WiseAthletes podcast on Muscle and Mitochondria

Mark Tarnopolsky, MD, PhD, FRCP(C)

  • Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine, CEO and CSO, Exerkine Corporation,
  • Director of Neuromuscular and Neurometabolic Clinic,
  • McMaster University Medical Center

Exercise is the best way to build and maintain healthy muscle and mitochondria everywhere in the body.

“A ounce of prevention is better than a ton of cure” but it’s never too late to get dramatic benefits from exercise.

Some notes:

  • VO2Max is a great marker for healthspan but we need more than aerobic capacity. Aim for 3x/week of endurance training for VO2Max and 2-3x week of resistance training to build and maintain muscle mass.
  • Longevity metrics: VO2Max, leg strength, waist-to-hip circumference
  • Elite athletes need 2x the protein of sedentary people
  • “Don’t train with futility”: Get enough high quality protein (aim for 1.2g/kg), don’t be deficient in Vit D (take a supplement), get sufficient calcium in diet. Milk and egg whites are the best quality proteins. Eat more protein if using a lower “quality” (amino acid mix).
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Additional info from Dr Tarnopolsky about his company’s supplements (which you can assemble yourself if you prefer):

"Any supplement or drug must be studied in exercising mammals
Several supplements like vitamin C and E can blunt the benefits of exercise
Our Muscle5 increases muscle without exercise but mainly in combination (with exercise)
We created TRIM7 with an exercise alone control and combined; We doubled the benefits of exercise with the TRIM7 as opposed to blunting them”

@Joseph_Lavelle I started listening to this on the Apple podcast app and it appears to be the nasal breathing episode.
Have you loaded the correct one up?

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Yes. Sorry for the technical issue. It should be resolved as of yesterday. If you had downloaded the episode before the fix you may need to redownload.

Let me know if Apple doesn’t have the correct episode.

Yeah, that works now.
(I have it on auto download as soon as it is released).

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For the case that older people need more protein…

Conclusions and relevance: In this multicohort study of older adults, higher intake of total, animal, and plant protein was associated with lower mortality in participants with CKD. Associations were stronger in those without CKD, suggesting that the benefits of proteins may outweigh the downsides in older adults with mild or moderate CKD.”

mean (SD) age was 78.0 (7.2) years.

Joseph, I enjoyed listening to this podcast as I worked out yesterday. Perhaps the most surprising and interesting thing for me was the anecdote about peanut butter with emulsifiers and how it damages the gut barrier / lining (possibly contributing to leaky gut, as I interpret it). This is probably good to know as many of us see peanut butter as a good source of protein. Did you discuss this at all more aside from the podcast?

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@rapadmin. Thanks. Just to be clear, the reference was to the Jif and Peter Pan type of PB that stays mixed with the oil, not the type where the oil separates. It was a shock to me as well. I had heard of this issue before but I have a lingering addiction to whatever PB my family leaves out. I had just eaten a gigantic spoonful.

Here’s an article on the topic

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