ONLINE DRIVERS MEDIA

No, the sun does not kill you. If you control your exposure it may extend your life and improve your life-quality significantly.

Its about time to "let there be light" to illuminate the benefits of regular well-timed exposure to sunlight and its short frequency component. Only recently, researchers from the Japanese National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) were able to show that daytime light exposure has significant beneficial effects on cognitive brain activity. Significant enough to have the subjects perform better on an oddball task and to significantly increase cortical activity related to cognitive processes (Okamoto. 2014).

But is that really all, bright light, or more specifically, the regular and well-timed exposure to bright light can do for you?
Certainly not. I mean if its ill-timed, like the evening use of light-emitting eReaders it will negatively affect your sleep, mess up your circadian rhythm and decrease your alertness on the next morning. Similar results, i.e. drowsiness and suppression of energy metabolism the following morning, have been reported by other studies, as well (Kayaba. 2014).

As a SuppVersity reader you do yet know all about those negative effects from the circadian rhythm series, anyway. Reason enough for me, to focus primarily on all the good stuff, the well-timed exposure to bright light can do for you in todays Special of the SuppVersity Short News.

• If you cant let go off your mobile at night, use blue blocker glasses as a countermeasure for alerting effects of evening light-emitting diode screen exposure - According to researchers from the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Basel, blue blocker glasses (BB) significantly attenuate LED-induced melatonin suppression in the evening and decrease vigilant attention and subjective alertness before bedtime.
  
  Strangely, though, visually scored sleep stages and behavioral measures collected the morning after were not modified. Still, van der Lely et al. conclude: "BB glasses may be useful in adolescents as a countermeasure for alerting effects induced by light exposure through LED screens and therefore potentially impede the negative effects modern lighting imposes on circadian physiology in the evening "(van der Lely. 2014).
• UV-light protects against "brainflammation" in MS model - Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison report in their latest paper that UV light selectively inhibits spinal cord inflammation and demyelination in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.
  
  Previous studies have already shown that UV radiation (UVR) can suppress experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), an animal model of multiple-sclerosis (MS), independent of vitamin D production. The mechanism of this suppression did yet remain to be elucidated, until Wang et al. (2014) observed that UVR (10kJ/m²) does not just inhibit the inflammation and demyelination of the spinal cord, but will also dramatically and significantly reduce spinal cord chemokine CCL5 mRNA and protein levels.
  
  In conjunction with an increased production of intereron-gamma (IFN-?) and IL-10, which are actually used to treat all sorts of autoimmune diseases, artificial and natural UV light can thus actually "prevent the migration of inflammatory cells into the CNS" (Wang. 2014).

• Melatonin conc. after 4 days w/ dim vs. bright light and tryptophan rich vs. poor breakfast (Fukushige. 2014).

  Bright light in the AM and the consumption of a breakfast thats high in tryptophan can help you maintain a healthy circadian rhythm - In case you are asking yourself how you can grasp all the benefits that are associated with having an intact circadian rhythm, you may be intrigued to hear that researchers from the Fukuoka Womens University have been able to show that an increase in tryptophan intake at breakfast combined with daytime light exposure has beneficial effects on melatonin secretion and sleep quality. As you can see in the figure to the left it will significantly elevate the evening melatonin peak, which is critical for an optimal circadian rhythm.
  
  If you are looking to optimize your internal clock bright light (either sunlight or a 10,000 Lux daylight lamp) + tryptophan (seeds, nuts, soy, cheese, chicken, turkey, fish, oats, beans and eggs are the TOP10 sources) are the way to go. If you want an extra "kick" add some coffee to the equation. This will increase the light responsiveness of the circadian pacemaker - well, at least in mice it does (Diepen. 2014).

• Bright lights at work will keep you sane, happy and alert - If you are working in an insufficiently lit office without natural sunlight, you should be prepared to develop physiological, sleep and depressive symptoms.
  
  Assuming you have a window in your office, you will get a significantly more pronounced total and peak exposure to bright light thats going to correlate with 33% reduced levels of the stress hormone cortisol, a more natural rhythm of melatonin and a reduced risk of minor psychiatric disorders and depressive symptoms (MA) in the evening.
  
  Thats at least what the results of a recent study from the UFRGS in Porto Alegre indicates (Harb. 2014). A study the authors of which proudly say that their "study demonstrated that not only may light pollution affect human physiology but also lack of exposure to natural light is related to high levels of cortisol and lower levels of melatonin at night, and these, in turn, are related to depressive symptoms and poor quality of sleep" (Harb. 2014).

• If you want to light up the darkness, when its actually time to sleep do it with green (555nm) or red, not blue light, which suppresses melatonin (Bonmati-Carrion. 2014).

  Staying away from nightly night exposure may also help to keep your arteries clean even in the old age - Studies indicate that even after  adjustment for confounding factors, including age, gender, body mass index, current smoking status, hypertension, diabetes, dyslipidemia, sleep medication, estimated glomerular filtration rate, nocturia, bedtime, duration in bed (scotoperiod), day length (photoperiod), urinary 6-sulfatoxymelatonin excretion and daytime and nighttime physical activity, exposure to light at night is associated with carotid intima-media thickness (Obayashi. 2014).
  
  If you dont want to develop subclinical carotid atherosclerosis, when you are old, it would thus be a good idea to adhere to the basic rules of sleep hygiene: a dark room and/or blindfolds will keep your arteries clean and may thus save your life ;-)
• If you have kidney problems, get out in the sun if you want to survive - Scientists from the University of California Irvine Medical Center were able to show that dialysis patients residing in higher UV index regions have lower all-cause mortality compared to those living in moderate-high UV regions (Shapiro. 2014).
  
  More specifically, the ~60year-old subjects residing in moderate-high UV index regions had a 16% reduced risk of all-cause mortality. Those living in very-high UV index regions had a 1% higher risk reduction (17%). Interestingly, there was a similar inverse association between UV index and mortality was observed across all subgroups, but it was more pronounced among whites vs. non-whites.
• Wear those shades (or bluelight blocker glasses) before any important sport event - Why? Stupid question. If you dabble around with your smartphone "unprotected" the evening before an important sport event for only 30 minutes, this can influence exercise performance under hot conditions during the subsequent early morning (Thompson. 2014).

Sleep disturbance and adaptive immunity. Following a night of sleep loss, or during a period of sleep disturbance, nerve fibers from the sympathetic nervous system (SNS) release the neurotransmitter norepinephrine into primary and secondary lymphoid organs and stimulate the adrenal gland to release stored epinephrine into systemic circulation. Both neuromediators stimulate leukocyte adrenergic receptors (e.g., ADRB2) and activate nuclear factor (NF)-?B-mediated inflammatory programs (Irwin. 2015).

• If your grandparents have Alzheimers install a timer-based light system - This may not just increase their sleep quality, but it will also improve their behavior and mood as indicated by reduced depression scores on the Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia and agitation scores from the Cohen-Mansfield Agitation Inventory (Figueiro. 2014).
  
  I must warn you, though: The recent field study from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is promising, but the results should be replicated using a larger sample size and perhaps using longer treatment duration.
• If you have to work night shifts consider using 1-5mg melatonin 1h before you go to bed - Why? You have to counter the natural decline in melatonin production that occurs over consecutive days of night work (Dumont. 2014).
  
  In a recent study from the Sacre-Coeur Hospital of Montreal the melatonin production of the healthy volunteers decreased progressively decreased over consecutive days of simulated night work, both during nighttime and over the 24?h. Interestingly, this decrease was larger in women using oral contraceptives and independent of bright light exposure.
• Get out into the sun and cure your back pain - If your back hurts and neither you or your doctor have a clue why, try getting into the sun. A study from the UMIT in Austria shows that only three sessions in front of 5.000?lx lamp improved the depressive symptoms and reduced the pain intensity in CNBP adults with chronic nonspecific back pain (Leichtfried. 2014).

References:

• Bonmati-Carrion, Maria Angeles, et al. "Protecting the Melatonin Rhythm through Circadian Healthy Light Exposure." International Journal of Molecular Sciences 15.12 (2014): 23448-23500.
• Diepen, Hester C., et al. "Caffeine increases light responsiveness of the mouse circadian pacemaker." European Journal of Neuroscience 40.10 (2014): 3504-3511.
• Dumont, Marie, and Jean Paquet. "Progressive decrease of melatonin production over consecutive days of simulated night work." Chronobiology international 0 (2014): 1-8.
• Figueiro, Mariana G., et al. "Tailored lighting intervention improves measures of sleep, depression, and agitation in persons with Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia living in long-term care facilities." Clinical interventions in aging 9 (2014): 1527.
• Fukushige, Haruna, et al. "Effects of tryptophan-rich breakfast and light exposure during the daytime on melatonin secretion at night." breast cancer 4 (2014): 9.
• Harb, Francine, Maria Paz Hidalgo, and Betina Martau. "Lack of exposure to natural light in the workspace is associated with physiological, sleep and depressive symptoms." Chronobiology international 0 (2014): 1-8. 
• Irwin Michael, R. "Why Sleep Is Important for Health: A Psychoneuroimmunology Perspective." Annual Review of Psychology 66 (2015): 143-172.
• Kayaba, Momoko, et al. "The effect of nocturnal blue light exposure from light-emitting diodes on wakefulness and energy metabolism the following morning." Environmental health and preventive medicine 19.5 (2014): 354-361. 
• Leichtfried, Veronika, et al. "Short?Term Effects of Bright Light Therapy in Adults with Chronic Nonspecific Back Pain: A Randomized Controlled Trial." Pain Medicine 15.12 (2014): 2003-2012.
• Obayashi, Kenji, Keigo Saeki, and Norio Kurumatani. "Light exposure at night is associated with subclinical carotid atherosclerosis in the general elderly population: The HEIJO-KYO cohort." Chronobiology international 0 (2014): 1-8.
• Okamoto, Yosuke, and Seiji Nakagawa. "Effects of daytime light exposure on cognitive brain activity as measured by the ERP P300." Physiology & behavior 138 (2015): 313-318.
• Partonen, Timo. "Obesity= physical activity+ dietary intake+ sleep stages+ light exposure." Annals of medicine 46.5 (2014): 245-246.
• Shapiro, Bryan B., et al. "The Relationship Between Ultraviolet Light Exposure and Mortality in Dialysis Patients." American journal of nephrology 40.3 (2014): 224-232. 
• Thompson, A., et al. "The Effects of Evening Bright Light Exposure on Subsequent Morning Exercise Performance." International journal of sports medicine EFirst (2014).
• van der Lely, Stéphanie, et al. "Blue blocker glasses as a countermeasure for alerting effects of evening light-emitting diode screen exposure in male teenagers." Journal of Adolescent Health (2014).
• Virginie, Gabel, et al. "Dawn simulation light impacts on different cognitive domains under sleep restriction." Behavioural Brain Research (2014).
• Wang, et al. "UV light selectively inhibits spinal cord inflammation and demyelination in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis." Arch Biochem Biophys. (2014). [Epub ahead of print]
• Zeitzer, Jamie M., et al. "Millisecond Flashes of Light Phase Delay the Human Circadian Clock during Sleep." Journal of biological rhythms (2014): 0748730414546532.

It doesnt matter if you want to turn fat into fit, fit into fitter or strong into stronger. Todays SuppVersity science potpourri has something to offer for every physical culturist who is looking for ways to improve his health, performance and physique and for trainers and coaches who work with this challenging clientele.

In view of the fact that the last news-potpourri on appetite related scientific studies was a major success, I thought it may be worth writing another of these long-neglected short-news items. This time about exercise and supplementation, though.

You may already have seen the link to Stuart Philipps latest "Review of Higher Dietary Protein Diets in Weight Loss" with a "A Focus on Athletes" on Facebook. For those of you who have been following the SuppVersity News theres probably little new information in the document, though. When I read the paragraph about optimal protein intakes for maximal muscle retention, I still thought that it may be worth to remind you of the results of the Pasiokos study which clearly suggest that eating more protein is not always going to increase the net protein retention when you are dieting.
A fact that brings me back to Philipps review in which he points out that dieters commonly overlook that any increase in protein intake will go at the expense of either fat or carbohydrate. A "side effect" that could be particularly problematic for athletes, for whom Philipps recommends (just like I do) "to balance the increase in protein consumption with what macronutrient is reduced" (Phillips. 2014). In particular, athletes should "focus on reducing intakes of lipids to allow carbohydrate intakes to achieve performance" (Phillips. 2014).

After this brief introductory interlude, I would like to get to the actual topic at hand, a brief overview of a couple of interesting, but not exactly "full-article worthy" papers from the realms of exercise, nutrition and supplementation:

• Low volume, high intensity the exercise key to perfect health? A recent paper in the latest edition of Sports Medicine reviewed the health benefits of two different low volume exercise regimen: The classic sprint interval training (black spikes in Figure 1) and a HIIT protocol (grey bars in Figure 1).
  
  The researchers from the McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, highlight that the currently available evidence is largely based on short-term interventions. And while long(er)-term interventions would be needed to " to advance our basic understanding of how manipulating the exercise stimulus translates into physiological remodeling" (Gibala. 2014), it can already be said that...

  Figure 1: Comparison of the power output (% of VO2peak) during sprint interval training (SIT, black peaks), high intensity interval training (HIIT, grey bars) and moderate intenstity continuous training (MICT, striped box)

  "[f]rom an applied perspective, there is value in trying to establish the minimum ‘dose’ of HIIT or SIT needed to stimulate meaningful improvements in clinical markers that are associated with disease risk.
  
  This is particularly germane given that ‘lack of time’ remains the most commonly cited barrier to regular exercise participation, and considering evidence that suggests that low-volume interval training is perceived to be more enjoyable than MICT." (Gibala. 2014)

  As Gibala et al. point out, there is also evidence that nutritional interventions can influence both acute and chronic adaptations to interval training - with one of my personal favorites, i.e. sodium bicarbonate being the #1 candidate to among the "interval-specific" ergogenics that are currently available on the market (learn why).

  Figure 2: Everything works, as long as you pick the right type of exercise for your type.

  Moreover, as suggested by van Loon and Tipton (van Loon. 2013), the significantly greater adaptation efficiency compared to "regular" steady state cardio training has clinical relevance, especially for individuals with severe exercise intolerance.
• Low dose caffeine (200mg) not effective for everyone - A recent study from the University of Guelph found that low doses of caffeine (<3 mg/kg body mass, ~200 mg) can be ergogenic in some exercise and sport situations, but for most athletes they will not alter the peripheral wholebody responses to exercise, or improve vigilance, alertness, and mood and cognitive processes during and after exercise.
  
  

  Figure 3: Effects of ingesting no caffeine (0) or 3, 6 or 9 mg/kg body mass of caffeine (dose) on running time to exhaustion at ~85 % of VO2max (Graham. 1995).

  In view of the fact that low dose caffeine regimen are also "associated with few, if any, side effects" (Spriet. 2014), and generally depend on an athletes individual response to caffeine, Lawrence L. Spriet still suggests that athletes should "determine whether the ingestion of ~200 mg of caffeine before and/or during training and competition is ergogenic on an individual basis" (Spriet. 2014); and, assuming that it is, make use of the lowest effective dose, of which the data in Figure 3 clearly indicates that it is not necessarily the one with the lowest performance benefits.
• Science-Based Recommendations for Training to Maximize Concurrent Training - Right from the desk of Keith Baar comes a set of recommendations to maximize the benefits of concomitant training, i.e. combined / sequential endurance and strength training that consists of a set of four tips:
  
  • Do HIIT in the AM: Any high-intensity endurance training sessions should be performed early in the day. Then, a period of recovery of at least 3 h should be given, so that AMPK and SIRT1 activity can return to baseline levels, before resistance exercise is performed. This suggestion is based on the fact that AMPK activity increases rapidly and then returns to baseline levels within the first 3 h after high-intensity exercise (Wojtaszewski. 2000), whereas mTORC1 activity can be maintained for at least 18 h after resistance exercise (Baar. 1999; MacKenzie. 2009).

  • Build 3.2kg of lean mass overnight w/ 40g of casein pre-bed | learn more.

    Drink your whey protein shake right after your strength workout: Resistance exercise should be supported by readily digestible, leucine-rich protein as soon as possible after training to maximize leucine uptake, mTOR recruitment to the lysosome, and protein synthesis.
    
    In view of the fact that Baar recommends to do your RT sessions later in the day, it is also advisable to consume another protein shake right before bed to maximize the synthetic response overnight (learn more).
  • Fully refuel between the morning high-intensity endurance training session and the afternoon strength session: Its not going to reduce the exercise induced increase in AMPK and SIRT1 activation, but will allow you to perform at maximal intensity during your resistance training session later in the day.
    
    As Baar points, out athletes who have to diet during certain phases of their training cycle should make sure to "reserve a portion of the offseason (and short periods in season) exclusively for increasing muscle size and strength and then use higher dietary protein intakes to maintain that muscle mass as the aerobic load increases through the season" (Baar. 2014).
  • If you do low-intensity cardio, do your resistance training right after cardio: To improve the endurance response to lower-intensity endurance training sessions and provide a strong strength stimulus, Baar recommends performing strength training immediately after low-intensity, non-depleting, endurance sessions.
    
    Performing a strength session immediately after a low-intensity endurance session results in a greater stimulus for endurance adaptation than the low-intensity endurance session alone (Wang. 2011) and the low-intensity session will not affect signaling pathways regulating strength gains (Coffey. 2009; Lundberg. 2012; Apró. 2013).
  At first, these rrecommendations may sound somewhat random. If you take a closer look at the long paper, you will yet have to concede that the simple recommendations are based on our current understanding of the molecular response to exercise. In that, they should allow for the maximal adaptive response to both endurance and strength exercise.
  

References:

• Apró, William, et al. "Resistance exercise induced mTORC1 signaling is not impaired by subsequent endurance exercise in human skeletal muscle." American Journal of Physiology-Endocrinology and Metabolism 305.1 (2013): E22-E32.
• Baar, Keith, and Karyn Esser. "Phosphorylation of p70S6kcorrelates with increased skeletal muscle mass following resistance exercise." American Journal of Physiology-Cell Physiology 276.1 (1999): C120-C127. 
• Coffey, Vernon G., et al. "Consecutive bouts of diverse contractile activity alter acute responses in human skeletal muscle." Journal of applied physiology 106.4 (2009): 1187-1197.
• Graham, T. E., and L. L. Spriet. "Metabolic, catecholamine, and exercise performance responses to various doses of caffeine." Journal of Applied Physiology 78.3 (1995): 867-874. 
• Lundberg, Tommy R., et al. "Aerobic exercise alters skeletal muscle molecular responses to resistance exercise." Medicine and science in sports and exercise 44.9 (2012): 1680-1688.
• Pasiakos, Stefan M., et al. "Effects of high-protein diets on fat-free mass and muscle protein synthesis following weight loss: a randomized controlled trial." The FASEB Journal 27.9 (2013): 3837-3847.
• van Loon, Luc JC, and Kevin D. Tipton. "Concluding Remarks: Nutritional Strategies to Support the Adaptive Response to Prolonged Exercise Training." (2013): 135-141. 
• Wall, et al. "Dietary Protein Considerations to Support Active Aging." Sports Med (2014) 44 (Suppl 2):S185–S194.
• Wang, Li, et al. "Resistance exercise enhances the molecular signaling of mitochondrial biogenesis induced by endurance exercise in human skeletal muscle." Journal of applied physiology 111.5 (2011): 1335-1344.
• Wojtaszewski, Jørgen FP, et al. "Isoform-specific and exercise intensity-dependent activation of 5?-AMP-activated protein kinase in human skeletal muscle." The Journal of physiology 528.1 (2000): 221-226.

Dont obsess about "optimal" antioxidant contents, just eat your veggies!

Over the past couple of weeks, ... no actually over the past years I have repeatedly written about the concept of (mito-)hormesis and its consequences for the well-established, but not necessarily accurate free radical theory of aging (and for some people everything else). ROS, i.e. reactive oxygen species, have been established as an important signalling molecule that is - among other things - heavily involved in the insulin sensitizing effects of exercise. "Inflammation" makes muscles grow and burns body fat and the "what doesnt kill me makes me strong" principle appears to reign everywhere you look.
That being said, the latest study from the Institute of Health and Environmental Medicine in Tianjin, China, opens another "anti-antioxidant" Box of Pandora. One that puts a huge questionmark behind the implications of hundreds of thousands of scientific studies, when it says in its title, already: "No correlation is found for vegetables between antioxidant capacity and potential benefits in improving antioxidant function in aged rats"

"Skin of Grape Tomatoes Contains Max. Amount of Antioxidants" - You can find this and dozens of other daily updated SuppVersity Science News on www.facebook.com/SuppVersity

This is a title that may in fact change the way we look at study results like those of a recent study by Valdez-Morales, et al. (2014) investigating the "best" = highest antioxidant tomato, the results of which you are about to find among the ~20/day SuppVersity Facebook News @ www.facebook.com/SuppVersity - dont forget to like it, or youll miss out on the latest science news!

If the results of the study can be confirmed by an independent team for vegetables other than lotus root, rape or cucumber and if there is an identical mismatch between the in-vivo anti-oxidant capacity and the potential benefits in improving antioxidant function in (aged) humans.

This would be big and highly consequential news for nutrition experts, scientists and average Joes and Janes like you and me. Why? Well,...

• any ranking of "superfoods" that was based even partly on in vitro data derived with the good old ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay would be invalid, ...
• every scientist who has been following up on "promising" data from FRAP assays would have been wasting his time, ...
• and you may have been eating all the wrong foods for years...

... hell no, as long as you ate your veggies over the past years, I wouldnt worry if you may have made a "suboptimal" selection (which would be different based on whatever new criteria you select).

Figure 1: FRAP value, vitamin C and vitamin E content and total amount phenolics in the powdered vegetables that were added to the rodent diets in the study at hand (Ji. 2014)

Honestly, Id hope that you didnt select your foods only based on the orthorexic principle of maximal antioxidant content, anyways. 

Never forget the three principles of veggie eating: Variety, seasonality, colorfulness

Against that background Id recommend you keep eating your lotus roots, if you like them, although, they have a significantly lower beneficial effect on SuperOxide Dismutase (SOD, a group of antioxidant enzymes) than rape and cucumber.

Figure 2: Serum markers of anti-oxidant status / oxidative damage after 6 weeks on the three experimental diets (Ji. 2014)

Moreover, if you look closely at the data in Figure 1+2, you will realize that lotus may suck at SOD and its ability to reduce hemolysis (the destruction of red blood cells), but will have the most profound beneficial effects on the levels of malondealdehyde (MDA), a marker of lipid oxidation, and the amount of plasma carbonyls, which have - just as in cellular regulation, aging, and disease (Levine. 2002). Just like their similarly radical cousins, carbonyls will thus play a dual role so that in the end, their reduction may not be beneficial in each and every case.
Reference: 

• Ji, Linlin, et al. "No correlation is found for vegetables between antioxidant capacity and potential benefits in improving antioxidant function in aged rats." Journal of Clinical Biochemistry and Nutrition 54.3 (2014): 198-203.
• Levine, Rodney L. "Carbonyl modified proteins in cellular regulation, aging, and disease^{2, 3}." Free Radical Biology and Medicine 32.9 (2002): 790-796.
• Valdez-Morales, Maribel, et al. "Phenolic content, and antioxidant and antimutagenic activities in tomato peel and seeds, and tomato by-products." Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (2014). Accepted Manuscript.

The "Paleo" cult has repopularized eating and preparing your own (Chicken) bone broth, but will this also help with bone and cartilage health?

Although youre probably thinking of collagen as the stuff thats important for joint health, its implications in human health are more far-reaching than most of us believe.

In fact, collagens are the most abundant group of organic macro-molecules in human and animal body. Because of their tensile strength, they perform numerous structural functions within the body - specifically in connective tissues which include among other tissue also organs as your heart, your intestines, your lungs and the parenchymal organs like the liver and the kidneys and even the fibrous matrix of skin and blood vessels.

As I already said, collagens are yet by far best known as structural components of the protein matrix of the skeleton and its related structures, like bones, teeth, tendons, cartilage and ligament, which bring us back to the original question that bothered me after assuring Chris who emailed me asking about the necessity of taking glycine and proline supplements in the absence of any other protein (my answer was "thats bullocks"): Do glycine and problem supplements even help with collagen synthesis and joint health? Or is the supplement vendor next door the only person who benefits?
We do have evidence (from rodent studies) that the ingestion of low molecular weight (=small peptides) collagen hydrolysates with intact glycyl-prolyl-hydroxyproline tripeptides that actually make it through the gut into the bloodstream and will increasee the organic substance content and decreased the water content of the left femur (Watanabe-Kamiyama. 2009). Previous studies had already shown hat the content of an orally administered gelatin hydrolysate will be incorporated into the cartilage tissue of rats (Oesser. 1999). Similar observations have been made by Iwai et al. for human volunteers and porcine gelatine hydrolysate, as well.

"After the oral ingestion, the peptide form of Hyp significantly increased and reached a maximum level (20-60 nmol/mL of plasma) after 1-2 h and then decreased to half of the maximum level at 4 h after the ingestion. Major constituents of food-derived collagen peptides in human serum and plasma were identified as Pro-Hyp. In addition, small but significant amounts of Ala-Hyp, Ala-Hyp-Gly, ProHyp-Gly, Leu-Hyp, Ile-Hyp, and Phe-Hyp were contained." (Iawai. 2005)

If we assume a similar physiological effect as it was observed by Watanabe-Kamiyama in rodents, the ingestion of (large) quantities of gelatine could thus very well, after its hydrolysation in the gut, have similar effects on human cartilage tissue as the collagen hydrolysate that was used in the Watanabe-Kamiyama study.

Table 1: Summary of Structure and Recovery of Food-Derived Collagen Peptide in Human Serum or Plasma after Oral Ingestion of Gelatin Hydrolysates (Iawai. 2005).

With respect to the occurence of glycyl-polyl-hydroxproline tripeptides, of which the Watanabe-Kamiyama study suggests that they may be responsible for the beneficial effects on cartilage synthesis it should yet be said that it occurred in human plasma only after the ingestion of chicken, but not in porcine collagen in the Iawai study (see Table 1). If thats no coincidence, HARIBO, which is usually made with porcine gelatine is no "collagen builder", a real chicken soup, cooked with bone, on the other hand, could be.

Given that your stomach is working properly a nice paleo bone broth (preferably from chicken bone) could thus produce similar results as a collagen hydrolysate of which a recent review in Current Medical Research and Opinion says that its ingestion stimulates a statistically significant increase in synthesis of extracellular matrix macromolecules by chondrocytes.

Figure 1: Physician rated (top) and subject-rated (bottom) improvement in joint pain walking (left) and standing (right) in the Clark study (Clark. 2008).

The authors, researchers from the University of Illinois College of Medicine at Chicago and the University of Kiel in Germany add:

"These findings suggest mechanisms that might help patients affected by joint disorders such as OA. Four open-label and three double-blind studies were identified and reviewed; although many of these studies did not provide key information – such as the statistical significance of the findings – they showed collagen hydrolysate to be safe and to provide improvement in some measures of pain and function in some men and women with OA or other arthritic conditions." (Bello. 2006)

Subsequent studies such as Benito-Ruiz et al. (2009) or Clark et al. who evaluated data from 97 athletes from a varsity team or a club sport in Pennsylvania support Bellos conclusion (see Figure 1).

Similar beneficial effects were also observed by  et al. in a more recent study with "normal" subjects with articular pain in response to 1,200mg/day of collagen hydrolysate (Bruyère. 2012). When were looking into the effects of single amino acids, however, things look different. If theyre ingested separately, glycine and proline are not going to form a tripeptide in the course of the digestive process. And while they may still serve as a raw material for the endogenous synthesis of such peptides the chance that they actively promote the synthesis of new collagen is slim.
References:

• Bello, Alfonso E., and Steffen Oesser. "Collagen hydrolysate for the treatment of osteoarthritis and other joint disorders: a review of the literature." Current Medical Research and Opinion® 22.11 (2006): 2221-2232.
• Benito-Ruiz, P., et al. "A randomized controlled trial on the efficacy and safety of a food ingredient, collagen hydrolysate, for improving joint comfort." International journal of food sciences and nutrition 60.S2 (2009): 99-113. 
• Bruyère, Olivier, et al. "Effect of collagen hydrolysate in articular pain: a 6-month randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled study." Complementary therapies in medicine 20.3 (2012): 124-130.
• Iwai, Koji, et al. "Identification of food-derived collagen peptides in human blood after oral ingestion of gelatin hydrolysates." Journal of agricultural and food chemistry 53.16 (2005): 6531-6536.
• Oesser, Steffen, et al. "Oral administration of 14C labeled gelatin hydrolysate leads to an accumulation of radioactivity in cartilage of mice (C57/BL)." The Journal of nutrition 129.10 (1999): 1891-1895. 
• Ross, B. D., R. Hems, and H. A. Krebs. "The rate of gluconeogenesis from various precursors in the perfused rat liver." Biochem. J 102 (1967): 942-951.
• Saito, Masataka, et al. "Effect of collagen hydrolysates from salmon and trout skins on the lipid profile in rats." Journal of agricultural and food chemistry 57.21 (2009): 10477-10482.
• Watanabe-Kamiyama, Mari, et al. "Absorption and effectiveness of orally administered low molecular weight collagen hydrolysate in rats." Journal of agricultural and food chemistry 58.2 (2009): 835-841.