Many supplements claim to improve body composition or exercise performance. Some supplements seem promising, while others don’t seem to do anything, and some can even be counterproductive.
Here’s a thread of some of our supplements infographics 🧵👇
Creatine is an organic compound which is naturally present in our bodies. Creatine supplementation increases muscle creatine levels, strength and muscle mass gains during resistance training.
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Nitrate-rich beetroot juice has been shown to increase endurance performance because. Beetroot juice supplementation can also improve repeated sprint performance compared to nitrate-depleted beetroot juice.
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Carnitine helps fats get into mitochondria. Prolonged carnitine supplementation can result in sparing of muscle glycogen during low intensity exercise, allows for more carbohydrates to be used during high-intensity exercise, and can improve endurance performance.
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Caffeine has been shown to improve exercise performance. The effect of caffeine seems to differ between people. In most people, it improves or has no effect on exercise performance. In contrast, it decreases performance in some people.
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Melatonin is a hormone that is mostly known for regulating sleep patterns. Melatonin supplementation may improve body composition.
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HMB is a metabolite of the amino acid leucine. In contrast to some claims, HMB supplementation does not result in greater muscle mass gains as compared to leucine.
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Anti-oxidants can reduce oxidative stress and are therefore often seen as ‘good’. However, high dose anti-oxidant supplementation may reduce the adaptive response to exercise.
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See the infographic index on our website for an overview of all infographics and a more detailed discussion of each study.
The ketogenic diet restricts carbohydrates with the purpose of lowering insulin levels. Insulin is a hormone that is involved in fat metabolism. Therefore, some suggest that a ketogenic diet is very effective for fat loss.
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This study investigated whether a ketogenic diet increases fat loss compared to a high-carbohydrate diet in overweight and obese men.
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Our new paper:
Pre-sleep Protein Ingestion Increases Mitochondrial Protein Synthesis Rates During Overnight Recovery from Endurance Exercise: A Randomized Controlled Trial
Prostate cancer is one of the most common types of cancer. An effective treatment is androgen deprivation therapy (ADT), which lowers testosterone levels to castration levels. However, such low testosterone levels tend to result in a loss of muscle mass and strength.
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Our study investigated the effect of resistance training with or without protein supplementation on muscle mass and strength in prostate cancer patients undergoing ADT.
Exercise and protein ingestion are the main factors that stimulate muscle protein synthesis (the main process driving muscle adaptations such as growth).
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It has been reported that athletes are more likely to consume excessive amounts of alcohol, especially as part of binge-drinking practices in team sports. Can these practices affect muscle protein synthesis?
Muscle growth occurs when muscle protein synthesis exceeds muscle protein breakdown. Resistance exercise stimulates both muscle protein synthesis and breakdown. Ingestion of protein further increases muscle protein synthesis and is needed to achieve positive protein net balance.
In young adults, 20 g of high-quality protein seems optimal to stimulate post-exercise muscle protein synthesis. However, is this also true for older adults?