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LETTER TO THE EDITOR |
University of Louisville Louisville, Kentucky
Address correspondence to Charles P. Lambert, PhD, Department of Health and Sport Sciences, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY 40292. E-mail: CharlesLambert{at}louisville.edu
To the Editor:
Riechman and colleagues (1) have published an excellent article in this Journal examining the relationship between dietary and serum cholesterol and the accrual of lean body mass with resistance exercise training. Omitted from this article, however, was a possible mechanism that I believe could assist in explaining their results. That is, the effects of dietary saturated fats and/or cholesterol on circulating androgen concentrations. A number of studies (2–5) have shown that reducing saturated fat in the diet, and/or replacing saturated fat with what are considered more healthy fats (polyunsaturated and/or monounsaturated fats), results in significant decline in the circulating testosterone concentration. With the well-known anabolic effects of androgens on skeletal muscle, this potentially could provide an additional link between saturated fats and/or cholesterol, resistance exercise, and lean body mass accrual. Further, if the authors have not already done so, and samples are available, I believe they should consider assessing circulating androgen concentrations and relating them to the amount of dietary cholesterol/saturated fat ingested, circulating cholesterol, and lean body mass accrual resulting from resistance exercise.
References
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