Dr. Jonny Bowden

Tag: fish oil

  • Sluggish Metabolism or Thyroid Issues? Reach for the Fish Oil!

    Sluggish Metabolism or Thyroid Issues? Reach for the Fish Oil!

    Fish oil has become all the rage.

    If you don’t believe me, check out a recent study in the Journal of Food Science which had researchers infusing fish oil in goat cheese (of all things) to help people get adequate amounts of the two essential fatty acids EPA and DHA.

    Even mainstream manufacturers are getting in on the act. Jif, for instance, recently introduced peanut butter with omega 3s, so you can get a little fish oil with your trans fat and added sugar.

    All joking aside, if you’re read any of my books or followed my blog – heck, if you’ve followed health news at all over the past two decades – you know fish oil can fight inflammation, boost your brain power, and improve about a zillion other things in your body.

    You might never have considered fish oil, though, for a sluggish thyroid. But a study in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry  showed that omega 3s could increase thyroid hormone signaling within your liver.

    What’s the connection between your thyroid and liver? Let me explain.

    Your thyroid gland produces two hormones – T3 and T4 – that regulate your metabolic rate in your cells, including of course your liver cells. These two thyroid hormones, then, determine how effectively your liver metabolizes carbohydrates, protein, and fat.

    When fish oil flips on your thyroid switch, it also cranks up your metabolism. Put another way, fish oil boosts thyroid hormones within your liver cells to burn fat.

    When your cells have adequate amounts of essential fatty acids, thyroid hormones – particularly T3, your active thyroid hormone – work much more effectively at burning fat.

    This becomes especially important if you have hypothyroidism, when your thyroid produces inadequate levels of these thyroid hormones.

    According to the National Endocrine and Metabolic Diseases Information Service hypothyroidism affects about 5% of Americans, most of them women.

    Among the many side effects of hypothyroidism include fatigue, low libido, menstrual irregularities, brain fog, constipation, depression, and perhaps most frustratingly, weight gain.

    When your thyroid gland isn’t making enough hormones, metabolism comes to a crashing halt. Your body can’t effectively metabolize food, which frequently results in weight gain.

    Fish oil, then, might be your ticket to crank up your fat-burning metabolism by boosting the efficiency of thyroid hormones.

    If you think you might have hypothyroidism, ask your doctor to run a full panel of thyroid tests, including thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), free T3, and thyroid antibodies.

    Elevated TSH, for instance, often indicates hypothyroidism. On the other hand, high levels of thyroid antibodies can suggest an autoimmune condition.

    Whether or not you have hypothyroid, fish oil is a great supplement to add to your fat-burning arsenal.

    Consider two studies, both from The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. One study concluded a moderate dose of omega 3s for two months helped women with type 2 diabetes burn fat, boost insulin sensitivity, and reduce inflammation.

    The other study found that fish oil, combined with regular exercise, burns fat and reduces your risk for heart disease.

    You’ve got to do both – exercise and take fish oil – to get those effects. Likewise, don’t think you can eat McDonald’s cheeseburgers, swallow some fish oil, and magically melt away the fat.

    But combined with a lower-carb diet and effective exercise, fish oil might provide that extra push to boost your metabolism and ditch those last stubborn pounds.

    This is the fish oil I take every single day.

    The fish oil I take everyday is Barlean’s Double Potency Epa-DHA Fish Oil. It is the purest form of fish oil on the market in an ideal dose/ratio of EPA to DHA Omega-3

  • Tip 281: Increase Fat Burning During Exercise

    Tip 281: Increase Fat Burning During Exercise

    The following is a guest article by my good friend and colleague, Charles Poliquin.

    Tip 281: Increase Fat Burning During Exercise with Strategic Nutrition to Get Lean

    by Charles Poliquin

    Increase your rate of fat burning while strength training with optimal pre-workout nutrition to get lean. By eating the right nutrients before working out, you can increase work capacity, performance, and speed recovery from intense exercise. Many misconceptions exist about the best way to burn the most fat during exercise but a review in the British Journal of Nutrition provides a guide to get leaner and stronger.

    Proven strategies to boost fat burning with pre-workout nutrition include the following:

    1. Eat low-glycemic carbs with protein before training
    2. Avoid fructose and milk
    3. Load l-carnitine in the muscles
    4. Drink caffeinated green tea
    5. Take fish oil

    Pre-workout nutrition may influence the rate of fat burning when exercising by as much as 66 percent. Burning fat rather than carbohydrates during strength training is best because it can lead to the best body composition. If you’re doing endurance or high-intensity interval training, burning fat will increase your performance and time to exhaustion because increasing the use of fat for fuel spares glycogen (fuel source from carbohydrates).

    Eat low-glycemic carbs with protein at least an hour before training to maximize fat burning. Low-glycemic carbs include green vegetables, some fruits, and grains that have a glycemic-lowering nutrient added to them like rye bread with fenugreek. Low-glycemic carbs will produce a slow, gradual increase in blood sugar to support energy levels and fat burning because it will reduce pre-exercise muscle glycogen concentration and increase the availability of fat use for fuel. Basically, by eating this way, you’re telling your body what to burn and when to burn it to produce the most energy.

    Fructose is a sugar that is found in fruit and is everywhere in processed foods in the form of high-fructose corn syrup. Avoid it pre-workout. Limit fructose in your diet because it blunts fat burning but it also lowers the glycemic response of carbohydrates—just not in a favorable way for overall metabolism. Eating fructose actually inhibits fat burning during and after exercise to a greater extent than eating high-glycemic carbs with glucose like bread or cereal. Not only does fructose stop the use of fat for energy, it makes the cells more resistant to insulin, putting you at risk for diabetes. It also leads to higher blood lactate concentrations during exercise. Greater lactate production will impede performance and is counterproductive.

    Along with avoiding fructose, stay away from milk proteins because they are particularly “insulinotropic,” which means that they will cause persistently high insulin levels. This puts you at greater risk of insulin resistance and diabetes.

    On the flipside, regularly taking fish oil in your pre-workout meal will improve fat burning and insulin sensitivity. Fish oil improves gene activity that tells the body to use fat for energy within minutes of ingesting it. Fish oil also increases blood flow to fat tissue, which is considered a limiting factor in the use of fat for fuel during exercise. Basically, fish oil is a highly liquid and permeable fat and it helps everything to move more fluidly in the body (like a well-oiled machine).

    Together with the amino acid composite l-carnitine, fish oil increases the transport of fats into the cells to be used for energy in the body. By raising the level of muscle carnitine, you make the body more efficient at processing fuel so that it can burn more fat, spare glycogen, clear lactate and bump up anabolic hormone response. Ideally, you want to take carnitine regularly to “load” it into the muscles, but you can also take it with your pre-workout meal for best results.

    Carnitine availability is reduced when muscle glycogen content is elevated, making it all the more important to ensure you are moderating your glycemic load before training. Carnitine will boost performance for strength athletes, but it’s especially effective at increasing performance during endurance exercise. One study indicated a 55 percent reduction in muscle glycogen use after carnitine loading for six month. The glycogen sparing effect of burning more fat means endurance athletes will be able to “tap into” these glycogen stores at the later stages of a race or training run.

    Green tea with caffeine is an awesome addition to any athlete’s diet because the antioxidant content in the tea combined with the caffeine can increase fat burning by up to 15 percent. It has also been shown to elevate fat burning for 24 hours after ingestion. Caffeinated coffee can also boost performance and fat burning, but recent evidence suggests green tea may be better. Include caffeine from both sources for best results.

    References:

    Gonzalez, J., Stevenson, E. New Perspectives on Nutritional Interventions to Augment Lipid Utilization during Exercise. British Journal of Nutrition. 2012. 107, 339-349.

    Fernandez, J., Da Silva-Grigolettos, M. A Dose of Fructose Induces Oxidative Stress During Endurance and Strength Exercise. Journal of Sports Science. 2009. 27(12), 1323-1334.

    Charles Poliquin, M.Sc., is one of the top strength and conditioning experts in the world. He’s trained olympic medalists in 12 different sports and has written many books and over 500 columns. His site,  http://www.strengthsensei.com/charles-poliquin/, is a terrific resource for real, science-based information about physical fitness.

  • Fish Oil Boosts Women’s Power

    Fish Oil Boosts Women’s Power

    Guest article from Craig Weatherby, health and science reporter for Vital Choice, Inc

    Fish Oil Boosted Women’s Power

    Older women gained more strength from exercise when taking omega-3s; Results echo findings in younger people.

    by Craig Weatherby

    Bone and muscle weakness is common among older women … and to a lesser but substantial extent, men as well.

    Diet and exercise can help prevent or slow age-related declines in bone and muscle strength … two critical factors for avoiding crippling falls and limits on physical activity and capacity (Misic MM et al. 2009; Bento PCB et al. 2010).

    A study we reported last year indicates that omega-3s from fish and fish oil can enhance efforts to build the strength of bones and muscle among healthy young and middle-aged adults.

    And the new findings suggest that the same is true in older people, judging by the results of a controlled clinical trial from Brazil.

    Although the new study was small, the advantage seen in those who took fish oil while engaged in strength training was substantial, and more than a statistical anomaly.

    This Brazilian trial is the first to show that supplemental fish oil can enhance muscle activation and force among elderly women undergoing strength training.

    Brazilian trial finds fish oil enhanced exercising women’s strength gains

    A team of researchers from Parana Federal University recruited women aged about 64 (plus or minus 1.4 years) and assigned them all to a strength training program (Rodacki CL et al. 2012).

    The 45 participants – who were not engaged in any other regular exercise during the year before the study began – were divided into three groups:

    • Control Group took no fish oil during 90 days of strength training.
    • Fish Oil Group #1 took two grams of fish oil per day during 90 days of strength training.
    • Fish Oil Group #2 took two grams of fish oil per day for 60 days prior to the study, and during 90 days of training.

    Each one gram (1000mg) capsule of fish oil contained about 0.4 grams of omega-3 EPA and 0.3 grams of omega-3 DHA … which are modest amounts.

    After 90 days of strength training, all 45 women showed gains in muscle power, measured as muscle torque and the rate of torque development.

    (Muscular torque is the force of a muscle contraction, and is a key measure of the force a person can exert.)

    Before and after the study period, the scientists gave all of the participants four tests of strength: “foot up and go,” “sit and reach,” “chair-rising,” and “6-minute walk”.

    After 90 days of training, no differences were seen in three of these tests.

    However, the two fish oil groups both showed about 50 percent greater strength in the chair-rising test, compared with the control group.

    (This test, also called chair-standing, measures the number of times you can come to a full standing position in 30 seconds while your arms are crossed over your chest.)

    Interestingly, the researchers detected no additional strength benefit from a longer period of supplementation with fish oil.

    It seems likely that the observed strength benefit stems from raising your cellular levels of omega-3s to a certain level, after which further increases provide no more benefit.

    Both fish oil groups showed substantially higher levels of omega-3s in their cell membranes at the end of the trial, compared with the control group. Fish Oil Group #2, which took the omega-3 supplements the longest, had the largest increase … their EPA levels rose by 112 percent and their DHA levels rose by 50 percent.

    The researchers stressed the practical implications of the strength advantages seen in all of the women, which were greater in the two fish oil groups (Rodacki CL et al. 2012):

    • “The improved RTD [rate of torque development] reflects improved muscle contractility [torque], which is an important measure for the elderly due to its contribution to several daily life tasks and its relation to the ability to recover from a slip or trip, preventing a fall.”
    • “Strength training has been shown to facilitate muscle protein anabolism, energy expenditure, and improved appetite and food intake in elderly people.”

    And as they wrote, “Thus [fish oil] may be an attractive supplement for the elderly to maximize their neuromuscular responses to strength training, which is important to life quality.” (Rodacki CL et al. 2012)

    Based on the results of other studies, the Brazilian team proposed that fish oil may work in at least two ways:

    • Alter the fluidity of muscle cell membranes.
    • Increase muscle cells’ sensitivity to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which facilitates fast communication between nerves and muscles and accelerates muscle contraction (torque).

    Clearly, older people can gain a great deal from strength training … with or without fish oil.

    But it seems that omega-3s enhance some of those gains, and may make exercise more rewarding in a pretty short period.

     

    Sources

    • Smith GI, Atherton P, Reeds DN, Mohammed BS, Rakin D, Rennie MJ, Mittendorfer B. Omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids augment the muscle protein anabolic response to hyperinsulinemia-hyperaminoacidaemia in healthy young and middle-aged men and women. Clin Sci (Lond) 2011; 121:267–78.
    • Bento PCB, Pereira G, Ugrinowitsch C, Rodacki ALF. Peak torque and rate of torque development in elderly with and without fall history. Clin Biomech (Bristol, Avon) 2010;25:450–4.
    • Alves RV, Mota J, Costa MC, Alves JGB. Physical fitness and elderly health effects of hydrogymnastics. Rev Bras Med Esporte 2004;10:31–7.
    • Misic MM, Valentine RJ, Rosengren KS,Woods JA, Evans EM. Impact of training modality on strength and physical function in older adults. Gerontol 2009;55:411–6.
    • Skelton DA, Greig CA, Davies JM, Young A. Strength, power and related functional ability of healthy people aged 65–89 years. Age Ageing 1994;23:371–7.
    • Rodacki CL, Rodacki AL, Pereira G, Naliwaiko K, Coelho I, Pequito D, Fernandes LC. Fish-oil supplementation enhances the effects of strength training in elderly women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2012 Jan 4. [Epub ahead of print]