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You can't expect wonders from protein supplements... no matter, when you take them, by the way. But I wouldn't mark them down as useless - even for rookies - based on the study at hand.

When I look at the 14 year old kids who need an written permission from their mum to train at the gym buying protein tons o powders and dozens of bars from the vending machines at the gym, even I have to shake my head. Not necessarily, because they're buying those products, but rather about what they tell each other about the effects: "Yo,... recently I ate this protein bar right after my workout and I felt swole for day..."

Now, you know that I am into supplement psychology and have no doubt about the fact that said kiddo felt swole all day, but we all know that protein is in no way a supplement the muscle-building and strength advantages of which will show within hours. And with that, I have a perfect transition to today's topic: The recent study from University of Central Florida in Orlando (Boone. 2015).
You will probably remember the most striking result of this study in which Carleigh H. Boone and colleagues "examine[d] the short-term effect of resistance training with and without protein supplementation on changes in muscle morphology and strength in untrained young men" (Boone. 2015).

Some of you may now be wondering: Why on earth do they even test that? We have ample evidence that protein supplements are powerful muscle builders! And you are right, but as it is the case for (almost) every research question in exercise science, even the highly acclaimed benefits of pre- or post-workout protein supplementation are somewhat contested. There's the evidence that supports the benefits of peri-workout protein supplementation on exercise induced muscle gains. Unfortunately, many of these studies may have been over-interpreted. Why?

FSR ≠ more muscle. Just because the post-exercise fractional protein synthesis increases this does not mean that you will gain more muscle in the long term. Check out this SV Classic to learn why!

Well, many of the often-cited studies in rookies, like Biolo et al. (1995), Phillips et al. (1997), or Tipton et al. (1999), measured increases in acute muscle protein synthesis and markers of anabolism. Due to their short design, however, increased long-term gains could only be predict, but not detect. In my 2014 article "Study Confirms: Acute Post-Exercise Myofibrillar Protein Synthesis Is Not Correlated with Resistance Training-Induced Muscle Hypertrophy in Young Men" (read more) you have learned, though, that the assumption that significant increases in post-workout muscle protein synthesis will necessary lead to significant augmented increases in muscle size in the long run is logical. but futile.

There are studies where this is the case, e.g. Coburn et al. (2006); Hulmi et al. (2010); Walker et al. (2009); Willoughby et al. (2007) - in both, trained and untrained individuals, but as Boone et al. rightly point out, there are also studies by Antonio et al. (2000) or Hoffman et al. (2009) in which protein or amino acid supplements had no beneficial effects on muscle or strength gains in either or trained and untrained individuals. The randomized, double-blinded study Boone et al. (2015) conducted is thus by no means superfluous. It is yet no perfect either, because with a length of only our week, the scientists picked exactly the time-frame in which things, or I should say "gains" happen faster than you can measure them. Furthermore, the use o a lower body unilateral resistance training makes it very difficult to infer the effects of protein supplementation on (a) muscle morphology [cross-sectional area, muscle thickness, pennation angle], (b) lower body power output, (c) maximal dynamic strength, and (d) maximal isometric strength in other muscle groups and in response to an overall metabolically more demanding workout.

Want to maximize net protein retention? Order another one... another steak ;-)

In view of the WHO's recent epidemiological bogus publication, ... ah I mean their review of the epidemiological research that said that "red meat kills", it is quite surprising that the study Il-Young Kim and colleagues conducted in healthy young adults was even approved by the ethics committee of their respective research institutions. After all, the study involved measuring the whole body protein kinetics of young men and women after the consumption of ~40g (moderate protein, or MP) or, even "worse", ~70g (higher protein, HP) of protein in form of red meat (85% lean ground beef) in a regular food matrix (=as part of a normal meal | see Table 1 for an exact overview of the macronutrient content).
Whole protein kinetics? Yes, that's different from what you see in the average "whey protein builds muscle study", in which the researchers measure only the fractional protein synthesis. Kim et al. went one step further and measured the protein synthesis (PS), breakdown (PB), and net balance (NB) in their subjects, twenty-three healthy subjects [18 – 40 yrs] who were recruited from the Little Rock area using local newspaper advertisements and flyers posted around the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) campus and the Little Rock area. Now, it's not like humans had a display you can use to read these variables, so eventually, they were still calculated based on the determinations of the rate of appearance (Ra) into the plasma of phenylalanine and tyrosine, and the fractional Ra of endogenous tyrosine converted from phenylalanine as in a previous study by the same team of researchers (Kim. 2015a). Since this technique is unable to distinguish between the different sites of protein breakdown.and storage, the results of the study at hand could describe increases or decreases in splachnic (=organ) protein synthesis or breakdown, too. It is thus not possible to exclude a null effect on skeletal muscle protein synthesis and breakdown based on the available data.

Whole protein kinetics, two different amounts of protein, with and without exercise

There were yet other things Kim's study had in common with many of the aforementioned "whey protein studies": The study had a run-in that was included to minimize any potential effects of the protein content of the subjects' baseline diets. The subjects ate their high or medium protein meals in the fasted state and the participants - or at least some of them - also trained. To be more specific, the subjects were randomly assigned into an exercise group (X, n=12) protocol consisting of 3 sets of 10 repetitions of bench press, lateralis pull-down, leg press, and leg extension each at 80% of 1 repetition maximum (1 RM, the maximum weight that can be lifted for one repetition) at a pace of 30 sec per set (rest interval between sets was less than 2 min, and the entire exercise bout was completed in ~45 – 50 min), or a resting group (R, n=11).

Table 1: Overview of the macronutrient intake during the 4-day run-in and the actual experiment (Kim. 2015b)

So much for the study design. Let's take a look at the results now: When the scientists analyzed the data from the 7-h stable isotope tracer infusion protocol that was used to determine the rate of protein synthesis (PS), breakdown (PB) and net protein balance (NP), they realized that...

• exercise did not significantly affect protein kinetics and blood chemistry, while 
• feeding, in general, resulted in a positive net protein balance at both levels of protein intake,

Boring? You're right. This would hardly be a 'waredownloadsoft newsworthy' study if the researchers had not also confirmed what most of you probably already suspected: The high protein meal lead to a significantly greater increase in net protein balance than the medium protein meal.

Figure 1: It's the decrease in protein breakdown, not the marginal increase in protein synthesis that makes the difference between the net protein balance after the high and medium protein meals (Kim. 2015b).

Interestingly enough, this increase in net protein balance was achieved primarily through a greater reduction in PB and to a lesser extent stimulation of protein synthesis (for all, p<0.0001). This is an important results, because it suggests that all previously reported ceiling effects for protein synthesis could be irrelevant when we are talking about a potential limit of protein intake beyond which you won't be able to see further beneficial effects on body composition in general and the accrual of lean mas in particular.
References:

• Fukagawa, N. K., et al. "Insulin-mediated reduction of whole body protein breakdown. Dose-response effects on leucine metabolism in postabsorptive men." Journal of Clinical Investigation 76.6 (1985): 2306.
• Kim, Il-Young, et al. "Quantity of dietary protein intake, but not pattern of intake, affects net protein balance primarily through differences in protein synthesis in older adults." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 308.1 (2015): E21-E28.
• Kim, et al. "The anabolic response to a meal containing different amounts of protein is not limited by the maximal stimulation of protein synthesis in healthy young adults." Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab (November 3, 2015b). doi:10.1152/ajpendo.00365.2015.

Is it really bad to drink that whey shake before you eat the bananas, strawberries and blueberries, because whey makes you insulin resistant? Sounds "bogussy" and a closer look at the questionable methodological choices of the scientists who conducted the study don't make the results sign. more credible.

In the fitness community, whey protein is the #1 on the "must have supplement" list. Multi-vitamins? Creatine? Who cares, as long as you get your 30g of whey per day, you're good... really? One of you recently send me a study that would suggest that "good" is not exactly the right word to describe the effects of whey protein on at least one out of the set of well-established parameters of optimal metabolic health: Your muscles' insulin sensitivity.

In the paper that has been published in the reputable scientific journal "Diabetes", Gordon I. Smith and colleagues describe an experiment the results of which clearly suggest that whey doesed at 0.6g/kg fat free mass has a sign. insulin-desensitizing effect in twenty-two sedentary (<1.5 hour of exercise/w) and weight-stable (<2 kg change for at least 6 months), 50-65y old postmenopausal women who participated in this acute response study.
Acute response? Yes, there it is, the first in a line of problems that reduces the significance of the results. After all, testing the acute response to a certain health cannot tell you anything about the long-term effects on said parameter... especially if your subject group due to being sedentary and in an age where the parameter in question is deteriorating, anyway.

But let's not be the "it's not bros, so it's not valid for bros"-guys. Let's rather take a look at (a) the procedures and (b) the results and make up our minds later. And let's first take a look at a handful of important parameters of the study design: To determine the insulin sensitivity, the scientists used two hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp sessions with the subjects being randomly assigned to do the procedure with vs. without whey protein first.

If you've got brawn and brain you cannot ignore that whey is much more than a potent muscle builder | learn more

"Before each clamp procedure, subjects were instructed to adhere to their usual diet and to refrain from vigorous physical activities for three days. Subjects were admitted to the Clinical Research Unit in the late afternoon, where they consumed a standard dinner between 1800 and 1900 h, and then fasted, except for water, until the next morning. At 0600 h, a catheter was inserted into an arm vein for the infusion of a stable isotope labeled glucose tracer; catheters for blood sampling were inserted into the radial artery of the opposite arm and in retrograde fashion into the femoral vein of one leg. At ~0645 h, a primed, constant infusion of [6,6- 2 H2]glucose (priming dose: 22 µmol·kg body wt-1, infusion rate: 0.22 µmol·kg body wt-1·min-1), purchased from Cambridge Isotope Laboratories Inc. (Andover, MA), was started and 4 h later the hyperinsulinemic-euglycemic clamp procedure was initiated with two 5-minute priming doses (first 200 mU·m-2 body surface area (BSA)·min-1 then 100 mU·m-2 BSA·min-1) of human insulin (Novolin R, Novo Nordisk, Princeton, NJ); for the remaining 230 min, insulin was infused at a rate of 50 mU·m-2 BSA·min-1. Euglycemia (at blood glucose concentration ~5.6 mM) was maintained by variable rate infusion of 20% dextrose (Baxter, Deerfield, IL) enriched to 2.5% with [6,6-2H2]glucose" ().

During the "whey trials", the subjects consumed 0.6 g of whey protein (unflavored Unjury®, ProSynthesis Laboratories, Inc, Reston, VA) per kg FFM dissolved in 360 ml water or the same volume of water alone. In addition, the researchers conducted a trial in which the subjects consumed the same amount of leucine.
To figure out if any effect they would observe was induced by whey, i.e. a complex protein, or just the most-applauded whey ingredient, i.e. leucine, the scientists ran a follow-up test (1-4 weeks later) in which the subjects consumed either 0.0684 g/kg FFM of pure leucine (that's equivalent to the amount of leucine in the whey protein)  dissolved in 360 ml Kool-Aid® (Kraft 94 Foods, Inc, Northfield, IL) or the same volume of the Kool-Aid® solution alone during the clamp procedure. I don't have to tell you that this was a mistake that makes the results of this follow-up useless for comparisons to the previous trial, in which the whey protein was mixed with water - Kool-Aid is after all all-carbohydrate - with 0.9g carbohydrates per ml of junk... ah, I mean per ml of the soft-drink.

Figure 1: Clearance of glucose during the hyperinsulemic clamp for the whole body and the legs (Smith. 2015). It is noteworthy that there control vs. active treatment signalling protein response (mTOR, p-AKT, ACC, etc. - not shown in figure) did not show differences that could explain the alleged negative effects of whey on glucose uptake (see Figure 2).

This does not mean that we couldn't use the data from the leucine trial, at all, though. But let's be honest, who cares about the non-significance of the effects of a non-gluconeogenic amino acid (meaning that leucine cannot be converted to glucose by the liver) if you cannot compare them to the significant decrease in insulin-mediated glucose disposal (38.8 vs 51.9 µmol glucose per µU insulin/ml / min; P<0.01) the scientists observed in the whey condition, because the test was messed due to the use of a different and by no means "neutral" control?

Figure 2: Don't worry, while the scientists cleverly call the glucose disappearance into the legs "leg glucose uptake" it's just the product of blood flow to the legs times whole body glucose disposal and suffers from the same methodological short-come as the whole body glucose disposal that assumes that whey was non-gluconeogenic (data from Smith. 2015)

Rather than as a basis to argue that whey is bad and leucine is good, you can use the Kool-Aid glitch and the fact that leucine cannot be converted to glucose in the liver to substantiate the following hypothesis: If the scientists had accounted for the gluconeogenic glucose load from whey when they tested their allegedly sugar-free (manufacturer claim) whey protein vs. water in the previous trial, they would probably have found no significant effect of whey protein on muscular glucose uptake, because the test wouldn't have been unfairly thwarted in favor of the water control which came without the additional glucose load from the whey-induced gluconeogenesis in the liver.

Figure 3: Both, acute and chronic realistic and thus relevant studies show beneficial effects of whey on glycemia (Petersen. 2009) and insulin sensitivity (Pal. 2010) - you decide which studies to trust ;-)

Plus, even if we assume that this hypothesis wasn't true (I am pretty convinced it is), the results of the study at hand would still be an inexplicable artifice that stands in stark contrast to the well-proven multi-facetted acute and chronic beneficial effects of whey protein on glucose- and weight-management in healthy, diabetic and pre-diabetic individuals (Layman. 2004; Frid. 2005; Peterson. 2009; Akhavan. 2010; Pal. 2010) - effects of which no one ever claimed that they were mediated by acute increases in muscular insulin sensitivity, by the way; and that despite the fact that the data from Pal (Figure 3, left) clearly indicates that these benefits occur in the real world.

References:

• Akhavan, Tina, et al. "Effect of premeal consumption of whey protein and its hydrolysate on food intake and postmeal glycemia and insulin responses in young adults." The American journal of clinical nutrition 91.4 (2010): 966-975.
• Frid, Anders H., et al. "Effect of whey on blood glucose and insulin responses to composite breakfast and lunch meals in type 2 diabetic subjects." The American journal of clinical nutrition 82.1 (2005): 69-75.
• Layman, Donald K., and Jamie I. Baum. "Dietary protein impact on glycemic control during weight loss." The Journal of nutrition 134.4 (2004): 968S-973S.
• Morifuji, Masashi, et al. "Dietary whey protein increases liver and skeletal muscle glycogen levels in exercise-trained rats." British journal of nutrition 93.04 (2005): 439-445.
• Pal, Sebely, Vanessa Ellis, and Satvinder Dhaliwal. "Effects of whey protein isolate on body composition, lipids, insulin and glucose in overweight and obese individuals." British journal of nutrition 104.05 (2010): 716-723.
• Petersen, Brent L., et al. "A whey protein supplement decreases post-prandial glycemia." Nutr J 8.47 (2009): 1475-2891.
• Smith, Gordon I., et al. "Protein ingestion induces muscle insulin resistance independent of leucine-mediated mTOR activation." Diabetes 64.5 (2015): 1555-1563.

Whey or casein hydrolysate - or rather no protein - what to use in your intra-workout beverage for endurance?

Last week, waredownloadsoft reader Oscar Qiu asked me which protein supplements I would suggest he'd buy. My answer was simple: "Get a cheap whey protein and if you want to spend extra money, add some micellar casein. Dose it at a ratio of 20:10 whey:casein post-workout (learn why) and, if you feel you're not getting enough protein on a daily basis, optionally, take them at a ratio of 10:20 whey:casein right before bed" (learn more about pre-bed casein).

Now, I am not going to revise this basic supplementation advice I gave based on the results of a recent study from the University of the Witwatersrand (Oosthuyse. 2015), but it may still be worth considering that other protein sources like whey-hydrolysate (learn more) or, as in this case, casein-hydrolysate may have certain context-specific benefits over the aforementioned "staple proteins".
In said study, Oosthuyse et al. tried to find the "protein most suitable for ingestion during endurance exercise" (Oosthuyse . 2015). To this ends, the researchers compared the effects of co-ingesting either

• 15 g/h whey-hydrolysate with (whey-CHO) or without carbohydrates (whey-PLA) or
• 15 g/h casein-hydrolysate with (casein-CHO) or without carbohydrates (casein-PLA).

In conjunction with the placebo, only, and the carbohydrate, only, trials there are six trials, i.e. placebo, placebo+whey, placebo+casein, the 63g/h fructose: maltodextrin (0.8:1) that made up the CHO content of the test beverages, alone, and in conjunction with either whey or casein-hydrolysates.

Table 1 + 2: Dietary records (mean ± SD) for 2 days preceding the day of each experimental trial (left); composition of the experimental beverages consumed during the trials (right | Oosthuyse. 2015).

Practically speaking this meant that 2h after the last meal (postprandial), 8 male cyclists ingested either: carbohydrate-only, carbohydrate-whey-hydrolysate, carbohydrate-casein-hydrolysate or placebo-water in a crossover, double-blind design during 2 h of exercise at 60 %Wmax followed by a 16-km time trial.
Data were evaluated by magnitude-based inferential statistics and revealed only non-significant effects on carbohydrate oxidation, measured from 13CO2 breath enrichment, by either of the two protein hydrolysate in isolation (data not shown),

Figure 1: What really counts are the performance improvements (left) and potential gastrointestinal side effects during (right, c), yet not so much right after the time-trial (right, b | Oosthuyse. 2015).

This changed, when the carbohydrates came into play: While the increased carbohydrate availability obviously lead to increases in glucose oxidation in all trials, these increases were substantially decreased (98% very likely decrease) when the carbohdrate drink was co-ingested with casein-hydrolysate (mean ±SD, 242 ±44; 258±47; 277 ±33g for carbohydrate-casein, carbohydrate-whey and carbohydrate-only, respectively). As it was to be expected, this decrease in carbohydrate oxidation during exercise had to be compensated by increases in fat oxidation - in this case a 93% likely increase from 83 ±27 and 73 in the whey-carbohydrate and carbohydrate-only to 92 ±14 g in the casein-hydrolysate group.

Figure 2:  Hydro whey and hydro casein have only slightly different amino acid makeups - *indicates essential amino acids (Oosthuyse. 2015).

Now, some people who are still believing in the long-overcome theory of exercise-induced fat loss may speculate that the increased fatty oxidation in the casein group would indicate that the co-ingestion of casein-hydrolysate would increase exercise-induced fat loss. You, as a waredownloadsoft reader know that the assumption that increased intra-workout fat oxidation would equal increased fat loss is total bogus. Accordingly, you will appreciate that the addition of casein to the intra-workout equation did have additional, practically relevant benefits: It lead to a significantly faster time trial ( − 3.6%; 90 % CI: ±3.2%) performances compared to placebo-water (95 % likely benefit).

Ok, now that you've hopefully memorized that you can safely ignore the non-existent fat-loss benefits of increased fat oxidation during exercise (assuming it is just to compensate a reduced CHO oxidation, as in this case), you must be careful not to jump to the similarly unwarranted conclusion that the time-trail times in Figure 1 would indicate that you or the (endurance) athletes you may be coaching should exchange all their "Gatorades" and other CHO-based intra-workout beverages for pure casein-hydrolysates.
References:

• Bassini-Cameron, Adriana, et al. "Glutamine protects against increases in blood ammonia in football players in an exercise intensity-dependent way." British journal of sports medicine 42.4 (2008): 260-266.
• Breen, Leigh, Kevin D. Tipton, and Asker E. Jeukendrup. "No effect of carbohydrate-protein on cycling performance and indices of recovery." Med Sci Sports Exerc 42.6 (2010): 1140-1148.
• Cermak, Naomi M., et al. "Muscle metabolism during exercise with carbohydrate or protein-carbohydrate ingestion." Medicine and science in sports and exercise 41.12 (2009): 2158-2164.
• Hobson, Ruth, and Lewis James. "The addition of whey protein to a carbohydrate–electrolyte drink does not influence post-exercise rehydration." Journal of sports sciences 33.1 (2015): 77-84.
• Koopman, René, et al. "Combined ingestion of protein and carbohydrate improves protein balance during ultra-endurance exercise." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 287.4 (2004): E712-E720.
• Korach-Andre, Marion, et al. "Differential metabolic fate of the carbon skeleton and amino-N of [13C] alanine and [15N] alanine ingested during prolonged exercise." Journal of Applied Physiology 93.2 (2002): 499-504.
• Oosthuyse, T., M. Carstens, and A. M. Millen. "Whey or Casein Hydrolysate with Carbohydrate for Metabolism and Performance in Cycling." International journal of sports medicine (2015).
• Saunders, Michael J., Mark D. Kane, and M. Kent Todd. "Effects of a carbohydrate-protein beverage on cycling endurance and muscle damage." MEDICINE AND SCIENCE IN SPORTS AND EXERCISE. 36.7 (2004): 1233-1238.
• Saunders, Michael J., Nicholas D. Luden, and Jeffrey E. Herrick. "Consumption of an oral carbohydrate-protein gel improves cycling endurance and prevents postexercise muscle damage." The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research 21.3 (2007): 678-684.
• Saunders, Michael J., et al. "Carbohydrate and protein hydrolysate coingestion's improvement of late-exercise time-trial performance." International journal of sport nutrition 19.2 (2009): 136.
• Seifert, John, Joseph Harmon, and Patty DeClercq. "Protein added to a sports drink improves fluid retention." International journal of sport nutrition and exercise metabolism 16.4 (2006): 420.
• Skillen, Rebecca A., et al. "Effects of an amino acid-carbohydrate drink on exercise performance after consecutive-day exercise bouts." International journal of sport nutrition 18.5 (2008): 473.

After your workout, whey protein is fine. With a low carb + high fat breakfast, though, it may ruin the satiety inducing effects of the high fat + low CHO meal.

Today I am going to make the short news items actually short in order to be able to cover all the different studies investigating topics that range from the effects of TV watching and other distractions on your likelihood of snacking, the link between the amount of food kids consume when they are allowed to eat as much as they want at a buffet and their body fat levels, the differential effects of various macronutrients on appetite, satiety & co, the negative effects of believing in food addiction, the surprising insight that whey may be for low-carbers not and more.

I think this was a long enough preface. So, let's not waste anymore time, but rather dig into the papers I've found in the latest regular and special edition(s) [some are pre-release abstracts] of the scientific journal Appetite:

• Distraction during eating increases later snacking and reduced meal memory (Higgs. 2015) -  It is not actually surprising, but still interesting. If you are distracted by talking or watching TV or whatever else while you're eating this will have direct effects on your ability to recall what you've eaten and your snack choices (i.e. snacking vs. non-snacking).
  

  Figure 1: Mean snack (buiscits) when subjects were either focused on the meal or distracted (Higgs. 2015).

  In addition, Higgs et al. (2015) were able to show that the effect of distraction is larger when motivation to engage with the distracter was greater, i.e. someone who's watching a captivating TV series you will be more likely to snack later in the day than someone who more or less only "listens" to the charts on MTV. What's noteworthy, though, is that a "food related" TV program, will actually reduce the effect.
  
  Needless to say that focusing your attention on the actual eating process and the food you eat will decreased later snacking.
• Intake at a single, palatable buffet test meal is associated with total body fat and regional fat distribution in children (Fearnbach. 2015) - Eventually the results of this study from the Pennsylvania State University just confirm what we already know. People and in this case kids who tent do overeat are more likely to be obese.
  

  Figure 2: The fatter the kids are the more palatable foods are consumed at the buffet (Fernback. 2015).

  The reason I still mention this study is thus not the fact that the buffet pirates are more likely to be obese, but rather the fact that the relationship between food intake and body fat is particularly significantly for palatable buffets and valid only for savory, but not sweet, foods.
• Differential effect of fat and carbohydrate composition meals on food hedonics, satiation and satiety - The results of this investigation go against the current trend toward low carb diets, after all, Finlayson et al. clearly found that

  "When consumed in controlled amounts, LFHC [low fat high carb] meals induce a greater satiety (SQ) compared to isoenergetic HFLC [high fat low carb] meals. HFLC meals do not dampen the subsequent appeal bias for HFLC foods compared to matched LFHC meals" (Finlayson. 2015).

  What I personally find extra-surprising is that the study was conducted on forty-five overweight and obese adults who were studied on 2 separate days in which they were given access to HFLC or LFHC meals. Usually, overweight and obese people are the ones who best respond to low carb diets.

• Habitual high-fat consumers are not more susceptible to weight gain when exposed to increased portion sizes in a free-living setting (Dalton. 2005) - That's at least what the NIH worksite study suggests. In said study, two hundred thirty-three adults (67.7% women; age 42.6 ± 11.2; BMI 29.8 ± 6.4) were randomly allocated to one of four lunch size groups (400 kcal, 800 kcal, 1600 kcal, and no lunch control) for 6 months. Body weight and energy intake (assessed using 24 hr dietary recalls) were measured at baseline, and Months 1, 3 and 6. Of the 233 subjects, 75 were HF-C (40.2%E fat, SD: 3.0) and 74 were LF-C (26.6%E fat, SD: 3.2).
  
  

  Previous research from overfeeding studies yielded slightly different results with a minimal disadvantage for high fat intake | learn more

  Interestingly, there was no interaction between portion size exposure and fat intake according to habitual fat consumption. What the scientists did observe (and this may have skewed the results) was the fact that the subjects in the HF-C group had a higher BMI (M: 30.8, SD: 7.1) compared to LF-C (M: 28.1, SD: 5.5) and greater baseline total daily energy intake. It is nevertheless hard to debate that the weight change at months 1, 3 and 6 did not differ between HF-C and LF-C in response to portion size. Eventually it would thus appear as if the "habitual dietary energy density" was what actually determines ones obesity risk.
• Fiber-enriched (inulin) squash smoothie decreases ad-libitum food intake in subsequent meal (Slevin. 2015) - Now the fact that the BMI-adjusted (thus g/kg/m²) preload drink, which contained 0.67 g/kg/m² inulin, 0.67 g/kg/m² squash and 8.89 g/kg/m² water the 12 normal weight and 12 obese women consumed 30 min before going to a buffet for lunch did decrease the ad libitum intake (219.7 kcal, p = 0.008; 101.6 g, p = 0.032) and total food intake (187.9 kcal; p = 0.019; 102.3 g, p = 0.033) is not surprising. The fact that it did so only in the obese women, but not in the normal-weight subjects, on the other hand may be considered a surprise-
  

  Figure 3: The more different food items the subjects selected, the more they eat (exact numbers for the different food items were not mentioned in the abstract that is currently available | Slevin. 2015)

  Not surprising, but insightful was the revelation that (a) the subjects' food intake significantly increased with increasing items at lunch (242.7 g, 349.2 g, 431.1 g, p = 0.018; 554.1 kcal, 640.9 kcal, 747.4 kcal, p < 0.001) and that (b) the preload was most effective at reducing hunger (p = 0.005) and total food intake (296.3 kcal, p = 0.009) in the 5 item condition, i.e. if the subjects were told that they may chose only 5 items (overall, the scientists did 3 trials, a control trial, a pre-load trial and a pre-load trial in which the subjects were allowed to select only 5-items).
• Consumption of thylakoid-rich spinach extract reduces hunger, increases satiety and reduces cravings for palatable food in overweight women (Stenblom. 2015) - Thylakoids are contained in green-plant membranes like those of spinach (5g/100g spinach) and have been shown to reduce feelings of hunger as well as cravings for palatable food in human participants, during diet intervention and simultaneous weight loss in overweight women (Montelius. 2014M Stenblom. 2013 & 2014). What still had to be confirmed, though, is that these beneficial effects also affect the intake of such foods.
  
  

  Figure 4: Intake from snack buffet. The effect size is too low to trigger weightloss wonders (Stenblom. 2015).

  Stenblom's study in the course of which the thylakoids were served in a cold blueberry drink, mixed with 2.5 g rapeseed oil (Zeta, Di Luca & Di Luca AB, Stockholm, Sweden) and 92.5 g blueberry soup (Ekströms original, Procordia Food AB, Eslöv, Sweden), immediately before breakfast on treatment test days clearly shows that an effect can be observed with real foods, too, but if you take a look at the only really relevant parameter in Figure 4, i.e. the actual food intake on the breakfast buffet, the effect size is negligible.

• Whey is not always appetite suppressing! Addition of whey protein to a fat-based breakfast has detrimental effects on satiety following subsequent feeding (Allerton. 2015) - You, as a waredownloadsoft reader know: Previous studies have shown that whey protein consumed either before or alongside a meal will make the latter more satiating. What you probably didn't know (I didn't but maybe suspected it) is the fact that this is only the case if the meal is not a low-carb meal.
  
  In their latest study, scientists from the Northumbria University in Newcastle upon Tyne found that healthy males (age 24 ± 2 years, mass 79.7 ± 3.8 kg, BMI 24.5 ± 2.1 kg/m2) consume significantly more of a pasta-based lunch meal  (3427 kJ; 49%, 37%, 14% energy from carbohydrate, fat, protein)  that was served 180 minutes after a fat-based breakfast if the latter contained 20g of whey protein (FAT + WP) than after a "whey protein free" breakfast. In addition, the ...

  10+ Things You Probably Didn't Know Whey & Peptides That Form During its Digestion Can Do | more

  "[p]ostprandial ratings of perceived hunger, fullness, satisfaction and prospective consumption were similar after breakfast between trials (p > 0.05). Following lunch, levels of prospective consumption were higher under FAT+WP (time-averaged AUC; FAT+WP: 62 ± 7 vs FAT: 54 ± 6 mm, p = 0.024). Perceived satisfaction was significantly greater under FAT at 120 (FAT: 52 ± 5 vs FAT+WP: 38 ± 7 mm, p = 0.017) and 150 (FAT: 41 ± 5 vs FAT+WP: 30 ± 6 mm, p = 0.009) minutes post-lunch" (Allerton. 2015).

  Thus, it would appear as if people on a low-carb high fat diet, don't necessarily benefit to the same extend as people on a low(er) fat diet from adding whey protein to their meals. Or it may be even worse. As the scientists point out the "negative effects on responses to a subsequent meal were observed, with lower satisfaction and higher ratings of prospective consumption following prior ingestion of breakfast containing whey protein" - which would (emphasis on the conditional) mean nothing else than 'whey may do more harm than good for low carb high fat eaters who want to lose weight'... and yes, the effect may be mediated by the insulin spike that is higher for whey than for white bread (learn more)!