Why TMG (Betaine) is Exploding in Popularity

recent scientific breakthroughs have sparked a surge in popularity of TMG supplements so in this video I'll cover the latest studies showing how TMG can enhance three key aspects of our health address an important safety concern and discuss dosage considerations and if you're considering using enn supplements there's a money-saving message for you towards the end of the video let's start with the first two proposed benefits of TMG supplements and just so we're clear TMG and ban are the same thing we know that muscle strength is CR crucial not only for feeling strong today but also for

our long-term Health a growing body of evidence suggests that higher muscle strength is associated with lower all cause death rates so in other words people with better muscle strength tend to live longer have fewer health problems especially heart rated issues and I see this all of the time at the clinic frail older patients are far more susceptible to losing their mobility and Independence they often struggle to recover from simple things like minor Falls or infections on the other hand I have older patients who have prioritized their muscle strength through regular exercise and they stay far

more active recover faster from illness and maintain the independence for much longer but here's the challenge as we age our muscle strength naturally declines and for men testosterone drops by about 1% per year from the age of 35 testosterone is a crucial factor in maintaining muscle mass so that decline can make it even harder to stay stronger as we get older intriguingly though here is where TMG supp supps may help TMG which stands for trimethyl glycine is a compound that's found in foods like beets spinach and wheat bran and while the exact mechanisms aren't completely

understood scientists have a few ideas about how TMG works it may help our bodies produce more creatine which is crucial for short bursts of energy like weightlifting it might increase nitric oxide improving blood flow it could enhance how our body recycles ATP which is the energy our cells use to power through intense activities and it might help with muscle protein synthesis which is key for building and maintaining muscle but what does the human evidence show will first look at muscle performance and then testosterone the research on TMG and muscle performance it's evolved over time so

in 2017 a review of seven studies found that only two of them showed improvements in muscle performance while the other five it didn't see much difference so why the mixed results well it turns out that studies showing benefits had the participants doing more intense high power resistance training in those trials TMG made a significant difference now let me explain how these studies worked they were what's called randomized clinical trials which is a fancy way of saying that the people in the study they were randomized into two groups one group took the real TMG supplement and

the other group took something that looked like TMG but it doesn't actually do anything and this is called a placebo but here's the key part both groups did the same exercises but it was the people who took the TMG that saw greater improvements in their muscle strength and performance compared to the placebo group the important Point here is that TMG seems to work best when combined with intense exercise that's why some people in these studies they saw muscle performance improvements While others didn't TMG it's not a magic pill it works in conjunction with hard training

but since that 2017 review more research has been done that's expanded our understanding of TMG and how to get the most benefits from it so in 2021 a study gave TMG to professional soccer players for 14 weeks the players saw improvements in their one rep max which is the most amount of weight they can lift in one go their V2 Max which is the oxygen their bodies can use during exercise and their sprinting performance compared to those who took the placebo so again TMG shows promising results when paired with physical activity but it's not just

about exercise performance TMG also seems to help with testosterone in the same soccer player study the group that took the TMG saw increases in their testosterone levels compared to the placebo group that effect was replicated in a 2022 study both the TMG and Placebo groups did intense workouts but the TMG group had significant gains in their leg press and bench press performance with a large Cohen D which just means that the effect was pretty large they also saw an increase in testosterone levels and just like with the soccer player study the TMG group in this

study also saw an increase in testosterone compared to the placebo group and in 2023 another study tested tested TMG on people doing CrossFit training after supplementing with TMG their CrossFit performance improved by about 8% and testosterone levels went up by 7% compared to the placebo group overall there's good evidence that TMG supplements can improve both muscle performance and testosterone levels but there's another intriguing potential benefit of TMG then we'll have a look at safety dose and a special message for those who take NN supplements so a tantalizing Prospect is that TMG supplements may help improve

improve cognitive performance and reduce the risk of Dementia in 2020 a large review of the risk factors for Alzheimer's disease found that high levels of homocystine which is an amino acid were strongly linked to alzheimer's it went on to say that homocystine lowering treatment seems to be a promising intervention for Alzheimer's disease prevention and what's interesting is that TMG has been shown to lower homosysteine levels by donating methyl groups to help convert homocystine into another compound called methionine and words TMG May reduce a risk factor for Alzheimer's by lowering homosysteine now this isn't a guaranteed

way to prevent Alzheimer's but it's a promising area of research especially when we consider how it interacts with omega-3 and B vitamins so in my recent omega-3 video I shared data showing that people with low homocysteine levels who took Omega-3 supplements experienced a 7.1% Improvement in their brain performance and a 22.3% reduction in dementia symptoms but for those with High homosysteine omega-3 it didn't help at all this suggests that homosysteine plays a crucial role in brain health now I want to be clear that more research is required before any definitive conclusions can be drawn but

this is a tantalizing prospect that by using TMG supplements to lower hosy levels we may be able to lower the risk of developing dementia especially when combined with healthy levels of Omega-3 as an aside you may have noticed that throughout this video I've used words like May and possibly and more research is required now if you're new to the channel it might seem strange for a medical doctor to sound uncertain but that's how clinical medicine works we don't make Grand claims without solid evidence just because early studies look promising it doesn't mean that we can

recommend treatments to everyone we have to be cautious until we have more data so while tmg's potential for lowering homosysteine and reducing dementia risk is exciting we need to wait for stronger evidence before making any big claims now let's connect this idea of lowering homosysteine with another key factor B vitamins B vitamins are also effective in lowering homosysteine and in the large Cosmos trials researchers found that after 2 years people who took multivitamin and mineral supplements that included B vitamins showed improvements in cognition and memory this adds another piece to the puzzle suggesting that healthy

micronutrient levels are critical for brain health now of course a healthy diet always comes first with leafy green vegetables beans lentils and P but to make sure that I'm getting all of the right micronutrients every day I decided to use a lowd dose supplement I didn't want to me a do I wanted just the right amount so I had two options I could take a B vitamin complex or a multivitamin and mineral supplement and I went with the multivitamin option because of the positive results from the cosmos studies but I ran into a problem most

of the supplements I found had doses that were way too high and in forms of doses that I didn't prefer that's why I created microvi and in Formula version 5 I increased the B vitamin content from 50% to 75% of the recommended daily intake based on the data that I've shared in this video and because B12 is harder to absorb I made sure to include a higher dose of that I also included TMG not just because of its benefits on exercise and testosterone but because it helps to further lower homosysteine which as we've discussed could

be an important factor for cognitive health and while all of this sounds great there's one thing to be aware of higher doses of TMG so around four grams or more can increase total cholesterol levels so that's why I included a lower dose of 500 mg in micrites and now for the moneysaving message for anyen users some NN companies suggest taking TMG alongside NN a couple of months ago I reviewed the human research on enmen and the results were mixed there wasn't a clear benefit from enmen supplements alone so for people people taking TMG and inmen

together I wonder if the benefits that they're feeling could actually be from the TMG not any men after all we've got several studies now showing how TMG can improve exercise performance and testosterone but unfortunately the same can't be said for any men right now so it's something to think about are the enmen supplements worth your hard-earned money when the real benefits might be coming from TMG and make sure to check out this next video here on omega-3 and cognitive performance because as I've explained Omega-3 when used correctly appears to play a crucial role in boosting

brain performance and possibly reduce the risk of dementia and a massive thank you to all of the patreons supporting the channel