The compound’s usefulness extends well beyond the gym, according to Dr. Richard Kreider, professor and director of the Exercise & Sport Nutrition Lab at Texas A&M University. Kreider has spent more than 30 years investigating the effects of creatine, a naturally occurring compound stored in the muscle that combines with phosphate to form creatine phosphate, which is needed for cellular energy.

“When the body is stressed, like in exercise or under metabolic conditions like some diseases, creatine phosphate is needed to maintain energy in the cell, and therefore has a lot of protective and health benefits, in addition to the exercise performance effects that have been seen,” Kreider said.

How Much Creatine Do We Need?

Our bodies create about a gram per day, but it’s recommended to get two to four grams of creatine per day, depending on muscle mass and activity levels. According to Kreider, most people fall short of getting enough creatine from diet alone. The best sources of creatine in the diet are meat and fish.

“You only get about a gram of creatine per pound of red meat or fish, like salmon, so it’s expensive and takes a lot of calories to get a gram,” Kreider said. This is why supplementation matters, especially for vegetarians or vegans who do not consume enough creatine in their diet.

For athletes with performance-related goals, Kreider said it’s recommended to supplement 5 grams, four times a day for a week. Supplementation “helps load the muscle up with more energy,” which makes for improved high-intensity exercise, recovery and even cognitive function. After that, consuming 5 to 10 grams per day will maintain creatine stores and provide enough creatine for the brain.

Beyond boosting athletic performance, creatine is important for everyone as they age throughout their lives, Kreider said. It can help older adults who lose muscle mass and cognitive function as they age, he said, and in adolescents, low dietary creatine intake is associated with slower growth, less muscle mass and higher body fat.

Is Creatine Safe?

In a comprehensive review published in February in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, Kreider and colleagues analyzed 685 clinical trials on creatine supplementation to assess its safety and the frequency of reported side effects. The analysis showed there were no significant differences in the rate of side effects for participants taking a placebo and those taking creatine.

As for anecdotal concerns like bloating or cramping, Kreider says those claims don’t hold up under scrutiny, and studies have shown creatine can actually prevent cramping because it helps the body retain more fluid.

Despite the strong evidence base, Kreider said creatine has long been the subject of misconceptions and misinformation. He’s among the members of the International Society of Sports Nutrition who recently issued a letter affirming the safety and efficacy of creatine, urging lobbyists and policymakers not to restrict access to it.

“There’s absolutely no data supporting any negative side effect anecdotally reported about creatine on the internet and in the media,” he said. “Creatine is safe, and it’s important for everybody, not just bodybuilders and athletes.”

By Caitlin Clark, Texas A&M University Division of Marketing and Communications

The post Creatine is safe, effective and important for everyone, longtime researcher says appeared first on Pharmacy Update Online.

Red seaweeds have been prevalent in the diets of Asian communities for thousands of years. In a new study, published in Marine Drugs, researchers have shown how these algae confer health benefits.

“In the past, people have wondered why the number of colon cancer patients in Japan is the lowest in the world,” said Yong-Su Jin (CABBI/BSD/MME), a professor of food microbiology. “Many assumed that it was due to some aspect of the Japanese diet or lifestyle. We wanted to ask whether their seaweed diet was connected to the lower frequency of colon cancer.”

Although several studies have shown that Asians who eat seaweed regularly have lower risk of colon, colorectal, and breast cancer, it was unclear which component was responsible for the anti-cancer effects.

In the study, the researchers broke down the structure of different types of red seaweed using enzymes and tested the sugars that were produced to see which one of them caused health benefits. Among the six different sugars produced, agarotriose and 3,6-anhydro-L-galactose, or AHG, showed the most promise.

“After we produced these sugars, we tested their prebiotic activity using the bacteria Bifidobacterium longum ssp. infantis,” said Eun Ju Yun, a former postdoctoral researcher at the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. B. infantis is a probiotic bacterium; it colonizes the gut of infants and provides health benefits. Among the seaweed-derived sugars, the bacteria could only consume agarotriose, indicating that it works as a prebiotic i.e., it improves the growth of probiotic bacteria.

“We also tested another strain, B. kashiwanohense, and found that it also consumed agarotriose,” Jin said. “These results show us that when we eat red seaweed, it gets broken down in the gut and releases these sugars which serve as food for the probiotic bacteria. It could help explain why Japanese populations are healthier compared to others.”

The researchers also tested the sugars to see if they had any anti-cancer activity. “We found that AHG specifically inhibits the growth of human colon cancer cells and does not affect the growth of normal cells,” Yun said. The anti-cancer activity of AHG is due to its ability to trigger apoptosis or cell death.

“There is a lot of information on how red seaweeds are degraded by microorganisms in the ocean and in the human body,” said Kyoung Heon Kim, a professor of biotechnology and the co-advisor on the paper. “Our work explains why red seaweeds are beneficial by providing the molecular mechanism. We will continue studying their function in animal models and hopefully we will be able to use them as a therapeutic agent in the future.”

Journal Reference:

1. Eun Yun, Sora Yu, Young-Ah Kim, Jing-Jing Liu, Nam Kang, Yong-Su Jin, Kyoung Kim. In Vitro Prebiotic and Anti-Colon Cancer Activities of Agar-Derived Sugars from Red Seaweeds. Marine Drugs, 2021; 19 (4): 213 DOI: 3390/md19040213

The post New health benefits of red seaweeds unveiled appeared first on Pharmacy Update Online.

“For decades, we’ve been telling people that the way to stay healthy is to get at least 30 minutes of exercise five days a week,” says Keith Diaz, PhD, assistant professor of behavioral medicine and director of the exercise testing laboratory at the Center for Behavioral Cardiovascular Health at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

“But even if you’re one of the few adults who can stick to this advice, 30 minutes represents just 2% of your entire day,” says Diaz. “Is it really possible that our activity habits for just 2% of the day is all that matters when it comes to health?”

Diaz says that the recommendation about how much exercise to do may be insufficient depending on how individuals spend the rest of their waking day.

Previous studies tended to look at the impact of one type of activity or another in isolation. But each activity has either harmful or beneficial effects on health. “What we don’t know is the best combination, or cocktail, of ingredients needed to prolong life,” Diaz says.

Only through recent cheap and easy-to-use activity monitors, which can be worn by study participants throughout the day, have researchers been able to address the question.

With data from six studies that included more than 130,000 adults in the United Kingdom, United States, and Sweden, the authors used a technique called compositional analysis to determine how different combinations of activities — including moderate-to-vigorous exercise (such as brisk walking, running, or other activities that increase heart rate), light physical activity (such as housework or casual walking), and sedentary behavior — affect mortality.

Here are the main take-aways:

The benefits of 30 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise depends on how you spend the rest of the day.

Although the current recommendation of 30 minutes per day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity reduced the odds of an earlier death by up to 80% for some — those who sat for less than 7 hours — it did not reduce mortality risk for individuals who were very sedentary (over 11 to 12 hours per day), the researchers found.

“In other words, it is not as simple as checking off that ‘exercise’ box on your to-do list,” says Diaz. “A healthy movement profile requires more than 30 minutes of daily exercise. Moving around and not remaining sedentary all day also matters.”

“Getting 30 minutes of physical activity per day, or 150 minutes per week, is what’s currently recommended, but you still have the potential to undo all that good work if you sit too long,” says Sebastien Chastin, PhD, professor of health behaviour dynamics at Glasgow Caledonian University in Scotland and lead author of the study.

Light physical activity is more important than you think.

The research found that people who spent just a few minutes engaging in moderate-to-vigorous physical activity lowered their risk of early death by 30% as long as they also spent six hours engaging in light physical activity.

“Perhaps you’re a parent with young kids and you simply can’t get to the gym to exercise,” Diaz says. “But you can still have a healthy movement profile as long as you move around a lot throughout the day as you tend to your everyday activities.”

Sitting isn’t as bad for your health as smoking, but it’s still bad, Diaz says. “While there will always be sitting in our lives, as with most things in life, it’s about sitting in moderation. The key is to find the right balance of sedentary time and physical activity.”

A cocktail formula of 3 to 1 is best.

The researchers found that getting three minutes of moderate-to-vigorous activity or 12 minutes of light activity per hour of sitting was optimal for improving health and reducing the risk of early death.

“Our new formula gets at the right balance between moderate-to-vigorous exercise and sitting to help people lead a longer, healthier life,” says Chastin. “The leftover hours should be spent moving around as much as possible and getting a good night’s sleep.”

Using this basic formula, the study found that multiple combinations of activities reduced the risk of early death by 30%:

• 55 minutes of exercise, 4 hours of light physical activity, and 11 hours of sitting
• 13 minutes of exercise, 5.5 hours of light physical activity, and 10.3 hours of sitting
• 3 minutes of exercise, 6 hours of light physical activity, and 9.7 hours of sitting

Although the researchers found that replacing sedentary time with just two minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise is more efficient than replacing it with light physical activity — two minutes of moderate-to-vigorous exercise is equivalent to four to 12 minutes of light physical activity — both have value.

“This is good news for people who may not have the time, ability, or desire to engage in formal exercise,” Diaz says. “They can get health benefits from a lot of light physical activity and just a little moderate-to-vigorous activity.”

“Our study shows that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to physical activity, and we get to choose which ones we like best,” Diaz says. “It may be more important to mix a movement cocktail that includes a healthy dose of exercise and light activity to take the place of sitting.”

Journal Reference:

1. Sebastien Chastin, Duncan McGregor, Javier Palarea-Albaladejo, Keith M Diaz, Maria Hagströmer, Pedro Curi Hallal, Vincent T van Hees, Steven Hooker, Virginia J Howard, I-Min Lee, Philip von Rosen, Séverine Sabia, Eric J Shiroma, Manasa S Yerramalla, Philippa Dall. Joint association between accelerometry-measured daily combination of time spent in physical activity, sedentary behaviour and sleep and all-cause mortality: a pooled analysis of six prospective cohorts using compositional analysis. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 2021; bjsports-2020-102345 DOI: 1136/bjsports-2020-102345

The post Different physical activity ‘cocktails’ have similar health benefits appeared first on Pharmacy Update Online.