Sigma Nutrition Radio

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Fitness & Nutrition
**Sigma Nutrition Radio**

Discussions about the science of nutrition, dietetics and health. The podcast that educates through nuanced conversations, exploring evidence and cultivating critical thinking. Hosted by Danny Lennon.

Latest Episodes:

#280: Kirsty Elliot-Sale, PhD – Energy Availability, Menstrual Disorders & RED-S Apr 30, 2019

Show notes

Dr Elliott-Sale is an associate professor in female physiology at Nottingham Trent University.

There, she is also the Head of the Musculoskeletal Physiology Research Group.

She is also responsible for teaching on the undergraduate and postgraduate Sport Science degree programmes.

Dr Elliott-Sale teaches mainly in the areas of Exercise Physiology and particularly in Female Physiology, Performance, and Health.

In This Episode We Discuss: --> Menstrual disorders: secondary amenorrhea (loss of 3 or more consectively) vs. oligomenorrhea (cycle longer than 45 days), vs.Functional --> Hypothalamic Amenorrhea (FHA) vs milder symptoms of some dysfunction --> What is happening on a hormonal level that ties in with menstrual issues? --> Understanding "energy availability" --> How do we quantify what is "low" energy availability? --> Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport VS. Female Athlete Triad --> Landmark papers that really advanced understanding of this concept Triad can lead to decreased estrogen. --> Implications for contraceptive pill users? --> Difference in risk between genders? --> Difference in expression of symptoms among genders? --> Reduced EA = increased illness/injury and thus more opportunities to train are lost. --> Recommendations for at risk athletes --> The screening and diagnosis of RED-S is challenging, as symptomatology can be subtle. --> Individuality: How great the energy deficiency needs to be for that individual to be symptomatic

SHOW NOTES: https://sigmanutrition.com/episode280

#279: Avrum Bluming, MD & Carol Tavris, PhD – Estrogen, Menopause & Misconceptions About Hormone Replacement Apr 23, 2019

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Links:

About This Episode:

Avrum Bluming received his MD from the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons. He spent four years as a senior investigator for the National Cancer Institute and for two of those years was director of the Lymphoma Treatment Center in Kampala, Uganda. He organized the first study of lumpectomy for the treatment of breast cancer in Southern California in 1978, and for more than two decades he has been studying the benefits and risks of hormone replacement therapy administered to women with a history of breast cancer.

Dr. Bluming has served as a clinical professor of medicine at USC and has been an invited speaker at the Royal College of Physicians in London and the Pasteur Institute in Paris. He was elected to mastership in the American College of Physicians, an honor accorded to only five hundred of the over one hundred thousand board-certified internists in this country.

Carol Tavris received her PhD in social psychology from the University of Michigan. Her books include Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me), with Elliot Aronson; Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion, and The Mismeasure of Woman. She has written articles, op-eds, and book reviews on topics in psychological science for a wide array of publications — including the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times Book Review, the Wall Street Journal, and the TLS — and a column, "The Gadfly," for Skeptic magazine. She is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and has received numerous awards for her efforts to promote gender equality, science, and skepticism.

#278: Jackson Peos, PhD – The ICECAP Trial, Intermittent Energy Restriction & the Science of Diet Breaks Apr 16, 2019

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About This Episode:

Jackson Peos, PhD was the lead researcher on the ICECAP trial (Intermittent versus Continuous Energy restriction Compared in an Athlete Population), looks at the effect of including a "diet break" week after every 3 weeks of dieting, compared to a continuous hypocaloric diet for the duration of the full dieting period.

In This Episode We Discuss: - Theoretical reasons for including diet breaks and refeeds within dieting periods - Distinguishing between intermittent fasting protocols and intermittent moderate energy restriction (MOD-IER) - Lessons learned from the MATADOR trial - What might differ between obese and athletic populations - Design of Jackson's "ICECAP trial" - Determining the duration, frequency and magnitude of diet breaks, refeeds and energy restriction - Current best practices for implementing these strategies

#277: Eric Helms, PhD - Non-Quantitative Dieting, Personal Experiments & Optimal Weight Gain for Hypertrophy Apr 09, 2019

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About This Episode:

Eric is currently a Research Fellow at Auckland University of Technology, New Zealand. His work is focused on training and nutrition interventions that could have implications for bodybuilders, powerlifters and other strength athletes. Eric has many peer reviewed publications and currently has many ongoing research projects and collaborations.

In This Episode We Discuss:

Ongoing trial looking at effects of differnt sizes of caloric surplus for muscle gain
Eric's unconventional appraoch to his current contest prep
Non-quantitative tracking and assessment of progress
Applying lessons from bodybuilding to other areas of life

#276: Nick Gant, PhD - Neurometabolism: Brain Function, Fatigue & Nutritient Interventions Apr 02, 2019

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About This Episode:

Nick Gant is Director of the Exercise Neurometabolism Laboratory at the University of Auckland.

His group uses interdisciplinary approaches from the nutritional sciences and neurosciences to investigate the role of nutrition in brain health and performance. Nick is particularly interested in foods and supplements that prevent brain fatigue and improve physical and cognitive function.

His research is currently funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand, the Health Research Council of New Zealand, and several industrial partnerships. He partners with clinicians and dieticians within the NZ Centre for Brain Research and provides scientific and educational support for elite athletes, government and military organisations

In This Episode We Discuss:

Understanding fatigue
Hypoxia-induced decrements in cognitive performance
Role of caffeine and stimulants in "rescuing" performance in high-fatigue/high-stress states
Creatine for cognitive function and brain health
Potential for creatine mitigating traumatic brain injury (TBI)
Can ketones aid in mitigating traumatic brain injury?
Thoughts on cognitive impact of nicotine
CHO mouth rinsing: proposed mechanism of action

#275: Kate Solovieva - Psychology, Empathy & Coping Strategies for Better Coaching Mar 26, 2019

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About This Episode:

Kate has both undergraduate and graduate degrees in Psychology and spent time as a psychology professor at a college and university level.

She currently is a health & nutrition coach, working for Precision Nutrition, where she has coached over 1,000 people. Now she coaches fitness professionals on how to be better coaches.

In This Episode We Discuss: --> Using an understanding of human psychology to improve coaching outcomes --> How we go about rationalizing our behaviour. --> How coaches can develop empathy --> Fitting the diet to your lifestyle: how much leeway/flexible does one give? --> The best skills a coach can teach themself --> Resilience --> Proactive and reactive coping strategies

#273: Bryan Chung, MD, PhD – Dealing with Science Overwhelm & Improving Your Relationship with Research Mar 12, 2019

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About This Episode:

Bryan Chung is a plastic/hand surgeon and PhD research designer. He is a methodologist who improves people's relationship with science.

In This Episode We Discuss: --> Bryan's advice column for people who have "relationship problems with Science" --> If things merely confirm what you are already doing, why you should filter it out --> How to determine what is practically meaningful from a study --> The importance of establishing what the research question is --> How to deal with the daunting nature of statistics in research --> Why you're already good enough to start engaging with research

#272: Barbora de Courten, PhD – Effect of Carnosine on Glucose Metabolism and Chronic Disease Risk Mar 09, 2019

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About This Episode:

Professor Barbora de Courten, MD PhD FRACP MPH is a Professor at Monash University, Australia. She is a National Heart Foundation Future Leader Fellow and a specialist physician with a PhD in epidemiology, extensive training in clinical trials (NIH) and a Master of Public Health (Monash University). She has expertise across the translational research continuum from epidemiology, human mechanistic studies to clinical trials and public health interventions through to practice.

She is passionate about research into holistic approaches to prevention and treatment of chronic diseases by promoting health through safe, low-cost and easily scalable interventions with the potential to have an immediate public health impact to prevent and treat chronic diseases. She believes this will impact not only health of individuals but also be beneficial to our society and environment we live in.

Her vision is to establish new strategies for prevention and management of chronic diseases, specifically obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Her goal is that her research findings will ultimately translate into treatment guidelines, reduced diabetes and cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and reduced healthcare costs.

In This Episode We Discuss: --> Mechanisms by which certain behaviours (inactivity, poor diet, smoking, etc.) increase chronic disease risk: inflammation, oxidative stress and advanced glycation (AGE formation). --> What is carnosine? --> How might carnosine supplementation reduce risk? --> Dosage and timing used in trials to date --> Prof. de Courten's trial showing improvements in insulin sensitivity and an oral glucose tolerance test --> As beta-alanine works by increasing muscle carnosine concentration, could it be useful for the health?

#271: Prof. John Hawley – Circadian Metabolomics & Time-Restricted Feeding Mar 04, 2019

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About This Episode:

Prof. Hawley is Director of the Mary MacKillop Institute for Health at Australian Catholic Universtiy in Melbourne, Australia.

He has published over 220 scientific manuscripts, written over 100 articles for technical journals and has authored numerous book chapters for exercise biochemistry and sports medicine texts.

He is an Associate Editor for Diabetologia and currently sits on the Editorial Boards of many international journals. He is a frequently invited speaker at both National and International scientific meetings.

John's primary research focus includes the interaction of exercise and diet on the regulation of fat and carbohydrate metabolism, particularly within skeletal muscle, the molecular basis of exercise training adaptation and the cellular bases underlying exercise-induced improvements in insulin action.

In This Episode We Discuss: --> Current work being done by Prof. Hawley's lab on circadian metabolomics Defining the human metabolome and circadian metabolomics --> Comparative analysis of the circadian metabolome in the serum versus peripheral tissues (i.e., skeletal muscle) --> Impact of high-fat or high-carb diet on the daily variation in metabolites --> How dietary intake is a strong zeitgeber for peripheral clocks --> Tissue-specificity of the human circadian metabolome --> Time-restricted feeding in animal models and in humans

#270: Alexander Kolliari-Turner – Anabolic Steroids, Muscle Memory & Advances in Drug Testing Feb 26, 2019

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About This Episode:

Alex is currently completing a PhD at the University of Brighton in the UK, investigating the implications of RNA sequencing in the detection of anabolic steroid use and the harnessing of the molecular mechanisms of "muscle memory". He is currently conducting research aiming to address a hypothesis that suggests that the myonuclei obtained via strength training and anabolic steroid usage are retained and therefore provide long term advantages to steroid users.

In This Episode We Discuss: --> The mechanism of hypertrophy via myonuclei accumulation --> Defining "muscle memory" in relation to myonuclei --> Animal models that show myonuclei don't dissappear after atrophy --> Anabolic steroids activate the stem cells in muscle (satellite cells) resulting in a donation of their nuclei into muscle fibres --> How drug testing works --> How you prove someone has taken exogenous testosterone via T:E ratios --> The Athlete Biological Passport --> Thoughts on the recent Jon Jones case --> Next generation "omic" technologies such as transcriptomics could enhance the testing protocols

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