Each year I try to attend various scientific conferences that apply to my interests, research, and business. As anyone can see who follows my writings, this conference was right up my alley. The International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) is a relatively new organization* and this was their third conference to date. Yours truly was invited to have a poster session. My poster covered supplements used by Special Operations soldiers, such as Navy SEALs and others. My poster is available on request BTW.

This year the conference was held at the Stardust hotel June 15th – 17th in Las Vegas. I have recommended that anyone interested in the topic of sports nutrition, lay person or scientist, should join the ISSN. The theme for this conference was “Sports nutrition strategies to optimize performance, recovery, and health.” Cool title, but did it live up to its name? Yes it did.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with how such conferences are set up, I will give a brief overview before we get to the good stuff.

Conferences generally have several days of one hour seminars (called “sessions”) where researchers present their findings. Next there is often a big room filled with what are called “poster sessions.” Poster sessions are, as the name implies, a large poster that sums up some research project. People will then come by and have a one on one conversation with the author of the poster and ask questions or make comments. Some conferences can have a room with hundreds of posters. It’s a great way to view a large amount of research in a short amount of time. Finally, most conferences will have an exhibit hall where the sponsors of the conference and other companies have booths where people can check out what they are about. This conference had supplement companies, manufacturers, etc. in the exhibit hall. That’s the basic breakdown of most scientific conferences. The ‘meat’ of a conference is the seminars and the reason for attending such shows. It’s the place to get the very latest research on a topic of interest. What follows is a synopsis of some of the research presented in the sessions and posters I thought would be of interest to readers. Read the rest of this entry »