Sports Science Dudes
The Sports Science Dudes cover all the cool topics on sports science, nutrition, and fitness!
Email: SportsScienceDudes@gmail.com or Exphys@aol.com
Hosted by Dr Jose Antonio
BIO: Jose Antonio PhD earned his doctorate and completed a postdoctoral research fellowship at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He is a Co-founder and CEO of the ISSN (www.issn.net), and Co-founder of the Society for Sports Neuroscience (www.neurosports.net). He is a Professor of Exercise and Sport Science at Nova Southeastern University. Twitter: @JoseAntonioPhD Instagram: supphd and the_issn
Co-hosts include Tony Ricci EdD FISSN and Cassie Evans MS RD CISSN
Sports Science Dudes
Episode 84 Jennifer Kurtz PhD - Enhancing Endurance: The Role of Quercetin
Unlock the secrets of sports nutrition with Dr. Jennifer Kurtz from Appalachian State University, as she takes us on a journey into the world of quercetin, a powerful plant pigment. Discover how quercetin found in everyday foods like citrus fruits, elderberries, and onions, can potentially enhance athletic performance by managing inflammation and oxidative stress.
About our guest:
Dr. Kurtz holds a Ph.D. in Kinesiology with a concentration in Exercise Physiology and Nutrition from Georgia State University and both her M.S. in Health and Human Performance and B.S. in Exercise Science from Georgia College and State University. Dr. Kurtz teaches several courses, including Exercise Physiology and Nutritional Aspects of Exercise and Sports.
Her research focuses on physiological and nutritional interventions in sports performance, emphasizing nutrient timing, ergogenic aids, and preventative nutrition. She also explores hormonal impacts on metabolism, resistance training, and high-intensity interval training. Dr. Kurtz is affiliated with several professional organizations, including the International Society of Sports Nutrition, where she is a Certified Sports Nutritionist, and the American College of Sports Medicine as a Certified Exercise Physiologist. Additionally, she has published extensively on topics like quercetin’s effects on performance, nutrient timing, and sports nutrition.
About the Show
We cover all things related to sports science, nutrition, and performance. The Sports Science Dudes represent the opinions of the hosts and guests and are not the official opinions of the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), the Society for Sports Neuroscience, or Nova Southeastern University. The advice provided on this show should not be construed as medical advice and is purely an educational forum.
Hosted by Jose Antonio PhD
Dr. Antonio is the co-founder and CEO of the International Society of Sports Nutrition and the co-founder of the Society for Sports Neuroscience, www.issn.net. Dr. Antonio has over 120 peer-reviewed publications and 16 books and is a Professor at Nova Southeastern University, Davie, Florida in the Department of Health and Human Performance.
X @JoseAntonioPhD
Instagram: the_issn and supphd
Co-hosts: Anthony Ricci EdD FISSN and Cassandra Evans MS RD CISSN
Welcome to the Sports Science Dudes. I'm your host, dr Jose Antonio. Co-hosting with me today is Cassandra Evans. You can find our podcast on Spotify, youtube, apple Podcasts and Rumble. Our special guest today is Dr Jennifer Kurtz. Dr Kurtz is an assistant prof in the Department of Public Health and Exercise Science at Appalachian State University. She holds a PhD in kinesiology with a concentration in exercise phys and nutrition fromian State University. She holds a PhD in kinesiology with a concentration in exercise phys and nutrition from Georgia State University, and both her MS and BS in exercise science are from Georgia College and State University. And I actually had to look that up. I'm thinking is it Georgia College University, georgia College and State University or Georgia State? And apparently it's Georgia College and State University, which is rather confusing, but it is what it is.
Speaker 3:Is it in Georgia? It is in Georgia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so at least we got that part right. I was like, well, this is a really confusing name for a school. Dr Kurtz teaches several courses, including ex-phys and nutritional aspects of exercise and sports. In fact, I'm on sabbatical and Cassie's teaching my sports nutrition course right now and she's enjoying every minute of it. I am certain your research focuses on physiological and nutritional interventions on sports performance, emphasizing nutrient timing, ergogenic aids and preventive nutrition timing, ergogenic aids and preventive nutrition.
Speaker 2:So, Dr Kurtz, Jennifer, welcome to the Sports Nutrition. Yeah, thanks for having me. I really appreciate this invite and just being able to have this conversation and hopefully just a really great conversation.
Speaker 1:Hey, let's switch a little to sports nutrition, supplements and whatnot. I'll tell you this, jennifer. When people ask me about supplements, I'll be quite honest. Quercetin is not something that ever pops into my head. In fact, if someone said, what does it do, what are the doses, I'm like God. I actually I don't know.
Speaker 1:So I guess the first question is I'm sure you're sitting around, I don't know, in the lab or in class like, hmm, I think I want to study quercetin. I'm not sure why, but it sounds really fascinating. And you start asking people around and you realize, wow, nobody knows anything about this, right?
Speaker 2:I still don't know anything about it.
Speaker 3:And I guess I think it's an antioxidant right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's one of the functions that it could help with?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's the story of how you got to you know studying this.
Speaker 2:Quite honestly. So one of my own mentors still just great mentor in my life Trisha Van Dusseldorp. So I've had some conversations with her. When I kind of started my PhD, I was originally at UGA and I was like, okay, well, who is this person, like what type of research she's doing? And then her and I started having conversations and then she was the one who kind of brought up quercetin and I was like what the heck is quercetin? I was like, wait, this sounds fascinating. Like, oh, I just like the word of it, great. So her and I started having some conversations.
Speaker 2:She was doing a little bit of work with it with some of her master's students at the time and, um, and that was kind of a supplement that I was like, wait, I kind of want to run with this, like it is a a part of your like plant kind of base diets, like it's a plant pigment. It's found in like citrus fruits, like elderberries, red wine. I was like, oh, red wine, great, I want to kind of look at what. What is in kind of normally what I consume. So, yeah, berries, kale, a lot of a bunch of different foods, and onions is another big one.
Speaker 1:So I eat a lot of onions all that stuff.
Speaker 2:I don't eat, so I'm like right, exactly, but you have to have like a lot of onions to kind of get that quercetin effect and then kind of COVID kind of rolled around and kind of researched. This is also kind of where when I kind of first started my PhD and of course COVID hit and I was like great, I still want to continue my research and thankfully Tricia was awesome and I was like this is you're in Georgia?
Speaker 1:University of Georgia at the time.
Speaker 2:Yep. So I was at University of Georgia, kind of actually started fall 2019. And then I started having conversations with her. Her kind of wanted to follow her research line or kind of get her mentorship and collaboration. And then I actually switched over to Georgia State, which not many people do in their PhD at all yeah, that's, uh, that's all usually unheard of exactly how far in into the PhD were you before you switched?
Speaker 2:I was only a semester. Oh okay, okay, yeah, but it was like, where can I get the best like mentorship, where can I get collaboration, conversation, where can I get more plugged into a lab of research that I'm like super passionate, more excited about, which was always sports nutrition, but it was kind of rare to find really strong sports nutrition people in Georgia, and then Tricia was right down the road, so she was also.
Speaker 1:So she was at Kennesaw she was at Kennesaw I didn't realize they're like neighbors, those two universities.
Speaker 2:Yep, so Georgia State and Kennesaw they're about 30 minutes from each other.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Yep, so that was really great. I talked to kind of people at Georgia State and like, hey, I have this great person I would love to learn from. Is it possible that I can maybe be in her lab while also still being at Georgia State? So that's kind of how the conversation kind of unraveled and my mentors at Georgia State they're like yeah, ok, that works, as long as you're kind of getting that research experience and really thankful.
Speaker 1:Very unusual, Doesn't really happen in the PhD realm, yes, so so Tricia was your primary advisor.
Speaker 2:At the time. Technically like on paper, no, but but in reality but in reality yes.
Speaker 2:And that's all that matters really, to be honest, exactly. So she was a big part of my research, kind of like my interests and kind of where I wanted to run with some of my ideas. So yeah, we started having a lot of those conversations with quercetin and then COVID hit and I was like, okay, well, now what am I going to do? And I was like, oh, I kind of want to do a review, I want to look into the literature, what the heck does quercetin do? And that's kind of where my quercetin interest kind of come, kind of came into be. So yeah, during COVID I was still able to kind of publish a review paper with quercetin and sports and exercise, not in a super tier, top tier journal, but I still got a publication out of it.
Speaker 1:So, um, and at the time was there? Was there enough there to say, hey, this is the amount you could take where it might do something from a exercise standpoint. Or it was just a black box of we don't know?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, typically what I've been finding, finding. So, David Neiman, he was actually at App State. He's done a lot of work with quercetin so he's found some mixed results. With quercetin it really just appears like chronic ingestion. Like 500 milligrams per day seems to be a little bit more beneficial than the short-term doses of just like hey, I'm just going to take some onions or eat some onions then the short-term doses of just like, hey, I'm just going to take some onions or eat some onions.
Speaker 3:Well, and how many, how? How many onions?
Speaker 2:would you have to eat to get that kind of 500 milligram dose? That's, honestly, that's a great question. That's a great question. I haven't really looked into how many onions you had to eat, but I eat a lot of onions.
Speaker 1:What about garlic Is?
Speaker 2:it in garlic. That food source I don't know entirely. I mean it's found in some peppers, garlic I'm not entirely sure about that one.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I was before you came on. I you know, for the last couple of days I've just been sort of scanning the literature on quercetin because, frankly, I don't know anything about it, but it seems like it does a whole host of things. And I was just looking at this list, I copied and pasted it. In addition to antioxidant effects, anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular, benefits?
Speaker 2:I didn't know.
Speaker 1:Does it have anti-diabetic effect? Does it affect blood sugar?
Speaker 2:so very inconclusive research. Some of that research has been done more in animal models than humans so I can't really say for sure it helps with blood sugar. More of my focus with quercetin it's been more on like the inflammation, kind of oxidative side of things, especially kind of more in the athlete realm.
Speaker 1:So so what have you found? As it applies to athletes Cause, I mean all athletes care about is will it make me better?
Speaker 2:That I mean, that's exactly right. So also athletes, like some of them have asked me they're like what the heck is quercetin? Why would I take the supplement in the first place? So my kind of focus is that is like I'm really interested in like the prolonged effects of, like how, the prolonged bouts of exercise. So if cycling or running like how is that going to affect your oxidative and your inflammatory systems and how can you find the optimal level of inflammation and oxidative stress to still elicit the adaptations?
Speaker 2:So I first started off with kind of looking at okay, let's look at a 20 kilometer time trial, which was my dissertation, and I looked at quercetin by itself. I looked at citrulline with it as well to see if there's any sort of like synergistic effects, targeting like maybe different or same or different cellular kind of compartments of these, also looked at citrulline by itself and placebos. I had four main groups. So I wanted to kind of start with okay, how does this might affect maybe oxygen consumption, average power, respiratory exchange ratio, urating of perceived exertion. So that's kind of where I started with it. And I also looked at nitric oxide metabolites, so nitrite and nitrate, to maybe see if quercetin could maybe target this cellular pathway. So that was kind of the question my mentor asked. He was like okay, we'll figure out what pathway quercetin might target and then go like let's go from there.
Speaker 1:And this is 20 KM. This is cycling time trial.
Speaker 2:Yup, so this was with all trained athletes. So I had 48 trained athletes in my study.
Speaker 3:Wow, Wait, and four groups I'm super impressed.
Speaker 1:Guys and girls.
Speaker 2:It was about eight females that I had.
Speaker 1:So this is sort of a pragmatic question, because Cassie and I run into this all the time. Yep, how do you get that many trained people to do what you want to do without them dropping out?
Speaker 2:that many trained people to do what you want to do without them dropping out? That's an excellent question. I, of course, had dropouts. So I had a pretty big connection within the cycling community in Atlanta Cause I um I used to do a whole bunch of like races, um. So I met a lot of people through the races and again this is just forming conversation and like being in the community and Haley and them also kind of trusting me with, kind of with where I was going with this and me cycling with them. They're like okay, I guess, I guess we'll do this, like. So they had the buy-in exactly. So it was through a lot of me cycling with the athletes. And then it was a lot of through the word of mouth and I was honestly surprised that I was able to get 48 um athletes like well trained, all competed in cat one, cat two, in even some cat three races. So, um, I was pleasantly surprised and happy with those participants and super grateful for all of them now you and you looked at oh.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry oh, I was just gonna ask about the supplementation part, but I want to know what she competed in first yeah, are you a cat one two or three oh yeah, I was.
Speaker 2:I don't really race anymore.
Speaker 1:I kind of shifted more into kind of the ultra running world whole another topic, but so much fun, wait, you know this is interesting because this is that's almost backwards, and the reason I say that is the running joke, at least because my wife used to run track in college and the running joke is what he called injured runner, a cyclist, right, yeah, so you've actually gone the other way, where you've gone from cycling to running, which is something I never really hear of. I always hear the other way because runners are constantly injured, but you're going to, you say, ultra distance running.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, like ultra marathon.
Speaker 1:I mean that's kind of an interesting transit. I mean, no, this is a sort of a nice little aside. So I need to know why you did a switch where most people go the other way.
Speaker 2:That's an excellent question. So for number one, I dealt with cycling injuries. So I dealt with some lower back pain which is now I'm kind of figuring out. It's kind of maybe something dealing with the geometry of my bike, something that may be in like all of the constant technical trails. It was just destroying my bike or my back and maybe my bike too at the same time. But also when I moved up to Boone, like there were so many trails like close by and I have a German short hair pointer, super high energy, and I'm like okay, starting a new job I don't really have time to go deep into the Pisgah forest drive hour hour and a half to ride what I want to ride Still great trails locally.
Speaker 2:But I was like, wow, there's so many more great running trails closer and that's honestly where I met a lot of my community and people.
Speaker 3:So I started running and now I'm dealing with some running injuries, but yeah, same, they're never ending. My friend Joe has. So he did no exercise basically his entire life, like ever. And then when he was in his like mid-50s, while still smoking cigarettes, decided to start like doing like 5ks and then eventually now does like ultra marathons and he's in his late 60s. But very interesting because he he talks out too how like he would like literally be smoking cigarettes like in the car at like a race and then like get out and go do his race and come back and like I guess one day he just, I don't know, got embarrassed and was like I think I should quit smoking now. But now he does ultras like and he's crazy with it.
Speaker 3:But I feel like the ultra community is super, super friendly. I don't know as much about the cycling community, just because cycling down here in south florida is absolutely wild, like they're. They're. The roads are very small, people aren't very mindful of um the cyclists, and especially down a1a, which is closer to me, like people get hit all the time. Uh, but with the running community and especially the ultra community, I've just found that they are so much friendlier and just nice well, that's because, I can agree yeah, I mean everyone, not everyone.
Speaker 1:But a lot of people in south florida hate cyclists. Why?
Speaker 3:because they hog the road when they come in, when they come in their big groups, even as a cyclist, like when I was like cycling by myself and they all of a sudden, you have like 50 of them behind you. It's terrifying like, and they yell at you yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they're not. Yeah, they're not when they're in packs. They're not nice, they're not. Yeah, they're not when they're in packs they're not nice.
Speaker 2:They're not nice, right, right, yep.
Speaker 1:Okay, so sorry for the sidebar. I actually do want to hear more about how you're training for running versus training for cycling, because it is kind of interesting, particularly with, like, the use of supplements. I know like cyclists are more likely to use creatine than runners because runners are afraid of that weight gain. So but we can get back to that. But I think you're finishing your point about was it quercetin and citrulline for your study?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, okay, did you do chronic or acute supplementation? So?
Speaker 2:I did four weeks, okay, yup, so I mean, it depends on how you define chronic, depends on how you define acute, but I mean I would consider four weeks chronic.
Speaker 3:So you have people actually and I know you said you had some dropouts, but still to end up with 48 subjects like over a four week period is is impressive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it wasn't, yeah, it was not easy to do. But I mean, like I said, like I had a lot of great cyclists like they I'm super grateful for them, and a lot of them were my friends. So I was like, hey, make sure you're consuming this. Hey, make sure, hey, you got that supplement today, Like so. And I was like, hey, you're going to eat today. If you're going to have your lunch and your dinner, All right, just put this in there. And it was also like a beverage form, so to help maybe increasing the absorption and maybe bioavailability of these two. Um, I was like, hey, it's an, it's an orange beverage.
Speaker 1:Here you go, Wait was this a commercially available beverage?
Speaker 2:The combination so what my lab and I did kind of at Georgia state is we actually kind of created these supplements with like an orange crystal light, uh, low sugar, no calories in it. Um, so that was our placebo. And then what we did is we ordered um bulk of quercetin and citrulline and then we combined that with the orange flavor. Okay, and it's soluble.
Speaker 1:It's soluble in water. Yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, yep. So they had to consume that. Like we gave them a whole bunch of little packets of supplement. It looks like, uh, not a great lab, but um.
Speaker 2:I can imagine Exactly so um but, yeah, they had a whole bunch of these little packets in their bag and it was like, hey, make sure you consume this, and we wouldn't know if they didn't consume it. If they're, if, like, by the end of the 30 days, like we timed it out pretty well, like okay, what's the shelf life of these supplements? And they all dissolved right by that end of the 30 day, so, which was great.
Speaker 1:And so you found okay. So after the four week intervention, I'll tell the audience, because a lot of people think, oh, a four week study, Well, that can't take more than a couple of months From the start. How about this? From the start of writing the IRB, submitting it, to the time that you had all data collected and when you're ready to write it up, what's that timeframe?
Speaker 2:So we it took a little longer with the IRB. Uh, with some universities that we, you have that struggle.
Speaker 1:What's a little longer, so we can like compare notes.
Speaker 2:It took about seven, eight months for IRB approval. It was a very long time. Georgia State apparently was not used to this type of hey. We're creating a supplement and we're going to have athletes take that. They're like okay. Well, what's the safety?
Speaker 1:I don't think we've ever had one that long Cassie no, and I was just complaining about mine taking three months.
Speaker 2:This took a long time, so it taught me a whole lot of patience and persistence, because I was like this is what. I want to do.
Speaker 1:Okay, so well. That's like half of most investigations right there. Exactly so after that you start and data collection takes how long?
Speaker 2:So for us it was we started roughly right around December and we finished right around May.
Speaker 3:Oh that's pretty cool, so did you do like multiple cycles then of collections?
Speaker 2:So we got people in the door, like I got two, three new people every week, what it seemed like. So we're in, like I got subjects in like in and in, like it was. It was very impressive with how the recruitment went, yeah.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Yeah, that's, I mean, your data collection was shorter than your IRB, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:It was.
Speaker 1:It should never be like that. Ever Right right, it should never be like that. So I was semi-familiar with citrulline before you came on. You know there's some interesting data on that. So questions of you. Thought there might be a synergistic effect, but what were your thoughts on citrulline prior to this as a standalone ergogenic aid?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So just for people who might not know what citrulline is, it's like a non-essential amino acid found in super high concentrations of watermelon. So maybe, cassie, you have to have a whole bunch of watermelon to get the citrulline effect Got it. I mean, that's really the same thing with, like quercetin too, with onions, like you have to probably have a whole bunch to get the effects. So, yeah, it's been used as an ergogenic aid to kind of help with mitochondrial biogenesis, maybe like oxygen consumption, kind of targeting nitric oxide. So I was like, okay, great.
Speaker 2:So my interest has always been kind of the aerobic world, like hey, how can we target oxygen uptake? So when I kind of started digging into the research, like several lines of kind of research has been showing that, okay, they may both improve cardiovascular health, metabolism, oxygen stress and even performance. So I was like, okay, there might be some sort of synergistic interaction. And what citrulline is? Also, there's been some research to show that it might target the NO pathway, so nitric oxide metabolite pathway. So I was like okay. And then somehow, like even talking with Tricia, I was like I think I want to combine these two and to see if there's any sort of effect of putting these together to see if it targets like auction, consumption or like that NO pathway. So that's really what I did, but no one had done that before, right?
Speaker 1:I don't think no one has done that before, okay. Was that paper just published?
Speaker 2:So I just published it like a month ago. It just came out with IS within JIS ISSN.
Speaker 1:Oh, good, good, good, okay. And so athletes want to know what's the net net, what's the bottom line? Should I take it, should I not take it?
Speaker 2:And here's how I usually frame.
Speaker 1:This is it doesn't. Can it possibly hurt performance, and if not, then should you just take it.
Speaker 2:Right, like I don't, I don't think it'll hurt performance. I mean, I think when it comes to supplement or like really in general, like if you're deficient, like especially with these trained cyclists, like it's like take it, see if it helps, see if it doesn't help, like that's kind of my take on it Like. But what I did find, though, like cause I had four groups, which it was because I had about 13 or 14 individuals roughly maybe in both and each group, so it was a pretty quality like number. So what I found is the supplement together didn't have any effect on time trial performance, didn't really have any effect on average power, didn't really have any effect on heart rate or RPE or RER. But what was really cool that I did find is that the groups by itself so citrulline by itself and even quercetin by itself did improve oxygen consumption.
Speaker 1:Now let me ask you okay, the time trial performance, was that done in the lab? It was done in the lab, yeah.
Speaker 3:So can you describe that Like, just because you said it's a 20 kilometer test, right yeah?
Speaker 2:So about 30 to 35 minutes on average for these trained cyclists to build it and it was like at maximal capacity and they did this twice. So pre and post supplementation. So they will back up. They had a familiarization trial. They had their, like a washout, they had a supplement for four weeks, came in and they did another, uh, like basically pre post time trial as well.
Speaker 1:I mean that's it's hard to get cause.
Speaker 3:that's painful. For one thing, if you can do a time trial twice, it's max, she said max effort.
Speaker 1:Yeah Right, so getting, and I assume, I assume they were volunteers. You didn't have to pay them to show up, which is always volunteers. They were great volunteers and maybe endurance athletes have. Well, I don't know if this is true, they might have more and I'll probably get holy hell for this. Maybe their pain tolerance is just a lot greater than maybe people who just lift weights, who you know? I don't want to come in and do a 1RM squat or bench press or whatever, but still a 20-kilometer time trial is.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's no joke getting people to do that. Well, getting people to do it twice. Yeah, they did three times, three times they did a familiarization. Yeah that's.
Speaker 2:Familiarization and pre-imposed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that is no joke.
Speaker 3:But I reimposed yeah, that is, yeah, that is no joke. Um so, but I feel like it's definitely a different kind of pain. So like I feel like endurance, like at least what I hear sometimes is like there's a difference between running through like the discomfort and like running through actual pain. So I feel like pains me seems like injury, whereas like a sub max test it's uncomfortable, very uncomfortable, I would assume. On a bike, uh, but maybe not, maybe something they can like kind of push through.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they were able to bring their own bike into, like they had the comfort of their own bike, like we attached it to a kicker and I was like, hey, like, if you want to listen to music, you can listen to music. If you want to watch Netflix, you can watch Netflix, but it has to be the same Netflix show every single time.
Speaker 3:So to yeah.
Speaker 1:So I'm watching the same thing three times, or whatever.
Speaker 2:Right, I was like just watch the Office three times, like great. So I mean a lot of them were. They were pretty compliant, like I didn't have much dropouts because of lack of compliance, which was really great to see.
Speaker 1:I mean race pace. Pain is horribly painful.
Speaker 3:It is you gotta admit. Oh, I admit, horribly painful it is, you gotta admit.
Speaker 1:oh, I, I admit yeah, because I've seen cassie in places where I don't know if she's actually okay, she's actually pushing herself.
Speaker 3:I can't achieve like a true race pace on a paddleboard. It's just, it just doesn't. Well, there's a couple things that come into play. First off, it's my upper body. So like, obviously I'm not as strong in my upper body as I am in my lower body, but like also when I know that one I have to go for three miles, I try to pace myself for that three miles and then on the paddleboard which is, I guess you could kind of like similar to cycling, like if there's wind, but like at least with cycling, like if there's wind, you can kind of like curl up a little bit. Like paddleboard. There's no like curling, like you're just standing there and getting hit in the wind and there's waves and you're balancing and it's really brutal. Like I would take an ultra endurance race over a three mile paddleboard race any day I agree with you, yeah, all I know is cassie looks quite refreshed when she crosses the finish line in these paddling.
Speaker 3:I like leisure, leisure, long leisure, paddles where I can like talk, and then eventually, the distance between us is getting greater and greater. I keep talking and he keeps going.
Speaker 1:Yeah, don't, I know it, don't, I know it. Okay, so pragmatic question Dosing If someone wants to take quercetin citrulline together or separate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, question dosing if someone wants to take quercetin citrulline together or separate, yeah, so I would say, right now, with quercetin, um, it may improve. Um, cycling time trial, like if they're interested in performance. Again, it really just depends on, okay, what's your goal, like what are you trying to accomplish with if you take a supplement? That's the biggest question that I kind of throw out to them. Um, withercetin, about 500 milligrams, seems to do its job, so not a whole lot. It typically like even the lesser dosages, like combined maybe with other antioxidants or even like nutrients, maybe fish oil or like another, like, yeah, polyphenol, maybe that may be more beneficial rather than just by itself. But I mean, like I said, I still did see quercetin by itself, which was great, because a lot of other previous research has really just been kind of in contrast to what I found, which was cool that I found that.
Speaker 1:Anything that's less than a gram is always doable. Now, however, isn't citrulline in the gram doses? Yep, so about 3.5.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a lot and that's why I have a whole lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you personally take either of these?
Speaker 2:I take quercetin.
Speaker 1:Not citrulline.
Speaker 2:Not really citrulline. Again, it's the hey, what's feasible. And I mean I like quercetin just because, like a lot of it has a lot of health effects. These days, like it's, the research is still kind of being developed with quercetin. But I'm like, hey, it doesn't really hurt me and it might have some of these like anti-inflammatory effects or antioxidant effects. I was like, okay, um, or even immune function. So that's kind of where I've been kind of shifting towards. I'm like, okay, quercetin doesn't hurt and it's feasible, and why not?
Speaker 1:And the food with the highest concentration, if you want to get it through food.
Speaker 2:I would say onions are right up there.
Speaker 1:Onions.
Speaker 3:It said that according from a PubMed reference, but I didn't look into it in depth, but it was 28 to 48 milligrams of quercetin per 100 grams of onions.
Speaker 2:That sounds about right. I don't know what the average weight of an onion is yeah, I don't know the kind of the grams of that one either, but I think what I recall like two to four pounds of onions per day.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, that's a lot of onions.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of onions, yeah, and no one's going to take or eat that many onions.
Speaker 1:Even for an onion lover? I don't think so.
Speaker 3:And then I wonder if cooking too like. Does cooking affect? Like the levels of it and stuff like that?
Speaker 2:I'm sure, absolutely Yep.
Speaker 3:Exactly, exactly so, absolutely Yep exactly so that it definitely would cause gastrointestinal issues if you had that many onions. Oh yeah, I feel like you would emanate like yeah, I mean that would not be great.
Speaker 1:Oh sorry, go ahead, cassie.
Speaker 3:So do you have any interest in looking at maybe like how it could affect recovery, because I know you looked at performance, but I know that sometimes like some of these, like antioxidant or these ones that have antioxidant properties, do offer kind of like a good recovery benefit which obviously in turn downstream can affect performance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that's a that's a great question. I'm actually kind of doing some research with that right now, so that's kind of where I've been shifting, um, rather than 20 kilometers.
Speaker 2:I'm shifting towards 75 kilometers. I want a little bit more of a prolonged belt. Um, because what I my kind of reasoning behind that is like all these trained athletes that I'm kind of pulling into the lab like 30 minutes, like really at a higher pace, like it's not, it's not really that much. Then, because it was self-paced. It was like all right, we're getting your maximum capacity, but this is also self-paced. I want your RPE to be like really above that, 16 to 17 the entire time, like most of the entire time.
Speaker 2:So, and I'm finding like they already have a lot of those adaptations. So I was like, okay, well, let me look at a longer bout to see how this might okay, affect their baseline inflammation, their oxidative stress, like their recovery. So I'm actually shifting towards like, okay, let's look at the recovery period. So I'm looking at immediately post, I'm looking at hour and a half post exercise and 75 kilometer post, so or not 75, I'm sorry 24 hours post exercise. So more blood draws, kind of more biomarkers that I'm kind of really interested in looking at to see, okay, does quercetin play more of an effect rather than the recovery period, rather than the performance, like the acute effect, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And you're talking really about a slight group of people who could do that much exercise.
Speaker 2:I mean Exactly. So my recruitment's not going as great, but I'm still like I still have about 16, 17 people in this current study that I'm working on right now, so I'm excited about that. And, um, another thing I've been kind of I've been I've actually combining that with ginger, so that's another kind of random supplement that I'm looking at.
Speaker 1:So ginger, I think I. You know what. I take so many pills in the morning I forget what I take. I actually think I take ginger. It's on my list.
Speaker 2:But when it comes to look at the aerobic metabolism, kind of a ginger like or recovery, I'm like, okay, there's more promise, kind of looking at more of the recovery in my perspective. Then kind of just like, hey, acute doesn't increase.
Speaker 1:Right Question about you've also, I think you wrote a paper on Tori.
Speaker 2:I did.
Speaker 1:And Tori. I mean, my introduction to Tori was long time ago, when I first drank Red Bull and it had Tori and I'm like, huh, they put Tori in here. I wonder why. So yeah, tell us tell the audience what taurine is, what it possibly does as a standalone supplement and if there's something you can combine it with, possibly.
Speaker 2:Yep. So taurine, it's kind of like a kind of sulfur kind of containing amino acid. It's a derivative of cysteine, which is another non-essential amino acid. It does account for like 50 to 60% of, like, your free amino acid pool. So a lot of taurine is actually found in animal proteins. So that's kind of a main source of taurine. But what a lot of energy drinks have been doing now is putting taurine into energy drinks combined with caffeine, for example. So or like, even like, or green tea, for like green tea, just straight like coffee. So it's been used as like potential ergogenic aid to maybe help improve athletic performance. And that is where another one of my interests was. I was like, okay, well, why, like, why are they throwing taurine in all of these energy drinks? Like, what does that do? So again, it's just like okay, I'm just going to zoom in on the most random supplements or the ingredients and let me run with it and see what happens.
Speaker 2:Someone's got to do it, though, exactly. It interested me, though, because it has so many other roles that it's been targeting. So one of them like, for example, kind of in modulating like fat metabolism, maybe inducing fiberglass, like growth factors, kind of maybe playing more of a role in body energy balance, and it's found in like actually high concentration in the skeletal muscle, more in like the oxidative fiber types. So, yeah, so it's been.
Speaker 1:Wait, so it's more in the type one fibers.
Speaker 2:I've been found more in type one fibers and type two fibers. So which I was like what A lot of people are taking these energy drinks before they're doing all these like max reps or something like that.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned something.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, cause she mentioned like whole body, energy balance and just a term that I haven't really heard before, so I was wondering if you could explain just the term.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that is really what I was kind of curious about. So something called these fibroblast growth factors, okay, they're producing your adipose kind of tissue and they play a role more with your energy balance of hey, like your lipid metabolism Okay. Okay, yep, so, and they're kind of implicated, those growth factors okay, and metabolic diseases so. So taurine is kind of one of the roles has been targeting kind of hey, we might be able to modulate and affect these fiber growth factors to help improve your lipid metabolism or maybe help improve glucose uptake. So that was one kind of role that taurine wanted to kind of do its job on.
Speaker 1:Well, what does it do? Well, one, what's the dosing? Let's say, if the goal is, if someone wants to experiment, then let's face it. My entire life has just been one big experiment on myself. So if I just want to experiment on Tori, what would be the daily dosing and what would it affect the most? Would it be the more of the aerobic type, you know, exercises or power, endurance stuff, or Yep.
Speaker 2:So really more in like the exercise performance kind of realm, about 500,000 milligrams. So these dosages are kind of not terrible but for more like exercise performance or maybe even recovery. Um, higher dosages, probably one to three grams, um, so there's been super high dosages, um, like with taurine like, even like greater than five grams per day and not really much effect on aerobic performance. Um, so it's appears to be safer with higher dosages but they're really unclear the effects on performance. But um, of what I've saw kind of with that Taurine review paper, you need to have more of a chronic dosage like that six to 21 days to maybe see more of an effect. And it seems maybe a little bit more promising put in question mark on there with the aerobic kind of performance rather than like anaerobic.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Now what is?
Speaker 1:go ahead, Cassie.
Speaker 3:Do carnivore, the people that follow the carnivore diet, they they have to supplement with taurine if they're just eating nothing but meat and that's where it's found in high concentrations or I mean they're going to get that taurine.
Speaker 2:They're going to get taurine and then their animal products.
Speaker 3:And then you probably combine it with their energy drinks and a supplement.
Speaker 2:Maybe they'll be a exactly really saturated right and it generally appears to be safe, like not super toxic or with any crazy adverse effects. But again, like that's where it's like okay, this may be very unclear performance, so it's like do you really even need to take it like so you think that's why they like the potential effects on lipid metabolism is maybe why they combine it with the caffeine.
Speaker 2:For sure, absolutely. I think that's definitely a great question, yep, and I think another one that I've been kind of finding like with Taurine. It's like it's a factor on calcium regulation which was like really interesting, like the calcium kind of handling. Um, maybe Taurine kind of uh helps with the calcium kind of handling, maybe taurine kind of helps with the calcium release. So again, that mechanism is kind of unclear. But that's yeah, that research has really only been performed in animals, so I'd be curious to see how that might actually carry over to human research.
Speaker 1:Does beta alanine consumption affect taurine levels?
Speaker 2:That's an excellent question. I'm sure it does maybe with some sort of interaction, but I mean that would definitely be something worth exploring. I think beta alanine yeah, it's great.
Speaker 1:Is that one of your supplements that you take? It's not.
Speaker 2:Nope, it is not Not that one.
Speaker 1:Well, since we're on that topic, what do you take, assuming your goal is to improve performance, or maybe your goal is just to have fun running?
Speaker 2:Yeah, all the above. But I mean really what? Like people ask like a lot of my students ask me this too Like I don't think supplements are really necessary if you have a whole balanced diet. So like I really focus on like, okay, my fruits, my veggies. Like making sure I have like an actual nutritious meal, like you know, making sure I have enough nutrients in in my day to day and if I'm doing like any sort of crazy long, prolonged bouts, which I have a tendency to do sometimes.
Speaker 1:How long is prolonged?
Speaker 2:Well, um, I'm kind of going for like over 20 hours on feet in the next year or so, like 20 hours of running.
Speaker 3:Of running? Yeah, so are you doing one of the races where because, like I know, they have like different kind of like setups for the ultra marathons where you just sometimes they have like a distance, or sometimes, like in the second type of race I hate where they just have like a time and it's just how many, how many miles you can log in? 20 hours or whatever the time time set is?
Speaker 2:so a little bit of both, okay. So, yeah, I I have like 100k coming up. Um, I signed up for my first 100 mile race next year, so wait, wait.
Speaker 1:Where is this? Where's the 100 mile race?
Speaker 3:new river gorge in west virginia okay yeah, listen, if you ever want to go with me out to arizona. I've always wanted to do it. I think it's the javelin javelin race, but it's done on halloween and people wear like costumes and it's done obviously in the evening because it's in arizona, so like the daytime's like super hot, but it is an ultra marathon and like I've always wanted to go, I just can't find anyone to go with me.
Speaker 1:How far is it Cass?
Speaker 3:There's different ones. There's, I think, a 50K, a 70K. I don't think there's a 100K.
Speaker 2:Oh, those are good distances, yeah, super fun yeah.
Speaker 1:The one you need to do, jennifer, to show what a total badass you are, is the Badwater.
Speaker 3:No, there's one that's badder than Badwater. What's the one where they go through like the mountains and a girl, a woman, just won it. A girl, a woman, just won it for the first time, I think this past year. She's like the first. Not many people don't even cross the finish line. I'll find it out for us.
Speaker 1:Is that the Western States? Western States 100?
Speaker 3:maybe it's something very challenging.
Speaker 2:Might be it. Might that sounds familiar. Might be the Western States. I mean, you gotta be a little nutty to do ultras.
Speaker 2:I mean a little bit, I mean that's honestly what I tell my students is like, if you're going to do these crazy events, like nutrition is key, like you have to find two-year nutrition, you have to like I'm not saying you have to supplement, but I mean I really capitalize on a lot of like my anti inflammatory, like antioxidant kind of like food sources just so and like also to help like help my gut out in these races too. So that's kind of where I've been Semi Okay, like in them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would imagine a big part of it is particularly just maintaining weight because you're expending so much energy training. Oh yeah, oh yeah, I would think body weight maintenance is just a hard thing because it's hard to eat enough food unless you eat a lot of calorically dense food.
Speaker 2:Well, that's where the junk food comes in handy, so that is another great thing of ultra running that I love is I love my Swedish fish and my sour pass kids.
Speaker 1:Oh, it gives you the QC really whatever you want, if you're expending that much. So, how many miles or hours per week would it take for you to train for that event?
Speaker 2:so it depends on what season you're kind of in Um and depends on, like, how far out, like I have a race in a couple of weeks, like I mean it's um, so I mean 50, 60 mile weeks roughly, and maybe peak at 70 miles. Just again, it depends on, depends on your kind of goals of it. Um, um, and yeah, it depends on how far out you are. But yeah, you definitely need to eat a lot and you're not injured, so that's a great question.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying I'm perfect, like within these injuries, well, like, I'm definitely dealing with some injuries for sure, um, but I think that's also what I love about ultra running or any sort of ultra sports. It's like you really have to be deliberate with taking care of yourself. Like not only just the nutritional side of things, but strength training is key. Like I often sometimes fail in this. But like two, three times a week, you've got to maintain that strength. You've got to maintain the lean body mass. Like a week you've got to maintain that strength. You've got to maintain the lean body mass. Like, um, in rehab. Like I'm sitting on a big bouncy ball right now to help with my back, you know.
Speaker 1:Like but that's your.
Speaker 2:That back is injured from cycling exactly right that's, that's funny, I mean also, just like with my hip alignment too. It helps with that so right yeah, it's just better.
Speaker 3:It's more fun than sitting in a regular chair too. I sat in one for Also, just like with my hip alignment too.
Speaker 2:It helps with that, so Great, yeah, it's just better. It's more fun than sitting in a regular chair too. I sat in one for a very long time, and it breaks down walls when students come in too.
Speaker 3:And they're like you're sitting on a big ball. I'm like welcome. Okay, so I looked it up and it's the Barkley race. It is five grueling loops of 20 miles each, so total of 100 miles. They have 60 hours to finish. They don't announce the race until the day of, and so far to date and I don't know when the original date was only 17 racers have actually completed, and I believe the way that they start the race is they blow some like horn and so you have to like hear the horn in the distance or whatever, to know that the race is starting. Yeah, there's so many cool things you can do with ultra marathon. They're just way better than regular running.
Speaker 2:Yep, that was. That race is like one of the most toughest, most like, in my opinion, mysterious races in the world because you have to have some sort of um uh navigation or navigation skills to get to where you need to go. Um, yeah, they yeah 60 hours to complete that. We actually have one person who completed it, um, from Boone, and he runs locally, so it was really cool, like. But yeah, that race is insane, like.
Speaker 3:I would need a crew to tell me where to go, cause I don't even know my left from right half the time.
Speaker 1:I totally agree with you to go because I don't even know my left from right half the time. I totally agree with you those are a little crazy. Those are a little crazy. Well, Jennifer, we're running out of time. I want to be respectful of your time, so there was just a couple more questions. One, current projects you're working on and where you will be, if you're presenting any new data, and also just advice for graduate students who will be earning their PhD the whole job, you know interviewing for a job. Any advice on that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'll kind of start with my current projects right now. So kind of looking at ginger kind of by itself, like on immune function, after that 75 kilometer, like cycling bouts, um, looking at I'm kind of emphasizing the recovery kind of stages now, um so, and then that's one project. Another one I'm going to be looking at, so ginger and corsetin um for an ultra marathon. So looking I'm kind of tapping more into the ultra marathon running kind of world, um so, and then this is kind of another side fun project that I have going on, since I'm kind of in the ultra world, is kind of looking at creatine, kind of looking at cognitive effects and also recovery. So I'm really interested in maybe, okay, how does creatine maybe affect like HRV or recovery performance? So that those are a couple of side projects I have going on.
Speaker 2:And I'm still never going to leave the quercetin world. I don't think, um, you will be the quercetin expert. I, I love quercetin. I think there's a lot more to be done with it and I think there's there's promise with quercetin Um, and I want to continue to dig into how it might affect certain populations or even um like dosing or even uh protocols, so, um, so maybe, yeah, hopefully one of these days, kind of looking at quercetin and, like menopausal woman, kind of shifting more hey, how does this maybe affect body composition or bone mineral density? So I'm kind of shifting a little bit with kind of I guess, hey, where does funding kind of want to go, with this Kind of following the funding a little bit.
Speaker 1:So uh, that helps, the funding helps, exactly so.
Speaker 2:I got a couple of side projects which I'm super excited about all, like a lot of them. Um, what was your, one of your other questions for? You said for grad students oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Like you know, advice on interviewing post-PhD.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like you know, advice on interviewing, how many should they apply for? You know things like that, cause I think a lot of it is, and I don't know how it worked out for you, but a lot of it is how you fit within a program versus who's best qualified, and that seems counterintuitive, but I think a lot of it is just fit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a big thing is like I applied to so many schools, probably six or seven, oh, that's not bad. I applied like all over the U S, like I wanted to go out West. I wanted to kind of, hey, get more into, you know the mountainous research, you know, like get into the field. But you're exactly right, like I think it depends like it's really about okay, where do you fit within the program, like your connections, your collaborations, like where can you continue to not just build research but also build yourself and build relationships? Like I'm all for, hey, let's build relationships and like how can you impact the community?
Speaker 2:So that's a big question that I'm like what impact do you think you can have on this community or in this university, or like this like focus group, like my interest is cyclists and runners. So I was like this population is huge and like I've been able to grow my cycling research pretty fast because of the community that I've been building. So it really understood like it really kind of goes back into finding people, forming connections and continuing to build connections within that. So as far as, like PhD students, it's keep reaching out, like staying resilient, like an understanding, like there's not a perfect school, but there is a school that can really like again, help you be the best version of yourself. That's kind of where what I tell my students.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's definitely not a perfect school, I think. I think a lot are always looking for the perfect school or the one that has, you know, the most resources to do research and a lot of times it's just where are you happiest Exactly?
Speaker 2:Where can you like, not like, like I have such a great like. When people say, like finding like work-life balance, like I like to kind of argue with that one a little bit. It's like where can you have more of a life than work and where can you continue to grow your life and like who you are as a person? So like when I'm not researching or teaching, I'm in the woods and that's what I do.
Speaker 1:Hey, it's not bad to hang out in the woods. I mean, we hang out on the water. Well, I hang out on the water. You don't as much anymore, Cassie.
Speaker 3:Well, I do, but just not on a paddleboard anymore, cassie.
Speaker 1:Well, I do, but just not on a paddleboard, that's true.
Speaker 3:Uh, I guess once your little one gets a little bigger you can start paddling again with me, so I know I was really hoping we could just tie a couple like floaties to his car seat and drag him in the water, but I don't think that's gonna work.
Speaker 1:Um, okay, one more are you gonna be giving a talk anywhere soon, jennifer, or what are your plans for that?
Speaker 2:Hopefully so. So I think at ISSN kind of talking with Chad Kirksick a little bit about that. Who knows what that conversation will be, but hopefully it might be kind of it probably will be along the lines of quercetin or maybe even how might creatine affect, like the ultra endurance kind of world.
Speaker 1:So probably one of those, you know what the beauty of that is no one else covers that demographic right I don't. In fact I'm thinking, oh cassie, does anyone do ultra stuff?
Speaker 3:I don't think anybody does who, um, oh, I can't think of her name. She has blonde hair. She's shorter. I think she just graduated al. Alyssa does ultra marathons.
Speaker 2:Yeah, she does, she's wonderful, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Like I know she was working. I don't know if she's done research.
Speaker 1:She doesn't do research in it. I don't think.
Speaker 3:No, but I know that she like does them herself, so I would assume that maybe she knows or was or would do it.
Speaker 2:I just feel like you kind of gravitate sometimes, if you can, towards like what you do in your life, because yeah, yeah, I know she was looking at like middle, like metabolic flexibility, because we did cross paths when I was at university of Georgia with her. She was like two or three years ahead of me, um, and I now I'm not sure if she's still working on her postdoc, but that was kind of where she landed. I don't know entirely what research she's doing right now, but like I don't know entirely what research she's doing right now, but like, yeah, there's a lot of promise with ultra and um also um, a lot of patience and resilience, that like we need more researchers in that field.
Speaker 3:So yeah, cause if you I mean some of the stuff like that you hear, if you read some of the stories like these guys they talk about like they're like laying in a puddle and taking a nap for like two minutes and they're like hallucinating from being up for so long and then they go back to running and they just finish it Like it's nothing.
Speaker 2:I mean it's one of those things that are I don't know.
Speaker 3:It's very interesting and it just kind of speaks to. It's obviously a physical thing, but it's also there's a huge mental aspect. I think that goes into ultra marathon to kind of push past the physical limits that people have.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So let's target that cognitive ability so like that's where my question is. Like okay, how can we kind of increase that cognitive maybe focus of ultra marathon? I mean, that's really what it is Like. I know a lot of people who finish hundreds and it's really their mental, like fortitude, that's like carry them through and in nutrition.
Speaker 3:I like the emotions that you feel. Oh yeah, just go up and down.
Speaker 1:oh yeah, that actually have you met our friend victoria burgess. She she's the one that paddled from cuba to florida.
Speaker 1:It took her 27 hours oh my gosh yeah and so and so when she was training for it I I helped her with her nutrition, but really I said your basic goal is to eat as much as you can while you paddle from Cuba to Florida, because if your brain goes, once your brain's tired, you're done Exactly. There's too much skill involved in paddling in the ocean that you have to be completely focused. But she has some good stories. I mean, if you meet her at ISSN, she always has funny stories to tell about paddling when it's pitch black, how sometimes you just want to quit, and training for it is like you just got to paddle a lot of hours.
Speaker 2:Exactly, it's insane. It's an eating competition and that's that's exactly what like. Yeah, it's an eating competition. I was just at a hundred mile race over the weekend and I wasn't racing, but I was supporting a friend and it's a needy competition for sure. It's like how much can you get in and while sustaining a performance at a high level?
Speaker 1:So that's the beauty of doing ultra endurance events you can eat whatever you want. Exactly, Exactly Well hey, jennifer, dr Kurtz kurtz. Hey, thank you for being on sports science dudes cassie, thank you for being a great co-host, and, um, I'll have this posted, hopefully within 24 to 48 hours. So, uh, hey, keep up the good work. No one's doing this ultra stuff. I find it super fascinating. Um, I'm gonna stick to like three and six mile races, that's still great.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. It's been a great time and hopefully we will see.
Speaker 1:We will see you in Delray beach ISSN. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Looking forward to it. Bye.