Nice:

"Fasting increases PAHSAs 2- to 3-fold in WAT and kidney and 65% in pancreas but does not alter the levels in BAT, liver, or serum."

These novel lipids ameliorate glucose tolerance and ambient glycemia, plus stimulate insulin & GLP1 secretion. Much of the glucose tolerance improvement is due to augmenting the translocation of GLUT-4 to the cell membrane.

It also had anti-inflammatory effects.. it impeded the LPS induced activation of dendritic cells and consequently attenuated TNF alpha, IL-1 beta, etc expression.

There's also a decrease in these in obese & insulin resistant humans.. which could contribute partially to the increase in systemic inflammation, which could overall propagate itself further via positive feedback.

These compounds correlate heavily with insulin resistance and insulin sensitivity also correlates heavily with ChREBP expression, which induces lipogenesis and increases expression of these lipids, in humans.

Oral administration also seemed to have beneficial effects on mice, so it may present a new avenue for humans in certain instances, or dual therapy of some sort.

They seem to induce their effect via the GPCR GPR120, which also induces many of the anti-inflammatory effect of omega 3 FAs.
Here's a paper on this receptor: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2956412/

Just a pretty cool paper overall tbh.

I think what this actually ties into, as well, is our endogenous gut microbiome. It's another celeritously emerging field. Essentially, many things, aging included, could increase intestinal permeability, allowing LPS to bypass and create a systemic low-grade inflammatory cascade, culminating in NFkB activation, as denoted in this paper, with all the normal effects to boot, leptin resistance, depression, anxiety, hippocampal atrophy, etc.

As for AMPK: "However, as already discussed elsewhere (57), we cannot exclude that AMPK activation in response to fasting could constitute an early and transient event occurring during the very first hours following food deprivation. In addition, although partly counterintuitive, the increase in circulating FFA levels during fasting might play a role in the regulation of skeletal muscle AMPK, as previously suggested by de Lange et al. for explaining why AMPK activity returned back to basal after 12h of fasting in rat skeletal muscle (13)."

So it's slightly up in the air, though I'm not sure.
The rest of the study is self explanatory and pretty interesting.

"Ursolic Acid-Induced Elevation of Serum Irisin Augments Muscle Strength During Resistance Training in Men"

http://synapse.koreamed.org/Synapse/Data/PDFData/0067KJPP/kjpp-18-441.pdf

Workout type used:

"Both groups completed 8 weeks of intervention consisting of 5 sets of 26 exercises, with 10∼15 repetitions at 60∼80% of 1 repetition maximum and a 60∼90-s rest interval between sets, performed 6 times/week."

The only notable effects of added ursolic acid was decreased bf% and increased strength, though actual lean muscle mass was relatively indifferent. That's expected for only an 8 week intervention though, neural adaptations and changes in muscle architecture will take place first before significant hypertrophy.

This compound also elevates Irisin, which explains why it elevates IGF-1 via upregulationg PGC-1 alpha 4. That PGC isoform also represses myostatin, so some of these changes make sense.
This also increases insulin secretion or at least increases insulin signaling via inhibiting PTP1B, a phosphatase.
It's also been noted that Ursolic acid leads to more sustained increases in Akt and mTOR following resistance training, congruent with Irisin upregulation leading to the downstream IGF-1, which will induce mTOR signaling.

Pretty cool though. I'd like to see a longer term study done on it to really see effects.
I suspect it's too marginal to matter TOO significantly notwithstanding. Simply because irisin will downregulate if administered exogenously, thus the increase is probably too small to cause downregulation, leading me to believe the downstream effects are probably marginal as well, just enough to be recognized.

And just because I mentioned it enough, here's an article on PGC-1 alpha 4: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3520615/

However, to delve into some of the other factors of irisin, which makes me think this COULD be a good weight-loss agent, Irisin upregulates UCP expression and inhibits pre-adipocyte differentiation (through PPAR-gamma and fatty acid synthase inhibition). Adding to the insulin action and other lipid-oriented metabolism, it also upregulates GLUT4 expression, PPAR alpha expression, and upregulates lipolysis through HSL & ATGL increases.
Thus, it's definitely a promising compound depending on the level of irisin upregulation but the factors of up & downregulation must be considered.

"Sleep and metabolism: Role of hypothalamic neuronal circuitry"

http://delecea.stanford.edu/Publications/Rolls(2010)BPRCEM.pdf

https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=305871149619372&id=175556779317477

Article on the liver by request
Kind of pointless and quickly put together but there it is. Honestly more-so done out of boredom

With that said, if anyone has topic ideas or specific questions, either post them here or the page. I'd love to have them.

This post was edited by Balla on Nov 6 2014 10:05pm

I have the full text of all these (that aren't already), so if you'd like that, let me know. All very good.

"What are the consequences of the disappearing human microbiota?"

http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v7/n12/abs/nrmicro2245.html

"Meta-analyses of human gut microbes associated with obesity and IBD"

http://www.febsletters.org/article/S0014-5793(14)00717-0/abstract

"Exercise Metabolism and the Molecular Regulation of Skeletal Muscle Adaptation"

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1550413112005037

"Signaling Pathways that Mediate Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy: Effects of Exercise Training"

http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs-wm/38440.pdf

"Nutritional modulation of training-induced skeletal muscle adaptations"

http://jap.physiology.org/content/110/3/834

"Implications of Exercise Training and Distribution of Protein Intake on Molecular Processes Regulating Skeletal Muscle Plasticity"

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25348078

All very interesting reads, pleas keep it up man

Thanks mane

ob·liv·i·ous
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adjective
not aware of what is happening around one.