Browse the evidence

Unilateral immobilization or unloading causes profound muscle atrophy and metabolic risk factors in the immobilized limb, but these adaptations are specific to that limb and do not transfer to the non-immobilized control limb.

If you have to immobilize one limb (e.g., in a cast), expect that specific limb to lose muscle mass and strength, but know that your other limb will remain healthy and strong. This local specificity means you can maintain overall body function and use the healthy limb to support yourself without risking systemic decline.

Enhanced Negative Work-based Training (ENT) does not significantly improve linear sprinting ability (10m and 30m) in semi-professional soccer players during the in-season period.

Do not rely on a single weekly flywheel session to improve your straight-line speed during the season. While it helps with change of direction and injury prevention, it does not significantly impact 10m or 30m sprint times in semi-professional players. Focus on specific speed training for linear sprinting.

During short-term concurrent training (8 weeks), combining resistance training with either high-intensity interval training (HIT) or work-matched moderate-intensity continuous training (MICT) attenuates maximal lower-body strength gains to a similar degree compared to resistance training alone, indicating that endurance training intensity is not a critical mediator of the interference effect.

If you are doing both cardio and weights, don't worry about choosing 'easy' cardio to protect your strength. As long as you burn the same amount of energy (work-matched), high-intensity intervals will interfere with your strength gains just as much as moderate steady-state cardio. Focus on managing your total volume and recovery rather than avoiding high intensity.

Financial sponsorship by food and beverage companies in nutrition research and professional activities systematically biases outcomes to favor the sponsor's commercial interests, creating a conflict of interest that compromises the credibility of dietary advice.

When evaluating nutrition advice, check who funded the research or the organization providing the guideline. If a food company sponsored the study or the professional society, treat the conclusions with skepticism, especially if they align with the sponsor's product sales. Disclosure alone is not a guarantee of unbiased science.

In individuals with incident type 2 diabetes, higher pre-diagnosis BMI is positively associated with an increased risk of microvascular complications (kidney disease and neuropathy), but not macrovascular complications.

For someone with newly diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes, maintaining a healthy pre-diagnosis BMI is crucial for preventing kidney and nerve damage. While weight loss after diagnosis shows benefits, the baseline weight status before diagnosis significantly impacts long-term microvascular risk. Focus on preventing weight gain and managing metabolic health markers.

Using a single muscle biopsy with a long tracer incorporation time (approx. 3 hours) yields reliable myofibrillar protein synthesis rates comparable to the traditional two-biopsy method.

If you are measuring muscle protein synthesis using stable isotopes, you can safely use a single muscle biopsy instead of two, provided you extend the tracer incorporation time to approximately 3 hours. This reduces subject discomfort and risk without compromising the reliability of the results, as long as you use plasma protein for baseline enrichment.

Enriching a bolus protein drink with a small amount of crystalline tracer (4% enrichment) does not disrupt isotopic steady-state conditions in plasma or intracellular precursor pools.

For researchers using stable isotopes to measure muscle protein synthesis, you can enrich your protein drink with a small amount of tracer (e.g., 4% enrichment) without disrupting the steady-state conditions in your precursor pools. This allows for accurate measurement of muscle protein synthesis after a bolus protein feeding, even following exercise.

Short-term resistance exercise (3 bouts over 9 days) combined with a high-fat diet does not prevent the high-fat diet-induced upregulation of immune and inflammatory genes in skeletal muscle, although it does remodel genes associated with muscle growth and structure.

If you are eating a high-fat, low-carb diet, doing resistance exercise for just a few days will not stop your muscles from turning on inflammatory genes. While exercise does build muscle structure genes, it doesn't stop the inflammation caused by the diet. You likely need longer-term training to see protective effects, but don't assume a few workouts cancel out the dietary stress.

In patients with new-onset type 2 diabetes, a weight loss of 10% or more within the first two years is associated with the highest risk of all-cause mortality.

If you have recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, avoid losing more than 10% of your body weight in the first two years. Significant weight loss in this context is linked to higher mortality, possibly due to muscle loss or other health issues. Focus on maintaining a stable weight rather than aggressive weight loss.

Food industry sponsorship of academic research systematically biases the research agenda toward physical activity and nutrient-specific interventions, thereby diverting attention from the health impacts of highly processed foods and ultra-processed diets.

When evaluating health advice or research, always check the funding source. If a study on obesity or nutrition is funded by a food or beverage company, be skeptical of conclusions that emphasize exercise or specific nutrients while ignoring the role of highly processed foods. Prioritize research that is independent of industry funding or focuses on whole dietary patterns rather than isolated components.

Research funded by the sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) industry is significantly more likely to reach weak or null conclusions regarding the adverse health effects of SSB consumption compared to independently funded research.

When evaluating health claims about sugary drinks, prioritize studies funded by government, universities, or independent foundations over those funded by the beverage industry. Industry-funded studies are statistically much more likely to downplay health risks, potentially delaying necessary public health interventions like taxes or labeling laws.

Bariatric surgery confers a protective effect against cancer mortality, potentially driven by weight loss and intrinsic surgical changes.

Bariatric surgery significantly reduces the risk of dying from cancer (by 60%). This benefit is a major driver of the overall mortality reduction seen in surgical patients.

Resistance training induces an acute and chronic expansion of the satellite cell (SC) pool in skeletal muscle, but this expansion does not result in a detectable increase in myonuclear content during the first 10 weeks of training in young, previously trained men.

If you are a young, previously trained man, expect your satellite cells to increase in number during the first few months of resistance training, but do not expect this to immediately translate into more muscle nuclei. Your muscle is likely adapting through increased protein synthesis and repair mechanisms rather than structural nuclear addition at this stage. Focus on consistent training; the nuclei may add up if you train long enough or intensely enough to exceed current transcriptional capacity.

Ethnic disparities in Type 2 Diabetes are influenced by genetic variations regulating lipid and amino acid metabolism, leading to distinct metabolic signatures and drug responses across populations.

Your ethnic background influences how your body metabolizes nutrients and responds to medications for Type 2 Diabetes. This is due to genetic variations affecting lipid and amino acid metabolism. Discuss your specific metabolic profile with your healthcare provider to tailor dietary and therapeutic strategies, as personalized approaches are more likely to succeed than generic ones.

High variability in bodyweight is associated with an increased risk of incident atrial fibrillation in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, independent of baseline BMI and overall weight change direction.

If you have type 2 diabetes, avoid extreme weight cycling. Whether you are trying to lose weight or maintain it, try to do so gradually. Large swings in body weight (e.g., losing 10% and regaining it quickly) are linked to a higher risk of atrial fibrillation. Focus on stable, sustainable weight management rather than rapid, drastic changes.

Current dietary assessment methods for UPF intake are limited and require improvement, including better classification algorithms and exposure assessment tools.

Be aware that current estimates of UPF intake may be inaccurate due to limitations in dietary assessment tools. Future research aims to improve these methods, which will lead to better public health guidance.

In older adults, satellite cells that are physically incarcerated by thickened laminin in the extracellular matrix exhibit significantly reduced activation in response to resistance exercise compared to non-incarcerated satellite cells.

If you are older and feel your muscles aren't responding to exercise as well as they used to, it may be due to structural changes in the muscle tissue (thickening of the outer layer around muscle stem cells) that 'trap' them. The good news is that consistent resistance training over several months can reverse this trapping process, allowing your muscle stem cells to activate properly again and support muscle growth.

Higher plasma levels of the gut microbiome-derived metabolite Trimethylamine-N-oxide (TMAO) are associated with a significantly higher risk of incident atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) in a diverse, community-based population free of prior cardiovascular disease.

This study suggests that higher levels of TMAO, a byproduct of gut bacteria processing nutrients like red meat and eggs, are linked to a higher risk of heart disease. While it doesn't tell you to eliminate these foods, it highlights the importance of your gut health and kidney function. If you have risk factors for heart disease, discussing your diet and TMAO levels with your doctor might be worthwhile, especially if you have reduced kidney function.

Muscle typology (determined by muscle carnosine levels) does not explain inter-individual variability in resistance training-induced increases in muscle volume, maximal dynamic strength, or fiber cross-sectional area when training is performed to failure at 60% 1RM.

If you are new to resistance training, your muscle fiber type (whether you are naturally 'fast' or 'slow') does not determine how much muscle or strength you will gain. As long as you train to failure with a moderate load (around 60% of your max), you will see similar improvements regardless of your genetics. Focus on consistency and effort rather than trying to tailor your program to your fiber type.

Timing of creatine ingestion (pre- vs. post-exercise) does not significantly influence gains in muscle mass or strength compared to resistance training alone.

Take your creatine whenever is most convenient for you. Whether you take it before or after your workout makes no measurable difference to your muscle growth or strength gains. Focus on taking it consistently every day rather than stressing about the exact timing.

Using velocity loss (VL) thresholds to prescribe or monitor resistance training volume for free-weight back squats is flawed and should not be used because the relationship between velocity loss and repetitions completed to failure lacks stability and predictive validity across sessions.

Do not use velocity loss thresholds to determine how many reps to perform in free-weight back squats. The relationship between how fast you move and how many reps you can do is too unstable from session to session to be useful for programming. Stick to traditional methods like RPE or fixed rep ranges.

Current precision nutrition tools based on Polygenic Risk Scores (PRS) have limited predictive power because they often fail to account for gene-environment interactions.

Do not rely solely on genetic testing for dietary advice. Current genetic risk scores are incomplete because they ignore your lifestyle. For accurate precision nutrition, genetic data must be combined with environmental factors like diet and activity.

Fast-food restaurants in the US showed little to no consistent reformulation to reduce sodium and saturated fat content per 1,000 kcal between 2000 and 2013, despite public health recommendations.

Do not assume fast food has become healthier due to voluntary industry changes. While trans fats have decreased, sodium and saturated fat levels in core items like fries and burgers remain high and largely unchanged per calorie. To manage intake, you must actively choose items with lower sodium/saturated fat profiles or limit frequency, as the default options have not significantly improved.

Trans fat content in fast-food French fries declined to undetectable levels between 2006 and 2009 due to the phase-out of partially hydrogenated fats, whereas cheeseburgers remained a major source of trans fat due to natural ruminant fat.

You can likely find trans-fat-free French fries at major chains due to oil changes, but cheeseburgers still contain natural trans fats from beef. If you are strictly avoiding all trans fats, you must account for the natural content in meat products, not just processed oils.