The Official Aminogen Blog

Can Strength Training Make You Smarter?

Research shows that weight lifting may help brain cells to grow.

Scientists found that lifting weights increases levels of insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1), which in turn promotes the growth, survival and differentiation of neurons. They also found that weight lifting reduced homocysteine levels in older men. Elevated levels of homocysteine are associated with impaired cognitive performance and diseases like Alzheimer's.

A study from the Archives Internal Medicine recently reported that resistance training improved cognitive and functional brain function in older adults suspected of mild cognitive impairment.

A second study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that women ages 65-75 who did strength training 1-2 hours weekly for a year showed a 10-12% improvement on tests of cognitive function.

Typical Cognitive Decline, or, Take All the Help You Can Get

To put this strength training's influence in perspective, women in the same study who practiced stretching and balancing exercises for the same year, but did not strength train, actually experienced a slight decline (0.5%) in executive function. Typical cognitive decline with age over a ten year period averages -9.6% for men and -7.4% for women.

For a great collection of studies and more information on how your muscles affect your brain, check out the Franklin Institute's webpage on the topic. You'll look smarter just reading it.

Reminder: For informational purposes only. Always consult your doctor or health care provider before beginning any exercise program.

 

A New Year and A New Reason to Love Your Protein

Welcome back!

It has been a while since my last post, but what better way to begin the new year on the Aminogen blog than with some  truly exciting protein research, hot off the presses?

Let's get right to it. We know that in addition to being important for your muscles, bones and immune system, protein increases satiety and decreases hunger hormones. 

Now, a study in Neuron reveals that protein gives your body a boost in yet another way.  Turns out, the amino acids in protein stimulate orexin neurons.

As the name suggests, these cells produce the hormone orexin.  Orexin revs up your metabolism and makes you want to move. In other words, it energizes.

Orexin is also necessary for the development and regulation of brown fat- the body's thermogenic "good fat;" it actually burns calories.

Low levels of orexin have been found in people with conditions like obesity and narcolepsy, and the hormone is being investigated as a treatment for narcolepsy and other conditions that excessive sleepiness. Orexin seems to counteract the cognitive deficits caused by sleep deprivation.

Even if you've gotten a good night's sleep (can we talk?) orexin plays a definitive role in sleep/wake cylcles, daytime alertness, hunger and metobolic rate. And who couldn't use some help in one, ALL of these departments?

Check out Wired's Jonah Leher for more on how this works in Why Sugar Makes Us Sleepy and Protein Wakes Us Up.

Protein for Endurance

When it comes to endurance, we generally think carbs. The runner loading up on the pre-run pasta. The cyclist with the energy gel.

We've discussed the importance of protein for runners before. Specifically, protein plays an important role  in muscle recovery. Without it, musclecan be broken down for fuel during runs, and unreplenished, lead to loss of lean mass.  Some runners and cyclists struggle with this, and end up looking a little too lean.

Adequate muscle mass is vital for our immune system, bone health and fighting inflammation, not to mention mortality risk- so it's definitely something we want to protect.

Now a report in Medicine and Science in Sports Exercise, the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, shows that protein does even more than protect and recover exercised muscles. 

Researchers found that a high protein diet reduced stress and improved athletes' endurance performance. Athletes in the high protein group also reported feeling better.

Lead researcher Dr. Kevin Tipton theorized tyrosine may one reason protein has this effect, noting previous research on this amino acid's mood-boosting effects.

Read More:

Are You Running in a Carbohydrate Rut?

In It For the Long Haul... Endurance Exercise and Aminogen

Why Timing Is Everything: Pre Exercise Protein Boosts Metabolism All Day Long

A study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise found that protein taken 30 minutes before resistance training gave the metabolism a boost that lasted long after the exercise was over- up to 24 hours later, in fact!

The study was small (eight subjects) but I like that it included both men and women in a double-blind two-trial crossover design. Compared with pre-exercise carbohydrate supplementation and heavy resistance training without supplementation, 20 grams of pre-exercise protein supplementation significantly increased metabolism, as measured by resting energy expenditure (REE).

Protein vs Carbs

Here's the difference: while pre-exercise carbohydrate supplementation raised metabolism as well, pre-exercise protein supplementation outperformed carbs at the 24 hour mark and continued to keep REE elevated.

So taking at least 20 grams of protein, 30 minutes before resistance training, just might keep keep you revved up all day long. 

And while we're talking about timing, make sure you are absorbing that supplemental protein properly. 

Read how gastrointestinal transit time (GTT) and the rate of protein digestion can affect absorption (hint: so does Aminogen) here. Don't let incomplete protein absorption slow you down!

 

Muscle Memory

Been a while since you hit the gym? 

The good news is that if you have done strength training in the past, even if that was long ago, you should be able to gain muscle more quickly than if you had never trained at all.

Scientists at the University of Oslo have demonstrated that strength training increases the number of muscle nuclei- the centers of muscle cells - and that these nuclei remain even long after exercise stops and muscles shrink.  This, in turn, makes it much easier to increase muscle size and strength when resuming a strength training program.

The researchers aren't sure exactly how long muscle nuclei hang around, but they think it could be years, even decades.  So the exercise you did for high school sports may serve you well late in life, even if it's been a while.

So what if you weren't an olympic hopeful in your youth?  What if the muscles of your youth don't recall hitting the gym, ever?

Don't be discouraged!  Yes, left unchecked, the aging process will naturally decrease your muscle mass and increase body fat.  When severe, this loss of muscle mass is called sarcopenia.

But exercise at any age has proven benefits, and can help turn the clock back a bit. Maintaining muscle mass becomes increasingly important as we age, becoming a matter of immunity, longevity and overall health. 

Weekend Reading: Rethinking the Rules...

It can be frustrating when it seems like the rules keep changing on us. 

One day something is healthy, the next day it's not. 

But if we don't leave a little room in our thinking to accommodate scientific progress, we can get stuck in outmoded and perhaps, less-than-effective routines. 

If research tells us we can improve on something, why wouldn't we?

Turns out, the latest research has something to say about two long-standing health tenets: the eight glasses of water rule and how to calculate target heart rate in women (hint: you will actually feel better after reading this one!)  Both of these are worth the read.

Sometimes, though, science confirms that what we are doing is working. 

Since the Aminogen blog is all about the latest in protein nutrition, here's one more new study.  This one demonstrates, once again, whey protein's positive effects on blood pressure and vascular function. 

... Because it's nice when science confirms you're on the right track, too!

Tone Up and Slim Down With... Heavier Weights?

Conventional workout wisdom will tell you to tone your muscles and slim your waistline, you should use lighter weights and perform more reps.

A New York Times article, however, looking at two studies on female resistance training found that lifting at about 70 to 80 percent of maximum ability burns more energy and promotes greater fat loss. 

Researchers from one of the studies, which followed subjects over six years, concluded resistance training was a viable method for preventing post-menopausal weight gain and changes in body composition.

It seems that lifting heavier weights fewer times resulted in an oxygen demand similar to that created by lifting the smaller weights more times.  And women who lifted as high as 85 percent their maximum ability have been shown to burn twice as many calories in the hours following a workout than when they lifted at a lower weight.

Fountain of Youth? How Exercise Affects Telomere Length

An article from Time magazine this week explores how exercise improves both physical and cognitive health as we age. The author reports on one study that found that female subjects, age 65-75, significantly improved their walking speed (an indicator of overall health) and executive functioning (memory, organization, etc.) after one year of weekly resistance training.

In this particular study, the same improvements were not seen in women who performed only toning and balance exercises when compared to the resistance training group.

However, other forms of exercise have been shown to improve different measures of health.  This New York Times article describes how when active and sedentary groups of older adults are compared, the active adults show marked improvement in something called telomere length. 

Telomeres are the end-caps of DNA strands (picture them as the ends of a fiber-optic wire). Each time cells reproduce, these ends get a little bit shorter.  Therefore, scientists can use them to measure aging in the body.

Researchers found that while telomeres in older adults were still shortened when compared to younger subjects, the telomers of the more active older adults remained much longer than those of adults who did not exercise.  In older runners, for example, loss of telomere length was reduced by as much as 75%

Exercise has been shown in previous studies to modify the expression of genes, in effect making exercisers physiologically  'younger.' And we know that resistance exercise in particular plays an important role in reducing the risk of sarcopenia.

Check out the American College of Sports Medicine for guidelines on exercise for older adults.

 

Weekend Reading: Are you running in a carbohydrate rut?

If you are a runner, your carbs are probably very important to you. 

But are you getting enough protein?

Protein is important for energy and muscle recovery in runners.  In fact, too little protein can lead to a longer recovery time (the amino acids in protein can reduce muscle damage incurred while running), muscle loss and more fat accumulation.

The New Times discusses protein for runners this week, and Runner's World weighs in too.

More questions about running, protein and nutrition?  Check out Powering Muscles nutrition trouble-shooter.

Enzymes Not Included: Why Adding Aminogen Makes Sense

Of course, always consult with your physician before taking a supplement or changing your supplement use. 

That being said, let's get back to the question posed in my last post: why add Aminogen? After all, there are enzymes in the foods we eat, and our bodies produce their own enzymes too.

Enzymes in Food

As the article in Scientific American points out, while there are enzymes in food, these are destroyed during cooking.  And when we eat foods in their raw form, our own stomach acid can destroy them anyway. 

You see, enzymes are all very different, and quite particular about what kind of environment they will survive and function in.  They require a specific pH (amount of acidity) in order to work. The stomach is quite acidic and therefore many of the enzymes we ingest are destroyed and inactivated here.

Endogenous Enzymes

These are released by the stomach and pancreas in response to the food that we eat. They are created by our bodies for the purpose of digestion. But these have their limits as well.

First, there are genetic differences in enzyme production.  This is why, for example, some people cannot digest dairy foods and are considered to be lactose intolerant.  Their body simply does not produce the enzyme needed to break down the lactose sugar in milk.

Second, our bodies may not always release enough enzymes for the amount of food we eat.  In the case of a high-protein drink, which would have a gastrointestinal transit time of around 1.5 hours, the body may not have enough time to produce and churn out enough enzymes to break down all of that protein before it slips further down the digestive tract, where it is no longer absorbed.

Athletes and dieters should pay particular attention to this fact because they spend money on supplemental protein. Protein has been shown to be important for satiety, weight loss, improved body composition and muscle mass, but how can taking in more protein benefit you if your body does not absorb it?

Third, our production of digestive enzymes diminishes with age. Food that is not digested properly can cause symptoms like gas, bloating and constipation because they have not been absorbed properly.  This is not only uncomfortable, but it means missing out on nutrients.  And older adults need adequate protein to maintain muscle strength, immune health and more.

Adding Aminogen

So we've established why the enzymes in food and even those produced by our own body may not be sufficient for optimal digestion.

What does adding Aminogen do?

Aminogen is a patented enzyme specifically formulated for protein digestion.  It works in the digestive tract's range of pH's, so it will not be destroyed or deactivated in the stomach or small intestine.

It's been proven in a published clinical study to triple the rate of protein absorption  - take note athletes and dieters- so adding it to high-protein foods and beverages means that extra protein is not wasted.  What's more, it was proven in the same study to increase levels of amino acids absorbed from protein by 100 percent and branched-chain amino acids (important for building muscle) by 250 percent.

I often hear from people who take Aminogen that protein digestion becomes much more comfortable, too, without the gas or bloating that signals incomplete digestion.

So if if you've ever:

Experienced symptoms of incomplete protein digestion,

Spent money on supplemental protein and want to make sure you absorb the amino acids you are paying for,

Or are concerned about getting adequate protein nutrition...

I'd say adding Aminogen makes a whole lot of sense.