You’re caught up. A weekly digest of new research in nutrition, metabolism, gut science and oxidative stress, so you do not have to read the papers to know what is in them.
Plain language, honestly caveated, covering nutrition, metabolism, gut science and oxidative stress. Every study gets a standing note on what it does not show.
Read every issue in full, with a source link for each study, at substratedigest.com (https://substratedigest.com/).
Published by Substrate Digest, editorially independent. Nothing here is medical or dietary advice.
Issue 12: A review graded its own supplement evidence, and almost none of it survived
A short issue, three studies, on the difference between a result and a finding. The thing that separates them is almost never the size of the effect. It is whether anybody said in advance what would count.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-12/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
16 Sept 2026
Issue 11: Cochrane read twenty two trials, and the comparator decided the answer
A special issue on intermittent fasting. Eight papers from the last two years on a single methodological fact that runs underneath the whole field: measured against usual diet, fasting produces large effects with high certainty, and measured against a matched calorie restriction, most of them disappear.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-11/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
2 Sept 2026
Issue 10: The kimchi bacteria that catch microplastic
Seven papers, from 2023 to 2026, on whether the bacteria in fermented food can pick plastic particles out of a gut. Nothing here digests anything: the particles stick to the outside of the cells and leave unchanged. What the labs cannot agree on is whether that sticking is why any of it works, and one group tested the idea directly and ruled it out.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-10/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
1 Sept 2026
Issue 09: Nobody agrees what a good diet is
Nine studies from the second half of August. Ten competing definitions of a healthy diet agreed on eighteen people out of six thousand, a plain count of food groups beat the elaborate index built to replace it, and the standard way of measuring what gut bacteria make turns out to be two different numbers added together.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-09/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
27 Aug 2026
Issue 08: The muscle retools in under a week, and it does not untool in a day
A special issue on metabolic plasticity. Eight papers from 1983 to this year on how fast skeletal muscle rebuilds itself around whatever fuel it is given, why building up one pathway means turning the other one down, and what that trade costs when the two directions run on different clocks.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-08/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
19 Aug 2026
Issue 07: Sixty years of carb loading, and two blinded trials
A special issue on one question: which parts of the carbohydrate loading protocol actually matter. Eight papers from 1981 to this year, including the only meta analysis of loading protocols that exists, the closest thing to a head to head comparison of depletion against a taper, and a count of how many performance trials were ever blinded.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-07/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
17 Aug 2026
Issue 05: What one avocado a day actually did
Nine studies from the second half of July, and six headlines checked against the papers underneath them. A ketone drink that worked in the heat without cooling anyone down, caffeine evidence built almost entirely on men, and three papers where a marker moved and the outcome went unmeasured.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-05/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
17 Aug 2026
Issue 06: Credit in the wrong place
Six studies from the first half of August. The birth canal loses most of the credit for an infant's first bacteria, ten days of heat training deliver everything except the two things it is usually done for, and a creatine trial that the authors themselves refuse to let you read as a brain result.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-06/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
12 Aug 2026
Issue 04: The ice bath did not blunt the adaptation
Three months of cold water immersion after lifting left redox gene expression and mitochondrial enzyme activity exactly where the control group left them. It is the first issue where oxidative stress is one of our standing subjects.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-04/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
10 Aug 2026
Issue 03: Drink up, or your fuel stops working
Nine trained cyclists who let themselves get 2.8% of body mass down burned about 16% less of the glucose they drank, with no warning sign from the stomach at all. Also this week: a reported carbohydrate gap in female athletes, a Science review on sugars and the human brain, a plant based performance null, and a quiet week for gut science with one probiotic trial to show for it.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-03/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
3 Aug 2026
Issue 02: The best fiber is the one you keep taking
A six week randomized trial found people stuck with a daily inulin dose about six times better than with a supported exercise programme, a reminder that adherence, not potency, is where most gut protocols live or die. Elsewhere, a 200,000 adult cohort analysis reported that diet quality, not processing level, predicted disease risk, and a probiotic blend held the gut barrier roughly steady through a competitive weight cut.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-02/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
29 Jul 2026
Issue 01: Two sugars beat one, even on an empty tank
A double blind crossover trial found a 2:1 glucose to fructose blend oxidized more of the carbohydrate athletes actually swallowed, whether they were fully fueled or two days into an energy deficit. Elsewhere this week, carb loading research turned out to be mostly unblinded, and at the IRONMAN Worlds it was logistics and nerves, not knowledge, that broke women's fueling plans.
Read the full issue with every study, source link and the "what this does not show" notes: https://substratedigest.com/issues/issue-01/
More issues at https://substratedigest.com/
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