I will be pitting NOW Food's Glucose Metabolic Support against USP Lab's P-Slin.
I will be comparing the two product's abilities to help the insulin-insensitive endomorph's (myself) ability to tolerate carbohydrates and to determine the cost effectiveness of each.

First up is NOW's offering:


Nutrition Info
Serving Size: 1 Capsule

Amount Per Serving % Daily Value
Thiamine (from Thiamine HCI) (Vitamin B-1) 8 mg 533%
Biotin 1 mg 333%
Pantothenic Acid (from D-Calcium Pantothenate) 8 mg 80%
Magnesium (from Magnesium Oxide and Citrate) 67 mg 17%
Chromium (ChromeMate®) (from Chromium Polynicotinate) 133 mcg 111%
GlucoFit™ (min. 18% Corosolic Acid) 1.5 mg †
Gymnema sylvestre (GS4®) (25% Gymnemic Acid) 67 mg †
L-Glutamine 167 mg †
Alpha Lipoic Acid 17 mg †
Vanadium (from Vanadyl Sulfate) 167 mcg †
(I highlighted in blue the active components that the two products share.)

I paid $9.00 for my bottle.
By the standards in the human research the active content is pretty low, so I will be taking two capsules before my daily meal ( I am on an intermittent fasting plan) to (hopefully) reach the glucose-lowering effects seen in the studies. There is little research on these compounds, and some is conflicting on dosages, but I am estimating that this will be a good starting point. Even so, doubling or even tripling the dosage is still very inexpensive.

I will give it a few days and I will report back this weekend on my initial thoughts of NOW's GMS.

What's the CHO/Protein/Fat breakdown of your IF meal?

I find counting macro's a huge pain in the ass and eating a set amount is really quite silly. I have a general phase that I follow. First I eat my veggies, then I have my protein (averaging about 100-150g), I have my carbs last as they are the rogue macro for me. I usually have no more than 100g carbohydrates, but during this trial I am doubling or tripling that to test the effects of these products. I do try to limit fats to my fish oil and what is in my meats etc.
A lot will bemoan that my protein intake is too low. There is no bigger lie in fitness than the myth of catabolism. I will have a steady stream of amino acids available to my body for at least 8-10 hours while my prior day's meal digests. Plus I slow gastric transit deliberately, so it may be longer. I am not an professional athlete. They may need 1g/lb. I workout intensely 3-4 times a week and I play a hockey game weekends. 1g/lb means that I would eat close to 200g per day. That's hard to put down, plus I feel that the science is strong in stating that habitually high intakes of protein lead to the induction of amino acid catabolic enzymes, BCAA in particular(1). Eating protein every 2-3 hours would lead to less MPS, due to less activity at the mTOR, obviously not something that we want here.


1. Millward DJ, Price GM, Pacy PJH, Quevedo RM, Halliday D. 1991
The nutritional sensitivity of the diurnal cycling of body protein enables protein deposition to be measured in subjects at nitrogen equilibrium. Clin. Nutr. 10:239-44

(Much Thanks goes to Sub7 for providing the wealth of information that includes the above reference)

Perhaps when the trial is finished, continue eating elevated levels of carbs to allow for comparison vs. a control group, i.e. sans supplementation. Good Luck.

I have had some goods results with cinnamon 30 minutes before my carb meals on a CKD, but have no experience with the p-slin or Now product.

I am liking this product. I have been using it since Monday with my daily feeding period, taking two capsules (double the recommended dose) shortly before I eat. I have noted that it abates my usual tendency to sack out on the couch about 1/2 hour to an hour after I eat. In fact, I have had a bit of a hard time falling asleep even a few hours after I'm done eating. To me this means that my glucose isn't spiking high causing a crash in the orexins that promote wakefulness and activity. This is good. My mood has been good as well. I usually descend into an irritable, downright hostile state of mind if I eat a large amount of carbs. I have felt fine while using the GMS.
I haven't noticed any effects in my training yet. No noticeable increase in strength, endurance or pumps/vascularity. This would've been a side-benefit but is not the focus of my use of these products.
I will chime in every day or two on how the NOW GMS is performing.



Although I am well versed in my response sans supplements I will probably run a few days to see what it feels like.
I have used cinnamon before and liked it. My second choice for a P-Slin alternative is Beyond a Century's Herbal Sugar Support. It contains the cinnamon extract Cinnulin PF. Here is what it contains:

It is inexpensive too, $12 for 50g powder.

Somewhat off topic,you've my apologies,but I'm curious as to your level of b/f and weight pre-IF and what both are now.

I'm in...subscribed.

I haven't done any precise measurements in quite some time. Using Dr. Hatfield's calculation I am somewhere near 20-25% bodyfat range. I'm nowhere near ripped, nor do I really want to be. I want to look like I am athletic, which I am working towards quite nicely.
I go more by how my clothes fit, my overall appearance, and my exercise performance.
Since I started my latest foray into IF I have put on considerable size in my upper body. My strength is up a little. Fat loss is largely dependant upon overall calories/carbohydrates and is influenced the most by the intensity and frequency of exercise. As long as I don't eat a shit-ton of carbs or calorically-dense foods, and as long as I exercise intensely, fat loss is quite easy. This may sound like common sense, but even while doing the above coupled with multiple feedings, fat loss was still elusive for me. IF really is the solution to my body composition problems. The biggest advantage is that I get to give in to my tendency to "binge" each day. Adherence isn't an issue any longer.

Why not throw yellow gold into the comparison mix?

Looks interesting. I love Nutraplanet and they have it in bulk. However I know nothing about these herbs, so a little research is necessary before I throw it in the ring.

It's the beta of Anabolic Pump, which some people says works even better.

This performs well for the price. It is no bromocriptine (the best insulin-sensitivity substance IMHO) but is is way better than ALA or other old-school insulin supporting supplements. I suspect that this would work very well for those with naturally good insulin sensitivity. I'm not blown away by NOW's GMS but it definitely helps with my shitty carb tolerance. Its biggest selling point is price. I'll run this until Christmas and give a final report.

Final thoughts on NOW Food's Glucose Metabolic Support.
I have used this product for nearly a month now and I must say that I am not terribly impressed. It did noticeably help with my carbohydrate tolerance but not to the degree that I wanted. I found that I could raise my carbs from my baseline 100g to only about 25-50g more before lipolysis appeared to shut down and my mood/energy was affected. This would probably be a great product for a lean individual with much better insulin sensitivity than myself.
Coming up next: P-Slin.

Zalian,even at 2-3 times suggested dosage of Now's product you're dissapointed?

Your previous remarks on it indicated it was staving off fat loss while refeeding nicely,I'm a bit taken aback w/your final summary,which seems to be in somewhat of a contradcition to your previous weigh ins on it.

Regharding berberine and the yelow deal angle;a few studies on berberine more than piqued my interest as I'm also an endo w/a set poinjt of roughly 20% so cho sensitivity is a biggie with me.

H'ere's a thread I started up on a cheap stack of herbals,including berberine,(BAC offers them all on the cheap-cheap) and fucoxathin would be a good adjunct as well to this stack.

Downsinde (a big enough one to make berberine a huge NO-NO for endos at that,is that there is reportedley a LARGE increase in appetitee shortly after dosage of yellow gold,according to 2 of the 4 studies in the NP review of the product.

I haven't loooed into a possible angle on why/how appetite would/is jacked up from berberine yet,too lazy but as I am interested in trying it I'll wade through Pubmed to see if anything confirms the anecodtal reports.In themsleves they don;lt paint a good picture but IDK if that's enough to allocate to the fuck off list.


Another thread that REALLY SHOULD BE POSTED (along wit the bulk of the remainding info I'm also posting here,in the Supplementing the Endomorph thread is this thread on GPA,linolic acid(sweet and largely unattainable CCK action via other supps as I'm convined GTE does fuck all regarding CCK in relation to potential benefits to be seeen with CCK modulation) is here:

http://www.mindandmuscle.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=31695

I'd slice and dice all this into the apppriote threads(will bump the supping the endo thread later w/some other thoughts) but I seriously need to sleep and just wanted to jot some thoughts down briefly.

Ideally to avoid dicking around with other companies as I'd rather buy all my supps at NP,they'd would offer capped salvia,astanthin,linolenic acid,GPA(NOBODY has this shit,argh) and other somewhat esoteric herbs that modulate appetitie positively and burn fat.Intil that happy,glorious day comes,behold a cheap source for a lot of this sort of stuff I came across via Google:

http://www.vhadc.com/ProductDetails.asp?Pr...2&Click=761

They've got capped salvia mitiz. and some other cool shit,priced on the cheap too.

Things seemed to be working well for the first week or so, I'm not sure why but the effect seemed to drop off a bit after that. This may be the placebo effect for all I know but the steady fat loss that I was so enjoying while on the IF seemed to stall when I added carbs to the 150-200g mark. I have since figured part of this out, as insulin is a sledgehammer to fat loss, stopping it cold on many pathways.
HERE is the study that I have found very interesting.
This is probably nothing new to a few of you, but I like the diagrams, I learn visually so this helps my understanding.
Phenogen was an amazing product. The price was the only thing keeping me from making it a regular supplement. I have also been looking for GPA and have come up with nada. Somebody (Nutraplanet) needs to do something about this.
While I liked the Now GMS, I feel that there is something better out there. It is inexpensive enough to try, so give it a shot.

I am pretty sure that Par Deus,through either a posting or the Sesathin write ups,touted sesamin as allowing one reap the beneficial effects of a low carb diet through inducing a state very much like it while taing on moderate cho ED

IOW sesamin pouts you in a ketogenic state,even if you're taking in a few hundred grams of CHO per day.

This may be a gross misrepresentation of what PD said,OTOH I'm pretty sure that my memory is right on this and one could eat medium cho while tricking the body it's being fed a low cho diet.

With any luck this was brought up in one of the Sesathin write ups and not some post from 5 years ago that I'll have to wade through tons of shit to find.

Perhaps the wrong thread but somewhat relevant: salvia whilst bulking? Good, bad?

I figure I'll keep it for when I cut but just wanted to see.

Salvia Miltiorrhiza is great for cutting, causing an inhibition of liver DGAT resulting in less formation of triglycerides that can be incorporated into adipocytes. Read the write-up for Avant Lab's Phenogen (if you can find it).

For cutting it's a no brainer, but I was seeing if there was any benefit whilst bulking.

I'll dig around for the writeup.

IIRC,Spook said that the feedback on Phenogen fell short of what they had projected for lean bulking and it worked better than expected than for cutting.If my memory is correct and I may very well be inverting the effects so hitting up a search under spook+pheno would be hella better.Hell,I highly reccommend reading through many of Spook's postsings on savia,GPA,leptin and glucosamine,that is indeed where I got the bulk of my my learn on.

And I think I am right,memory wise,due to the strength and muscle volume depletion due to the greatly dimished ATP,I think that would be the major qualm with bulking.OTOH,this potential drop in strength(and eventual if used for 2+ months) could easily be negated with beta alanine supplementation though.This is just rambling and getting o/t but damn,I'd like to see GPA offered for sale by cough,cough nutraplanet or *fucking anyone else* for that matter as it's unattainable via net searches.

All in all,the research I've been reading lately on GPSA indicates that we're missing out big time with the absense of any GPA product(or bulk form) on the market.

Anyway,to answer your question about SALVIA in specific,it will be more effective on a strict lean bulk than it would for cutting,based on its lack of ability to directly induce fat oxidation or free FFA.The effect that Zalian described is much more evident while in a caloric surplus than a deficit.

Yeah,my memory wasn't fucked,see Spook's comments in this thread:

http://www.mindandmuscle.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=23228

I am still waiting on a reply from USP about the P-Slin.

You never received it?

Nope. I'm very disappointed, I wanted to see what P-Slin could do for me in a longer time frame. The week or two sample that I used was promising, it would've been nice to see what a whole bottle could've done. I'll definitely be looking into companies other than USP.

sorry, I have not been online and was just reminded by a good friend to come visit. The product is in the mail tomorrow.

Enjoy.

Alright, I see that USP must be a busy man. I will begin my log of P-Slin when it arrives. Cheers.

I'm guessing this never arrived, mate?

Nope. I will certainly be finding another insulin sensitizing/mimicking product other than Pure's P-Slin or USP's Anabolic Pump. I understand that business is time-consuming, but I started this log December of last year, so USP has lost the chance to redeem themselves.

Aye, kinda figured it would end this way after his last post. Still disappointing though.