The Irish Times Health Supplement Today - If I was creatine, I'd sue for libel!

mloc

Did anyone else read the Irish Times Health supplement today? There was a large article on creatine, and supplements in general.

I'm seriously disappointed with the Irish Times. I haven't read a more sensationalistic article in years. It was totally one sided, and is just the kind of reporting that gives ignorant people bad information on these products.

Apart from frequently implying creatine was a dangerous drug, akin to a steroid, it also blamed it for some psychological problems and aggressive behaviour. It even went on to demonise whey protein as some sort of dangerous substance.

Dragan

You can find a full copy of the article here folks.

http://teamtest.freeforumsite.com/teamtest-about1683-0-asc-0.html

Needless to say it is hilariously misinformed!

brianthebard

I hope this isn't the beginning of a concerted effort by the media to demonize supplements and push them out of Ireland. My grant is coming in this week, I can finally afford protein!:(

yomchi

Meanwhile the sales of creatine and whey protein are up 60% for us.

Same sh1te different day from the Irish print media, who have a fantastic history of making twats of themselves. Ah sure when there isn't anything else to write about (like the obesity problem in Irish adults) just write about poor old whey, its the devils butter milk you know :rolleyes:

If the gob sh1te who wrote the piece would just do a tiny bit of research im sure they'd feel like the idiot he /she is.

BrianD3

If an article about training or supplements appears in any newspaper, it's guaranteed to be a load of bollox. Remember the Tony Ward article about creatine a few months back. JUST SAY NO KIDS! It's bad enough when sh1t stirring morons like Gerry Ryan/Joe Duffy and idiot journalists come out with this sort of stuff. You'd think someone like Ward would be a lot more informed, sadly not

The Irish Independent health section is equally bad - sometimes they have a guy called Karl Henry giving training advice. Needless to say, it's crap. All the usual bull**** about toning and not getting too big gets trotted out. The Sunday Times Style magazine is also hillarious and along the same lines. There is a "Dr Know" advice column, apparently the advice in this section is given by qualified doctors. Recently they were warning of the dangers of muscle turning to fat :rolleyes:

Degsy

First mistake..first line.. "creo munchers"...i've NEVER heard that term used before.That journalist must hang out in some hardcore gyms!

jdivision

Degsy wrote:

First mistake..first line.. "creo munchers"...i've NEVER heard that term used before.That journalist must hang out in some hardcore gyms!

As a journalist I stopped reading it when I got to the "rugby guys or lads" bit. I knew it was a waste of my time at that point.

quozl

Baby jesus cries.

"He says he believes it expands the heart muscle as well and can lead to problems with the heart and veins. "

When you start referencing "a young rugby player in south Dublin" on matters of what creatine does to your heart and veins you're hardly creditable. How the hell would some random rugby kid know what is going on inside people taking creatine? That's just ridiculous play-ground rumours.

Pherekydes

My God! :eek:

They are selling this demon stuff in Superquinn (Lucan). What else are SQ peddling on us?

My son is working at SQ and has spots. Can I assume he has been taking this stuff?


[Panic]Runs around like a headless chicken.[/Panic]





Test for creatine use (Irish Sports council):

Is he buff?
Has he spots?
Does he have mood swings?

If the answer is yes to these it means...

...he is a fcuking teenager, for fcuksake.

Degsy

AND some evil bastards have been putting steroids in the whey and not listing it on the label!



lettersed@irish-times.ie

Dragan

Slow coach wrote:

Test for creatine use (Irish Sports council):

Is he buff?
Has he spots?
Does he have mood swings?

If the answer is yes to these it means...

...he is a fcuking teenager, for fcuksake.

Pretty much exactly my response to their amazing logical leap as well.

davyjose

"Most guys buy this stuff through magazines like Men's Health or the internet," according to one teenager who expressed concern about other boys on his school's rugby team. "They take it as a fruit flavour milkshake made up from powder and it looks harmless but they don't know the long-term effects of this stuff."

I love the last line. It's good to know that good ol' Irish Journalism relies on what a Teenager says. Basically the Writer of the piece expects their readers to believe what a Teenager, who clearly knows nothing about Creatine, says. Lazy, lazy Journalism.

D-Generate

Free steroids in Whey! brilliant! What next? Free hash in tobacco?

davyjose

D-Generate wrote:

Free steroids in Whey! brilliant! What next? Free hash in tobacco?

Don't badmouth tobacco, or alcohol for that matter; how are we ever going to get all those creo munchers out of the gym and into the pubs ... and pub doorways???

yomchi

Can anyone direct the contributers to that article to here? I'd pay 1000 euro to have some questions answered by them.

Please?

empirix

Obviously written by another pompus journalist trying for 3 seconds of fame Jamie Oliver style, only its complete crap

poobum

Degsy wrote:

First mistake..first line.. "creo munchers"...i've NEVER heard that term used before.That journalist must hang out in some hardcore gyms!

u havent been to a rugby school in a while have you? creo muncher, creo head...or just creo! all were my nicknames at various stages! even before i took it! just cos i was strong!

Shrimp

yeah, in fairness those terms are fairly common.. still tho.. the article is tripe.

LegacyUser

Absolute shambles of an article. It just annoys me.

PeadarofAodh

I love the way the journalist is in with all the buzz words - "Emo", "D4 Girls" and "Geeks" (Who, interestingly enough, have to be into computers)
"Then there are the creo munchers."

Well if I don't want to be the other three I guess I'll just hop on down to the health store and buy myself a hundred quid's worth of Muscle Drugs 9000. Might as well fit into the coolest category :rolleyes:

"Another boy said he thought he would "never be big enough""
She must run through Donnybrook late at night after a Leinster match with a young-teenager-net to get all these stunningly insightful quotes!

Seriously though, I'd stop sitting on Southside nightclub's toilet seats - you might get creatine up your bum and that stuff's worse than cocaine...or maybe even AIDS!!

turbot

I read that article as well and I was really surprised at the poor quality of journalism.

I suggest that between us we draft a response to that article, and ask the Irish Times to justify their sources, and enlighten us about what we don't know.

We can use the tactic of stating that as regular creatine users, despite researching the supplement thoroughly, we had no idea it had such side effects. And since we don't seem to be afflicted by such side effects, perhaps we can ask if this implies that some how we are genetically different from the people within the study?

( The only way I can imagine a journalist making such statements would be for them to badly speedread a bunch of opinions and gossip on the Internet, about the use of creatine, extreme bodybuilding, protein powder and illegal steroids, then write sentences summarising some opinions, randomly re-arrange them, add a few sentences about the side effects of puberty, and then proof read it to make for more sensationalism . )

The article read like it bandied illegal steroids, creatine and whey powder within the same category, with a complete lack of useful distinctions or scientific studies justifying the conclusions.

We really should take some kind of action, or who knows what might happen next:
- Press Ups may be denounced as an ozone depleting, carcinogenic activity

- Listening to music while training may be banned because it purportedly leads to higher levels of crime amongst OAPs

- Yoga may be re-classified as an illegal, schedule 1, narcotic, along with lycra, and bottled water

- X-Training machines may be removed from gyms because of their link to people being randomly attacked by farmers driving combine harvesters

- Team sports may be shown to be a driving factor in BSE

because_I_can

the journo's dont care whats true or not.
they only care about what will get the fat lazy mummies up in arms. same as gerry ryan. giving this article any more airtime than its already got is just a waste of time.

mono, whey, vitamins, fish oil, weights are all steroids.
running miles, situps, pressups are all you'll ever need

idiots

brianthebard

Hmm, and I was still thinking of doing a Journalism MA after my BA...but if this is the level of talent expected, I may be too balanced, fair and intelligent for the job...

King of Kings

This study below is interesting in showing the effect of narcs on spiders. I'm assuming that creatine would have a similar effects and thus should be banned.


http://www.glumbert.com/media/spiders

brianthebard

Damn that crack spider is hardmuthfuckingcore! Yea!!!

Beanmachine

Some of the comments in this article are hilarious there's a bit in it where it says that the supplement companies could for all we know be putting steroids into these supplements.

t-ha

LOL - that spider link is actually based on a real study that was done examining the effects of drugs on spider's webs. The results of the real one weren't quite so dramatic but still pretty funny. Wish I could find it...

Macha

You all mock the Irish Times for being one-sided but from what I can read here, everyone thinks Creatine is about as dangerous as tic-tacs and won't stand to hear anything to the contrary.

I know of some professional athletes that won't touch the stuff.

Also I know it's a cliche but no one knows the long term effects of creatine: basically the research just hasn't been done.

There are 2 sides

g'em

taconnol wrote:

You all mock the Irish Times for being one-sided but from what I can read here, everyone thinks Creatine is about as dangerous as tic-tacs and won't stand to hear anything to the contrary.

I know of some professional athletes that won't touch the stuff.

Also I know it's a cliche but no one knows the long term effects of creatine: basically the research just hasn't been done.

There are 2 sides

Yes, there are two fair sides. There was nothing in this article that was fair. People were misquoted and information used out of context, a schoolkid was used as the source of info for telling us the supposed dangers to the health of your heart from creatine use :eek: , and there was virtually no attempt to back up the writers' "information" with valid references. I'd love to know about the study that found "steroids" in protein supplements for one, but again, no reference. Instead creatine was demonised and misrepresented and I don't think it presented a valid argument against its use at all.

Instead it'll scare the bejeesus out of the parents of rugby-playing schoolboys and further perpetuates the myth that protein supplements are evil/ harmful/ will quickly lead down the steep path to Class A drug abuse.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

Macha

daveirl wrote:

This post has been deleted.

Who said they were Irish? They aren´t

Just on that subject, I think the lack of money invested in Irish sports is infinitely more central to Ireland's ability to produce world-class athletes than whether we're willing to take a risk on supplements like creatine.

How many Irish athletes can afford to train full-time? And even athletes like Derval O'Rourke are screwed: UCD retracted her scholarship.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

t-ha

Well the reader responses are in today - naturally they tend to point out the glaringly bad reporting and inaccuracies in the article. However, the real point is how many people will see that? I had a hard time finding the reader responses and I bought the paper deliberately to read them!

Essentially, whatever the truth of the matter, what the readers got fed was a huge, well publicised piece on the dangers of steroid-loaded wheatine, and then some reason and rationality tucked neatly away near the back of the following edition.

Dragan

taconnol wrote:

Just on that subject, I think the lack of money invested in Irish sports is infinitely more central to Ireland's ability to produce world-class athletes than whether we're willing to take a risk on supplements like creatine.

Indeed, the scene needs a lot more money pumped into it to provide better facilities, coaching, equipment, support for athletes outside the sport, grants and scholarships for young athletes and research into kinesology, injury therapy, training techniques and supplementation.

Everything needs to be guided along a little bit. To be honest though, I simple cannot understand why people would be so against creatine for no apparent reason. The simple fact is that if you want to avoid creatine then avoid meat and cut out some of your vital organs, because our own bodies produce about 1 gram a day.

I think people seem to feel that creatine is some new substance fresh on the scene! It was discovered in 1835 by a french scientist named Chevreul. He discovered it purely as a component of muscle tissue and at the time it had no sports application. He called it creatine after the Greek word for flesh, which is Kreas. It was first discovered that it had some kind of link to muscular activity when studies were done on captive animals and animals in the wild. The animals in the wild were found to have 10 time more creatine in there muscles than captive animals. A kind of "use it or lose it" train of thought began to come around.

Believe it or not the first "creatine product" came on the market in 1849 and was promoted by a German scientist called Justin von Liebig. The product was called "Fleisch Extrakt". Now then, we're looking at about 150 years of having creatine products available to the public. Liebig promoted his product under the promise that it would allow the body to perform more work! He was maybe a little ahead of his time in that assumption!

Now then, in 150 years there have been some pretty serious advances in medical science but I am not expecting people to catch that maybe creatine use is killing people, and as someone who uses the product I eagerly await a good long term study to be completed. For now though, in my own studies ( and I have been using creatine for about 6 years ) I have not found it to have any negative effect on my health. And it should be noted that unlike most people I get full blood work and medicals done every 6 months….granted this is not a perfect set up but I do what I can to ensure my health stays good.:)

because_I_can

well the 2 real problems with creatine are

1 - it works very very well
2 - its name

(and maybe 3 - its safe and legal)

If it was sh1t, then there'd be no outcry.
If it was sold named as "combo of 3 amino acids" as it actually is and couldnt be safer well then there might not be such an outcry.

Topcat101

Bit of topic, what is to correct way to use creatine and what training program is it most suited to ?

justsomebloke

Topcat101 wrote:

Bit of topic, what is to correct way to use creatine and what training program is it most suited to ?

I think that this will bring the thread WAY off topic so you are probably best just doing a new thread

justsomebloke

Truthfully it doesn't matter what your stance on creatine is the article was just badly written with no reference to any research on the supplements, hell at one point for no reason it just gives the sentance "in france creatine is banned" a paragraph of its's own. It gives no indication of why it is banned and one of the resources they used for what may be the effects of creatine is a pre junior cert kid.
It also states the reaon a lot of kids use it, is that they are bodydismorhic and so are trying to bulk however are causing them selves injuries due to lack of education of the subject, so rather then demonising a product may a better solution would of been to look at why kids (of both sexes) are no longer happy with their own body and are willing to put their health at risk in the search for a "better body". So in relation to this aspect maybe education is the key as oppose to a witch hunt

Topcat101

jsb wrote:

I think that this will bring the thread WAY off topic so you are probably best just doing a new thread

Advise taken....

mloc

jsb wrote:

hell at one point for no reason it just gives the sentance "in france creatine is banned" a paragraph of its's own. It gives no indication of why it is banned

Actually, the reason it's banned in France is rather interesting. I can't remember where I read this or what the details are (please correct me/post references if you know yourself), but as far as I know the reason its banned in France is mostly due to a marketing move by pharmacists there.

They wanted to have control over its availability so it could only be sold in pharmacies, and when they failed to get this, they kicked up a big stink and had it banned outright.

Dragan

mloc wrote:

They wanted to have control over its availability so it could only be sold in pharmacies, and when they failed to get this, they kicked up a big stink and had it banned outright.

Largely what the Irish medicines Board want as well. The amount of stuff that is considered a medicine in this country is pretty scary to be honest.