The Placebo Group lost in dry body weight, and the Vitamin Group, on the contrary, gained dry body weight in comparison with their condition before the experiment. The blue bar is the dry mass level BEFORE the experiment. And the red bar is the level AFTER the experiment. Dry body weight has increased in the vitamin D group. But that’s not all. Scientists also measured strength levels. Those ladies who consumed vitamin D got a small increase in strength. And those who didn’t use it got a little degradation in strength. That’s what it looked like:Hello, friend. Today I decided to make your day with a number of useful tips from the world of bodybuilding, which can be helpful for you. I think I'm going to make some reviews of the most interesting scientific data related to bodybuilding. This article is an example of such a review.Vitamin D will help save muscles after 40.Our body often feels vitamin D deficiency in autumn and winter due to lack of sun. The fact is that this vitamin comes with food and is synthesized in the skin driven by ultraviolet rays. It is believed that the main function of this substance is absorption of Phosphorus and Calcium from food, which play a key role in bone formation and synthesis of several hormones.However, few people know that vitamin D very actively affects anabolism and catabolism in our body. The matter is that our muscles have D-receptors to interact with vitamin D. When the vitamin binds to these receptors, it changes the metabolism positively: anabolism is accelerated and catabolism is decelerated.Here’s the proof: [Endocrinology.2011 Aug;152(8):2976-86.] [Biomed Res.2015;36(2):71-80.]. Obviously, one should not expect miracles from the use of vitamin D when it comes to muscle growth. However, the effect is there, and most surprisingly, it becomes more pronounced with age. There were interesting experiments [J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2013 Dec;98(12):E1927-35.] that showed that for elderly people vitamin D accelerates formation of fast muscle fibers after workouts.This fact prompted Brazilian scientists to conduct the experiment (funded by the Brazilian government) (report is HERE). They used people, not mice, in the experiment. There were 70 women between the ages of 50 and 65. They were given 1,000 international vitamin units for 9 months. There was another group, a control group. There was given a placebo (blank sample instead of real vitamin). You can see the result in 9 months below:
The strength level was measured with two tests. In the first case, ladies had to lift the chair as many times as possible (upper chart). And in the second case, the grip force was measured by a special device.Why did the placebo group lose its dry mass and its strength? The answer is very simple: age is the main reason. The older a person, the slower is anabolism, which, in fact, rejuvenates cells. The placebo group demonstrated natural withering of the body due to aging. But the vitamin group was able to successfully fight against the negative effects of ageing.CONCLUSION: Additional intake of vitamin D prevents muscle dystrophy and reduces the amount of fat in elder people. Additional intake of this vitamin can be recommended to athletes and older people to correct metabolism positively. As for me, I do not use vitamin D separately. The matter is I use complex vitamins (these ones), which already contain a very decent dose of Vitamin D (as much as 2,000 IU in my case). However, vitamin D can also be purchased separately at your nearest pharmacy. Very often it’s sold with calcium products.Curcumin significantly improves endurance, strength and glycogen accumulation.Curcumin is a magic supplement that is extremely underestimated by modern medicine due to its low bioavailability. Fortunately, there are proven ways to fight it. Actually, when I started searching for information about curcumin on scientific servers, I was very surprised by the amount of experiments with this substance. There are over 6,000 scientific quotes related to curcumin and hundreds of clinical trials. This substance has many useful properties. Curcumin is a powerful antioxidant, a powerful anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial agent. There are experiments that prove that the substance inhibits development of cancer and many other dangerous diseases. You, as a bodybuilder, are probably not very interested. So here is a short list of properties useful for bodybuilding:Curcumin increases accumulation of glycogen, reduces lactic acid, increases endurance and strength. Proofs: Here, here, and here. Curcumin accelerates recovery of muscles damaged at workout. The proof is here Curcumin increases testosterone secretion by several times (I reviewed this experiment) The proof is here Finally, curcumin is an anti-estrogen. The proof is here. There has been another interesting experiment recently. The experiment (the proof is here) was conducted to examine the relationship between the intake of curcumin and the state of endurance during long work.Mice were given a high dose (100 mg), an average dose (50 mg), or none (0 mg) of curcumin.DMSO - no curcumin CD50 - 50 mg curcumin CD100 - 100 mg of curcumin Half of these mice (eTR group) were trained - made to run. The control group had no training. Here’s the result:
m.gastrocnemius is a calf muscle m. soleus is a soleus muscle You can see from the chart that curcumin itself can not replace workouts. Those mice which trained without curcumin showed better endurance than those which used curcumin and did not train. However, the same graph shows that when training the endurance level increases more for those who use large doses of curcumin.CONCLUSION: Curcumin can be useful for developing different qualities of muscle. Including growth of endurance.Curcumin bioavailabilityOkay, so it’s not quite as good as you might think. Many people may have a reasonable question: if curcumin works so wonderfully, then why is it not used in medicine? The fact is that curcumin does not dissolve well in water and has very poor bioavailability. That’s why, if you buy a regular turmeric (yellow spice) and shove it into yourself, there will be no effect at all, or it will be poorly expressed.However, you should not despair, because there are effective ways (the proofs are here and here) to increase the bioavailability of curcumin.So, curcumin is a great supplement that I use myself. But the active ingredient has several problems:Low concentration in plasma Bad distribution over tissues Rapid metabolism of the substance Short life span of curcumin There are many experiments where curcumin has not worked due to its poor solubility and low bioavailability. The matter is that most of the substance deactivates very quickly in the liver and turns into weaker metabolites. This raises the question: how to increase the bioavailability of curcumin?CURCUMIN + BLACK PEPPER (Piperine) is an effective and popular solution. I’m referring to additive to turmeric, which is a black pepper alkaloid. You must have seen small black balls in the meals that contain the substance we need. It is made very simply: you need to pick the kernel before it matures, ferment it and dry it in the sun so that it shrinks and turns black.Piperine has many intrinsic properties ranging from reducing pain and anti-inflammatory effect to stabilizing levels of insulin and obesity (black pepper is very helpful in weight loss). But what’s interesting in our case is that Piperine significantly increases the bioavailability of curcumin:Piperin + curcumin = 154% bioavailability in mice Piperin + curcumin = 2.000% bioavailability in humans Moreover, Piperine efficiency was much higher in experiments with humans than in experiments with mice. That’s why curcumin is not produced alone by major producers. Most often Curcumin is sold together with BioPerine (Piperin) for multiple increase in its bioavailability. I use this curcumin, for example. And if you look at it, you’ll see “with BioPerine” on the can. Without this supplement, you can eat spoonfuls of curcumin without any effect.By the way, recently I saw information that BioPerine (Piperin) significantly increases bioavailability of another very important fat-burning substance - Resveratrol (this substance artificially stimulates the gene to falsely order the brain to lack calories - the brain gives orders to burn fat to help the “starving” body with energy). So, BioPerine increases the maximum Resveratrol concentration to 1544% (the experiment was conducted with mice, here is the proof). Anyway, eat black pepper, folks. It increases the bioavailability of a number of nutrients.CURCUMIN + QUERCETIN also increases the bioavailability of curcumin. Quercetin inhibits the effect of enzyme that blocks curcumin. Quercetin is a natural compound - an antioxidant of flavonoids, which is responsible for the color of some fruits and vegetables. This additive can be found as a dietary supplement on specialized websites. CURCUMIN + FATS. Next recommendation. If you drink curcumin with linseed or olive oil, bioavailability of curcumin will increase because it is poorly soluble in water. For example, you can drink curcumin with milk (there are fats).CURCUMIN + HOT WATER. Temperature has been shown to increase the solubility of curcumin in water (often there are problems with this). There was an experiment where its solubility increased by 12 times after 10 minutes in hot water. So if you decide to drink curcumin with milk, use hot milk - this should further increase its biological activity.Lots of Protein Is Not Harmful for KidneysIt is often heard that excessive use of protein can harm your health, especially your kidneys. In this regard, I would like to tell you about an interesting experiment held by the Dietitians Association of Australia (scientific report is here).115 people with type 2 diabetes participated in the experiment (insulin is produced, but the sensitivity of cells to it is reduced). For a year, test subjects consumed 500-1500 calories less than they spent every day. In addition, they went to the gym 3 times a week. In their case, it was important because weight training significantly increases the sensitivity of muscle cells to insulin. It is interesting for us that the test subjects were divided into TWO groups (with different diets):HC ½ = LOW PROTEIN (58 carbohydrates, 17 protein, 30 unsaturated fats) LC ½ = HIGH PROTEIN What’s interesting to us is that a year later kidney function was studied. In particular, the scientists measured the content of ALBUMIN IN URINE (the smaller content, the better functioning of kidneys) and CREATININE IN BLOOD (it must be low if the kidneys are healthy and the person does not use creatine). As a matter of fact, this is what happened:
If you compare the high-protein group with the low-protein group, you can see no negative markers of poor kidney function. Apparently, excessive protein intake is not as dangerous to the kidneys as commonly believed.Let’s get to the numbers. Let’s say your daily diet consists of 3,500 calories. 28% (the number in the high-protein group) will amount to 980 kcal. We divide this amount by 4 (1 g of protein contains 4 kcal) and get 245 g of protein. In terms of experience, this dosage is very safe for your kidneys. I.e. 2-3 grams of protein per 1 kg (I don't approve it, if anything) are safe for your kidneys.
