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15.10.2024

Supplementation with megadoses of omega-3 and omega-6 enhances body recompositioning effect of circuit training

If you have young, healthy people do strength training and also supplement them daily with a hefty dose of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, they will build more muscle mass and lose more body fat than their peers who train without supplementation.

Study
Researchers from the University of Nicosia in Cyprus recruited 10 healthy young women and 9 healthy young men. The researchers had them do circuit training 3 times a week for 8 weeks.

The circuit training consisted of 4 sets of 9 exercises. These exercises included squats, crunches, clean & presses, box jumps, chest presses with a TRX cord, burpees and sprints. When the subjects used weights, they selected 60 percent of the load that allowed them to just do 1 rep.

The researchers created 2 groups that were similar in composition. One group drank 20 milliliters of a liquid supplement containing olive oil daily. This was the placebo group.

The experimental group drank 20 milliliters of a liquid supplement that provided a whopping 12 grams of polyunsaturated fatty acids daily. To be more precise, the supplement provided approximately 6900 milligrams of omega-3 fatty acids and 5580 milligrams of omega-6 fatty acids.

And if you want to get even more specific, the supplement provided 1,650 milligrams of EPA, 4,650 milligrams of DHA, 600 milligrams of other omega-3 fatty acids, 2 grams of GLA, and 3,850 milligrams of linoleic acid each day.

The supplement the researchers used is marketed as Neuroaspis PLP10. It is produced by Palupa Medical. Palupa did not pay for the research, but two of the founders of that company collaborated on the research.

Results
As far as the researchers could see, the subjects in the placebo group did not gain muscle mass. They also did not lose fat mass.

In the experimental group, the test subjects gained almost half a kilo of muscle mass. In addition, they lost about a kilo of body fat.

Click on the table below for a larger version.

The researchers also looked at oxygen uptake, explosive power and muscle endurance - that's the number of reps you can do with a not too heavy load. They couldn't find any effect of supplementation.

Source:
Nutrients. 2024 Sep 1;16(17):2914.

More:
Fish oil doubles strength gains through strength training 18.03.2023
Fish oil helps over 65s' muscles respond better to strength training 02.06.2017
Seniors who take fish oil supplements react better to strength training 20.02.2012

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