Every day new research is published and the unfortunate truth is that it would be impossible for me to write an article on everything I come across. Plus, in all fairness, not every study deserves a full article. Therefore, I decided to write a weekly Super Human Roundup series that briefly touches on some of the research I can’t or don’t want to address in length. This way you don’t miss out on anything that may interest you.

Sahni et al. from Harvard Medical School was interested in understanding the role of dietary protein on muscle mass and strength in older adults. They looked at data on over 2600 men and women from the Framingham Offspring Study who had valid dietary assessments and measurements of quadriceps strength and body composition (DXA). The subjects averaged 60 years of age and statistical adjustments were made for age, height, total energy intake, physical activity, health status, BMI, and fat mass. For both men and women, total and animal protein intake was significantly associated with muscle mass, but plant protein intake was not. However, plant protein was the only source associated with muscle strength. Perhaps plant protein favors strength preservation because of its alkaline properties or perhaps because it could just be a marker of overall dietary quality. Regardless, it does thus appear prudent to have some broccoli with your steak.

Smith et al. from the Washington University School of Medicine wanted to test the hypothesis that fish oil supplementation increases (or slows the loss of) muscle mass and function in older adults, and nothing less than a six month long, double-blind, randomized controlled trial would do. Thus, 44 healthy 60-85 year-old men and women were recruited to consume the n-3 equivalent of 200-400g of fatty fish (1.86g EPA & 1.5g DHA) per day or a corn oil placebo. After six months, there was a significant increase in thigh muscle volume, handgrip strength, and 1 rep-max thigh strength in the fish oil group only, without any adverse effects of changes in standard blood chemistry.

Researchers from Louisiana State University and Baylor College of Medicine must have read the article I wrote on apples, because they recently decided to examine the health associations of apple consumption in over 13,000 children aged 2-18 from the NHANES 2003-2010 data. Although only 26% of the children consumed some form of apple product (whole apples, apple sauce, or apple juice), these kids had a higher healthy eating index score and lower prevalence of overweight-obesity. In fact, eating whole apples reduced the likelihood of being obese by 30%, whereas the reduction was only 25% for total apple consumption. The apple consumers also consumed more whole fruit, whole grains, and seafood, and less “empty” calories than did non-consumers.

Amusingly, these same authors published a separate study of the same NHANES data about two weeks after the apple study, this time looking at oatmeal consumption. Overall, only 2.9% of children ate oatmeal, but talk about nutrient density. The oatmeal consumers had a significantly greater intake of dietary fiber, vitamin A, thiamin, riboflavin, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, iron, copper, and potassium than non-consumers. Of course, they also ate more whole grains and less refined grains and “empty” calories as well.Compared to non-consumers, oatmeal consumption was associated with a 40% lower risk of being obese and a 64% lower risk of having an elevated waist circumference.

The American Egg Board recently helped fund a study out of Purdue University that assessed the effects of consuming eggs with a raw mixed-vegetable salad on carotenoid absorption. A total of 16 healthy young men were recruited to complete three feeding trials in a randomized, single-blind, crossover design where they consumed a carefully portioned raw mixed-vegetable salad (tomatoes, shredded carrots, baby spinach, lettuce, and Chinese wolfberry with 3 g canola oil) without eggs (control), with 75 g scrambled whole eggs (~1.5 eggs; LE), and with 150 g scrambled whole eggs (~3 eggs; HE). The control, LE, and HE salads included thus had 3 g, 10.5 g (7.5 g from eggs), and 18 g (15 g from eggs) total dietary fat, respectively.

For every measured carotenoid, there was dose-dependent increase in absorption as more egg was consumed. However, the difference was only significant when comparing the HE to the control group, suggesting that if you are going to eat eggs, better make it three.