I’m glad to hear Michelle Obama is taking action on childhood obesity for the White House. I’m looking forward to what she releases about her plan.

“The first lady plans to release specifics of her “ground-up” plan to fight child obesity next week, including steps to encourage schools to promote healthy eating, increase physical activity for kids, improve families’ access to healthy foods and give parents better information about healthy choices.”

These are all great things. I think parents need more access to the knowledge of giving these kids healthy choices. I think the kids obviously need healthy eating and more physical activity. Energy balance is key, and that definitely helps take it away from the weight and more towards lifestyle. Check out how the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation is working on this.

I must say though,  given what this article later says, “tight budgets mean the government will need to ‘use what we have’ rather than expect lots of additional money,”  I’m not sure how this is going to be different (besides having the First Lady involved). Here’s what I mean:

1. Need for a social movement: In order to really make some headway in childhood obesity, we need to make it not about obesity. As long as we’re operating in a place of “fixing” obesity, we’re going to be challenged. We must get to the core of why these kids are obese. We need a movement for healthy lifestyles, not a movement against our weight problem. We are all in this together. If we want a healthy nation, we need to BE it.

2. Addressing the emotional: I can’t see how her approach would be different. Physical activity and nutrition are two huge things that the government has continually tried to work on with the President’s Council on Physical Fitness, 5 A Day, the Pyramid. If you look at the Healthier US Website you see: be physically active, eat a nutritious diet, get preventative screenings, avoid risky behavior. Ok, where is the emotional piece behind our individual eating habits? These overweight kids don’t want us to feel sorry for them anymore, they just want freedom from the pain that food is causing them. They aren’t like all the other kids who take to moving and eating well.

3. Weight-Bias: Obesity has made a lot of kids feel like outcasts. I know it was rough when I was the only girl in my grade school class, but now that it’s such a big issue, I can’t imagine how tough it is for heavy kids. They feel judged, and they hide from the shame. What’s worse – they eat over that shame. They feel totally helpless. I taught a group of girls last summer and the ones who were overweight tuned out the healthy eating preaching, or the workout. They get it. They know what they’re supposed to do. We’re not going to reach those kids if we keep just telling them to eat right and workout. We’re just not. Those kids need some special attention that doesn’t involve – “Let’s fix your weight.”

I think it is HUGE that the First Lady is taking the lead on this, but she can’t do it alone and we can’t expect her to. Those of us working on this issue need to educate her about what we’re doing to support her, and we need to see it goes beyond the surface of the weight. Simply treating the outcome (the weight) gets us nowhere.

Godspeed Mrs. Obama.

Weight maintenance occurs when we are in something called energy balance. Energy balance simply means:

Calorie Intake = Calorie Expenditure

Calorie Intake is simply all the calories you eat and drink daily.

Calorie Expenditure is a factor of three different things:

• Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
• Physical Activity
• Thermic Effect of Food

BMR: This is the amount of calories your body burns at rest daily to do all of its normal bodily processes.  BMR accounts for 60-75% of your entire calorie expenditure.  Muscle is more metabolically active than fat, therefore men have higher BMRs than women.  The BMR decreases 3-5% every 10 years after the age of 30.  Starving or fasting also decreases the BMR.

Since everyone’s metabolism is different, the only way to very accurately measure it is through something called indirect calorimetry.  These are breathing machines that are able to calculate your personal BMR.  I do this in my office and find it is an invaluable tool for weight loss purposes.

Physical Activity: This is the amount of calories your body burns while being active (not necessarily formal exercise), it accounts for 15-35% of your entire calorie expenditure.  The factors that influence how many calories you burn during exercise are: how many muscle groups used (the more the greater calories burned), intensity, duration and body size.

Thermic Effect of Food: This is the amount of calories required to digest, absorb, transport, and metabolize the food we eat daily.  It accounts for 5-10% of the total calories burned daily.  Protein requires the most energy, and fat the least energy!

Weight Loss occurs when calorie intake is less than calorie expenditure

Weight Gain occurs when calorie intake is greater than calorie expenditure

Finally the press are starting to put wrongs to right! Dan Roberts, journalist for The Independent, has written a great piece titled Why your workout isn’t working, a much-awaited clear-cut article tackling recent chants that “exercise makes you fat”. Roberts presents his findings with logic and rationale…and best of all, he actually has consulted with a variety of professionals on the subject, ranging from leading researcher, Dr Edward Melanson, to the EIS performance nutritionist, Jeni Pearce. Dan Roberts’ message is simple – “look behind the sensational headlines and grasp what at the research is really telling us”.

Roberts quotes Dr Melanson, “It all comes down to energy balance. It’s not that exercise doesn’t burn fat – it’s just that we replace the calories” and too, begins to realise our flawed outlook on weight loss and exercise. We all know the endless health benefits that an active lifestyle has to offer, but on a more shallow level, we tend to exercise to lose weight or keep in shape. Recent research has shown that weight loss success is remarkably small when exercise is used as a single intervention, however it was ignorant to assume that exercise “makes us fat”. Nutrition intervention (diet) alone definitely is more successful at promoting weight loss, however all the professionals consulted by Roberts agree that exercise AND diet are the best combination. There are 4 main take-home messages from this article:

 Higher-intensity workouts expend more calories than lower-intensity workouts, which ultimately is more effective for weight loss – it’s more about total calorie burn than how we burn the calories
 Body composition is important for calorie burn – muscle burns more calories than fat and is important for sustained weight loss and overall resting metabolic rate boost
 We over-estimate the calories burned during exercise and over-reward ourselves with food after exercise! Essentially, we tend consume more calories than we expended which counters any weight loss effort.
 Weight loss takes time and effort! A consistent effort will result in more sustainable weight loss.

There is one short-coming in Dan Roberts’ article, and that is he has been led to believe that there is “difficulty in accurately measuring calorie expenditure”. It is clearer now than ever before that it is ALL ABOUT ENERGY BALANCE. The Ki Fit system is the missing link in this article, and would definitely have given Roberts the closure he needed in his message to the masses.

When I work with my clients, one of the key elements that I incorporate into all of our workouts is INTENSITY. In my view, intensity is the most critical aspect of any exercise regime and can mean the difference between someone who reaches their goals and someone who doesn’t.

Increasing your workout’s intensity will stimulate your body to burn more calories and induce a greater cardiovascular response. It will also allow you to have a more time efficient workout.

If you are looking to burn fat and become more toned, then increasing your exercise intensity is critical. Many people have the misconception that if you workout at a higher intensity you will no longer be burning fat since you will be in your “cardio zone”. Whereas, if you keep your intensity low for a longer duration you will burn more fat since you will be in your “fat burning zone”. Let me clarify this for you once and for all.

By training at a low intensity (<70% max) it is true that you use fat as your predominant source of fuel. While exercising at a higher intensity (>75% max) your main fuel source is carbohydrate but you will ultimately burn more calories. And since 1 pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories, the ultimate goal is to burn as many calories as possible to create a negative energy balance!

One of the best ways to achieve this intensity is through the use of full-body compound circuit training (strength training) in conjunction with interval training (on the cardio equipment). The benefit of full body compound training is that since it utilizes more muscle in any given movement you burn more calories. The intensity of the workout also means that each exercise becomes more challenging as your heart rate is sustained at a much higher level.

Here are a couple of benefits to following an exercise program combining circuit training and interval training:

1. Intervals and circuits vastly reduce boredom. Traditional steady state cardio training and/or weight lifting can become quite boring. Interval training and circuit training offer more variety and excitement to your workouts.

2. Interval training increases post-exercise energy expenditure (calories burned following exercise) more than steady-state exercise, which means that more fat is burned. After intense exercise, the body needs extra calories as it works to repair muscles, replace energy stores (i.e. carbohydrate) and restore the body to its normal state (e.g. reduce heart rate). As this can take many hours, you will keep on burning more calories long after the workout is over. In fact, research shows that metabolic rate is higher for several hours following interval training compared to steady state exercise.

3. Interval training burns more calories. As an example, 30 minutes on an Elliptical machine using a steady state program will burn roughly 292 calories, whereas 30 minutes of intervals will burn approximately 584 calories!

Here is a sample workout that will leave you huffing and puffing:

WARM-UP
bike, treadmill, elliptical, rower 5-10 min

CIRCUIT (45 seconds for each exercise, with 15 seconds rest between exercises) 5-7 min
Lunge walks with lateral raises

Plank (on stability ball)

Squats with medicine ball shoulder press

Push-ups

Side Bridges

Reverse Pull-ups

Burpies

INTERVAL TRAINING (cardio equipment)
20 sec @ 100% : 40 sec @ 70% x 5 5 min

Repeat Circuit and Interval 3 times

Total Workout Time: 45 – 60 min

If you would like to experience what an intense workout feels like then be sure to inquire about the revolutionary Fitter U MP3 personal training program! For a fraction of the cost of regular one-on-one training, this proven MP3 program will ensure you get to your fitness goals in less time!

Fitness and Fat Loss Expert, Yuri Elkaim, helps thousands of busy health conscious individuals lose fat while sculpting lean muscle with just 3 short enjoyable workouts a week. Try his acclaimed Fitter U Fitness fat burning workouts for free by visiting www.fitterufitness.com today!

Lacee

Mom The Sage

“I’m going home, to a place where I belong where your love has always been enough for me… Cause these places and these spaces are getting old. I going home.”   Lyrics from Home by Chris Daughtry

Going home for me means I am going to visit my mother, the Sage of life. We have our usual things that we do on my monthly visits that I have learned to treasure. If I arrive on Friday and I am not too tired we sit and talk. On Sat morning we eat a great breakfast after I get up…no matter what time. At home, I sleep in and enjoy being in a place filled with loving memories.

During and after breakfast, we chat…and chat…and laugh. The weekend is filled with fried fish on Saturday evening and leftover fish and grits for Sunday breakfast and a lot of life talks  and laughter with the food. While we are chatting, Lacee, my mother’s lovable Yorkipoo, usually jumps in my lap. Lacee has figured out our routine. Food fellowship, then out for fun! Lacee uses this time to remind us that as a “lapdop” she wants her “lap” time before we get out in the streets. Lacee also knows that I will take her for a long walk before we leave. When feels like we have laughed and chatted enough she will jump down and look at me with those puppy dog eyes as if to say, “Are you ready yet?”

When she sees me put my shoes on she starts running in a circle from sheer excitement. After we walk Lacee comes back and drinks some water and plops down on the cool tile floor. I shower and mom and I are off to run errands and continue to enjoy our time together.  Going home and spending time with my mother is a ritual I treasure that is priceless.

Home is one place I can rejuvenate, recharge, regroup, relax and be reminded of the simple pleasures of life. I am HOME… a place where I belong.

Where do you go or what do to recharge? I would enjoy your thoughts.

The Seven Chakras are energy centers located along the center of our bodies. When they are open, and the energy flow is in balance we feel clear, secure, and grounded. We are fully aware of the mind, body spirit connection and there is a sense of ease in how we relate to the world. The key words here are flow and balance. If the energy is not flowing, and the chakras are out of balance, then we are more likely to feel uncomfortable emotions and struggle with our self expression and access to our intuition. We can also feel tired – not necessarily sleepy, but an overall lack of energy as if our personal gas tank is low on fuel.

This chakra balance is similar to the maintenance of our body chemistry. When we are strong and healthy, our bodies can compensate more easily for our lack of physical care. They can maintain this complicated and delicate balance even when we don’t get enough sleep, eat the wrong foods, etc. We reach a point though where this neglect can take it’s toll and we have to make changes in our self-care and lifestyle, as well as seek the help of healthcare professionals and healers to help the struggling parts of our body work the way they are supposed to work.

This is also true for our chakras. If one or more of them are closed or if there is too much or too little energy flowing from one or more of them, then we are out of balance. Eventually this too can take its toll and the symptoms of chakra imbalance can be physical, emotional, or mental. There are many ways to open and balance the chakras. These methods can include almost anything that nurtures our mind, body and spirit. There are also ways to more directly balance the chakras that include using crystals, reiki, sound therapy, and meditation. Meditation can be a powerful tool in helping us to strengthen and balance our mind, body, spirit connection, and our energy balance can especially benefit from chakra meditations.

There are many variations on chakra meditations that include imagining the energy centers as vortexes, spirals, wheels and imagining the energy moving in one direction and then another. The one thing that is generally consistent is the use of color and the association of specific color to each chakra. I like to imagine colored light flowing into my body at the point where the chakra is located, and I believe it is most helpful to start with the first chakra and work up the body towards the head. As the light enters each part of my body, I feel a sense of renewal and balance.

Below is a list of the seven chakras, including the color associated with it, some key words and its location to help you get started on developing your own chakra meditations.

1. Root Chakra (red) – survival and grounding, base of the spine
2. Sacrum Chakra (orange) – stability and self confidence, lower belly
3. Solar Plexus Chakra (yellow) – will and determination, stomach
4. Heart Chakra (green) – wisdom and compassion, center of chest
5. Throat Chakra (blue) – creativity and intuition, base of throat
6. Third Eye Chakra (indigo) – concentration and self-mastery, between eye brows
7. Crown Chakra (violet) – feeling of connection and bliss, top of head

If you’d like some additional help using meditation to balance your chakras, you can check out my guided meditation titled “Rejuvenate.” It uses the color imagery of the seven chakras to help you feel rejuvenated and replenished. It’s from my CD Epic Meditations, available on iTunes and Amazon. A newly developed extended version is also available on www.NatureMusicDownload.com. This version includes beautiful background music to enhance the meditation experience.

Copyright © 2009, Lisa Wagner

When we feel attacked by negative energy we become weakened as if our energy lines have been severed, we become drained and our minds and bodies react, images are created in the mind and thoughts generated into the universe which create form.  In order to detach from the negative vibrations, you have to turn your level of thinking to a higher level of frequency, like a radio station that operates and generates off of frequency waves. In order to achieve this, we must have an understanding of ourselves and of letting go. When we go to source God we begin to experience peace and greater awareness. You may tell yourself that you are whole and complete just as you are. That you are grateful for this day and everything in it. I am abundant and in perfect light form of love in which God enfolds around me and every person whom I am in contact with. When we are in touch with God and the universal power of love it transcends unity and harmony. We then begin to experience a feeling of bliss and at ease; you are turning your energy channel to a higher level frequency of thought. Your thoughts and images are creating high level energy fields of love and this is what we create for ourselves that manifests in our lives, the positive flow of thought as if it were a universal language. We feel refreshed and awaken and filled with God’s light of energy, and we feel healthy and strong. We can no longer surrendering ourselves to low negative vibrations; our mind channel does not recognize it.

In order to detach from negative vibrations; you have to turn your frequency level of thought to higher level than self, God.

God Bless xx

Jacqueline G. Logan

Many years ago now I remember reading an article about the American Plains Indians. The article focused on basics, how they sustained themselves. They hunted the buffalo, grew maize and pumpkins, and supplemented this production by gathering fruits and nuts and hunting small game. The point the authors tried to make was that the American Indians were well adapted whereas the farmers who’d displaced them were not. The farmers depended on fossil fuel. I still remember a ratio in that article—although nothing about the authors, title, or context of the article remains in memory. The ratio was that that society expended on average 0.6 calories in effort to obtain 1 calorie of nutrition. The Indians realized an “energy profit.” The surplus was enough to sustain their way of life.

That article left a deep impression. I think I read it in the 1960s, thus long before the first energy crisis hit, before the words “peak oil” had been turned into a slogan, before anybody even dreamt of  global warming. Indeed, in those days, the talk was about sudden cooling. Well, fashions change. But what did stay with me was the idea that in the very long run only genuinely adaptive ways of life could really survive.

Last night I searched the web to see if I could discover similar data on agriculture. I found excerpts that served my purpose in Gregory McIsaac’s and William Edwards’ book, Sustainable agriculture in the American Midwest (U of Illinois Press, 1994, p. 43). The excerpt is here. After talking about the San of the Kalahari, Mexican subsistence farmers, and subsistence agriculturalists in the  New Guinea Highlands, the authors quote one source that sums things up: “In ‘primitive’ cultures, 5 to 50 food calories were obtained for each calorie of energy invested…. In sharp contrast, industrialized food systems require 5 to 10 calories of fuel to obtain 1 food calorie.”* The authors go on to note that the last set of numbers include energy needed to make farm equipment but more energy yet, excluded from the ratio, is necessary to transport, warehouse, and process food. The sources cited by the authors are quite dated (1975, 1989). Since those times energy use in agriculture has improved, as shown in this report from the Congressional Research Service. But the improvements (e.g., shifting from gasoline to diesel, etc.) have not really moved the ratios much towards sustainability. Before I’m done with this flurry of citations, I might as well add another classic in this literature, an article by Richard Manning in Harper’s (February 2004). The title itself carries the message implicitly stated in the ratios above: “The Oil We Eat.”

The rock and the hard place? Yes. As multiple posts in LaMarotte describe, we can be sure that oil really will run out and that even if we’re lucky enough to solve the technical problems of fusion, the resulting energy supply will be much more costly. We won’t be able to sustain our populations by eating oil. The alternative will be return to sustainable agriculture. But there even the most attractive ratio (1 calorie in, 50 calories out) suggests that many more people will have to engage in agriculture to feed us than we deploy for that work today. In 1800 roughly 85 percent of the U.S. population was engaged in farming. Not today, but tomorrow, get ready to hop a clod.
 ——————–
*The quote is sourced, by the authors, as Steinhart, J.S., and C.E. Steinhart. 1975. Energy use in the U.S. food system. In: P.H. Abelson (ed.), Food: Politics, Economics, Nutrition, and Research. American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C., pp. 33-42.

Energy in versus energy out. Also known as calories consumed vs. calories burned. Getting the balance right is one of the core principles behind My Energy. It’s also the best approach to weight loss, weight gain or weight maintenance. Knowing where to start and how to find that right balance, however, can be difficult. When My Energy meets MyPyramid it gets a little easier. 

You might remember growing up with the Four Food Groups – grains, fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy – introduced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1956. Nearly 40 years later, USDA moved to the Food Pyramid which reflected the latest thinking in terms of fats and sugars, and focused on moderation, variety and proportion. Then, in 2005, the USDA launched MyPyramid, with changes reflecting recommendations for 30 minutes of daily physical activity, a personalized approach to nutrition and distinction of varying value among foods within a given food group (e.g., French fries vs. broccoli in the vegetable group). 

The new MyPyramid is primarily an interactive campaign via www.mypyramid.gov. If you’re not sure what your daily calorie needs are (i.e., how much food you should eat every day) or how to put together a menu that meets those daily calorie requirements as well as recommended nutritional objectives, then the MyPyramid Web site is the place for you. While not as customized as individual nutrition counseling, the Web site does calculate a specific daily pyramid for you based on some basic information you provide, such as weight, height, age, gender and daily level of physical activity. 

Trying to plan meals for an entire family, all with different calorie and nutrient needs – not to mention preferences? The MyPyramid Menu Planner can help! You can create personalized pyramids for each member of your family and then use those to plan daily menus – seeing the calorie and nutritional changes calculated for you based on different food choices you submit. 

Need help understanding what “whole grains” means? Not sure what’s included in the “fruits” category? Want a place to track your daily physical activity or progress toward health goals?  MyPyramid can help with all of this. It also provides practical tips and answers to many of your nutrition questions – all in one place. 

Of course, MyPyramid isn’t perfect. As I already mentioned, MyPyramid cannot replace individual nutrition counseling or other advice provided specifically for you by medical professionals. Use of the interactive tools requires Internet access; and MyPyramid does not offer an online or offline community of support to increase your likelihood of success. 

Despite these drawbacks, I do find MyPyramid a useful tool. I’m disappointed that many folks don’t seem to know about it – either that we have a new Food Pyramid or that these great interactive tools are available, free, on the Internet. So, I’m doing my small part to spread the word.  If you check it out and find it helpful, please share the information with others. You can also post comments here about what you like, what you find challenging about the tools, what you learned about your nutritional needs or any other thoughts.

While sitting in a waiting room the other day I read about yet another study proving that weight loss is best explained by energy, or calorie, balance.  This study compared diets of various compositions (high protein, low carb, high fiber, low fat, etc…) and the results confirmed once again that it all comes down to the quantity of food consumed. (I can’t recall the name of the magazine or the study just now.)

Give your body more than it needs and fat stores increase.  Provide just enough energy for your metabolism and activity and body weight is maintained. Consume just a little less than you need and body fat will decrease – no matter which diet you choose.

If the solution is so simple, why can’t people just lose weight whenever they want to?

My best guess involves two simple facts:

(1) You can only burn so many calories in a given workout or day.

(2) It is excruciatingly easy to consume hundreds, if not thousands, of calories above your energy needs.

We tend to get caught up in the latest diet plan, the trendiest workout, or even the newest diet superfood – but the fundamental fact of energy balance won’t budge.  There’s no way around the fact that you can only burn off so many extra calories.  The remainder of your calorie deficit needs to come from decreased food intake.

Food for thought the next time you decide to lose weight.

New study dispels belief that increasing the hormone level improves the sexual function

Bethesda, Md.— The American Journal of Physiology: Endocrinology and Metabolism, one of the 14 peer-reviewed journals published by the American Physiological Society (APS), spotlights recent research findings designed to improve and understand human well-being and health. A study in the December edition examines how different doses of testosterone affect body composition, muscle size, strength, and sexual functions.

Background

Testosterone regulates many physiological processes, including muscle protein metabolism, some aspects of sexual and cognitive functions, secondary sex characteristics, erythropoiesis, plasma lipids, and bone metabolism. However, testosterone dose dependency of various hormonal dependent functions has not been well understood in the scientific community. Previous studies reveal that administration of replacement doses of testosterone to hypogonadal men and of supraphysiological doses to eugonadal men increases fat-free mass, muscle size, and strength. Conversely, suppression of endogenous testosterone concentrations is associated with loss of fat-free mass and a decrease in fractional muscle protein synthesis.

What is not known is whether testosterone effects on the muscle are dose dependent, or the nature of the testosterone dose-response relationships. Animal studies suggest that different androgen-dependent processes have different androgen dose-response relationships. Sexual function in male mammals is maintained at serum testosterone concentrations that are at the lower end of the male range. However, it is not known whether the low normal testosterone levels that normalize sexual function are sufficient to maintain muscle mass and strength, or whether the higher testosterone concentrations required to maintain muscle mass and strength might adversely affect plasma lipids, hemoglobin levels, and the prostate.

The Study

The primary objective of this study was to determine the dose dependency of testosterone’s effects on fat-free mass and muscle performance. The authors hypothesized that changes in circulating testosterone concentrations would be associated with dose-dependent changes in fat-free mass, muscle strength, and power in conformity with a single linear dose-response relationship, and that the dose requirements for maintaining other androgen-dependent processes would be different.

Young men were treated with a long-acting gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) agonist to suppress endogenous testosterone secretion, and concomitantly also with one of five testosterone-dose regimens to create different levels of serum testosterone concentrations extending from subphysiological to the supraphysiological range. The lowest testosterone dose, 25 mg weekly, was selected because this dose had been shown to maintain sexual function in GnRH antagonist-treated men. The selection of the 600-mg weekly dose was based on the consideration that this was the highest dose that had been safely administered to men in controlled studies.

The authors of the study, “Testosterone Dose-Response Relationships in Healthy Young Men” are Shalender Bhasin, Linda Woodhouse, Connie Dzekov, Jeanne Dzekov, Indrani Sinha-Hikim, Ruoquing Shen, and Atam B. Singh, all from the Division of Endocrinology, Metabolism, and Molecular Medicine, Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, Los Angeles, CA; Richard Casaburi, Dimple Bhasin, Nancy Berman, Rachelle Bross and Jeffrey Phillips, from the Harbor-University of California Los Angeles Medical Center, Torrance, CA; Xianghong Chen and Kevin E. Yarasheski at the Biomedical Mass Spectrometric Research Resource, Department of Internal Medicine, Washington University, School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, Lynne Magliano and Thomas W. Storer, from the Laboratory for Exercise Sciences, El Camino College, El Camino, CA.

Protocol

This was a double-blind, randomized study consisting of a four-week control period, a 20-week treatment period, and a 16-week recovery period. The participants were healthy men, 18-35 years of age, with prior weight-lifting experience and normal testosterone levels. These men had not used any anabolic agents and had not participated in competitive sports events in the preceding year, and they were not planning to participate in competitive events in the following year. The participants were asked not to undertake strength training or moderate-to-heavy endurance exercise during the study. These instructions were reinforced every four weeks.

Sixty-one eligible men were randomly assigned to one of five groups. All received monthly injections of a long-acting GnRH agonist to suppress endogenous testosterone production. In addition, group 1 received 25 mg of testosterone enanthate intramuscularly weekly; group 2, 50 mg testosterone enanthate; group 3, 125 mg testosterone enanthate; group 4, 300 mg testosterone enanthate; and group 5, 600 mg testosterone enanthate. Twelve men were assigned to group 1, 12 to group 2, 12 to group 3, 12 to group 4, and 13 to group 5.

Nutritional Intake

Energy and protein intakes were standardized at 36 kcal/kg. The standardized diet was initiated two weeks before treatment started; dietary instructions were reinforced every four weeks. The nutritional intake was verified by analysis of three-day food records and 24-hour food recalls every four weeks.

Outcome Measures

Body composition and muscle performance were assessed at baseline and during week 20. Fat-free mass and fat mass were measured by underwater weighing and dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Total thigh muscle and quadriceps muscle volumes were measured by MRI scanning.

For estimation of total body water, the men ingested 10 g of 2H2O, and plasma samples were drawn at 0, 120, 180, and 240 min. A measurement of 2H abundance in plasma was made by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, with a correction factor of 0.985 for exchangeable hydrogen. Another measure of bilateral leg press strength was taken by use of the one-repetition maximum (1-RM) method. A seated leg press exercise with pneumatic resistance was used for this purpose. Subjects performed 5-10 min of leg cycling and stretching warm-up and received instruction and practice in lifting mechanics before performing progressive warm-up lifts leading to the 1-RM. Seat position and the ensuing knee and hip angles, as well as foot placement, were measured and recorded for use in subsequent testing. To ensure reliability in this highly effort-dependent test, the 1-RM score was reassessed within seven days, but not sooner than two days, after the first evaluation. If duplicate scores were within five percent, the higher of the two values was accepted as the strength score. If the two tests differed by greater than five percent, additional studies were conducted.

Sexual function was assessed by daily logs of sexual activity and desire that were maintained for seven consecutive days at baseline and during treatment by use of a published instrument. Spatial cognition was assessed by a computerized checkerboard test and mood by Hamilton’s depression and Young’s mania scales.

Adverse experiences, blood counts and chemistries, prostate-specific antigen (PSA), plasma lipids, total and free testosterone, luteinizing hormone (LH), sex steroid-binding globulin (SHBG), and insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) levels were measured periodically during control and treatment periods. Serum total testosterone was measured by an immunoassay.

Results

Of 61 men enrolled, 54 completed the study: 12 in group 1, 8 in group 2, 11 in group 3, 10 in group 4, and 13 in group 5. One man discontinued treatment because of acne; other subjects were unable to meet the demands of the protocol. The five groups did not significantly differ with respect to their baseline characteristics. Key findings included:

- Compliance: All evaluable subjects received 100percent of their GnRH agonist injections, and only one man in the 125-mg group missed one testosterone injection.

- Nutritional intake: Daily energy intake and proportion of calories derived from protein, carbohydrate, and fat were not significantly different among the five groups at baseline. There was no significant change in daily caloric, protein, carbohydrate, or fat intake in any group during treatment.

- Hormone levels: Serum total and free testosterone levels, measured during week 16, one week after the previous injection, were linearly dependent on the testosterone dose (P = 0.0001). Serum total and free testosterone concentrations decreased from baseline in men receiving the 25- and 50-mg doses and increased at 300- and 600-mg doses. Serum LH levels were suppressed in all groups. Serum SHBG levels decreased dose dependently at the 300- and 600-mg doses but did not change in other groups. Serum IGF-I concentrations increased dose dependently at the 300- and 600-mg doses.

- Body composition: Fat-free mass, measured by underwater weighing, did not change significantly in men receiving the 25- or 50-mg testosterone dose, but it increased dose dependently at higher doses. The changes in fat-free mass were highly dependent on testosterone dose (P = 0.0001) and correlated with log total testosterone concentrations during treatment (r = 0.73, P = 0.0001). Fat mass, measured by underwater weighing, increased significantly in men receiving the 25- and 50-mg doses, but did not change in men receiving the higher doses of testosterone. There was an inverse correlation between change in fat mass by underwater weighing and log testosterone concentrations.

- Muscle size: The thigh muscle volume and quadriceps muscle volume did not significantly change in men receiving the 25- or 50-mg doses but increased dose-dependently at higher doses of testosterone. The changes in thigh muscle and quadriceps muscle volumes correlated with log testosterone levels during treatment.

- Muscle performance: The leg press strength did not change significantly in the 25- and 125-mg-dose groups but increased significantly in those receiving the 50-, 300-, and 600-mg doses. Leg power did not change significantly in men receiving the 25-, 50-, and 125-mg doses of testosterone weekly, but it increased significantly in those receiving the 300- and 600-mg doses. The increase in leg power correlated with log testosterone concentrations and changes in fat-free mass and muscle strength.

- Behavioral measures: The scores for sexual activity and sexual desire measured by daily logs did not change significantly at any dose. Similarly, visual-spatial cognition and did not change significantly in any group.

- Adverse experiences and safety measures: Hemoglobin levels decreased significantly in men receiving the 50-mg dose but increased at the 600-mg dose; the changes in hemoglobin were positively correlated with testosterone concentrations. Changes in plasma HDL cholesterol, in contrast, were negatively dependent on testosterone dose and correlated with testosterone concentrations. Total cholesterol, plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride levels did not change significantly at any dose. Serum PSA, creatinine, bilirubin, alanine aminotransferase, and alkaline phosphatase did not change significantly in any group, but aspartate aminotransferase decreased significantly in the 25-mg group. Two men in the 25-mg group, five in the 50-mg group, three in the 125-mg group, seven in the 300-mg group, and two in the 600-mg group developed acne. One man receiving the 50-mg dose reported decreased ability to achieve erections.

Discussion

The researchers found that GnRH agonist administration suppressed endogenous LH and testosterone secretion. Therefore, circulating testosterone concentrations during treatment were proportional to the administered dose of testosterone enanthate. This strategy of combined administration of GnRH agonist and graded doses of testosterone enanthate was effective in establishing different levels of serum testosterone concentrations among the five treatment groups. The different levels of circulating testosterone concentrations created by this regimen were associated with dose- and concentration-dependent changes in fat-free mass, fat mass, thigh and quadriceps muscle volume, muscle strength, leg power, hemoglobin, circulating IGF-I, and plasma HDL cholesterol.

Serum PSA levels, sexual desire and activity, and spatial cognition did not change significantly at any dose. The changes in fat-free mass, muscle volume, leg press strength and power, hemoglobin, and IGF-I were positively correlated, whereas changes in plasma HDL cholesterol and fat mass were negatively correlated with testosterone dose and total and free testosterone concentrations during treatment.

There were no significant changes in overall sexual activity or sexual desire in any group, including those receiving the 25-mg dose. Testosterone replacement of hypogonadal men improves frequency of sexual acts and fantasies, sexual desire, and response to visual erotic stimuli. The data demonstrate that serum testosterone concentrations at the lower end of male range can maintain some aspects of sexual function.

Conclusions

This study demonstrates that an increase in circulating testosterone concentrations results in dose-dependent increases in fat-free mass, muscle size, strength, and power. The relationships between circulating testosterone concentrations and changes in fat-free mass and muscle size conform to a single log-linear dose-response curve. The data do not support the notion of two separate dose-response curves reflecting two independent mechanisms of testosterone action on the muscle.

In addition, the study could not determine if responsiveness to testosterone is attenuated in older men. Testosterone dose-response relationships might be modulated by other muscle growth regulators, such as nutritional status, exercise and activity level, glucocorticoids, thyroid hormones, and endogenous growth hormone secretory status. Serum PSA levels decrease after androgen withdrawal, and testosterone replacement of hypogonadal men increases PSA levels into the normal range.

The data demonstrate that different androgen-dependent body functions respond differently to different testosterone dose-response relationships. Some aspects of sexual function and spatial cognition, and PSA levels, were maintained by relatively low doses of testosterone in GnRH agonist-treated men and did not increase further with administration of higher doses of testosterone. In contrast, graded doses of testosterone were associated with dose and testosterone concentration-dependent changes in fat-free mass, fat mass, muscle volume, leg press strength and power, hemoglobin, IGF-I, and plasma HDL cholesterol.

Testosterone doses associated with significant gains in fat-free mass, muscle size, and strength were associated with significant reductions in plasma HDL concentrations. Further studies are needed to determine whether clinically significant anabolic effects of testosterone can be achieved without adversely affecting cardiovascular risk. Selective androgen receptor modulators that preferentially augment muscle mass and strength, but only minimally affect prostate and cardiovascular risk factors, are desirable.

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Article adapted by MD Sports from original press release.
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Contact: Donna Krupa
American Physiological Society

Source: American Journal of Physiology: Endocrinology and Metabolism, December 2001

The American Physiological Society (APS) was founded in 1887 to foster basic and applied science, much of it relating to human health. The Bethesda, MD-based Society has more than 10,000 members and publishes 3,800 articles in its 14 peer-reviewed journals every year.

Experts at The University of Nottingham are to investigate the effect of nutrients on muscle maintenance in the hope of determining better ways of keeping up our strength as we get old.

The researchers, based at the School of Graduate Entry Medicine and Health in Derby, want to know what sort of exercise we can take and what food we should eat to slow down the natural loss of skeletal muscle with ageing.

The team from the Department of Clinical Physiology, which has over 20 years experience in carrying out this type of metabolic study, need to recruit 16 healthy male volunteers in two specific age groups to help in it’s research.

Skeletal muscles make up about half of our body weight and are responsible for controlling movement and maintaining posture. However, at around 50 years of age our muscles begin to waste at approximately 0.5 per cent to one per cent a year. It means that an 80 year old may only have 70 per cent of the muscle of a 50 year old.

Since the strength of skeletal muscle is proportional to muscle size, such wasting makes it harder to carry out daily activities requiring strength, such as climbing stairs and leads to a loss of independence and an increased risk of falls and fractures.

In order for skeletal muscles to maintain their size, the large reservoirs of muscle protein require constant replenishment in the way of amino acids from protein contained within the food we eat. In fact, amino acids from our food act not only as the building blocks of muscle proteins but also actually ‘tell’ our muscle cells to build proteins.

Recent research from the clinical physiology team has shown that the cause of muscle wasting with ageing appears to be an attenuation of muscle building in response to protein feeding. In other words, as we age we lose the ability to covert the protein in the food we eat in to muscle tissue. The proposed research will investigate the mechanisms responsible for this deficit.

Dr Philip Atherton, who is currently recruiting volunteers, said: “I am really excited to be involved in this project because if we can determine ways to better maintain muscle mass as we age it will greatly benefit us all.”

The researchers are looking for 16 healthy, non-smoking, male volunteers aged 18 to 25 and 65 to 75.

Initially, the volunteers will undergo a health screening and then on a different day, under the supervision of a doctor, will be infused with an amino acid mixture to simulate feeding along with a ‘tagged’ amino acid that allows them to assess muscle building. To make these measures, blood samples will be taken from the arm and muscle biopsies from the thigh muscle under local anaesthesia. Volunteers will receive an honorarium to cover their expenses.

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Article adapted by MD Sports from original press release.
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Contact: Lindsay Brooke
University of Nottingham

The study will take place at The University of Nottingham’s Medical School which based at the City Hospital in Derby.

It’s an inevitable truth: as we get older, our muscles deteriorate and we become weaker. Not only can this be an immensely frustrating change, but it can also have many other, more serious implications. We become clumsier and begin to have more falls, often resulting in broken bones or even more severe injuries. There is wide interest in this phenomenon, but to date, the majority of research has focussed on therapies for older patients with advanced symptoms. Now one study, led by Dr Alexandra Sänger from the University of Salzburg, is taking a new approach: scientists are examining the effects of different exercise regimes in menopausal women, with the aim of developing new strategies for delaying and reducing the initial onset of age related muscle deterioration. Results will be presented on Monday 7th July at the Society for Experimental Biology’s Annual Meeting in Marseille [Poster Session A5].

Dr Sänger’s research group has investigated two particular methods of physical training. Hypertrophy resistance training is a traditional approach designed to induce muscle growth whereas ‘SuperSlow®’ is a more recently devised system which involves much slower movement and fewer repetitions of exercises, and was originally introduced especially for beginners and for rehabilitation. “Our results indicate that both methods increase muscle mass at the expense of connective and fatty tissue, but contrary to expectations, the SuperSlow® method appears to have the greatest effect,” reveals Dr Sänger. “These findings will be used to design specific exercise programmes for everyday use to reduce the risk of injury and thus significantly contribute to a better quality of life in old age.”

The study focussed on groups of menopausal women aged 45-55 years, the age group in which muscle deterioration first starts to become apparent. Groups undertook supervised regimes over 12 weeks, based on each of the training methods. To see what effect the exercise had, thigh muscle biopsies were taken at the beginning and end of the regimes, and microscopically analysed to look for changes in the ratio of muscle to fatty and connective tissue, the blood supply to the muscle, and particularly for differences in the muscle cells themselves. “The results of our experiments have significantly improved our understanding of how muscles respond to different forms of exercise,” asserts Dr Sänger. “We believe that the changes that this new insight can bring to current training systems will have a considerable effect on the lives of both menopausal and older

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Article adapted by MD Sports from original press release.
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Notes to editors

• Hypertrophy resistance training is a method of strength training that is designed to induce muscle growth, also known as hypertrophy.
• SuperSlow® resistance training was developed by Ken Hutchins and is based on the same principle as hypertrophy resistance training, but involves slower movement and fewer repetitions of exercises, which is thought to improve the quality of muscle contraction and thereby strength.

Contact: Holly Astley
Society for Experimental Biology

Although the theoretical background of fusion as a source of energy has been solidly established, experiments on a smaller scale have not yet yielded a positive energy balance (less total energy needed to keep the fusion process going than comes out as a net result). Fusion Energy Foundation

In the initial post of this blog I mentioned fusion power, which got me thinking about the subject again. I wrote a futuristic novel once in which the world relied on tokomaks (I used a variant spelling, takamak); all was well in that tale until the ocean began to resist the continued extraction of deuterium from its waters. That was a fictional speculation, to be sure, but not a bad way to suggest that changing the environment on a large scale might have unanticipated consequences. That novel goes back a decade or more.  So now I got curious again and wondered what had transpired on the technological level since. My interest, this time, was more pedestrian in orientation. I wanted to know the energy balance that might characterize this would-be or might-be source of power.

I was curious for a reason. A couple of years ago, in a free-lance assignment, I looked at ethanol production in this context and discovered that ethanol had problems. If all energy used in making that alcohol is actually toted up, ethanol production turns out to have a negative balance. It takes more energy to make it than it delivers. People in the fusion game call this balance, the energy balance, Q. The energy output, divided by input, is Q. Q=1 therefore means that energy expended is equal to energy obtained. Anything higher than 1 is a gain:  the technology pays for itself in an “energy economy.” If Q is lower than 1, the technology isn’t justified in a purely physical sense. I put the phrase above in quotes because energy balance isn’t the same as economic balance. Ethanol is cost-effective because it’s subsidized—and because fossil energy is cheap in the present environment; if we look at it from a wholistic point of vantage, ethanol’s a loser.

The leading fusion process attempts to fuse a deuterium with a tritium atom. These are forms (isotopes) of hydrogen. Hydrogen has a single proton and a lone electron. The overwhelming majority of hydrogen atoms (99.98%) are of this simple type. Deuterium has both a proton and a neutron in its nucleus; a minute amount of hydrogen in the ocean (0.015%) takes this form. Tritium has a proton and two neutrons. For all practical purposes it doesn’t appear in nature, at least not for long. It has a half-life of around twelve years. It is produced by cosmic rays. It can also be produced by man using lithium as a starting point. Anyway….

When you force a D and a T close enough together, they do everything in their power to resist you. Why? They both carry positive charges and repel each other. You have to exert energy of 0.01 million electron volts (MeV) to overcome this mutual resistance. When you succeed, you produce an atom of helium; a single neutron flies off as radiation; but the fusion reaction generates 17.59 MeV of energy. This entire reaction therefore requires the 0.01 MeV at the very last stage—by the time you’ve really squeezed the atoms together—to yield the output. Q then becomes equal to 1759, and that’s major, as it were.

You might wonder how much energy an MeV actually carries. Thanks to Wikipedia, I can report that 4 MeV is the stupendous force with which a single snowflake crashes down on a trembling concrete drive. Obviously, in the case of fusion, we need a whole lot of Ds and Ts colliding and fusing before we can talk about real power.

Knowing this we know the maximum potential of the fusion technology. It’s a whole lot more attractive than that of petroleum which, as I remember, produces something like Q=45. And that ratio has built the modern world. So what has fusion produced thus far in its roughly 60-year history? Developments began in 1950.

The best performance on record to date was delivered by the JET program (Joint European Torus, based in Culham, Great Britain). It delivered Q=0.64 for a few seconds, the short duration being characteristic of these experimental machines. The output was 16 Megawatts produced by the expenditure of 25 MW. The record!

The ITER program, the biggest, still only in the building stage, expects to achieve Q=10 in short bursts and Q=5 in more sustained production runs. ITER’s original name was International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, but that name worried people what with scare-words like thermonuclear and experimental being so close together. The long name has been dropped. ITER’s fusion reactor is now being assembled in Cadarache, in France.

Now the projected Q is a long ways from 1759, of course, but you have to account for the fact that long before we have the D and T close enough together to give them that last, tiny, 0.01 MeV nudge, we have get them into hailing distance first. That requires creating enormously hot plasmas inside magnetic containers that require cryogenic cooling in the -273 Celsius range. The cooling alone is very energy-intensive. Other energy-consuming operations include tritium generation from lithium, deuterium extraction from water, and the power required to run the magnets in addition to cooling them.

As for timing, the facility won’t be completed for another eight years or so—if all goes well. And the distance between 0.64 and 10 is great.

To wind this up, the ideal conditions for bumping the heads of Ds and Ts together is at the core of the sun. There gravity does most of this work free of charge; D and T have nowhere to go; and very sensitive disturbances can’t simply cause that great plasma up there simply to fizz out—like the light in our tokomaks routinely does.