We receive many requests for information on supplements… and, well… it is a nebulous topic. There are a number of products that have some interesting properties and I think are worthwhile, but I always have the feeling that people are interested in a short-cut that will shore up an evening of Jumbo-Jacks, fries and too many Family Guy episodes. I’m here to tell you nothing can save you from that. Just kidding! I do want to explore some of the more promising supplements available, but before we get into that, I want to make clear where the supplements fit in a scheme to optimize performance, health and longevity.

The ground floor, as it were, is built on three pillars: Nutrition, Exercise and Lifestyle.

To get nutrition dialed in, we would like to see people adopt a scheme like that suggested by Larry Lindenman of the CrossFit message board. First get the grains, legumes and dairy out of your diet. Essentially this is a move towards food quality. Second, look towards the Zone or Metabolic Diet as a means of dialing in exactly how much food you need to run optimally. This will require some weighing and measuring, but will bring both your performance and body composition to a higher level. Once you have mastered WHAT and HOW to eat, it might be time to tinker with some intermittent fasting (IF). In the IF scheme, you compress your period of eating to a 4-8 hour window. This may create the same adaptations that occur with CRAN and longer IF bouts. If you can get that dialed in you may have done 95% of what is possible to optimize Performance, Health and Longevity. We have no direct proof of this yet, but you may in fact perform better and live a LONG time following this program. [Please make checks payable to NorCal Strength & Conditioning Inc. in the amount of $1 million]

Regarding the exercise pillar: CrossFit, Olympic weightlifting, gymnastics, sprinting, and martial arts (not lame ones… if you need help with this distinction please seek a Qualified Martial Arts Expert like Dan Silver (http://www.theartofdansilver.com/themartialartofdansilver.html) for information on how to spot a quality martial art). Do some or all of these consistently, and your training will be set.

For the lifestyle pillar: Sleep nine hours per night in the dark, brush and floss your teeth, try not to be a stress case, have many friends, and don’t be a jerk. These are amazingly simple lifestyle choices that have potent effects on health.

So we have now touched on the elements that must be in place before a supplement regime can be effective. [Excepting perhaps this first supplement, which may alone do all of this nifty stuff]


Vini, Vidi, Bivi

The French Paradox has been kicked about the scientific community for some time. The French eat a load of fat, smoke and have an odd fetish for Jerry Lewis. Somehow this seems to protect them from the scourges of modern disease. Some have ascribed this hardiness to liberal consumption of red wine and its attendant antioxidants such as resveratrol. Well, as good as resveratrol may turn out to be, it is likely a minor player in the story of why the French can thrive on a diet high in butter fat and bad American slapstick.

Resveratrol is an antioxidant that is produced by many plants, but its most famous source is grapes, which of course are used to make wine. Resveratrol (http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000B73EB-3380-13F6-B38083414B7F0000) is among a family of chemicals known as sirtuins. It may be the first of many compounds that exhibit powerful action on the mechanisms of aging. It is interesting to note that resveratrol and other sirtuins play a role in stress adaptation in plants. The production of these chemicals increases when the plants are subjected to various types of stressors. It appears that this modulation of the stress response is conserved across virtually all species as these same chemicals show similar effects on organisms as far removed from plants as yeast, flat worms, mice and perhaps humans. Resveratrol appears to act upon the very same genes that are the key players in the life extension and disease resistance seen in CRAN and IF.

So resveratrol appears to be a potential magic bullet for longevity and health. Pretty cool! In addition to—or perhaps as a subset of its life extension effects—resveratrol also has potent antioxidant, anti-tumor and neuroprotective effects.

So enough of the hard sell… how much of this stuff do you need to take to get the benefits? Resveratrol is metabolized very quickly and thus it is difficult to maintain what is regarded to be a therapeutic dose, particularly for life extension purposes. Many supplement companies offer mixed isomer capsules of resveratrol ranging in sizes from 10-100 mg. A middle dose of 50 mg seems a smart place to start, but unfortunately there is no solid information on what the optimum mg/kg dosage should be. The benefits may depend upon the dosage and some benefits may be had even at the lowest levels. It is important to note that resveratrol DOES show estrogenic activity, so it may not be a great idea to go bananas on this stuff unless you're seriously in need of elevated estrogen levels. We will be watching the literature on this one and will update you whenever pertinent information is available.

This seems like a good place for a digression. In issue 6 we looked at intermittent fasting and how to incorporate the technology of meal timing to garner some impressive benefits like enhanced lifespan, better health and maybe even better performance. The intermittent fasting research has used a protocol of eating one day and fasting one day that doubles average lifespan of the animals tested. We conjectured a bit that perhaps a higher fat diet (Paleo/Zone) and smart training might allow us to see IF benefits from simply compressing our feeding schedule to 4-6 hours of the day. We have some anecdotal evidence that this may be working and, like I have mentioned elsewhere, some indication that biomarkers like ketone bodies are being produced in people following IF. We do not know if this schedule is producing some, all or none of the benefits found in the alternate day schedule, but it makes sense that we should see some benefit, and new research is pointing towards full benefit being obtained by our compressed eating schedule.

All this considered, you might not need a huge dose of resveratrol to see additional benefits. We know for certain that being lean is associated with longevity, likely due to action on leptin and its effects on mitochondrial metabolism. Our compressed window of paleo eating may help as well. Resveratrol in large amounts has done everything we want from IF and CRAN, so it may be possible that moderate doses of resveratrol could shore up any holes in our approach. Unfortunately combining these activities will not triple or quadruple the results. Organisms that have been given a large dose of resveratrol and CRAN did not experience benefit beyond those protocols individually. Resveratrol does have the enviable quality of allowing one to maintain normal body mass while experiencing the benefits of life extension and improved health. My main point here is that all of these modalities, from IF to resveratrol to keeping a low body fat level, appear to play into improved health and longevity. That considered, it might be possible to piggyback these protocols to get the full benefit while suffering a bit less overall.


Something Fishy

Any supplement review would be laughable if it did not include fish oil, which of course contains eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA). Well, here it is! Fish oil is without doubt THE MOST IMPORTANT supplement you can take. Really it is food and belongs in the nutrition pillar mentioned previously. Consuming correct amounts of fish oil facilitates everything you want and prevents everything you don't want. In the future we may devote more time and space to this topic, but it seems a bit like reinventing the wheel when sources like the Omega Rx Zone (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060393130/104-7639792-3578342?v=glance&n=283155) exist and a simple google search can provide so much great information.


Conjugated Is Better

It is worth noting that most if not all the supplements I will mention in this piece are found in a “good” diet. By “good” I mean grass-fed meats, fresh local fruits and vegetables, etc. Grain feeding of animals and poor farming practices can minimize or even completely remove many of these nutrients that may not be technically vital to health (hence they are not called vitamins) but DO exert beneficial influences. CLA—Conjugated Linoleic Acid—certainly falls into this category. If you recall, linoleic acid is one of the essential fatty acids and happens to be an omega-6 fatty acid and the precursor to GLA (gamma linolenic acid). CLA is found in the meat and dairy of grass-fed animals and exerts a very different effect than its parent, linoleic acid.

When CLA first hit the scene, both as a supplement and in research circles, some pretty hefty claims regarding muscle gain and fat loss were made… and consequently found to be overblown. CLA does have mild positive effects on body composition, but its effects appear to be more anti-catabolic than overtly anabolic. Maybe not a big deal since few of you are likely aspiring to be bodybuilders. That said, I think most of us appreciate anything that helps maintain favorable body composition. CLA helps with this regard a little, but its main selling point from my perspective is in preventing the growth of abnormal tissues—CANCER. The anti-tumor and pro-apoptotic effects of CLA are quite clear and have been demonstrated in settings ranging from tissue culture to animal models.

So how much should you take? That is a sticky point as synthetic versions of CLA have several isomers that do not occur in nature and they appear to have some potential downsides. There are a few naturally derived sources that have high concentrations of the Cis-9, Trans 11 CLA isomer that appears to be one of the main beneficial forms of the fatty acid. Look for sources that mention this isomer and that are non-synthetic. A smart dose appears to be in the 2-4 g/day range. I like the Jarrow (http://www.jarrow.com/product.php?prodid=209) brand, but there are other companies out there. A nice way to get CLA, and a couple of the other supplements I have not gotten to yet, is to consume grass-fed meat. Pricey? Perhaps a bit, but once you start adding this supplement and that supplement to your regime the cost effectiveness of grass-fed meat becomes obvious.

It’s time for another digression! There has been a lot of hype surrounding CLA with some claims that are frankly outrageous. These claims have been focused at two main markets. The first is 17-25 year-old kids with “bacne” who will eat, drink or pop damn near anything in the pursuit of being heeeyuge. As with most of the products geared towards this crowd, the overblown claims become discredited and the product is tossed on the Fitness Scrap Heap next to 40 years of Muscle & Fiction and towering stacks of Thigh Masters. No, CLA is not a trip to Tijuana para Los Anabolicos, but it does have merit and efficacy, especially when consumed in quantities that are found in grass-fed meats. The second crowd that has fallen victim to overblown claims are those looking to shed body fat. Again, CLA does have action in this area, but it is subtle and simply popping 2 grams of CLA will not override the effects of your Dunkin Donuts. Add CLA to a smart nutrition and exercise protocol, however, and you will see some significant improvement with regards to fat loss.


Dude! I’m Amphipathic!

Alpha Lipoic Acid (ALA) is a lipid and water-soluble antioxidant that is manufactured by our cells, so it is not a vitamin, and is found is grass-fed meat. ALA plays a role as an insulin mimetic (it acts like insulin), is a key player in recharging antioxidants such as Vitamins C and E, and plays roles in glutathione production and in enhancing various aspects of liver detoxification pathways.

In his piece over at T-nation (http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1004313), Dave Barr creates what appears to be a pretty tight case for ALA not being a smart addition to your diet if the objective is to get heeeyuge. ALA does not appear to be a growth promoter and, as Dave mentions, ALA activates some of the cellular stress pathways like NFK-B… which happen to be the same cellular stress pathways we are trying to tinker with when supplementing with resveratrol or practicing intermittent fasting. ALA seems to exert potent inhibition of the key initiating elements in the inflammatory process. This effect extends to processes as seemingly unrelated as arteriosclerosis and beta-ameloid development (the protein plaques associated with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases).

But the bodybuilding crowd has taken a bit of a linear and myopic view of the whole process—linear in the sense that they don't appreciate the possibility that episodic catabolism might actually create MORE anabolism overall (remember that IF produces remarkably high levels of IGF and hGH while maintaining normal/high levels of testosterone) and myopic in the sense that no one is considering the possibility that the eating approach necessary to be heeeyuge might shorten life.

Whatever the case, you can increase your ALA status markedly by including grass-fed meat in your diet. If one is interested in supplementing ALA, 50-100 mg of the R-isomer is a prudent place to start. Many studies indicate levels as high as 600 mg/day in divided doses are highly beneficial for conditions like diabetic neuropathy, which according to the AMA has no effective treatment (http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/neuropathies/#treat).

The role of supplements should be exactly what the name suggests—a way to get into our diet the things that should be there anyway for optimal health and performance. Supplements are not a replacement for proper nutrition, training and lifestyle.

There are a few other interesting supplements that are not as important as those I have covered here. I will be looking at those on the Performance Menu blog (http://www.performancemenu.com/blog/index.php) over the coming months. We will also be looking at some substances that fall into the drug category and go by the name “nootropics”. There is simply a mind-boggling array of substances and approaches that have merit with regards to enhancing performance, health and longevity.

DOSAGE RECOMMENDATIONS

Resveratrol: 50 mg/day is a good place to start

Fish oil: Start at 2-3 g/day and evaluate your response. Increase or decrease dosage accordingly to as much as 15 g/day. [More recent research has suggested dosing this high to not be avisable - shoot for around 5g/day max. -Ed]

ALA: Start around 50-100 mg/day of R-isomer ALA.

CLA: Ignore the hype—CLA is not magic, but is effective. Use 2-4 grams/day of Cis-9, Trans 11 isomer CLA—avoid synthetic CLA.