Dr. Greger has been posting videos at NutritonFacts.org from Volume 12 of his Latest in Clinical Nutrition series. But if your workplace does not allow plant-based-nutrition-porn to be played on your computer at work, you might want to get the DVD (click here).

Volume 12 covers fibromyalgia, coconut oil, gargling to prevent colds, and tons on flaxseeds and their ability to prevent prostate cancer, breast cancer, and type 2 diabetes. Dr. Greger does not back off his pro-antioxidant stance. He also has a section on dried fruit suggesting that raisins are just as effective as sports gels for energy while working out.

Question:

I have a plan for 2013 to increase my muscle mass a bit and have started researching some of the vegan fitness sites. One suggestion is to take a branched chain amino acids (BCAA) supplement right before and after workouts. Is there research showing it to be useful? Are there any health drawbacks? Are there any known vegan brands?

Answer:

There are three BCAA: leucine, isoleucine, and valine. They are essential amino acids (the body doesn’t synthesize them on its own), but are found prevalently in plant foods.

In their position paper, Nutrition and Athletic Performance, the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) and the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (AND) list BCAA in the category of “Ergogenic aids that do not perform as claimed.” (Ergogenic aid means something that increases the ability to exercise.)

Nancy Clark’s Sports Nutrition Guidebook (2003) doesn’t even list BCAA in the index, which is rather surprising given how often I get the question about them (three times in the last few weeks).

Usually, my pat answer is to cite the ACSM position paper and be done with it. But this time I decided to look into it more than I have previously. The only review article I found that promised to be of any value was a 2009 article A Primer On Branched Chain Amino Acids (PDF), by Starkie Sowers, CN, of Huntington College of Health Sciences.

It’s an impressive read, but once you delve into the abstracts of the citations, it loses its luster. My summary of the research I found is that taking BCAA before a workout can prevent fatigue and the metabolizing of muscle protein for energy, but so will eating any old protein or carbohydrate. The one clinical trial cited in Sowers’ review (and the only one I could find) actually found no effect of BCAA above carbohydrate in preventing exercise fatigue (2).

There appears to be very little research done on BCAA since the 90s. Anyone interested in seeing a list of studies can click here for those related to the clinical trial mentioned above.

If after reading the above, anyone still wants to supplement with BCAA, I do not know if there are vegan brands. That is a job for Google. ☺

You can support JackNorrisRd.com by purchasing anything through these links

Vegan for Life: Everything You Need to Know to Be Healthy and Fit on a Plant-Based Diet from Amazon.com

Amazon.com Gift Cards – E-mail Delivery

Pangea: The On-Line Vegan Store

References

1. Position of the American Dietetic Association, Dietitians of Canada, and the American College of Sports Medicine: Nutrition and Athletic Performance. J Am Diet Assoc. 2009;109:509-527. | link

2. Davis JM, Welsh RS, De Volve KL, Alderson NA. Effects of branched-chain amino acids and carbohydrate on fatigue during intermittent, high-intensity running. Int J Sports Med. 1999 Jul;20(5):309-14. | link

Never one to shy away from talking about the benefits of greens, Dr. Michael Greger has a very interesting blog post, Using Greens to Improve Athletic Performance, that highlights his series of videos on nitrates, nitrites, and nitric oxide which are now available on NutritionFacts.org.

To sum it up, beets and many dark leafy greens contain nitrates which can improve athletic performance, by making oxygen usage more efficient, via the body turning the nitrates into nitrites and then into nitric oxide.

But if nitrites from plant foods can be beneficial, what about the nitrites added to cured meat which are supposed to be so harmful? It turns out that in the presence of vitamin C, nitrites from plants are converted to nitric oxide, while the nitrites in meat tend to be turned into nitrosamines which are, in turn, thought to be the culprit in cured meats.

Good news from Germany:

Germany’s Strongest Man Is A Vegetarian

Excerpt:

Now I have proven finally, that being vegetarian makes you a better athlete!

It certainly proves that being vegetarian does not prevent someone from being extremely strong.

Breaking news…from 2003!

I recently became aware of the following and updated the VeganHealth.org page on creatine with it:

A 2003 study of 27 lacto-ovo vegetarian and 18 vegan college students found that supplementing with 5 g of creatine per day for six weeks increased their mental capacity (1). You can get a free copy of this study at the link below under References.

There was no omnivore group so it is not clear if the supplementation would have also worked for omnivores. But in other studies on omnivores:

- Six weeks of creatine supplementation of .03 g/kg body weight per day did not improve cognitive function in a group of young adult omnivores, but the amount of creatine was only about 1 to 1.5 g/day (2).

- In elderly omnivores, four doses of 5 g of creatine per day for one or two weeks increased their cognitive function in some but not all measurements (3).

References

1. Rae C, Digney AL, McEwan SR, Bates TC. Oral creatine monohydrate supplementation improves brain performance: a double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over trial. Proc Biol Sci. 2003 Oct 22;270(1529):2147-50.

2. Rawson ES, Lieberman HR, Walsh TM, Zuber SM, Harhart JM, Matthews TC. Creatine supplementation does not improve cognitive function in young adults. Physiol Behav. 2008 Sep 3;95(1-2):130-4. Epub 2008 May 15.

3. McMorris T, Mielcarz G, Harris RC, Swain JP, Howard A.Creatine supplementation and cognitive performance in elderly individuals. Neuropsychol Dev Cogn B Aging Neuropsychol Cogn. 2007 Sep;14(5):517-28. (Abstract)

Thanks to a reader, Ron, who referred me to an abstract showing that vegetarians had lower muscle levels of carnosine, I have updated the VeganHealth page on carnosine and beta-alanine to suggest that vegetarians may very well be able to improve their athletic performance by supplementing with beta-alanine. Link.

Someone asked me about carnosine a few months ago. I didn’t know much about it at the time, so I looked into it and here are the results:

http://www.veganhealth.org/articles/carnosine

Quick summary: No need to worry about it unless you are a serious athlete interested in experimenting with supplements that haven’t been tested long-term.

Well, I’ve had pretty good news for awhile, so now it’s time for some that is not so great — but important to be aware of.

A case report of a lacto-vegetarian boy from Italy with rhabdomyolysis was published in the American Journal of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (1).

Rhabdomyolysis is a potentially life-threatening disease of severe muscle damage.

Let me quote the authors:

“The patient is a 16-yr-old boy who was a nationally ranked swimmer at that time. In the 2 wks preceding this episode, he was undergoing training 5 days per week, 2–3 hrs per day, in addition to the 4 hrs per week of school-based physical activity.”

“During the week before the visit [to the doctor's], the boy experienced progressive weakness and intermittent muscle ache particularly in the legs and reported those symptoms to his coach. At the time of the medical encounter, he also reported malaise, episodic tachycardia, and nausea.”

“A dietary history revealed that, since the age of 14 yrs, his diet had contained adequate energy but very little protein. In particular, he reported to have avoided eating meat, fish, eggs, cheese and dairy products, and legumes. The only source of protein was 100 ml of milk in the morning and soy-derived products once or twice a week. For unexplained reasons, his diet mainly and monotonously comprised pasta, bread, tomatoes, salad, carrots, fruits, white pizza, and potatoes.”

Laboratory results of interest were:

CK is creatine kinase, which is a marker for muscular breakdown.

The authors believed that a low protein intake was the main problem with this boy. Upon adding meat four times a week as well as dairy to his diet, and a B12 supplement, he made a complete recovery.

I am not convinced that it was only, or even mainly, a low protein intake that caused this boy’s problems. It could have been another nutrient deficiency or a combination of deficiencies, including some that were not tested for (such as calcium and magnesium).

Of course, he could have gotten all the necessary nutrients and stayed with his vegetarian diet. Although the authors note that vegetarian diets can be healthy for athletes, they apparently did not find out why the boy was vegetarian or instruct him on how he could maintain a healthy vegetarian diet.

1. Borrione P, Spaccamiglio A, Salvo RA, Mastrone A, Fagnani F, Pigozzi F. Rhabdomyolysis in a Young Vegetarian Athlete. Am J Phys Med Rehabil. 2009 Aug 5. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 19661778.