A Look into the Surprising Elements of Supplements

Forms of Supplements

When buying or researching supplements, it would be pretty cool to note what form the supplement is in. Beyond the state of the supplement (powder or solution; supplements tend to not be sold in a gaseous or plasma phase) or the delivery vesicle (tablet, capsule, powder, etc.) the actual molecule can vary.

Some compounds are simple. Caffeine is caffeine. If you look at the molecule its just going to be the caffeine molecule. At this moment in time, there are no fancy and stylish changes to the molecule to change its properties around.

Other supplements tend to have the same basic structure with slight modifications on it. Carnitine is a basic amino acid that is commonly sold in one of four forms; L-Carnitine, Acetyl-L-Carnitine, Carnitine-L-Tartrate, or Glycine Propionyl-L-Carnitine. ALCAR and GPLC are just the carnitine molecule bound to a small side-chain (acetyl group in the first one, a propionic acid in the second one) and LCLT is a salt of carnitine. The properties of carnitine are changed around a little bit with each form, with LCLT having a quicker spike in the blood, GPLC being nicer to blood flow, and ALCAR being nicer to the brain.

For all intents and purposes, a parent molecule that has these changes made to it should be treated as a completely different molecule. We got a bit lucky with Carnitine as all the forms do still act like L-Carnitine, but just a little bit different or 'specialized' if you will. Not all compounds are so straight forward.

Take, for example, the bioflavonoid Kaempferol. If we add two sugars we actually get the completely different supplemental profile of Horny Goat Weed, the active component of horny goat weed. Usually adding sugars changes properties slightly, as we can see with the bioactivities of Cyanidin and its 3-glucoside. The changes are physically kinda the same, but the effects of the new compound are drastically changed.

So the entire point of this post, aside from cleverly putting forth the large scale of changes that we recently made to the Caffeine and carnitine pages? Its that not all forms of the same molecule are the same, and should be researched independently.

Required Reading - May 3 2012

• Reflections from the NSCA Conference - looks like it was a good time. Our very own Kurtis Frank will be at the upcoming Fitness Summit.
• Stop old people from falling - barefoot walking could help our elders from falling. Reminds me of some trainers who recommend you warm up barefeet as it helps attune your body and mind.
• The Scientific Process - a nice guide on making you a better reader of scientific papers
• Losing fat while maintaining muscle - provided you aim for ~1lb of weight loss a week, losing fat and gaining muscle can be done concurrently.
• Getting your sleep is important - yet another study that implicates lack of sleep in making it easier to gain weight.

Nutrient Synergy

With the pimping of our Resveratrol page and the creatine of the accompanying Wine page, it seems to be a good time to emphasize synergism between nutrients.

Although you can find almost anything to complain about in nutrition, one of the never ending 'battles' is between a 'holistic' viewpoint (the food or herb is greater than the sum of its parts) and a nutritional 'reductionism' viewpoint, where it is possible to isolate a bioactive from food and supplement with that single molecule.

Neither side is really right. Some compounds are causative of damn near all benefits from the food or plant and can be isolated; this is seen where salicyclic acid (aspirin is that, but acetylated) is isolated from white willow bark and holds most of the potency. However, something like Resveratrol or the four Green Tea Catechins seem to be weaker when on their own and regain their lost strength when consumed alongside molecules found in the parent food.

Resveratrol is synergistic with Melatonin, Glucarate, and some longer chain stilbene molecules (alpha and epsilon viniferin); these compounds are all found in grapes.

Green Tea Catechins are synergystic with capsicum vanilloids (vanillic acid), Quercetin, Myricetin and xanthines like Caffeine; these are all found in green tea.

So for those compounds that (1) are isolated into a pill, and (2) show synergy with molecules in its parent source, then it would be a great idea to consume the isolated pill alongside the parent source. Have your 10mg Resveratrol capsule alongside a nice glass of red wine after dinner, have your EGCG alongside a cup of green tea, etc.

It costs no extra money, and can make a world of a difference long-term.

Beginner's Pharmacology

'Pharmacology' and the related terms Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics are popping up a lot on Examine, and the Editors have been informed that these terms are 'intellectually intimidating' to many. Basically, we've done a bad job on actually explaining what pharmacology is.

Pharmacology (Pharma- is in reference to drugs, which supplements are a less potent subset of) is just the study of drugs. Quite important, the other two terms are subsets of pharmacology.

(Edit Begin)

I have been informed of a much shorter, simpler, and more beautiful definition(s) and distinction between pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.

Pharmacokinetics is what your body does to the drug; involving metabolism and excretion after absorption.

Pharmacodynamics is what the drug does to your body; involving enzyme interactions and metabolic changes.

(Edit End)

We're trying our best to make short summaries in the blue quoted blocks in each section, for example, please check out the Resveratrol page as it has an incredibly in depth Pharmcology section with several quoted blocks for summarization.

As for some select terms commonly seen:

• Bioavailability: This is a measure of how much is absorbed in the intestines and floats around in the blood; it is a percentage. If you ingest 1g of a compound and all that gram is found in the blood, bioavailability is 100%. If only 200mg is found in the blood and the rest is stuck in your colon, then it has a bioavailability of 20%. More often than not, a higher bioavailability is better. You get more of the compound.

• C^max: The C stands for concentration, and the max is the max value. C^max is simply the highest concentration that is found. If looking in the blood, you have a serum C^max of (eg. 45nmol/L). This tends to be related to the dose of the compound in some manner.

• T^max: The T stands for Time, this is simply when the C^max occurs. If the highest concentration occurs 30 minutes after ingestion, the T^max is 30 minutes. This is usually when the compound 'hits' you, like when you notice the peak of Caffeine

• Half-life: The half-life is how long it takes for half of the compound to be either degraded (basic half-life) or pissed/pooped out (elimination half-life). This is important when we look at compounds like edysteroids where studies in cell cultures say that, over a 24 hour period, it is just as potent as Methandrostenelone (D-bol, an anabolic steroid); however, its half-life is 8 minutes. It is just as potent as D-bol for about 8 minutes, then it degrades.

• AUC: Is area-under-curve. If you drew a graph with the C^max on the vertical axis, and the T^max on the horizontal axis, you can plot the half-life by how far along the horizontal axis it takes until the vertical drops by 50%. However, if you just calculate the Area under the Curve you just drew, you get the AUC. This is a measure of how long you are exposed to the supplement, and generally more AUC is better (some exceptions).

It can get more complex than this, and we'll try to include the greater complexities but with simple summaries. However, it would be prudent to understand the above.

Many supplements fail because they have bad pharmacological profiles. A good supplement is one that actually gets to the cells and stays there long enough to do things.

Green Tea Catechins

We've heavily updated our Green Tea Catechins page, and have released our summary of Human Clinical Trials.

Now boasting over 4000 citations, some of our pages are becoming quite detailed:

Required Reading - April 9 2012

• The Epigentics Revolution - I love this. Some of us were dealt a great hand, some weren't. But nothing replaces hard work.
• Titanic's gym - completely OT, but cool nonetheless.
• Science of coaching cues - as mentioned earlier, translating into external cues can help performance.
• Why Anatomy is Important - title says it all.

Required Reading - April 2 2012

• Take your dog to the office - decrease your stress via doggy days
• Stand up: Your life could depend on it - who knew sitting so much was bad for you?
• Stop rolling your IT band - turns out slowly rolling it is not a good idea. Seesaw instead
• Does coconut oil help with fat loss? - doesn't matter. I love coconut oil as is.
• Supercharging creatine with baking sodas - haven't see anyone else mention this.

Required Reading - March 23 2012

• Lay off Antioxidants - as is common to man, we take something good, make it godly, and abuse it. Just like all inflammation is not "bad", just like cortisol is not always "bad", the same applies here.
• UK to tax sports drinks - more FYI than anything else.
• Palatability, Satiety and Calorie Intake - the more delicious something is, the less filling it is.
• NEAT Tricks - "NEAT can run as low as 15% in sedentary individuals and as high as 50% in highly active individuals."
• Calories are not calories? - I really like this. My worry, as with most things, is people take the 5% (eg fructose is slightly more fat-storing than glucose), and convert it into a black and white rule.

Required Reading - March 16 2012

Your mission for the weekend:

• Vitamin D, Calcium, and Dairy Intakes and Stress Fractures Among Female Adolescents + Dietary intake and stress fractures among elite male combat recruits - while cautioning on extending these results to everyone, it helps build up the literature on how bones are more than just calcium (more Vitamin D).
• Comparison of high-protein diets and leucine supplementation in the prevention of metabolic syndrome and related disorders in mice - underlines how important Leucine really is.
• Getting Active Blunts Fat Genes - cue special snowflake syndrome

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