Alan Aragon may be one of the least well known yet smartest guys in the…
Casein Hydrolysate and Anabolic Hormones and Growth – Research Review
I want to try something a little bit different for today’s research review. Rather than looking at a single study in the kind of obsessive detail that only I and three readers really care about, I want to look at multiple studies but in lesser detail. Not only will this hopefully make the article a bit more relevant and readable, it will let me address more than a single topic at once.
With the sheer volume of research appearing on a weekly basis, this will at least help me to look at data in a more timely fashion. I’d mention that, for anyone who wants an even better look at a lot of studies, you’d be well served to consider Alan Aragon’s monthly Research Review which I reviewed in the confusingly titled Alan Aragon Research Review – Product Review.
In any case, today I want to look at two recent studies which are:
- Deglaire et al. Hydrolyzed dietary casein as compared with the intact protein reduces postprandial peripheral, but not whole-body, uptake of nitrogen in humans. Am J Clin Nutr. (2009) 90(4):1011-22.
- West et. al. Elevations in ostensibly anabolic hormones with resistance exercise enhance neither training-induced muscle hypertrophy nor strength of the elbow flexors. J Appl Physiol. 2009 Nov 12.
For each study I’ll give a brief background to the topic, look at what was done and then jump straight to the conclusions with some final summing up. As noted above, some of the detail will be left out but I figure that anyone who is that interested in the details of methodology and such will simply get ahold of the full paper and read it themselves.
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Deglaire et al. Hydrolyzed dietary casein as compared with the intact protein reduces postprandial peripheral, but not whole-body, uptake of nitrogen in humans. Am J Clin Nutr. (2009) 90(4):1011-22.
BACKGROUND: Compared with slow proteins, fast proteins are more completely extracted in the splanchnic bed but contribute less to peripheral protein accretion; however, the independent influence of absorption kinetics and the amino acid (AA) pattern of dietary protein on AA anabolism in individual tissues remains unknown. OBJECTIVE: We aimed to compare the postprandial regional utilization of proteins with similar AA profiles but different absorption kinetics by coupling clinical experiments with compartmental modeling. DESIGN: Experimental data pertaining to the intestine, blood, and urine for dietary nitrogen kinetics after a 15N-labeled intact (IC) or hydrolyzed (HC) casein meal were obtained in parallel groups of healthy adults (n = 21) and were analyzed by using a 13-compartment model to predict the cascade of dietary nitrogen absorption and regional metabolism. RESULTS: IC and HC elicited a similar whole-body postprandial retention of dietary nitrogen, but HC was associated with a faster rate of absorption than was IC, resulting in earlier and stronger hyperaminoacidemia and hyperinsulinemia. An enhancement of both catabolic (26%) and anabolic (37%) utilization of dietary nitrogen occurred in the splanchnic bed at the expense of its further peripheral availability, which reached 18% and 11% of ingested nitrogen 8 h after the IC and HC meals, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The form of delivery of dietary AAs constituted an independent factor of modulation of their postprandial regional metabolism, with a fast supply favoring the splanchnic dietary nitrogen uptake over its peripheral anabolic use. These results question a possible effect of ingestion of protein hydrolysates on tissue nitrogen metabolism and accretion.
My Comments: Ever since the pioneering work in the 90’s on fast and slow proteins, there has been continued interest in the digestion speed of proteins and how that impacts on metabolism, performance and, of course, muscle growth. In recent years, there have been many claims made for the superiority of faster proteins to slower in terms of ‘speeding amino acids to muscle’ in terms of promoting growth.
As well, as many may note, a recent commercial product (T-nations Anaconda), who’s anabolic claims were analyzed in perhaps the most commented article on the site in Alan’s Aragon’s guest article Supplement Marketing on Steroids, has recently been released to the market.
For background, hydrolysates are simply whole proteins that have been pre-digested (through the addition of enzymes during production) to some degree. The theory being that, due to this pre-digestion, the hydrolysate will be digested in the stomach faster, getting aminos into the bloodstream faster and, presumably, having a better effect on skeletal muscle than slower proteins.
But is it true? Guess.
The above study examined this issue by feeding 21 subjects 2 test meals containing ~26.5 grams of either intact casein or it’s hydrolysate; the protein had been marked with radioactive nitrogen so that it’s fate after ingestion could be tracked over the next 8 hours. The test meals also contained 96 grams of carbohydrate and 23 grams of fat; this is worth noting as adding other nutrients to fast proteins often makes them behave more like slow proteins. I’ll spare you the methodology, sufficed to say that tracking protein after it enters the body is brutally complicated and involves a lot of modelling and various measurements of blood amino acid levels and such.
Here’s what the study found. Over the time course studied (8 hours after ingestion), the hydrolyzed casein product showed greater losses from digestion (that is, less was absorbed). As well, a greater amount of the hydrolysate was oxidized for energy through deamination (a process by which the amino group is stripped off the carbon backbone). Finally, a larger amount of the casein hydrolysate was used by the splanchnic bed (gut and intestines) with significantly less of the total protein reaching the bloodstream or peripheral tissues (muscles).
To quote the researchers:
Despite similar overall net postprandial protein utilization, our results indicate important differences in metabolic partitioning and kinetics between protein sources characterized by a preferential utilization of dietary nitrogen by for splanchnic protein syntheses after HC [hydrolyzed casein] ingestion at the expense of the incorporation into peripheral tissues.
Translating that into English: hydrolyzed casein is digested more poorly, gets burned for energy to a greater degree and gets used more by the gut than intact casein; the end result of this is that hydrolyzed casein provides LESS amino acids to skeletal muscle after ingestion than intact casein protein.
So not only is the claim that hydrolysates are better at providing aminos faster to skeletal muscle wrong, the reality is actually exactly reversed: intact casein is better for providing aminos to the muscle. I’d note that other studies have found this as well: in one, intact protein provided MORE branched-chain amino acids into the bloodstream than a hydrolyzed form.
I’d add to this that, as I discussed in The Protein Book, other data supports the idea that slower proteins may actually be superior to faster proteins for muscle growth; in one set of studies, for example, milk protein (a mix of slow and fast proteins) resulted in greater hypertophy than soy (a fast protein) over 8 weeks of training and supplementation. As well hydrolyzed proteins tend to taste like bleach; it’s no coincidence that Anaconda has to come with a separate flavoring intensifier: hydrolysates are gag-inducing. They can’t be consumed straight.
Summing up: Hydrolysates are not only not superior to intact protein in terms of providing amino acids to skeletal muscle, they are distinctly inferior. Their fast digestion speed leads to greater digestive losses, more oxidation via deamination and provides less amino acids to skeletal muscle. That’s on top of tasting like vomit. Or at least making you want to.
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West et. al. Elevations in ostensibly anabolic hormones with resistance exercise enhance neither training-induced muscle hypertrophy nor strength of the elbow flexors. J Appl Physiol. 2009 Nov 12.
The aim of our study was to determine whether resistance exercise-induced elevations in endogenous hormones enhance muscle strength and hypertrophy with training. Twelve healthy young men (21.8 +/- 1.2 y, BMI = 23.1 +/- 0.6 kg(.)m(-2)) independently trained their elbow flexors for 15 weeks on separate days and under different hormonal milieu. In one training condition, participants performed isolated arm curl exercise designed to maintain basal hormone concentrations (low hormone, LH); in the other training condition, participants performed identical arm exercise to the LH condition followed immediately by a high volume of leg resistance exercise to elicit a large increase in endogenous hormones (High Hormone, HH). There was no elevation in serum growth hormone (GH), insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1) or testosterone after the LH protocol, but significant (P < 0.001) elevations in these hormones immediately and 15 and 30 min after the HH protocol. The hormone responses elicited by each respective exercise protocol late in the training period were similar to the response elicited early in the training period indicating that a divergent post-exercise hormone response was maintained over the training period. Muscle cross-sectional area increased by 12% in LH and 10% in HH (P < 0.001) with no difference between conditions (condition x training interaction, P = 0.25). Similarly, type I (P < 0.01) and type II (P < 0.001) muscle fiber CSA increased with training with no effect of hormone elevation in the HH condition. Strength increased in both arms but the increase was not different between the LH and HH conditions. We conclude that exposure of loaded muscle to acute exercise-induced elevations in endogenous anabolic hormones enhances neither muscle hypertrophy nor strength with resistance training in young men. Key words: testosterone, growth hormone, IGF-1, anabolism.
My Comments: For several decades now, there has been intense focus on the acute hormonal response to training. This started back in the 80’s where researchers, interested in growth did a rather cursory examination of elite powerlifters and bodybuilders, made some assumptions about muscle size, made some even bigger assumptions about how they trained, and then proceeded to reach some staggeringly poor conclusions.
Basically, what they observed was that bodybuilders were bigger than powerlifters, which is debatable in the first place. They also observed that powerlifters typically used low reps and long rest periods and bodybuilders (remember: this was the Arnold era) trained with high reps and short rest periods. Thus they concluded that high reps and short rest stimulated muscle growth and went looking for reasons why this was the case. I’d note that this is not really how you’re supposed to do science: you don’t reach your conclusion and go find reasons why it’s right. You test hypotheses and draw your conclusions from that. But I digress.
And the main focus for a while was potential differences in hormonal response to training, primarily focusing on testosterone and growth hormone (GH). The basic study design that was followed was to compare the acute hormonal response to either 3 sets of 5 repetitions with a long rest interval (3 minutes) to sets of 10 with a 1 minute rest interval. Repeatedly, studies showed that the first type of training boosted testosterone and the second GH. Entire training schemes have grown out of this but there was a problem: nobody ever bothered to see if these acute (usually less than 10-15 minute) bumps in hormones actually did anything.
Nevermind that this makes little sense anyhow for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is that women have higher GH levels than men and get a bigger GH response to training, yet they don’t grow better. If anything, with the known impact of testosterone on muscle growth, if there was to be any benefit to this, you’d expect the lower rep/heavy work to be superior. Yet the researchers were arguing that it wasn’t. There was a logic missing in the argument (not the least of which being the assumption that powerlifters had smaller muscles than bodybuilders) that seemed to get skipped over.
In addition to the science, there is a long held belief, echoed in various places (including the comments section of another contentious article I wrote titled Squats vs. Leg Press for Big Legs) that certain movements, notably squats and deadlifts, will have full-body growth stimulating properties, generally mediated through the hormonal response.
It’s not uncommon to see people recommending things like “If you want big arms, squat/train legs.” for example. Essentially, heavy leg work is touted as being the key to overall growth. Nevermind that the same people who make this argument will often complain about “All those guys in the gym with huge upper bodies and no legs” without realizing that the two ideas contradict one another (that is, if leg training is required for growth, how can guys get huge upper bodies without training legs). But I digress again.
In any case, this study examined the issue directly with a somewhat confusing study design: twelve healthy young men trained their biceps on different days of the week under different training conditions. In what they called the low-hormone condition, the biceps were trained all by themselves; no other exercise was done. In the other called the high-hormone condition, the biceps were trained and then a large-volume of leg training was done to elevate the supposedly anabolic hormones.
Does that make sense, all subjects trained both arms, but on different days and under different conditions. And the training was far enough apart that the hormonal response from the leg training wouldn’t have impacted the low-hormone training session. This training was followed for 15 weeks and subjects consumed protein both before and after the training (so there was nutritional support).
Hormone levels were measured and while there was no significant change in hormones in the low-hormone situation, in the high-hormone situation, there were increases in lactate, growth hormone, free and total testosterone and IGF-1 with the peak occurring approximately 15 minutes after the leg work.
And, if the hormonal response to heavy leg training actually has any impact, what you’d expect to see is that one arm, the one trained along with the leg training, would grow better.
Did it happen? Guess.
Both maximal strength and muscle cross sectional area increased identically in both arms to the tune of a 20% vs. 19% increase in strength for low- vs. high-hormones and an increase in skeletal muscle cross sectional area of 12% vs. 10% in low- vs. high-hormones. These differences were not statistically significant. Quoting the researchers:
Despite vast differences in hormone availability in the immediate post- exercise period, we found no differences in the increases in strength or hypertrophy in muscle exercised under low or high hormone conditions after 15 weeks of resistance training. These findings are in agreement with our hypothesis and previous work showing that exercise-induced hormone elevations do not stimulate myofibrillar protein synthesis (36) and are not necessary for hypertrophy (37). Thus, our data ((36) and present observations), when viewed collectively, lead us to conclude that local mechanisms are of far greater relevance in regulating muscle protein accretion occurring with resistance training, and that acute changes in hormones, such as GH, IGF-1, and testosterone, do not predict or in any way reflect a capacity for hypertrophy.
I don’t think it gets any clearer than that and I’d note that another recent study titled “Resistance exercise-induced increases in putative anabolic hormones do not enhance muscle protein synthesis or intracellular signalling in young men.” by the same group found the exact same thing.
Summing Up: Leg training has no magic impact on overall growth, most of which is determined locally (through mechanisms of tension and fatigue mediated by changes in local muscular metabolism). If you want big arms, train arms. If you want big legs, train legs.
And if folks are wondering why empirically ‘folks who train legs hard’ seem to get big compared to those who don’t, I’d offer the following explanation: folks willing to toil on heavy leg work work hard. Folks too lazy to train legs hard often don’t. And it’s the overall intensity of the training that is causing the difference, not the presence or absence of squats per se. Which is why guys who only hammer pecs and guns get big pecs and guns even if they couldn’t find the squat rack in the gym: the small acute hormonal responses to training are simply irrelevant to overall growth.
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Ha! I knew this one was coming.
Looks like I’ll be sticking with Walmart whey protein in milk for now; it’s cheap, tastes alright, and doesn’t come with a bunch of silly hype.
Good stuff, Lyle.
2 birds killed with one stone. Nice work, Lyle. Peptopro better hurry up & fund another casein hydro study. As for Anaconda having casein hydro, well… I’m sure it’s ‘special’ casein hydro 🙂
This would also seem to cast a strike against Alpha-GPC……at least the part where it is touted for boosting GH levels. So unless the claims about CNS potentiation hold any/enough water that looks like another one down the drain……………………….makes you wonder even more about so of those “magical” gains being reported.
As for training legs, I definitely agree with your comments on hard work. I’d also suspect that at a certain point properly balanced lower body training is necessary for further gains, at least from a structural balance perspective, but where that point occurs in any given person I can only speculate. And structural balance is obviously completely different than claiming it is the hormonal effects from things like squats are the reason for upper body mass gains.
Jack: The GH response to anything has never been relevant to growth. Even studies using injectable GH show that the ‘LBM’ gains are mostly water and connective tissue. Acute pulses do nothing (and they are at best a very secondary stimulus to lipolysis with effects occurring about 2 hours after the pulse; why most of the ‘train this way to jack up GH to get lean’ ideas are bogus).
And look around the gym, look at wheelchair athletes, look at lots of guys with massive upper bodies and no legs. Structural balance of that sort (in terms of the body somehow limiting growth in one area because it ‘wants’ to be balanced) is nonsense. Or look at some of the lower body athletes (e.g. speed skaters) with massive legs and NO upper body. It doesn’t work that way.
I don’t necessarily disagree, but it’s hard to dispute the fact that if you have no or wildly imbalanced lower body training that it may eventually become a limiting factor to further growth…………………..that doesn’t mean you can’t get, say, big arms, but it does mean that further size increases may not come until you sort some things out.
Take somebody with significant anterior pelvic tilt and there’s a good chance that his t-spine mobility and scapular stability will not be up to par, either. So it would be hard to argue that this wouldn’t inhibit his ultimate arm size potential until he gets things in order. So I’m not arguing he can’t gain arm size, even to a fairly significant degree, merely that size will be limited to some degree compared to someone with more structural integrity.
But I don’t want to clog up your comments section rambling about that when this review was not aimed at that. And I do apologize for even writing this much. Thanks for tolerating it 😉
Lyle,
I just thought I should add that I have indeed watched the wheelchair entrants in the NYC marathon in person, and I certainly noticed the arm development on each and every one of them.
the bro-slayer strikes again
Jack, Lyle is 100% right. Someone should tell these guys that their arm development is limited by not training legs:
http://www.ifbb.com/newsletter/detail.php?id=6576&date=2009-04-08&language=english&prov=arch
http://a877.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00798/67/83/798503876_l.jpg
That is not to say that squats are not great mass builders in general, few movements work as much musculature at once. And if you assume that a lot of people only have 1-2 sets of truly ass-busting work ‘in them’ at any given workout, they are probably the most efficient way for those people to develop the lower body and ‘core’. But they are not the only ways to develop those body parts, and have no effect on muscle groups they don’t recruit. I would also suggest that your elbow flexors/extensors don’t care about your pelvic tilt, tspine mobility, or scapular stability – they care about tension and fatigue. Huge arms can probably be built through EMS alone if it comes down to it. Those are all important things to look at for a variety of reasons, but plenty of people managed to get huge without ever hearing about/addressing them.
BTW great article Lyle, I guess we’ll all just have wait for this to be proven wrong by the hundreds of T-Bros who will use Anaconda to become larger than history’s largest natural bodybuilders, and stronger than the the top natural lifters over the next few months 😉 Of course, if they fail to do so, they must have been doing something wrong. Probably the lack of fat bars, or a sufficiently hardcore attitude.
Can you address their claims that:
1) Casein hydrolysate is more rapidly absorbed than whey hydrolysate or isolate.
2) Post-workout carbs are less effective because catecholamines blunt the insulin response.
Jack: you’re changing the topic with the example of pelvic tilt. You’ve gone from balance (e.g. upper vs. lower body size) to screwed up body mechanics. You can’t compare apples and oranges. Nevermind that you find plenty of guys with massive pecs and screwed up shoulders (b/c of the emphasis on pec training). Clearly that imbalance didn’t hold back HYPERTROPHY. And neither does not training legs, despite how often the bros want to assert it.
I never claimed to be comparing size of upper versus lower when speaking of balance, so I apologize for my lack of clarity, Lyle. Likewise I never said that structural balance (in the sense that I meant it but poorly indicated) would hold back hypertrophy entirely, merely cap it relative to what it could be if things were more balanced (the guy with wrecked shoulders may have quite a bit of mass, but likely not as much as he could have………….but I concede that still is largely speculative on a number of levels).
In any event, I am sorry for poorly articulating myself earlier, as I never had any disagreement with the notion that the upper or lower body could be hypertrophied without some sort of work for the other area. But thank you for suffering this fool willingly and not making me look too foolish. I freely admit that I’d be lucky to know and practically apply even the smallest shred of the knowledge you possess.
In the hydrolyzed casein study, were the amounts of protein for each group listed?
I wonder if the amount would have an effect on it’s ability to reach muscle, and also if hydrolyzed casein digestion would slow with large quantities the way it does with whole foods.
I don`t understand the secong study. They tested the SAME subjects, training one arm with legs on one day and the other by itself on another day?
Couldn`t they split their test subjects in 2 grups and train one with legs&arms and the other with arms only? Wouldn`t that have made more sense?
Also, the arm exercises were done before the leg presses. I always heard smaller muscles should be trained after; which in this case would be when the hormonal response actually hit.
I`m not really questioning the results but I wonder whether things would have been different had they slightly changed the test format.
No, they couldn’t have done it that way and here’s why: let’s say you take two people and let’s say they have totally different propensity for growth: genetics, hormones whatever. I
f you train them two different ways, you have no way to know if the differences in growth were due to the differences in training or just underlying physiology. By making each subject their own control, the issue was avoided. The only difference was whether arm work was done with leg work to elevate anabolic hormones. And growth was identical. Hence the anabolic hormone elevation made zero difference.
And order of exercise wouldn’t have mattered.
AJ
1. Read it again, the study in question is addressing exactly that claim. Hydrolysates do digest faster. And because of that get handled by the body differently. In this case having greater losses in the gut, greater oxidation and greater use by splanchnic tissues. Or, what the article said.
2. Catcecholamine levels drop RAPIDLY after training ends (look at how fast heart rate recovers, for example: a few minutes tops).
In any case, so what if the insulin response to carbs is blunted?
a. You’ll always get more insulin release with carbs than without.
b. Training improves insulin sensitivity: the same amount of insulin sends a stronger signal.
Beyond that, this is not meant to be an article addressing Anaconda and it’s claims and I won’t answer further questions about the specific product HERE. Go comment in Alan’s article.
Chuck, working backwards from what they listed as total calories for the test meals, the total protein content was 26.5 grams (oddly, this doesn’t seem to have been listed in the study which is why I managed to not give the value).
That is, each test meal provided 700 calories and, as mentioned in the article:
96 grams were carbs = 384 calories
23 grams were fat = 207 calories
That’s 384 + 207 calories = 591 calories leaving 106 from protein. 26.5 grams.
I see no reason to think that the amount would have affected the results. And based on the label, Anaconda only has about 10 grams of their magic leucine added casein hydrolystate anyhow.
Casein study: wouldn’t the outcome have been quite different if HC was taken during or around training?
No, it wouldn’t have but I knew someone would suggest that it might. The simple fact that everybody needs to get clear on is this: rapidly digesting proteins are handled differently by the body than slower digesting. And what the body does is burn off more of it in the liver, lose more to digestion (ileal losses) and, for reasons currently unclear, store more in splanchnic tissue. But LESS gets to the muscle (as this study showed) and training won’t impact on that at all.
Is that true for free form amino acids too, Lyle? EAA-sup that is.
Lyle, does this mean any rapidly digestion protein, i.e., an isolate, would be less utilized by the muscle? This implies, to me, using a protein with casein (not hydrolyzed) or concentrate might be better post-workout?
“Acute pulses do nothing (and they are at best a very secondary stimulus to lipolysis with effects occurring about 2 hours after the pulse; why most of the ‘train this way to jack up GH to get lean’ ideas are bogus).”
Lyle,
I have often seen coaches touting sessions aimed at fat loss that the use of giant sets with as little overlap as possible between subsequent exercises and each movement falling somewhere in the 10-15 rep range or thereabout, typically followed by a 20-30 minute bout of low-intensity cardio. They usually state the intent as trying to drive up lactate levels in the body to cause an acute response in GH and then use the low intensity work that follows to oxidize more of the fatty acids they say the training will be mobilizing.
Given your comment above, does this not reflect the reality of what goes on, or is it merely a case of not having nearly the magnitude of impact some may claim, possibly being something that might be done to “milk” every last bit you can get out of training for getting as lean as possible but certainly not a make-or-break, big-ticket item?
Obviously worrying about how much fat is lost or muscle built during training makes no sense, since the majority of changes will happen while recovering outside of training.
Regarding the ingestion of this sort of protein around training issue Lyle, doesn’t training upregulate activity which promotes muscle protein synthesis? Thus wouldn’t more get used by the muscle?
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a advocate of Peptopro / Caesin Hydro, I don’t see what advantage it has over just taking a whey shake a bit earlier – which is pretty fast itself iirc (absorbtion within 60mins or so). Would you still recommend a combination of both slow and fast proteins, say Whey plus Milk protein both pre and post workout?
Hi Lyle,
i have two of your books,rapid fatloss and ketogenic diet book.I have never spent any time looking through your site at yor articles etc,and WOW you have stoped me in my tracks with a calorie is a calorie.I do weigh 320 lbs and did have good luck on atkins in 2000,but i was angry all the time and binged on junk carbs,donuts ect every weekend it felt like torture,at the time i weighed 250 and got down to 180 but couldn’t hold on to it.So i read goog calories bad caloriesit tells me its all about the insulin and thats why im fat so i try all meat and eggs,who the hell can live like that not me,i was just so confused till yesterday i spent five hours reading your articles shit, im fat because im lazy and i eat to much period.Of course i want to be healthy and get of the meds and get rid of the sleep apnea,but all i have been doing for the last couple years is trying to find the answers im a human being living in the real world.And i might be one of thoes people who has a problem controlling my carb hunger but if i dont have any i wont be happy and succeed.I thank you so much for yor writings and knowledge.
I’ve always been skeptical of the assumption that acute hormonal changes, i.e. the neuroendocrine response, to exercise has everything to do with the physiological response to exercise.
This is a little outside the lines-does the fact that more amino acids are used by the gut mean that a casein hydro could be beneficial for those w gut dysfunction? Or am I making a jump outside reality?
Y: Is what true?
ATZ: As noted in response to someone else, this is an issue with DIGESTION. This all happens long before the protein reaches the bloodstream to even be USED by the muscle. And training won’t change that. And, as a generality since slow proteins can cause stomach upset, whey pre-training and either slow or a slow/fast after training (e.g. milk protein isolate or just drink some chocolate milk).
Great mythbusting lyle. I know this would have to be a different study entirely, but does the irrelevance of acute hormonal response apply to other training aside from hypertrophy? [eg, “GH production during interval training is what burns more fat and saves more muscle than steady state cardio”]. I’m assuming this to be the case, since I’m aware there are other mechanisms behind the various effectiveness of different training besides hormones, but just wondering if you had any other knowledge or literature on the subject.
GH is not and has never been anabolic. However, it does have lipolytic effets, although, as mentioned in the comments above, the effect is secondary to other more important hormones (insulin and the catecholamines) and VERY delayed (peak lipolysis occurring roughly 2 hours after the GH pulse, long after any training bout is done). This is all discussed in some detail in The Stubborn Fat Solution.
Addy: even the earliest studies with whey showed a higher oxidation due to the fast digestion. And, as I mentioned, a recent study found that fast proteins actually raised blood BCAA levels LESS than slower proteins. Another showed that soy (a fast protein) has been shown to be taken up into the gut. As I discuss in The Protein Book, a body of research suggests that slow (or a fast/slow mix) after training is superior to fast. I would still recommend whey pre- or during-training simply to avoid stomach upset.
Greg: As per my other comments in this thread, no it does not reflect reality. If the high rep/short rest approach is having an impact on anything related to fat loss it’s through other mechanisms such as glycogen depletion and acute hormonal responses to epinephrine/norepinephrine. Also, the high-volume burns more calories. But, specifically GH has jack to do with it, the impact is simply too delayed. Hormones involved in fat loss is discussed in detail in The Stubborn Fat solution.
Erin: Yes, a jump outside of reality as I’m using gut/splanchnic area to cover a lot of ground here. Gut health would be better improved with glutamine and probiotics (research supports both for treating things like IBD and leaky gut and such).
Lyle,
A common recommendation bandied about by trainers is to place any LISS cardio after “lactate training” or whatever they choose to call higher intensity work, and they say that if fat loss is the aim, this will milk every last bit of effectiveness out of the low intensity work (versus keeping it a separate session entirely). And they usually say that increased lactate leads to increased GH, leads to increased lipolysis, so that when the low intensity work comes after the much higher intensity work, you oxidize more of the fat they claim gets mobilized.
So does this pairing of LISS cardio after high(er)-intensity work still make it at least somewhat more effective (from a fat-loss standpoint) than when performed separately? And if so, is it more due to other things you mentioned (glycogen depletion, effect of the catecholamines, etc.), so that the intended effect is the same, it was just the purported reason for the effect that most of these trainers had wrong (namely implicating a GH-induced increase in lipolysis as the reason)?
Thanks Lyle. I’m always reaching for that one more thing..
Arthur:
I’ve answered your question at least 3 times in the comments above yours. It would be faster for you to READ THEM then ask the same question a 4th time.
Lyle
The part that really gets me is that everyone who follows the new ‘super program’ will probably gain some weight, given the additional caloric load. The excess could be anything from ~1000 to 600 per workout.
@3-4 workouts a week, it bumps overall intake by 2500-3000/week. Which timed or not will likely lead to a 1lb gain/week. And given the magic of bias, that will magically be 100% muscle, of course.
I’ve been visiting T-Nation since 2006, and really enjoy a lot of their articles, and their forums. I really like their protein, Metabolic Drive low carb . I know that they constantly plug their products, but they are a business, so it is understandable.
Having said that, I feel that I am almost in a Twilight Zone episode when I’m on there now. I literally can’t believe how ignorant some people can be. It reminds me of the quote from “Rounders”, which they took from Canada Bill Jones: “It’s immoral to let a sucker keep his money”. To me, this whole “Anaconda” marketing ploy is insulting; I honestly just can’t believe that they want us to buy some of the claims they make.
I swear, every time I read one of CT’s posts, I picture him with a big grin on his face, and can hear the whistling of the Enzyte commercial in my head.
Um, Im as skeptical as the next guy, but Im pretty sure nobody at T Nation advocates taking CH with 96g CHO and 23g Fats. Why would you bring up Anaconda in relation to CH being taken as a topping on a footlong sub?
100% irrelevant. Because when you add carbs and fats to other fast proteins, they get used BETTER by the body. Even that couldn’t save CH from being used poorly by the body. That’s why it’s still relevant.
As well, the full I,Bodybuilder protocol has far far more calories than that being consumed with the Finibars and other stuff that go along.
Which is, mind you, why all of the folks using it are reporting gastric upset and diarrhea.
To whit, this is what’s being recommended and the total caloric intake is somewhere around 1000 calories. Far more than in this study.
30 minutes prior = 2 scoops Workout Fuel, 1-2 Finibars
15-20 minutes prior = 2 scoops Surge Recovery
Before workout = 1 serving Anaconda
Mid-workout = 1 serving Anaconda, 1 Finibar
30 minutes post-workout = 1 serving MAG-10 protein
60 minutes post-workout = 1 serving MAG-10 protein
So
a. the study is completely relevant
b. casein hydrolysate sucks compared to intact casein
Guess whose post got immediately deleted upon submitting this article/study to the T-Nation audience?
There is a difference between slamming a product and discussing its constituent ingredients… the fact that posters are censored from saying anything that doesn’t verbally beat off Biotest is bullshit, and does raise questions as to just how much evidence they really have backing this product.
T-nation always deletes negative posts, it’s how they make it look like their products are nothing but positive. And anyone with a dissenting view is banned. They control information like nobody else out there. Which they wouldn’t have to do if they weren’t a bunch of conmen in the first place. Because good information stands on it’s own/doesn’t need that kind of information control defense. Bad information does.
It is true that hydrolyates offer less over all serum amino acids than intact proteins. What isn’t known however is whether or not they offer more targeted animo acid synthesis in the body when used for peri-workout than whey isolate. They certainly offer a greater insulin response, which is a premium peri-workout.
You can read a deopinionated abstract here.
http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/6/1/38
“There are no studies comparing the effects of whey or casein protein hydrolysates and respective intact proteins on skeletal muscle anabolism in healthy athletes.”
Unfortunately Lyle has the habit of drawing a base of conclusions that over reaches the scope of current research. No different than T-Nation. We’ll see if my comment stays here.
From what I understand Hydrolysate is used in Anaconda in order to not only boost blood amino acid levels but also blood insulin. And provide a fast source of L-Leucine.
Which the study states Casein Hydrolysate does “but HC was associated with a faster rate of absorption than was IC, resulting in earlier and stronger hyperaminoacidemia and hyperinsulinemia.”
As there is no quick absorption carbs in the protocol supplementation to do that (I don’t have to mention that we want pre and post insulin serge right lol). (The carbs in the finibars are slow release i.e. lowgi carbs Isomaltulose and rice oligo dextrin as such they have low insulin response)
As well as the protocol calls for uptake of half of the protein Hydrolysate over time by sipping the work out drink through out the work out there by supplying a more steady flow amino acids and preventing a sharp drop off. Also it has about 39g of NON-Hydrolysate proteins from whey and milk in the Finibars.
ummmm… ya well thats how im seeing it after doing some research … still can afford to be spending that much on work out supplements thou lol … so im sticking to buying my shit bulk and making my own peri-workout nutrition.
All of the talk about HC being absorbed faster by the gut before it reaches the blood stream is valid, but the point which people missed was that you do not drink it all at once, at least not every drink.
This is why it was talked about drinking it throughout your workout. Of course, if you took in all of the liquids at once then this article would be relevant, yet, you are not taking it at once.
Very interesting post Lyle, thank you! Anaconda is rudely expensive anyways…
Wow great *ucking one. Lyle! I was sold on the idea that T and anabolic hormones mattered…
Damn I should read this blog more often.
Carl
What about the study
‘Effect of a Hypocaloric Diet, Increased Protein Intake and Resistance Training on Lean Mass Gains and Fat Mass Loss in Overweight Police Officers
Robert H. Demling, Leslie DeSanti’
– Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, Mass., USA’
Thanks
Aster
What about it?
It claims ‘significant difference in body composition and strength is likely due to improved nitrogen retention and overall anticatabolic effects caused by the peptide components of the casein hydrolysate.’
is that possible ? Please forgive my ignorance.
Abstract here, http://content.karger.com/ProdukteDB/produkte.asp?doi=12817
Hello,
What is your take from is it more anabolic to eat lets say 3-5 times aday + can you say few words what Layne Norton have been studying (link below) + and the hydro casein study you refer to (above) is with fat, could it be more anabolic to take between meals some hydro casein and/or bcaa or before meal..???
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=130081023
Lyle, although nothing you have stated is incorrect, it completely overlooks the most important aspect of the study that has previously demonstrated that ingesting Casein Hydrolysate DURING training attenuates post-workout protein synthesis. It is precisely due to the characteristics that you described above that allow it to be utiized as an energy source during intense exercise.
The same can be said for whey protein and it doesn’t taste like horse vomit.
Thanks for the good read and information.
Regarding Anaconda (namely the product MAG-10), TNation has recently released a program called “Pulse Feast”. Basically, one pulses with MAG-10 twice during the day, has their peri-workout nutrition, and then a feast following their workout.
Following such a protocol turns out to be very expensive. What’s your take on this and do you think it would be as good to pulse with, Whey Hydrosolate and some L-Leucine?
Or possibly another combination of products to achieve the fast spike of amino acids in the bloodstream?
No you can’t “be your own control” the hormone study is COMPLETELY worthless as it does nothing to refute the claim that lower body training increases anabolic response. You don’t get the benefits because you did the two exercises in the same session vs doing them in different sessions.