Dynamo or K-Mag KG which is a combination of the essential minerals potassium and magnesium with alpha-ketoglutaric acid (AKG). I haven’t found one that has them all, but close. I would give this a try and see if it helps, without interfering with the other important part of training “sleep.”

NADH is a acronym for Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide which is a coenzyme also known as coenzyme 1. This coenzyme is pivotal in cellular-energy production and helps the with ATP production in the cells, the most elemental form of energy. The human heart contains 90 microgram of NADH for every 1 gram of tissue. The body continually synthesizes NADH to keep up with this demand, and makes it from niacin, nicotinamide or a B-complex, because niacin is needed for its production. NADH is combined with O2 to form water and energy (ATP). This is done in the mitochondria, your body’s furnace.

The more NADH available the more energy produced. Every one of the body’s energy-consuming processes needs ATP, thus it needs NADH. The areas in the body that uses the most ATP are the brain and the muscles, including the heart. Food sources for NADH are red meat, poultry and yeast (nutritional). Vegetables are not as high in NADH as animal tissue, but heat destroys it in cooked food or food production. Eating raw fruits and veggies or sprinkling yeast on food are ways to increase it in your diet. You can supplement a B-complex, niacin or go straight for the NADH supplement, which is “Enada NADH” by patent trademark. There are several companies that are licensed to sell it in different strengths anywhere from 2.5 mg to 10 mg are being sold.

I will get more into how much to take along with other supplements that churn the “Krebs Cycle” your body’s energy cycle. Next week. I will also try to update a little more. Now with the weight loss contest going on at the Tri-Cities Family YMCA and being on the team for the Tribune I am looking for ways to increase my energy without more caffeine.

- Don

Using MSM for a natural pain reliever and anti-inflammatory supplement.

MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane) is a form of dietary “organic” sulfur that the body can absorb and use. Sulfur is the fourth most abundant mineral present in the human body, and MSM is an excellent source of sulfur. Sulfur helps with the integrity of ligaments, tendons, skin, but most important at a cellar level, with the cell wall. MSM has been shown to help relieve inflammation and muscle cramping.

One of the significant uses of MSM is as a pain reliever, due to its ability to help with systematic inflammatory disorders. People have reported substantial and long lasting pain relief of inflammation stemming from arthritis, while supplementing with MSM, taking doses from 100 mg up to 6000 mg of the supplement. This effect is in part due to the ability of MSM to sustain cell flow-through. MSM helps by allowing harmful substances like “Lactic Acid” to flow out of the cell, while allowing nutrients to flow in. This will aid in preventing pressure build up within the cell, causing inflammation in joints and the soft tissue of the body.

Now for the sports enthusiasts, hard training athlete, or the average baby boomer, MSM will help with ligament and tendon integrity. MSM does this by improving the flexibility of the protein layers of cell walls. This allows fluids to pass through more easily to help equalize the pressure and reducing or eliminating the cause of the inflammation and the cause of the pain. MSM treats the cause not just the symptom.

MSM has also shown remarkable ability to reducing or eliminate muscle soreness, leg and back cramps. This is great for the person who is starting or restarting a workout regime with the soreness, stiffness associated with coming off a long period of inactivity.

The MSM, I found to be of highest quality is labeled OptiMSM, and this could be under different brand names like Source Naturals, Country Life, Douglas Labs to name a few. Here is a link for other brands: OptiMSM Brands OptiMSM is manufactured in the U.S. and rigorously third-party tested to ensure purity. I found a noticeable difference in how well it worked, along with safety in the manufacturing process. (i.e. made China stuff) If it is OptiMSM, it will say OptiMSM on the bottle.

After several years of heavy weight training, martial arts and stage diving, slam dancing, (Wikipedia see “Punk Rock”) MSM has found a home in my supplement regime, along with a few others. I will talk a little more about MSM in the next post, along with NADH, CoQ10, for natural energy boost without caffeine.

Don

Ref: Gastelu, D. (1999) Avery’s Sports Nutrition Almanac.

How Small is Small When it Comes to Risk and Our Health?

This makes me glad that I quit eating meat and became a Vegetarian 8 years ago. I posted this link, because people had some great comments on the topic. I would be upset (mad) if my child had been served meat from sick cows in school.

Small Risk of Danger From Beef Recall
Food Safety Experts Say Recalled Beef Poses Little Risk to Humans

By LAUREN COX Feb. 19, 2008

The health risks from Sunday’s nationwide beef recall are minimal, according to food safety experts, despite the massive amount of meat involved in the largest such recall in U.S. history.

Click Here To Get The Full Story At ABC News

I have read several articles on high-fructose corn syrup over the past 12-15 years and they all end the same, “don’t use it.” Today I am going to look at the issue that Dr Nicholas Perricone talks about in the book “7 Secretes to Beauty, Health, and Longevity” with its affect on rise in obesity for both children and adults. Dr. Perricone points out the coloration between the rise in obesity and the introduction of high-fructose in the 1970s.

Dr. Perricone mention that prior to the 70s popular soft drinks like Coke and Pepsi contain natural cane sugar, but after the introduction of HFCS this changed. The average size of such drinks also went from 6 oz. to 12, 16, 20 and even 32 oz., which aided in the increase of HFCS consumption to 1,000% between 1970 and 1990. This is higher than any other food or food group. HFCS is now 40% of the caloric intake from sweeteners used and the only sweetener in the most popular soft drinks sold in the U.S. This use of HFCS as a sweetener in most of the sweeten beverages and foods sold. This has set us up for calorie over-consumption.(Perricone)

What is the difference between HFCS and sugar as sweeteners? They are both simple sugars. HFCS and sugar will both cause a “pro-inflammatory” spike in our blood sugar. Right? Perricone points out, that unlike glucose, HFCS does not stimulate insulin secretion or enhance leptin production. These are the key hormones that regulate appetite. These hormones are the signal for the brain to regulate food intake and body weight. HFCS has the ability to bypass this metabolic process and allowing us to easily over eat and gain weight.

The other long-term damage due to the different digestive and absorptive breakdown of glucose and HFCS (fructose) could contribute to heart and liver problems as well. Fructose converts to fat and cholesterol in the liver. HFCS causes increase in triglycerides levels in the blood stream. These are not the only issues with HFCS and corn syrup we need to worry about.

The other issue with the growing use of HFCS is the increase of traces of the herbicide atrazine in America’s streams, rivers and our food. This herbicide has been banned in the European Union, because it is a suspected carcinogen and endocrine disruptor in humans. 70% of America’s cornfields are treated with this toxic chemical.

Perricone is not praising the use of sugar. He considers it to be toxic for the body as well, but for a sweetener the choice, should be a “natural” choice. I would recommend raw sugar or evaporated cane juice, which still contain the trace minerals needed for better metabolism of the sweetener. Perricone also mentions that HFCS is not the same as the natural occurring fructose from fresh fruit.

I recommend reading labels of common products like catsup, beverages, barbeque sauce, and make the choice of natural sweeteners over the artificial sweeteners or HFCS.

So like all the other articles I’ve read on high-fructose corn syrup, I will end with, “don’t use it” and make the world a better place, one cell at a time.

Don

Ref: (Perricone, Nicholas M.D.) “7 Secretes to Beauty, Health, and Longevity”
2006 Ballantine Books, New York.

I came across a couple spots on Good Morning America over the last couple weeks, and thought that they could be of interest to all of the baby boomers and gen X people out there. I found them to be very informative, and I even identified with the topics as well. They are with Drs. Oz and Roizen on aging.

Excerpt: “You: Staying Young”

New Book From Drs. Oz and Roizen Tell You How to Stay Young

Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is known to millions as Oprah’s go-to guy on all things medical, has a new book aimed at keeping you younger, longer.

The rest of the story and more..

Toys recalled, how do you feel?

There has been yet another recall of toys that have been manufactured in China. I am curious as to why we have to put up with this. Our children are at risk and now it is not only the lead paint in some “Slum Lords” apartment or house in the neglected area of an inner city or some poor rural town, that we need to worry about. Now it is all children who play with anything other than their own imagination as well.

We pay good money for toys that we expect to be safe, but the trend to send jobs overseas to lower manufacturing cost (but not lower retail prices), and to increase profits for the investors of those companies has also caused an increase in unsafe toys and other products. Not only has this caused an increase in lost jobs here, but now has put our children at increased risk too. We as parents and citizens, consumers have to call them on it. We need to demand better inspection of products coming in to the country, along with harsh “$” penalties for not catching the problems before they hit the shelves.

I am putting the links at the end of this post, to a couple of “Watchdog Groups” and Government Agencies that will help us keep better informed.

I also would like to know people’s feelings and their comments about this RASH of recalls and TOXIC Waste being imported here by the Corporations, Distributors, and Large Retailers. Really, how do you feel about this?

- Don

consumersreports.org
Consumer Watchdog
U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission
EPA

I decided to post this story to give more people a chance to read it. The story will be here longer than on the World News Page. This is a important health related story, so it fits here. The list of toys is huge, and our kids most likely played with them either at home or perhaps at daycare. This opens up the whole subject of outsourced manufacturing, and buying U.S. made only products. Oh that reminds me Wal-Mart opened today……
Don

Fisher-Price to recall almost a million toys.

Published in the Grand Haven Tribune
Thu, Aug 2, 2007

BY ANNE D’INNOCENZIO AND NATASHA T. METZLER

Associated Press Writers

WASHINGTON — Toy-maker Fisher-Price is recalling 83 types of toys — including the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters — because their paint contains excessive amounts of lead.

The worldwide recall involves 967,000 plastic preschool toys made by a Chinese vendor and sold in the United States between May and August. It is the latest in a wave of recalls that has heightened global concern about the safety of Chinese-made products.

The recall is the first for Fisher-Price Inc. and parent company Mattel Inc. involving lead paint. It is the largest for Mattel since 1998 when Fisher-Price had to yank about 10 million Power Wheels from toy stores.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, David Allmark, general manager of Fisher-Price, said the problem was detected by an internal probe and reported to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Fisher-Price and the commission issued statements saying parents should keep suspect toys away from children and contact the company.

The commission works with companies to issue recalls when it finds consumer goods that can be harmful. Under current regulations, children’s products found to have more than .06 percent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.

Allmark says the recall was “fast-tracked,” which allowed the company to quarantine two-thirds of the toys before they even made it to store shelves. In negotiating details of the recall, Fisher-Price and the government agreed to withhold details from the public until Thursday to give stores time to get suspect toys off shelves and Fisher-Price time to get its recall hot line up and running.

Allmark said the recall was troubling because Fisher-Price has had a long-standing relationship with the Chinese vendor, which had applied decorative paint to the toys. Allmark said the company would use this recall as an opportunity to put even better systems in place to monitor vendors whose conduct does not meet Mattel’s standards.

He added: “We are still concluding the investigation, how it happened. … But there will be a dramatic investigation on how this happened. We will learn from this.”

The recall follows another high-profile move from toy maker RC2 Corp., which in June voluntarily recalled 1.5 million wooden railroad toys and set parts from its Thomas & Friends Wooden Railway product line. The company said that the surface paint on certain toys and parts made in China between January 2005 and April 2006 contain lead, affecting 26 components and 23 retailers.

Carter Keithley, president of the Toy Industries Association, praised Mattel’s quick response to the problem, and suggested Mattel will use this setback as a lesson for not only the company but for the entire industry. However, he expressed concern about how the recall and other toy recalls will play out in consumers’ minds in advance of the holiday season.

Owners of a recalled toy can exchange it for a voucher for another product of the same value. To see pictures of the recalled toys, visit http://www.service.mattel.com. For more information, call Mattel’s recall hot line at 800-916-4498.