Fiber Up Your Foods, Omega-3 Preload For Female Fat Loss, 50+ Ways to Treat Constipation, Serotonergic Peptides in Milk, Weight Cycling & Reduced Metabolic Rates, Exercise & 102% Weight Loss From Fat - Plus: More Short News

Inulin enriched foods are good for your gut, your waistline and your pancreas (anti-diabesity effect) and what's more inulin is also on the list of anti-constipation agents,

100g that's this week's SuppVersity figure of the week and that despite the fact that it is the amount of fat you are going to gain within one year when your metabolic rate is 100kcal below where it should be (Piaggi. 2013)... Where it should be? Yeah, ok I know that's idiotic, but if you read today's news-item about the down-regulation of the metabolic rate due to YoYo-dieting the picture that emerges is that of yet another vicious cycle that leads directly into a weight spiral that knows but one direction: upwards!

Another one of today's news-items does however hint at a solution: Just lose 102% fat! What? I see I got you interested. So what are you waiting for? Lot's of good stuff today. So much in fact that let's spend no time and get right to the news-business ;-)

"Fiber up" you foods with prebiotics (inulin in particular)

Pretty obvious that these Spanish Christmas confections take a toll on your HbA1c ;-)

(Capriles. 2012; Garcia-Garcia. 2013) -- You've read about the benefits of "feeding the good guys" a couple of days ago. Now, aside from being a substrate for the purportedly beneficial gut bacteria fiber also changes the feel, taste and most importantly digestive properties of foods. A couple of recently published studies confirm that this can have pretty profound and in most cases highly desirable consequences.

Garcia-Garcia, for example, added some inulin (5%) to Turon, a traditional Spanish sweet treat that's made of toasted almonds, honey and sugar and fed 30g of the Christmas nougat-type confection to 32 healthy, normal-weight volunteers.

While the subjects in the "regular" Turon group had a slight but significant increase in HbA1c (long-term measure of blood glucose management) the blood glucose management of the 17 subjects in the active group did not budge. And while most subjects (64%, specifically those who conumed Turon as a Christmas snack on a regular basis) preferred the "classic" variety, at least 24% did actually like the inulin Turon better (Garcia-Garcia. 2013)

Gluten will interact with PPARs & gut bacteria and can thus precipitate insulin resistance (read more).

In a similar study, scientists were able to show that the addition of prebiotic inulin-type fructans to gluten-free bread (4 g of fructans per 50 g bread serving size) did

"[...] provide structure and gas retention during baking, thus improving GFB quality by yielding better specific volume, softer crumb, improved crust and crumb browning with enhanced sensory acceptance" (Capriles. 2012)

 and decreased the glycemic index and glycemic load of the gluten-free bread by 34% (from 71 to 48) and 33% (from 12 to 8), respectively.

Omega-3 loading improves weight loss in obese women

(Munro. 2013) -- According to a recently published study, a 4-week preload with 6 × 1 g capsules per day LC ω-3PUFA (fish oil) each comprising 70 mg EPA and 270 mg DHA, increased the amount of weight the female (and only the female!) participants of a very low calorie weight loss intervention lost in the subsequent 8-weeks.

Despite being statistically significant, the 1.4% increase in bod weight loss is yet not so pronounced that anyone whose been dieint with LC-PUFA preload in the past should now be fretting about having missed out on this great chance of getting ripped. If you are a man, the protocol would have been useless, anyways.

Constipated? Review offers three types of "solutions" - in some cases a literal sense

(Gelinas. 2013) -- If you are one out of five, chances are you belong to the 20% of the world's population who suffer from constipation on a regular base. If that's the case, you may want to consider one of the following "treatment" strategies, Pierre Galinas mentions in his latest review of the literature:

• 

  Table 1: Relative laxative potential of 50 food ingredients for the prevention of constipation

  Bulking agents  - They soften the stool by binding water; examples are psyllium seed husk, wheat bran, methylcellulose, calcium polycarbophil; are considered "mild" and are not habit forming, but may cause abdominal pain and bloating because of gas formation
• Osmotic agents - They also soften the stool but ba a dfferent mechanism than the bulk fiber, they create an osmotic gradient, which will distend the intestines and stimulates a contractile response; examples are lactulose, sorbitol, mannitol, polyethylene glycol (PEG), magnesium hydroxide (milk of magnesia), sodium phosphate; side effects are gas, and the offensive taste (of some)
• Softeners and lubricants  - They  lubricate (oil) and soften (detergent) the stool; examples are sodium docusate and various mineral oils; pretty milk
• Stimulants - Just like the stims in a fat burner get you going, these get your colon going; examples are epson salts (magnesium sulphate heptahydrate), bisacodyl, sodium picosulphate, sodium sulphate, magnesium oxide, phenolphthalein; they taste offensive, but don't produce gas
• Herbal teas - Provide water and can increase bowel frequency; examples are anthracenes derivatives (senna; aloe; cascara, Frangula bark); unfortunately they taste offensive and work almost immediately; moreover tolerance builds up pretty fast

As you can see there are different ways to get going with the bulk agent aka an increase in fiber intake being the only healthy long-term solution.

Even unhappy cows produce "Happy Milk"

"Mutant Milk" is homogenized milk a potential threat to your health (learn more)?

(Nongonierma. 2013) -- Three days ago a paper by Alice Nongonierma and her colleagues was published ahead of print on the website of the Journal of Food & Function. In the said paper, the researchers describe an experiment, in the course of which they were able to proof that hydrolyzed milk proteins contain a peptides that "behave as serotonin 2C (5-HT2c) receptor agonists" (Nongenierma. 2013). According to the scientists, the bioactive peptides have a relatively low molecular mass (< 1 kDa) and are hydrophobic in nature. With the 5-HT2c receptor being more than just a pharmacological target for the treatment of depression and anxiety, but also a trigger of neurogenesis (growth of new neurons) in the hippocampus (Millan. 2005), this certainly is good news for all the milk junkies out there - or could the serotonine-like effects make you fat?

Magic anti-diabetic mushrooms

(Su. 2013) -- Not what you are thinking now, folks! That's Traditional Chinese Medicine. After all, mushrooms such as Coriolus versicolor and Grifola frondosa have been used in TCM for centuries now. As a recent study by Scientsts from Kang Jien BioTech confirms rightly, so. Extracts from both mushroom had potent inhibitory effects on the carbohydrate digesting enzymes α-amylase and α-glucosidase. With Coriolus being a better inhibitor of the former and Grifola a more potent inhibitor of the latter enzymes.

How this relates to glucose control? Easy: If you don't disentangle the complex carbs your body cannot access their sugar content and if you do it only very slowly even "high" GI starches suddenly turn into low GI foods.

Weight cycling does not forestall future weight loss, but it makes it harder

Geoffrey Cannon's "Dieting Makes You Fat" was first published in 1983 but is that true? Does dieting always make you fatter and would it be better so simply surrender   (learn more)?

(Bosy-Westphal. 2013) -- While the ups and downs in body weight so many dieters are experiencing on a regular basis do not, as it was long suspected, ruin your body composition. A paper that has been published roughly a week ago in the International Journal of Obesitysuggests that another often touted downside, namely the long-term creeping down-regulation of the basal energy expenditure is unfortunately very real.

According to the analysis of the researchers from the Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel, Germany, the 27 "weight regainers" (after ~30% of loss) showed a reduced REE adjusted for changes in organ and tissue masses after weight loss that was not present in the 20 previously weight stable, yet likewise overweight / obese subjects in the control group of the researchers' 13-week dietary intervention study.

It is however not sure, whether this actually is a result of previous weight cycling or vice versa; meaning that the people with the ups and downs in body weight are the ones whose metabolism shuts down the easiest. The study at hand was obviously not able to exclude this possibility.

More than 100% weight loss from fat? How is that supposed to work?

(Hall. 2012) -- Actually this study was published late in the year 2012, that it still made it to On Short Notice has two reasons. Reason #1 is that it was an Epub way ahead of print. Reason #2 is that the figures the author reports appear to be pretty nonsensical. I mean how on earth can the projection K.. Hall from the National Institute of Health in Bethesda made based on data from the Biggest Loser camp yield a net weight loss of 24kg of which more than 100% (102% to be precise) came from the exuberant body fat stores of the (>70kg for the average participant) of the "big losers"?

For the researchers who worked with the Biggest Losers the highly successful TV show was a fluke. Having a TV station pay for their "research" certainly is something extraordinary and against and the study at hand is only the latest publication based on data from the Biggest Loser camp (read up on a previous news item)

The answer is actually pretty straight forward and underlines the efficacy of exercise as a weight loss tool that won't leave you skinny fat, but lean and more muscular. After all, the initially counter-intuitive +2% extra came from the increase in lean mass the Big Losers experienced despite being on a 1,300kcal-1,600kcal diet and working out at a "vigorous intensity" for 3.1h and 1.1h per day in phase 1 and phase 2 of the boot-camp intervention (the simulation of a diet only intervention yielded a slightly larger total weight loss yet with only 65% of the weight coming from the fat stores).

The one thing I am a bit skeptical about is whether Hall's prediction that the weight loss will be sustainable with no more than 20min/day of, once again, "vigorous" exercise per day. I mean that probably would be true in the sheltered environment of the weight loss camp. In a real life scenario, on the other hand, the super size menus, family pizzas and cosy TV couches are probably too much of a temptation for the many of the Big Losers.

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Wine was yesterday! Chocolate liqueur is the future of healthy alcohol consumption (learn more)

That's all for today, at least as far as On Short Notice is concerned. By now the majority of you should yet be aware that there's always more... correct, the Facebook News - not sure if you notices, but you can actually see the latest items in the side-bar of the SuppVersity. To make sure you don't miss any of them it would yet be wise to simply "like" the SuppVersity on Facebook and/or register as a follower to my Twitter Account. It's hard-wired to the Facebook page, so if you are into tweeting.. maybe you prefer being notified this way.

Whatever your social media service provide of choice may be, I am pretty sure that you don't want to miss news such as the one on the total phenols, flavonoids, flavan-3-ols and proanthocyanidins of chocolate liqueur and how this may make it a better choice for your daily dose of "healthy" alcohol than wine ;-)

References:

• Carpiles VD, Aréas JADG. Effects of prebiotic inulin-type fructans on structure, quality, sensory acceptance and glycemic response of gluten-free breads. Food & Function. 03 Oct 2012 [Epub] 
• Garcia-Garcia E., Narbona E, Carbonell-Barrachina AA, Sanchez-Soriano J, Roche E. The effect of consumption of inulin-enriched Turrón upon blood serum lipids over a 5-week period. International Journal of Food Science & Technology. 2013; 48(2):405–411.
• Gelinas P. Preventing constipation: a review of the laxative potential of food ingredients. International Journal of Food Science & Technology. 2013; 48(3):445–467. 
• Hall KD. Diet versus exercise in "The Biggest Loser" weight loss competition. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2012 Oct 3. doi: 10.1002/oby.20065. [Epub ahead of print]
• Lai MN, Ng LT. Inhibitory effects of medicinal mushrooms on α-amylase and α-glucosidase – enzymes related to hyperglycemia. Food & Function. 2013 [Epub ahead of print].
  
• Millan MJ. Serotonin 5-HT2C receptors as a target for the treatment of depressive and anxious states: focus on novel therapeutic strategies. Therapie. 2005 Sep-Oct;60(5):441-60.
• Munro IA, Garg ML. Prior supplementation with long chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids promotes weight loss in obese adults: a double-blinded randomised controlled trial. Food & Function. February 2013 [Epub ahead of print].
• Nongonierma A,  Schellekens H, Dinan T,  Cryan JF, Fitzgerald D. Milk protein hydrolysates activate 5-HT2c serotonin receptors: influence of the starting substrate and isolation of bioactive fractions. Food & Function. 2013 [Epub ahead of print]
• Piaggi P, Thearle MS, Bogardus C, Krakoff J. Lower Energy Expenditure Predicts Long-Term Increases in Weight and Fat Mass. JCEM. 2013; jc.2012-3529;