by Chris Shugart
The Starvation Studies
What happens to testosterone and thyroid levels during and after a diet? How long does it take for them to recover? Answers here.
Famine is fairly rare in today's world, but that wasn't the case during World War II due to widespread food shortages. Researchers at the time wanted to learn what happens to the human body during starvation so they could help victims recover.
Professor Ancel Keys recruited 36 volunteers, conscientious objectors to the war, to study starvation and recovery. For 12 weeks, the volunteers consumed 3,200 calories daily to establish baseline health data. Then, for 24 weeks, calories were dropped to about 1,500 per day. They ate mostly the kinds of foods that were available in worn-torn Europe: potatoes, turnips, and bread.
Here's what happened:
The volunteers experienced significant weight loss (25% of body weight), a reduction in basal metabolic rate (BMR), decreased strength and endurance, and health issues like muscle wasting. Most were depressed, irritable, and couldn't concentrate. Some withdrew socially and developed obsessive behaviors related to food. During the refeeding process, Keys found that it took longer than expected to get everyone healthy again.
Today, the Minnesota Starvation Experiment is considered ethically questionable, but more questions need answers. So how do we ethically study human starvation?
Simple. We study people who starve themselves to win trophies: physique competitors.
The Newer Study
This study focused on weight-lifting females: 27 amateur competitors preparing for shows (1). Seventeen were bikini competitors, nine were figure competitors, and one was in the fitness division.
The researchers wanted to find out what happens health-wise during the four-month pre-competition period, along with how well they recover from the strict dieting and increased training. After dozens of lab tests, the participants did what they always do: reduced calories, lowered carbs, kept protein high, lifted weights, and increased cardio or HIIT.
The Results
Most saw a 35 to 50 percent decrease in fat mass – they got ripped. Muscle size was either maintained or only slightly decreased. Weight training plus a higher protein diet allowed them to keep all or most of their muscle, the researchers concluded. That's all good, but it wrecked their hormonal systems. "Leptin, T3, testosterone, and estradiol decreased," researchers noted.
After their shows, the subjects kept lifting, decreased their cardio, and brought their calories and carbs back up to normal. In 3-4 months, hormone concentrations returned to baseline. Well, most of them. "T3 and testosterone were still slightly decreased compared to pre-diet," researchers noted.
The researchers looked at these results positively since muscle was mostly maintained and hormone levels returned to normal, or close to it, in the four months after the show. But four months is a long time to be hormonally hamstrung, especially regarding thyroid and testosterone. And many competitors do more than one show in a season. What happens when you end one competition prep and jump into a new one soon after?
What We Can Learn
- With a high protein intake and weight training, muscle loss can be minimized or avoided, even during an extreme diet. The women in this study consumed 3 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. That means a 140-pound woman consumed around 190 grams of protein daily. Most of the women in the study used protein powder (Buy at Amazon) to hit those numbers.
- The damage done by a competition diet can be repaired, but it takes 3-4 months, maybe longer. Female competitors (and anyone going on a super-strict diet) should be aware of the hormonal changes, especially thyroid and testosterone. Back-to-back shows seem like a pretty terrible idea.
How to Minimize the Risks
Certain supplements can help both men and women on a strict fat-loss diet, like a specific form of forskolin.
Forskolin supports thyroid health by stimulating the production of thyroid hormones, particularly T4. Remember, thyroid hormones play a crucial role in regulating metabolism. Forskolin increases TSH or thyroid stimulating hormone, which leads to an increase in metabolic rate. Taking forskolin during and after a strict diet should prevent the associated thyroid problems.
Along with thyroid support, forskolin increases protein kinase production, which leads to increased levels of hormone-sensitive lipases (HSL), which helps break down triglycerides. Basically, it increases the breakdown of fat cells and releases stored fat from adipose tissue.
If you use the more bioavailable form, forskolin also increases the activation of brown adipose tissue (which increases fat burning), boosts protein synthesis, and increases testosterone levels in men.
The bioavailable form of forskolin is called forskolin 1,9 carbonate. It was invented by Biotest and is sold as Carbolin 19 (Buy at Amazon). It's better absorbed and the effects last longer than standard forskolin.
Taking one or two softgels once per day during and after a diet should minimize or prevent the problems the study's subjects experienced, further promote muscle preservation, and help prevent fat regain after a hard diet.
Reference
- Hulmi JJ et al. "The Effects of Intensive Weight Reduction on Body Composition and Serum Hormones in Female Fitness Competitors." Front Physiol. 2017 Jan 10;7:689. PMC: PMC5222856.
