This is a great study to be involved with...

Kona qualifiers please have a read through and see if you are eligible to take part

a few things for clarification.

1. i love the idea of this study. provisionally. but so far from what i see, i'm happy it's happening.
2. i think it should be noted that there is a commercial aspect to this. it's funded by vega probiotics, see posts below, (not vega nutrition, a subsidiary of mega-huge danone).
3. i assume that if one signs up that one gets pills or powder, and it won't be known to that person whether he/she is in getting probiotics or a placebo. correct?
4. i read here that "recent data suggests that it may influence athletic performance." recent data being...?

i hope this goes well. ambitious project. i'm not volunteering to be part of the sample collection team.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Thanks Dan,

Yeah this project is going to be following up some interesting previous findings, Pugh et al 2020 - Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab.

To collect data from such an elite group is a brilliant opportunity.

Yeah im sure you dont envy the sample collection team 😅

can i get answers to my questions? should i ask the OP instead?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Ah yeah sorry about that,

Vega is a sister company of a probiotics company in the UK called CulTech, so they are not affiliated with the major brands mentioned.

Yes definitely it is a double-blind placebo controlled trial so one group will get probiotics, one group will get placebo.

Hope this helps

great. thank you. that does help. the only other thing i'd like to know is what the study refers to as data that suggests probiotics might help in endurance athlete performance.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Hi Dan,

Thanks for having a look through the post. Your questions are completely valid and are similar to those that lots of participants have asked, so it's probably worth answering here.

I was one of many authors on a large review paper a couple of years ago that looked at all of the research investigating probiotic supplementation for athletes (https://jissn.biomedcentral.com/...86/s12970-019-0329-0). Specifically relating to performance, we found that a handful of studies had shown multi-strain probiotics to increase VO2 max, aerobic power, training load, and time to exhaustion. BUT.... more studies found no such an effect.

However, when we looked further, there was evidence to show that athletic performance might be indirectly improved through mechanisms such as improvements in recovery, increased immune function, etc.

The same probiotics we are using in the Kona study have been used in a small number of trials in endurance athletes. Specifically, supplementation was shown to increase running time to exhaustion in the heat (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24150782), reduce gastrointestinal/digestive symptoms during training in Ironman triathletes (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/...articles/PMC5133117/), and reduce gastrointestinal/digestive symptoms during training in marathon runners as well as during a marathon race itself - which was associated with maintenance of running speed (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30982100/). In two recent studies, we also showed that probiotics increase the amount of carbohydrates consumed during exercise that athletes oxidise (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32069071/) and appeared to protect shifts in metabolites pre- to post-marathon (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34436476/).

I'll caveat all of this by saying that these are small studies - hence our ambition to undertake a larger study in Ironman triathletes. As a research team, we are also interested in role of the gut in endurance performance, regardless of probiotic supplementation. One of ambitions for this study will be to look at the entire cohort, before supplementing, to look for associations to performance, digestive symptoms etc. In fact, we are currently analysing a small number of fecal samples from IM Muncie 2021 to generate some pilot data to help us better target our analysis for this study at Kona. We have also just returned from Western States 100 mile race having collected samples from 40 of the runners, without any supplementation intervention.

Hopefully all of the data we collect from these studies (and others) can give us a better idea of how to reduce gut symptoms in endurance athletes and how to optimise the gut microbiome for health and athletic performance.

Sorry for the long answer here. More than happy to answer any other questions as best I can though. Thanks again Dan

Jamie

perfect. that is exactly what i was looking for. i'll be in kona; maybe we can shake hands there. or bump elbows. i'll be excited to see how this study goes.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Sounds perfect, Dan. We'll be in Kona about a week before and after the race so it would be amazing to meet up and chat.

Feel free to drop me an email and we can try to organise something closer to the time - j.pugh@ljmu.ac.uk

It would be great to catch up with you in Kona Dan, keep us posted, or track us down in Kona, we will be making sure that we are easy to find.

Hi Greg,
sadly I won't be in Kona due to serious lack of training and/or talent :-) I am involved in microbiome research though, albeit in the context of cancer research. I just wanted to say that your study design looks very well thought-out. Especially the paired sample design pre/post race looks like it could generate very informative data. I wish you a lot of success with recruitment (and compliance! :-) ).

Best of luck,
Malte

Thanks so much for the kind words and best of luck with the remainder of your season!

a few quick questions . . .

The 'sample' collection takes place one time in Kona?

From your perspective, there is little/no risk or data supporting the possibility that the probiotic supplement could cause a performance decline?

Is the Supersapien thing definitely part of it? When and for how long will we be tracking that relative to Kona?

Thank you!

Eric

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Dimond Bikes Superfan

Hi Eric!

Apologies for the delay and thanks for your interest. Please see below responses to your questions.

Participants will be asked to provide samples at three time-points: 1) ~4wk before the race at home, 2) <48h before race start (in Kona), and 3) the first bowel movement following the race (in Kona). So the short answer to your question is that we will request that you collect two samples in Kona.

Regarding the probiotic and performance, as discussed above our (Jamie's) data suggests that there may be benefits for reduced GI distress and improved metabolism. I suspect the risk for a performance decline is indeed minimal, but to be totally transparent not out of the realm of possibility. However, if the probiotic were to reduced performance I suspect this would be reflected through GI distress. The nice thing about the way we have the study designed is that you will be taking the supplement for 4 weeks prior to the race. So, if you begin to feel this might be a problem, you are free to stop the supplement at any time you wish. We certainly want what is best for you!

The Supersapiens continuous glucose monitor will be optional but we are still working out some of the details regarding when we would be able to get the monitors to you. Ideally, by no later than September 6th assuming product availability.

Thanks for the excellent questions and please feel free to let me know if you have any additional inquiries.

Best,
Greg
ggrosicki@georgiasouthern.edu

After having massive down time from covid (tpeaks went from 109 to 70 as a fitness scale), it was reccomended by another in the Covid thread to take probiotics. I thought why not I’ll give it a try. Got some broad spectrum containing various strains from a well regarded brand. 6 weeks post covid and into supplementation I am training like a beast. The down time prob helped, I am aware. But my HR is a lot lower for the same effort for rides done late into last season. I am VERY interested in the outcome of your study Greg and wish you well with it! I believe there is somthing in this with regards to recovery.

Thanks for sharing Spartacus!

In support of your experience, in less healthy individuals there are data showing that the gut microbiome is involved in the magnitude of COVID disease severity (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33431578/). Furthermore, findings from our collaborator Dr. Jacob Allen show that many of the microbes that seem to be reduced with COVID are increased by exercise training (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29166320/).

Last month we collected samples from ~45 athletes who participated in Western States, many of which reported recent COVID infection. One of the first things that we intend to do is to compare gut microbiome characteristics in these athletes to those who had not been infected in an effort to examine the possible effects of COVID on the athlete microbiome.

Best of luck with your recovery!

Cheers,
-Greg

Interesting studies. I’m also type one diabetic so understand I may have more internal stresses going on that are helped immensely by probiotics. Either way, def interested in this area