The Protective Benefits of Intermittent Fasting

In a previous article I pointed to some talking points about intermittent fasting as it pertains to health, metabolism, and weight management.

Intermittent Fasting: A Few Talking Points

Those talking points are the things that are relevant to most people, especially the weight loss aspect of it.  Intermittent Fasting has a host of other health benefits, besides just being a useful tool for improving metabolic function and weight management.  Many studies have been performed showing that Intermittent Fasting has useful implications for cancer patients, Alzheimer’s sufferers, and those recovering from peripheral nerve damage.  So what I’m trying to say is that Intermittent Fasting is REALLY COOL!

These extra therapeutic benefits are due in large part to the fact that fasting induces cell autophagy.  The previous article touched on autophagy as it relates to muscle function.  Essentially autophagosomes sweep the muscle free of disfunctioning muscle proteins and the “garbage” that accumulates and contributes to muscle cell atrophy and weakness.  Autophagy is also largely at play when it comes to brain and nerve function and tumor growth.

A Word of Caution
Many studies that have investigated dietary protocols and nervous system function and cancer have been done on mice.  Any study done on mice needs to be held at arm’s length due to the fact that we humans are, in fact, not mice.  The reason all these studies are done on mice is that A) these are relatively new topics of study and are therefore done on mice first, and B) not a lot of people would sign up to be given cancer or neurological disorders.  Some people can be so selfish.

Not a human, but if you know this movie you get a million gold stars.

Also, since I’m not going to pay hundreds of dollars to read studies I’m only looking at the abstracts.  Abstracts can put you on the right track but it is sometimes impossible to discern whether or not a study was set up correctly, carried out correctly, etc. etc.  Also, reading whole studies is like eating nothing but white bread.  Dry and boring as hell.  On to the findings.

Nerve and Brain Function
Intermittent Fasting and long-term calorie restriction have been known to help improve and retard the effects of aging in the brain and peripheral organs.  Research has shown that Intermittent Fasting can have neuroprotective benefits by increasing the expression of myelin proteins in combination with a thicker myelin sheath, less redundant basal lamina, and a reduction in Schwann cell proliferation.  What this means is that the nerve cells are better protected and are more efficient.  Intermittent Fasting also promotes the clearing of certain protein aggregates which further improve efficiency and function of locomotor skills.

When placed on Intermittent Fasting male rat brains also experience an increase in mitochondrial content in certain areas of the brain and a decrease in oxidative stress to certain proteins.  Essentially the cells get stronger and are exposed to less harmful compounds as the brain ages.

Intermittent Fasting has also been shown to improve functional recovery in rats exposed to spinal cord injury.  The study was done using every other day fasting which basically means a day of fasting followed by a day of unrestricted food intake.  The fasting group of mice had increased nerve integrity, dramatically reduced lesion volume, and increased sprouting of corticospinal axons.  These effects were manifested in improved gait pattern, increased forelimb function during ladder crossing, and increased vertical exploration (why do all of these things sound fun?).

Until recently it was thought that the brain was excluded in the fasting-induced upregulation of neuronal autophagy.  There are drug companies that are investing a lot of money to develop drugs that cross the blood-brain barrier and upregulate autophagy in the brain.  A study done in 2010 showed that this is not needed.  Hopefully the drug companies see that benefits of this essentially free therapy and don’t push unneeded drugs on patients.  I get the feeling that this won’t be the case.

Cancer
Many studies have shown that Intermittent Fasting can lead to a decrease in cancer cell proliferation and tumor growth.  Intermittent Fasting has also been shown to delay tumor onset in mice that are predestined to develop cancerous tumors.  Again, the autophagy pathways that are switched on during fasting are largely at play by triggering cancer cell apoptosis (cell death).

This study mouse is a lot better off than some of his cousins.

Fasting in conjunction with chemotherapy- but not on its own- has also been shown to contribute to long-term cancer free survival in mouse models.  It was shown that the fasting had a sensitizing effect on the cancer cells.  This meant that the chemotherapy would be much more effective.  In breast cancer cells short-term fasting showed increased oxidative stress, DNA damage, and apoptosis.

Summary
Again, all of these studies have been conducted using mouse models.  Mice are similar in biology to humans but at the end of the day they still aren’t humans.  If these findings are validated in humans it will be interesting to see how the drug companies react.  I know cancer drugs are crazy expensive and make a lot of the drug companies a lot of money.  Hopefully the leaders of the pharmaceutical companies will find some kind of human emotion and not push drugs and the resultant cost on patients that don’t need them.  But I doubt it.

Is Intermittent Fasting for everyone?  I would say that many could reap some kind of benefit from it but ultimately it’s up to you to decide if it is or not.  I know that I’ve seen positives from it from a metabolic and weight management stand point.  But if it can keep me as far away from cancer and neurological disorders as possible I’ll keep doing it.  Oh, and as an end note, physical exercise promotes autophagy as well.  So eat right and sling some weight.

Sources:

Intermittent fasting alleviates the neuropathic phenotype in a mouse model of Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease.  Madorsky I, et al.  Neurobiol Dis. 2009 Apr;34(1):146-54.

Late-onset intermittent fasting dietary restriction as a potential intervention to retard age-associated brain function impairments in male rats.  Singh R, et al.  Age (Dordr). 2011 Aug 23.

Neuroprotective role of intermittent fasting in senescence-accelerated mice P8 (SAMP8).  Tajes M, et al.  Exp Gerontol. 2010 Sep;45(9):702-10.

Dietary restriction started after spinal cord injury improves functional recovery.  Plunet WT, et al.  Exp Neurol. 2008 Sep;213(1):28-35.

TCD scientists discover that self-eating cells safeguard against cancer. http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-02/tcd-tsd022511.php

Autophagy inhibition induces atrophy and myopathy in adult skeletal muscles.  Masiero E, Sandri M.  Autophagy. 2010 Feb;6(2):307-9.

Short-term fasting induces profound neuronal autophagy.  Alirezaei M, et al.  Autophagy. 2010 Aug;6(6):702-10.

To Keep Muscles Strong, the 'Garbage' Has to Go.  http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/12/091201131738.htm

Dose effects of modified alternate-day fasting regimens on in vivo cell proliferation and plasma insulin-like growth factor-1 in mice.  Varady KA, et al.  J Appl Physiol. 2007 Aug;103(2):547-51.

Effect of intermittent fasting on prostate cancer tumor growth in a mouse model.  Thomas JA 2nd, et al.  Prostate Cancer Prostatic Dis. 2010 Dec;13(4):350-5.

Weight-cycling decreases incidence and increases latency of mammary tumors to a greater extent than does chronic caloric restriction in mouse mammary tumor virus-transforming growth factor-alpha female mice.  Cleary MP, et al.  Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2002 Sep;11(9):836-43.

Adult-onset calorie restriction and fasting delay spontaneous tumorigenesis in p53-deficient mice.  Berrigan D, et al.  Carcinogenesis. 2002 May;23(5):817-22.

Fasting Cycles Retard Growth of Tumors and Sensitize a Range of Cancer Cell Types to Chemotherapy.  Changhan L., et al.  Science Translational Medicine February 8 2012.

Activation of autophagy is required for muscle homeostasis during physical exercise.  Nair U, Klionsky DJ.  Autophagy. 2011 Dec 1;7(12).

Training Update and Some Thoughts

Monday

Bench: 245x3, 220x3x3

Chins: 30 reps

TRX Pushups: 100 reps

Wednesday

Hang Clean and Jerk: 220x1x5

Gun Show

Friday

Dead Lift: 506x1, 440x1x6

I actually did some snatches before the clean and jerks on Wednesday.  I’m very out of practice with them.  I felt strong but very slow.  It goes to show that you get good at what you train.  I haven’t done them in a while so I’m not all that great at them right now.  My technique was good, just not fast and explosive.

Pressing movements are slowly and steadily coming up.  It’s going to take a while.  These have been my slowest moving lifts.  For someone who can squat 500 and dead lift 600 my pressing numbers are pretty sad.  I know that to get better at them I would really need to dial back the lower body training and put more focus into the upper body.  Just not real sure I really want to do that.

I had a client hit a dead lift PR the other day.  She pulled 216 lbs.  It was the first time she’d ever dead lifted anything over 200.  It was one of those small victory moments that stay with you for a long time.  It’s the reason why I love what I do.  When I first started working at NX Level I had more of an interest in strength training.  It has since grown into a passion.  In the beginning I thought it was fun but didn’t really put much effort into the pursuit of knowledge it takes to really be successful.  I was more than happy to just read exercises off of a sheet of paper and be on my way.  Now I take my self-study seriously and am constantly trying new things on myself and those that I work with, always trying to achieve better results.  Needless to say I’m very thankful with where I am in my career.

This weekend Amy and I are hosting some friends of hers.  I’m going to be grilling up some BBQ bacon cheeseburgers where the bacon is chopped up and mixed in with the burger meat.  I’ve never tried them like this before.  To say I’m excited would be an understatement. 

When it comes to musical tastes around the gym Lance and I are on the outside of what most people like.  Most in the gym are good with radio rock, modern rap/hip hop, or Top 40.  None of those really interest me.  I’m into punk rock and metal.  For some reason this music, whether it’s the loud guitars, screaming vocals, or just general awesomeness, causes people to make snide comments.  “Are there even words?”  “Why are they so angry?”  And so on. 

It reminds me of a time when Amy and I were at her parent’s house.  They had country music on in the house, and if you don’t know that I despise most country music you don’t know much about me.  I’ve had just about everyone say to me, “Just listen to the lyrics.”  The lyrics?  It’s usually the contrived, hackney, shitty lyrics that I can’t stand.  Not to mention the hypocrisy of multi-millionaires who apparently “live country”.  But that’s beside the point.  Amy mentioned to her mom that I don’t like country music.  Without missing a beat her mom turns to me and asks, “You don’t like that heavy-metal crap do you?”  My reply was simply, “Mrs. Bachler, I tell people ‘I don’t like country music,’ not, ‘I don’t like that country music crap.’”  We all had a good laugh after that.  My point is that different folks are into different strokes.  It would be a pretty boring place if we all liked the same watered down, formula driven, non-offensive, sophomoric music that populates the airwaves these days.  Sick burn.

A huge congratulations to my great friend Eric Ficek.  About a year and a half ago Eric weighed 385 pounds and had done zero exercise since high school football.  His only attempt at losing weight came during his freshman year of college when he went on an oranges and Everclear diet.  It did not lead to long term success.  After Lance and I ran the Warrior Dash Eric started exercising again.  He got into powerlifting and started cleaning up his diet.  About six months ago he was down to 340 but was essentially on cruise control. 

He mentioned that he’d like to lose some weight to compete in the 275 pound powerlifting class.  I offered up my knowledge and began writing weekly diet plans for him.  His initial goal was to get to 265 so he could have lots of room for the 275 class.  I thought he would be more awesome at the 242 class.  Well, last week he sent me this picture.

240.4 never looked so good.

It takes a lot of hard work, dedication, and sacrifice to lose 20 pounds let alone 100.  The thing about Eric is that there really isn’t anything special about his weight loss.  He did a big chunk of it through the holidays and got a little lose with things.  He didn’t bemoan his lack of fortitude; he just got right back on the wagon.  No one has the iron will to resist every single temptation that comes their way in a six month time span.  As a coach I wouldn’t expect nor would I want a client to resist every temptation.  You need to live a little too.  The hard part is to keep them very sporadic.  I’m talking weeks apart, not days.  So if Eric can lose 100 pounds and do a 180 on his physical status think about what you could do.

And now a little plug; if anyone is interested in online coaching send me an email at tdequaine@hotmail.com or just drop a line in the comments.  Whatever your goals are whether they are training or diet related there’s a good chance I can help you out.  But keep in mind, it isn’t free.

I went sans belt on all the dead lifts today.  All of them felt really good.  I even pulled one of the 440s with a double overhand grip (the hardest grip).  Without the belt I really feel the stress through my abdominal wall and obliques.  I think I’m going to keep the belt off for dead lifts for a while.  Hopefully when I put the belt back on my back and abs will be a lot stronger.

I don’t have anything against training with a belt.  I think younger lifters, and especially athletes, should try to go as far as possible without one though.  You could debate the topic of whether or not it’s cheating or safe for the other muscles and joints doing the work until you are blue in the face.  But the fact remains that you can lift more with it than without it. 

I couldn’t tell you the last time I went to a movie in a theater.  Wait, yes I can.  It was Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.  But the time before that was Due Date.  That came out well over a year ago.  I even have trouble sitting down at home to watch one.  I’d rather read or write or cuddle fight with Saxon.  Also, I might be getting AD- HEY A SQUIRELL!

I hope everyone has a great weekend and thanks for reading!

The Dope Sheet: NO Boosters

One of the relatively new kids on the block, but one that has made a lot of money, in the world of exercise supplementation have been NO Boosters.  These come in a few different forms from just straight l-arginine to glycine-arginine-alpha-ketoisocaproic acid (GAKIC).  To most trainees the claims make sense.  Increased vasodilation brings more blood to muscles which makes you stronger in the gym and increases muscle protein sysnthesis (muscle building) afterwards.  And when products like NO Xplode and SuperPump 250 literally claim you will get “roadmap vascularity and muscle tearing pumps” and have professional body builders saying they swear by the stuff there will probably be a line of trainees out the door waiting to buy.  Sounds great, where do I sign up?

What It Does

Arginine is the major player when it comes to nitric oxide (NO) production.  Arginine is a conditionally essential amino acid and has a host of other health benefits not related to training (mostly in postoperative wound healing).  Arginine is oxidated to NO via nictric oxide synthase (NOS).  The NO is then thought to work its bioactive magic on the muscles and vascular system.  It does this by dilating (makes bigger) the blood vessels.  The reasoning is that the bigger the blood vessels the more volume of blood that can get to and help the muscle perform.  There have also been claims that arginine supplements increase the growth hormone response.

But Does It Actually Work?

Yes and no.  Arginine containing supplements will dilate the blood vessels, that much is true.  And when taken in conjunction with caffeine it can give you a boost of energy.  But, NO has been shown to improve exercise performance in UNTRAINED trainees only.  Anytime a study has been done with trained individuals the benefits have disappeared, even with higher doses.

Even when a study has shown a benefit it is usually short lived.  In a study on young males a NO group and a placebo group performed ten 10s sprints with a one minute rest period between sprints.  The NO group showed an increased mean power for the SECOND SPRINT ONLY.  For all the other sprint trials there was no statistically significant improvement in performance.  Also note that this same protocol was performed with trained cyclists and the NO group showed zero increased performance over the control group.

The increased growth hormone response is also very misleading.  When studies have been conducted at rest there has been shown to be an increase in growth hormone secretion with both high and low doses.  When studies have been conducted looking at growth hormone response to NO boosters in conjunction with exercise, the growth hormone response is actually LOWER than it would have been with exercise alone.

If you are brand spanking new to training NO boosters may give you some performance enhancement in the short term.  BUT, it may actually hinder progress by limiting your natural growth hormone response.  Trust me; you’d rather have a higher growth hormone output than a bit of a buzz doing your 95 lb. bench press.

Should I Take It?

No.

Is It Safe?

If you shouldn’t take it, it doesn’t matter if it is safe.  Buuuut if you’re not going to listen to me and take it for psychological reasons then yes, it’s safe to take.  Even at high doses no real negative side effects have been shown.

Summary

In conclusion, my recommendation is to save your money.  If you want a bit of a kick pre-workout there are much cheaper and equally effective means of obtaining it, like coffee for instance.  Save your money, lift heavy, and spend that money on food that will actually help you build muscle.  Not some broscience supplement that only gives you false hopes.

Getting jacked, bro.

Sources

The effect of nitric-oxide-related supplements on human performance.  Bescós R, Sureda A, Tur JA, Pons A.  Sports Med. 2012 Feb 1;42(2):99-117.

Effects of 7 days of arginine-alpha-ketoglutarate supplementation on blood flow, plasma L-arginine, nitric oxide metabolites, and asymmetric dimethyl arginine after resistance exercise.  Willoughby DS, Boucher T, Reid J, Skelton G, Clark M.  Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2011 Aug;21(4):291-9.

Effects of citrulline supplementation on fatigue and exercise performance in mice.  Takeda K, Machida M, Kohara A, Omi N, Takemasa T.  J Nutr Sci Vitaminol (Tokyo). 2011;57(3):246-50.

The acute effects of a low and high dose of oral L-arginine supplementation in young active males at rest.  Forbes SC, Bell GJ.  Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2011 Jun;36(3):405-11. Epub 2011 May 16.

Failure of glycine-arginine-α-ketoisocaproic acid to improve high-intensity exercise performance in trained cyclists.  Beis L, Mohammad Y, Easton C, Pitsiladis YP.  Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2011 Feb;21(1):33-9.

Glycine-arginine-alpha-ketoisocaproic acid improves performance of repeated cycling sprints.  Buford BN, Koch AJ.  Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2004 Apr;36(4):583-7.

Growth hormone, arginine and exercise.  Kanaley JA.  Curr Opin Clin Nutr Metab Care. 2008 Jan;11(1):50-4.

Bolus arginine supplementation affects neither muscle blood flow nor muscle protein synthesis in young men at rest or after resistance exercise.  Tang JE, Lysecki PJ, Manolakos JJ, MacDonald MJ, Tarnopolsky MA, Phillips SM.  J Nutr. 2011 Feb;141(2):195-200. Epub 2010 Dec 29.

Training & Diet Update, Dead Lift Videos and Random Thoughts

Here’s the play by play from the past week along with some insights at the end.  Bon Apetit.

Monday

Bench Press:

225x5

250x2 (was supposed to be five)

225x2x3

Wednesday

Hang Clean and Jerk:

176x2

220x2x5

Friday:

Dead Lift:

440x3

506x2

550x1

484x2x3

Front Squat:

185x6x3

The diet is over.  The final tally is 21.4 lbs (209.5 to 188.1) lost and my body fat went from 13.1% to 8.8%.  Not too shabby for doing it over the holidays when most of America's weight is going in the other direction  I won’t say it was the toughest thing I’ve ever done but it was up there.  I thought it was going to be over four weeks ago but Lance and I decided to push on.  Well,at least I did.  I've never been sub 10% before.  The hard part is going to be staying there.


Here's the finished product.

Bathroom selfies FTW.

One thing that kind of surprised me was that my lean mass dropped by almost 10 lbs.  The more I thought about it the more I realized it’s due to a few reasons.  The biggest one being that when I did the initial weigh in I was bloated and my muscles were full of glycogen (glycogen is the storage form of glucose).  This extra water and muscle glycogen is usually the first weight that is lost on a diet.  The second reason was that I did an herbal cleanse.  This removes toxins and built up junk from your system.  The third reason is that with Intermittent Fasting old, damaged proteins are removed from the muscles.  Over the long term this protein breakdown is a bad thing, but in the short term it’s good.  Either way, it’s time to build that number back up.

Like I said last week I’m going to slowly bring my weight back up trying to stay as lean as I can.  If I feel like I’m getting a little too puffy I’ll cut back the calories for a bit. 

I’m going to keep doing Intermittent Fasting as I think it fits well with my schedule for the most part.  I’m going to play around with different protocols and see which ones I like and don’t like.

One that I’m going to try is the every so often cheat and then fast for 24-30 hours.  And when I say cheat I mean it.  Nothing is off limits for a period of time and then no eating for at least 24 hours.  The cheat days will more than likely be Saturdays with Sunday being the fast day since I don’t usually do anything very physically taxing on Sundays anyways. I am going to be eating a ton for the Super Bowl.  Super Bowl Sunday is the second biggest eating day in America, only trailing Thanksgiving.  I fully plan to do my part.  On the menu are ham sandwiches, pulled pork sandwiches, Italian beef sandwiches, meatball sandwiches, conglomerations of all four of those, along with a whole host of other sides and desserts.  It could be along the lines of epic.


And who do I want to win the Super Bowl?  I'd actually kind of like to see both teams come down with dysentery and both lose.  I'll also be rooting for the Halftime Show to be cancelled.  Madonna?  Really?  I bet this year the Puppy Bowl has it's highest ratings ever. 

In a couple of weeks I’ll be traveling up to Wausau with what I’m sure will be a great group of kids to do the annual Wunsch Family Foundation Circle of Friends Winter Trip.  This is going to be my fourth Winter Trip and it will be the 14^th or 15^th overall.  This trip is always a blast.  All of the kids either have cancer or have had cancer.  We go skiing, snowmobiling, tubing, cosmic bowling, and do a bunch of other fun stuff.  It’s always one of the highlights of my year.

I probably pushed a little too hard on the dead lift today.  Back is going to be angry with me for a few days.  It’s nothing that some soft tissue work can’t work out, but I have to keep the big picture in mind.  Either way I’m happy with a 550 lb. pull at 188.

Speaking of which, a small part of me wants to trumpet that I did X times my bodyweight and talk about how cool I am.  But a bigger part of me isn’t going to fall into the body weight argument trap.  Strong is strong no matter how much you weigh.  People that want to point to body weight multiples to justify their numbers probably aren’t that strong anyways.  A 550 dead lift is decent but in the grand scheme of things it’s just that, decent.


Here's videos of today's lifts:











And with that, that's it, that's all, that's all there is.  Have a great weekend.

Related Posts:


Diet Update and Confessions of a Former Fat Boy

Intermittent Fasting: A Few Talking Points

F+(Pb) or (Ch)=Y...my theorem on the properties of peanut butter and/or cheese.