Nutrient Timing: A Garage Door of Opportunity?

Nutrient timing involves manipulation of nutrient consumption at specific times in and around exercise bouts in an effort to improve performance, recovery, and adaptation. Its historical perspective centered on ingestion during exercise and grew to include pre- and post-training periods. As research continued, translational focus remained primarily on the impact and outcomes related to nutrient consumption during one specific time period to the exclusion of all others. Additionally, there seemed to be increasing emphasis on outcomes related to hypertrophy and strength at the expense of other potentially more impactful performance measures. As consumption of nutrients does not occur at only one time point in the day, the effect and impact of energy and macronutrient availability becomes an important consideration in determining timing of additional nutrients in and around training and competition. This further complicates the confining of the definition of “nutrient timing” to one very specific moment in time at the exclusion of all other time points. As such, this review suggests a new perspective built on evidence of the interconnectedness of nutrient impact and provides a pragmatic approach to help frame nutrient timing more inclusively. Using this approach, it is argued that the concept of nutrient timing is constrained by reliance on interpretation of an “anabolic window” and may be better viewed as a “garage door of opportunity” to positively impact performance, recovery, and athlete availability.

Pre- versus post-exercise protein intake has similar effects on muscular adaptations

The purpose of this study was to test the anabolic window theory by investigating muscle strength, hypertrophy, and body composition changes in response to an equal dose of protein consumed either immediately pre- versus post-resistance training (RT) in trained men. Subjects were 21 resistance-trained men (>1 year RT experience) recruited from a university population. After baseline testing, participants were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 experimental groups: a group that consumed a supplement containing 25 g protein and 1 g carbohydrate immediately prior to exercise (PRE-SUPP) (n = 9) or a group that consumed the same supplement immediately post-exercise (POST-SUPP) (n = 12). The RT protocol consisted of three weekly sessions performed on non-consecutive days for 10 weeks. A total-body routine was employed with three sets of 8–12 repetitions for each exercise. Results showed that pre- and post-workout protein consumption had similar effects on all measures studied (p > 0.05). These findings refute the contention of a narrow post-exercise anabolic window to maximize the muscular response and instead lends support to the theory that the interval for protein intake may be as wide as several hours or perhaps more after a training bout depending on when the pre-workout meal was consumed.

Teriparatide as option for severe osteoporosis

e introduce an original study referring to Romanian population treated with teriparatide (TPT), an anabolic drug for severe menopausal, glucocorticoid and male hypogonadism-related osteoporosis. Primary end point is to analyze the parameters of persons who fulfilled the national criteria of TPT regarding co-morbidities and bone profile. Secondary end point is to reveal the skeleton indices 12 months after TPT (20 μg/day subcutaneous). Informed written consent was signed between July 2015 and June 2016. Out of 21 patients with a mean age of 66.76 years (yrs), except for 2 men, there were menopausal females with av. 21.47 yrs since menopause. 57% had a history of superior digestive condition, another 57% had a chronic thyroid disease and 29% had a non-thyroid autoimmune morbidity. 17 patients were pre-exposed to anti-osteoporotic drugs 4.23+/-3.49 yrs. Number of prevalent fractures was: 3.75+/-2.17 (median 3; min 1, max 9). 42% (N=9) of subjects were followed for 1 year: no new fracture was registered; each patient had at least one DXA site with a BMD (Bone Mineral Density) increase (mean T-score increase of the most affected region was of 0.56+/-0.2 SD); osteocalcin statistically significant elevated from 18.87+/4.22 ng/mL to 42.8+/-16.3 ng/mL (p<0.0005) while CrossLaps went from 0.46+/-0.22 ng/mL to 0.65+/-0.3 ng/mL (p=0.15). Early drop-offs were registered in 2 patients. Based on this original study, patients with severe osteoporosis having a burden of many years of prior therapy or fragility fractures became candidates for TPT. After 12 months, the anabolic window was revealed by high bone remodelling blood markers, especially for osteocalcin.