Splendo

17/04/2026

During the working visit of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima to the U.S., a select group of Dutch companies was invited to showcase innovation in sport and performance. Proud to see SplendoHealth among them, presenting performance tech alongside leading Dutch innovators at the Philadelphia Eagles facility.

And leading the charge for us: Jeroen Molinger, Dr. (PhD) (first row, far left) bringing our vision on cardiorespiratory fitness and wearable-driven performance measurement directly to this unique stage.

28/10/2025

Presenting at

04/01/2024

Come by and meet the SplendoHealth team at next week. Defining by making / accessible, affordable and efficient

30/06/2023

The race to find a functional obesity pill is on. The research behind it is a kind of bizarro world, if one keeps in mind that there is already a simple solution to obesity and many health problems: eat healthy and workout. Yet no big pharma company would want to miss out on the bonanza that will start, once the "vi**ra for obesity" is found.

So what has been researched here? The Centre for Metabolism, Obesity and Diabetes Research at the McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario looked into the weight loss effects of the protein growth/differentiation factor 15, or GDF15. They found that this factor in the long term changes the metabolism in the muscle, to the extent that the weight loss does not plateau and that less muscle mass is lost and that weight loss continues.

At the time still a study in mice, it does look like an avenue that will be pursued further and to add on a positive note: any better understanding of our metabolism will also lead to real advances in health, also for athletes and amateurs who do work out. So keep it up!

It’s a conundrum well-known to scientists and dieters alike: When one loses weight, the body’s metabolism slows, making it harder to keep the pounds off even with continued calorie restriction. | The protein GDF15 appears to help mice lose weight without slowing down their metabolism or eating a...

24/06/2023

A study at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto has shown that better cardiorespiratory fitness leads to significant reduction in breast cancer risk, however only in overweight women. Apparently slim women are better protected by other factors and don't experience the benefit of better fitness to that extent.

This study used data from 17.840 cancer-free postmenopausal women with a CRF assessment from the UK Biobank. Over a median follow-up of 11.0 years there were 529 cases of invasive breast cancer, 1623 cases of non-breast cancer disease and 241 deaths. From these cases the mentioned correlations have been found.

Objective To examine the association between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and the risk of breast cancer in postmenopausal women. Methods This study used data from 17 840 cancer-free postmenopausal women with a CRF assessment from the UK Biobank. High estimated CRF (eCRF) was categorised as being....

20/06/2023

Slowly but surely we are starting to understand brown adipose tissue (BAT) better. It's the fat that grows with cold exposure and then does non-shivering thermogenesis.

BAT is like having a little stove inside our skin (mostly back and neck) that burns fat to warm the body. But an article in Nature now says that "brown fat has sweet teeth", that it eats glucose and lactate as well.

Amazing how nature (and we don't mean the science magazine) keeps surprising us! Of course this is all super important for the regulation of metabolism and the for battle against obesity.

Great work from the Institute for Cardiovascular Prevention (IPEK) of the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.

An elegant quantitative analysis of brown fat and skeletal muscle metabolite flux reveals unpredicted fuel usage during thermogenesis, which suggests that brown fat predominantly uses glucose and lactate and acts as a nitrogen scavenger.

13/06/2023

An amazing study by researchers from the Amsterdam UMC into brain responses to nutrients in obese and non-obese people. The group of researchers led by Katy A. van Galen and Anouk Schrantee determined whether impaired responses to ingesting a glucose lipid infusion in participants with obesity would be partially reversible with a 10% diet-induced weight loss.

Their findings show that the intake of this infusion induces orosensory-independent and preference-independent, nutrient-specific cerebral neuronal activity and striatal dopamine release in lean participants. In contrast, participants with obesity present severely impaired brain responses. Importantly, the impaired neuronal responses are not restored after diet-induced weight loss.

The paper published in Nature concludes that impaired neuronal responses to nutritional signals may contribute to overeating and obesity, and ongoing resistance to post-ingestive nutrient signals after significant weight loss may in part explain the high rate of weight regain after successful weight loss.

Brain responses to food are severely diminished in individuals with obesity, and are not improved by 10% body weight loss. These findings point to an important role for the brain in weight regain after weight loss.

08/06/2023

Can the resting heart rate (HRH) be used as a biomarker for cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF)?

Scientists from the MRC Epidemiology Unit of the University of Cambridge have used their Fenland study, selecting 5,143 men and 5,722 women aged 29.0 to 65.0 years, to look at the relationship between resting heart rate (RHR) in both seated and supine positions, awake and asleep, to explore its potential as a biomarker for cardiorespiratory health.

Of course it's all about the difficulty of measuring VO2max remotely and for large numbers of people. If the resting heart rate would correlate on a population level with CRF then it would offer itself as a perfect alternative measurement that can easily be done quickly and remotely.

Overall, the study findings showed that RHR could be used as a biomarker for cardiorespiratory fitness at the population level in public health and epidemiological settings for screening, surveillance, and monitoring changes in response to policy interventions. It offers valuable insights into the health of a community or population as a whole.

Researchers determined the longitudinal and cross-sectional associations between resting heart rate (RHR) and cardiorespiratory fitness.

23/05/2023

No more excuses for men! A cold shower in the morning will increase their energy expenditure via activation of Brown Adipose Tissue (BAT) aka brown fat. This finding has just been presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Dublin, Ireland.

The study was done by having fully monitored test persons lie on a mattress that can be cooled quickly to 9°C. The test would continue till the point at which someone started shivering, since shivering produces warmth via another route.

Lead investigator of the study is Mariëtte Boon, wo co-authored the book "Fat: The Secret Organ" with Liesbeth Van Rossum, said women started to shiver later and had more constriction of the blood vessels in their hands and feet. For them the difference between cold exposure in the morning or in the evening was not significant.

But do they have to take cold showers anyway? Maybe the ladies tagged above can respond. At SplendoHealth we are all for biohacks including cold showers for everyone.

Brown fat that increases one’s metabolism may become more activated when men are exposed to cold in the morning rather than in the evening, according to new research.

20/05/2023

Jeroen Molinger, member of SplendoHealth's advisory board, is one of the authors of a breakthrough paper showing that the Cardiorespiratory Optimal Point (COP) is a new valid measure for risk of heart failure (HF). It is easier to measure than VO2max since it is not necessary to have patients exercise at maximum. That's why it's called a submaximal indicator. It has been around for more than 10 years now and seems to gain in importance both for athletes and for patients. Therefore good to memorize: COP = VE/VO2 so it tells us how much ventilation is necessary to exchange a certain amount of oxygen. The lower the COP, the better the prognosis for HF patients.

Just Published! Clinical Utility of the Cardiorespiratory Optimal Point (COP). Classic cardiovascular risk factors are associated with a higher, more…