Their subjects took 0.25g / kg lean tissue mass / day creatine monohydrate (that sounds like a fair bit, for me at 80kg that’d be up to 20g/day).

Personally, I have been taking creatine ethyl ester (CEE), which is a popular alternative to creatine monohydrate (CM) because it is supposedly more bioavailable and has a longer half-life. Based on this information and other recommendations, I have been taking around 4g/day CEE.

However, looking into things now, it appears that to date, none of these claims have been evaluated by an independent or university laboratory, and no data are available comparing CEE and CM.

In fact, this study claims that the addition of the ethyl ester actually accelerates CEE’s breakdown in the stomach, making it less bioavailable than CM:

CEE is claimed to provide several advantages over CM because of increased solubility and stability. In practice, the addition of the ethyl group to creatine actually reduces acid stability and accelerates its breakdown to creatinine. This substantially reduces creatine availability in its esterified form and as a consequence creatines such as San CM2 and CE2 (products containing CEE) are inferior to CM as a source of free creatine.

Interesting! So, perhaps one should switch back to CM and up the daily dose to the astronomical levels suggested! However, if CM tastes anything like CEE, I don’t know if this will be possible. It’s probably the most rank substance I have ever supplemented with, so I’m not all that enthused about the prospect.

A good place to get CEE and CM is BulkNutrition.com.

The brain constantly produces new cells that differentiate into a wide variety of mature neurons in a process called neurogenesis. Particularly in the hippocampus, a decline in the numbers of new cells being produced can lead to problems with memory and learning.

This decline starts in middle age and the drop is precipitous, particularly in the dentate gyrus, an area of the hippocampus thought to contribute to new memories as well as having other functional roles. It is notable as being one of a select few brain structures currently known to have high rates of neurogenesis in adult humans.

Two hypotheses prevail as the cause of this decline – one is the overproduction of corticosterone that occurs in middle age, which results in a drop in stem cell production, and is the presumed mechanism by which chronic stress (another trigger of corticosterone production) can lead to depression. The second hypothesis is that adequate stem cell production relies on nerve growth factors in the brain that also decline with age.

This study looked at whether a deficiency of this factor, known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), led to reduced neurogenesis in this brain region.

To this end, they had mice running on treadmills and others living a relaxing lifestyle, and they looked at the levels of BDNF and its receptor (TrkB), and neuron numbers in their hippocampuses.

The results were impressive:

• Neural stem cell production increased by 200% in the exercising middle-aged mice compared with their sedentary controls
• The survival of new cells increased by 170%
• The growth of new cells increased by 190%

The effects were not limited to aged mice, either. In fact, the effects were even more enhanced in young mice.

This shows that:

• Excercise increased levels of both BDNF and TrkB
• Decreases in neurogenesis are due to BDNF and not corticosterone

So, if any of you life-extensionists out there didn’t know it already, here’s further evidence that exercise is not only good for your body, but crucially important for maintaining your mind, especially as one enters middle age. One wonders why middle age per se is the time when levels of this hormone tend to decline, perhaps it’s because people generally become less active as they get older. Either way, I won’t be canceling my gym membership any time soon!

Adapted from a press release provided by Eurekalert!

The study looked at 5,968 women at least 18 years old with no previous cancer diagnoses.

The results revealed that women in the upper 50 percent of physical activity energy expenditure showed significantly reduced risk of overall cancer and breast cancer. However, sleeping less than seven hours a day increased overall cancer risk, negating much of the protective effects of physical activity on cancer risk for this group.

Even though the exact mechanism of how exercise reduces cancer risk isn’t known, researchers believe that physical activity’s effects on factors including hormone levels, immune function, and body weight may play an important role.

Thanks to Eurekalert! for the info.

Beta-alanine is the rate-limiting precursor to carnosine, which is to say that levels of carnosine are limited by the available beta-alanine.

Supplementation with beta-alanine has already been established to raise the level of carnosine in the muscle, as reported here and here, and this study extends the list of potential beneficiaries to oldies.

In this double-blind, randomized controlled trial, 26 elderly men and women were given a 90-day course of BA supplementation or placebo pills. Their fitness levels were tested before and after the course. In the treatment group, 67% of the subjects showed an improvement in their fitness levels, compared to 21.5% of the people receiving the placebo treatment.

This is an extremely inexpensive supplement, and it’s available from Bulk Nutrition.

Carnosine is a dipeptide formed from beta-alanine and histidine. It plays a very important role in modulating the intramuscular pH, which is vital for normal muscle function during exercise.

Carnosine has been proven to scavenge reactive oxygen species (ROS) as well as alpha-beta unsaturated aldehydes formed as a result of the peroxidation of cell membrane fatty acids during oxidative stress. In addition, it can oppose glycation, and it can chelate divalent metal ions. Chronic glycolysis is suspected to accelerate aging.

The subjects in the study took 800mg 3x/day (2400 mg). The article in PDF form is currently archived here.