Supplement Discussion

Reg'stoy

Just a general question about the whole supplement debate, a bit off topic but I'm interested in seeing the replies.

How does it sit with the people who buy these body building supplements, that the vast majority of the manufacturers of them also sell products euphamistically labeled as 'slimming aids' indeed most if not all of the shops listed in the stickies (for the sale of such supplements) sell these 'fat burning' tablets .

I'm sure most people would agree with me when I say that these products are at best useless and at worst damaging to your health, in my opinion.

So my question (before Hanley asks me what my point is) is, Does the sale of these products (almost universally acknowledged as a rip-off) add credence to the argument that all goods made by these companies are nothing more than expensive placebos? or do people simply see it as taking money from the gullible.

g'em

I've made a new thread, it's completely OT, and please refrain from jibing fellow posters.

Hanley

Reg'stoy wrote: »

I'm sure most people would agree with me when I say that these products are at best useless and at worst damaging to your health, in my opinion.

Is it a new rule that people can say whatever the hell they want without backing it up in any way once they put "in my opinion" at the end?

PeakOutput

op im sure you will find that that those fat burning pills do technically do what is claimed its just that they are not generally used as advised hence why they are useless to many

skibbers

Reg'stoy wrote: »

So my question (before Hanley asks me what my point is) is, Does the sale of these products (almost universally acknowledged as a rip-off) add credence to the argument that all goods made by these companies are nothing more than expensive placebos? or do people simply see it as taking money from the gullible.

You know, evryone is different. They do help some people lose fat. The thing is- You wont lose anything ONLY on these products. Balanced diet is essential whatever your fitness goal is. Those are DIETARY SUPPLEMENTS. You should use them with a DIET. And that DIET MIGHT help you lose weight. Buying water is a rip-off as well.....

fatal

Hanley wrote: »

Is it a new rule that people can say whatever the hell they want without backing it up in any way once they put "in my opinion" at the end?

I was just going to mention that aswell.
Ive seen that in a few posts around here in recent days where people finish their setences with something along the lines of "my opinion"

Roper

The earth is flat and God speaks to me through a hole in my bedroom wall... in my opinion. You can say, "barbell benching doesn't give as much of a chest workout as dumbell benching, in my opinion" and I think that's valid. Making claims as to dangers of supplements would be one of those things that requires what the French call "évidénce".

Fat burners do what they're supposed to do (obviously brand varies) and I don't think even the most solid advocate of them would support their use all of the time. I know of some fighters who use them to make extreme weight cuts, but that would be over a short period of time before a fight. Are they unhealthy for an overweight person to take? I don't know, but I would say yes based on the fact that an overweight person is not going to get any healthier by taking them.

Dragan

Reg,

one of the rules in the Charter is, as we say in the ghetto "to back that **** up" so frankly if you do want to say that fat burners and slimming aids are damaging to peoples health then you really, really better have some studies to back up your point of view.

This is an open forum....all it takes is for someone to mention a couple of products and brand names and all of a sudden we have potential legal issues.

As for everyone else, you can either keep it on topic and reply to the question as asked, or if you have an issue with a post then you PM a Moderator or you Report the Post.

I have said this endlessly and i'm sick of saying it and i know for a fact at least two of the above posters have been heavily active in threads where i had to say this before.

Now then, consider this a mild conversational piece as opposed to any kind of specific warning but the next time i see people questioning rules, or a posters reasons for posting in the public forum it'll be either an infraction of a mild whack of the ban stick depending on how cranky i am.

And despite today being Friday i'm cranky.

Remember, IF you have issues with post content or a poster then REPORT THE THREAD , do not express your opinions publically because i'm sick of seeing it and that not how things work.

Dragan
-Moderator

hardtrainer

Supplement debate....kind of vague, but he's my thoughts from my own experience over the last 10 years.

Whey - couldn't live without it. There are times when I don't have chicken/tuna/whole foods to hand and this is my life saver. The fact that the stuff I use tastes like a chocolate shake, well thats just an added bonus.

Weight gainer - does exactly what it says on the tin. Doesn't mean it's all gonna be lean, that depends on what else you're doing (in the gym specifically).

Thermogenics/fat burners - variable. Some definitely work while others I'm not so sure about. I took two different types about 2 years apart. The first lot I wasn't sure if they did anything, might have been just placebo. The second lot definitely did work. Interestingly, cinnamon and chillies also have the same effect for me.

L-carnitine - I take this every year before summer. It helps shift fat from some areas and I'm not the only one who has seen this effect.

Nitrogen blah blah - I just don't believe the hype behind these products. I can see the logic they're using in the hype, but it's way too over simplified from a biological and physiological point of view and the money just doesn't justify the 'benefits' experienced by the people I know who've tried them.

BCAAs - hard to tell really, but I'm inclined to believe that these have helped me in the past. Particularly when dropping weight and trying to hold onto muscle, I'm pretty convinced of them.

Amino acids - giant big horse tablets, there just isn't any reason to take these if you're taking whey. I just can't justify the expense when the reasoning behind it seems so flawed.

Vitamins - We all need our vits and minerals. I prefer to get them from fruit and veg and whole food, but there's nothing wrong with supplementing them if your diet isn't balanced. I am very much against the massive overdosing of vits and minerals though. I've done it in the past with a well known product which shall remain nameless. Apart from the drastic changed in colour to my urine and a somewhat queesy feeling for the first week, I was basically p*ssing a lot of money down the toilet and putting my kidneys under undue strain in the process.

Thats my €0.02

g'em

Great post hardtrainer.


I'm a big believer in the vits and minerals from wholefoods too, but do you think there's any credence in the argument that because our foods (even wholefoods) are over-farmed and produced and have been shown to be lacking in v & m content that perhaps taking supplements could be more worthy than we think?

Roper

Anyone who is training hard should take a multivitamin. I've stopped due to forgetting to buy one and since then I've had a cold and bad throat. The effects of hard training on yur immune system are well documented and it is nigh on impossible to get the requisite amounts of vitamins in.

G'em I would agree from a vitamins point of view, but not from a protein point of view, if you gather my meaning! I think anyone can get their requisite amount of protein from whole foods but it is very difficult as an athlete to get your vits in sufficient quantity. I'm no expert on agriculture but I'd imagine that any farming method is going to detract from the vitamin value of foods, even organic ones, but freezing, drying etc. definitely do so I think the answer is to buy fresh as much as you can.

Hardtrainer,
Good post. I think there's a distinct lack of real science behind most of these products. The benefits of whey are obvious, weightgainers too since we're basically talking calories (quality varies as mentioned before) and fat-burners have some credence too but like you I'd be dubious of the claims of the others.

Dragan

Roper wrote: »

Anyone who is training hard should take a multivitamin. I've stopped due to forgetting to buy one and since then I've had a cold and bad throat. The effects of hard training on yur immune system are well documented and it is nigh on impossible to get the requisite amounts of vitamins in.

My own experience leads to me agree with Barry on this one. Normally during times of hard training if i go a few weeks without a decent multi vit then i always seem to get sick. Keep the multi vit coming in and i am fine.

Whey i like, because it's easy protein and frankly eating anywhere up to 5500 calories a day at time can be tough on the stomach when it's all done through whole foods i find.

Sometimes i will take something for an energy boost before a workout but these days thats really about it. And i used to be a total supplement junkie!

Roper

I took Nox once before a workout and waitied for an extra burst of energy which never came. It was a bit like me and my mate buying an acid tab between us years ago when we were about 15, taking half each and waiting for something to happen. These days 15 year olds just buy coke. It was shame too cos I read the tub and it said I would get an INSANE PUMP!, and an ANIMALISTIC ENERGY SURGE! I got a bit giddy.

g'em

Roper wrote: »

G'em I would agree from a vitamins point of view, but not from a protein point of view, if you gather my meaning!

Really? That's interesting, I'd actually be more confident about getting my v & m from food than getting all the protein I need. I buy most of my veg frozen, they retain more nutrients that way b/c they're flash frozen. Obviously farmers' market bought veg which were only sittin' in the grounda few hours' previously will be full of goodness, but long-haul veg (my 'fresh' mange tout from Tesco come from Kenya for example) will have lost a good bit in transit.

But having said that I'd find it easier to dose up with veg than dose up with protein, and so whey provides a very convenient way to keep me topped up.

I don't take a multi-vit anymore, I take 500mg Vit C every morning, 4000mg Fish Oil, and ocasionalyy Vit B Complex when I'm training hard and I can't remember the last time I had a cold/ virus/ non-alcohol induced illness

The BCAAs I definitely agree help me retain lean mass when I'd dieting, and the only time I take aa horse-tablets is soemtimes PWO when I'd rather wait half an hour to get home and have whole food than chug down a shake.

ali.c

On the ethical side of things, just for example Holland and Barrett and Boots also sell "slimming aids" seeing as i am not boycoting them I buy supplements that suit my needs tbh rather than worrying about what else the company makes. I dont think NutritionX do diet pills but i could be wrong.

There is a huge difference too in the types available, i seriously doubt for example Apple cider tablets are damaging to anyones health. There was a discussion on diet pills on the radio the other night, discussing what a same it was etc etc. It kinda reminded me of the program hussle with the whole "you cant fool an honest man" the reason why people buy into the scams and in some cases lose a lot of money is the want "something for nothing" so to speak. The market exists because people are looking for a quick fix. Once there is a demand businesses are going to exploit it.

I have never taken fat-loss pills because i am a bit picky about what i will take and what i wont and I personally havent researched it enough. Its not that there is anything inherently wrong with it I just dont know that much about it.

g'em

Just with respect to "weight-loss" pills, they're actually a massive subdivision of supplements.

You've got appetite suppressants (aka anorectics or anorexigenics) which can be 'natural' such as Hoodia, fennel, and apple cider or pxn drugs like Fastin and Reductil. These simply help you eat less.

Then you've got thermogens - caffeine, green tea, ephedra - which speed up your metabolism supposedly helping you burn extra calories without actually doing any extra work. Ephedra is an incredibly powerful thermogen, but it's illegal, and to date there's no known valid replacement that causes the same effect.

There's also fat-burners which claim to encourage your body to literally burn fat (via lipolysis) such as Yohimbe.

The active ingredients of many of these products do work, and have been tested at length in placebo controlled double-blind studies, but the problem is also that the ingredients are in such low amounts in the products that their effects are negligible at best. It's been said that there isn't enough Hoodia found naturally in the world to provide enough to meet the claims of Hoodia pill manufacturer's claims, so someone somewhere is making very big porkies!

g'em

I've just been having a potter around on the VHI website. There's a page about 'Muscle Building Food' and all was going just fine until...

Vhi Healthcare editorial team wrote:

Many protein supplements are in fact made from milk powder, egg or soya beans. Some types of supplements have added amino acids, glucose or vitamins and minerals, but they do not contain any 'magical' ingredient. Neither are they superior to eating protein rich foods - afterall they are made from ordinary healthy foods...

So far, so reasonable... until...

Vhi Healthcare editorial team wrote:

...Some of the most popular ones are reviewed below.

Androstenedione/”Andro”

*sigh*

So Andro is a protein supplement now according to the Vhi? And the other examples of protein supplements? HMB and Chromium Picolinate. Give me patience

Jimmy Bottlehead

Where do they get this sort of crap!? Surely they should talk to people IN the fitness industry?

g'em

I'm sure the wording wasn't intended to come out that way. Here's the page in case; you know and I know that HMB and Andro aren't protein but would people who know nothing about supplementation know that?

I'm all for balanced advice on supplements, but this equates pseduo-steroids with whey.

hardtrainer

g'em wrote: »

... do you think there's any credence in the argument that because our foods (even wholefoods) are over-farmed and produced and have been shown to be lacking in v & m content that perhaps taking supplements could be more worthy than we think?

This is the argument you hear a lot and it's very complicated because the data are very conflicting. There was a report last week (I have to fish it out again and post it) which showed there was no advantage, nutritionally, to eating organically grown veg compared to traditionally farmed veg. They contained comparable levels of vitamins/minerals.

The idea that mechanised farming leads to poor quality vegetables was first put forward by those promoting organic produce. Not surprising really. I have plenty of issues with industrial farming techniques, most of which relate to the environment and the ground water pollution that has seriously affected our (and arguably the world, in terms of salmon at least) fish stocks to a ridiculous degree.

If anything, the way produce is cultvated today gives a much higher quality product than was produced for sale 50 years ago. Obviously, it would be great if we all grew our own veg and fruit and could pick and eat within the same day. This was and still is a reality for a small number of people, but even back in the 'old days' (that wonderful time when every had perfect natural diets...nostalgic lies if you ask me) many who grew their own veg stored a good deal of it for use through the winter. (I used to keep apples from october until april and they tasted just as delicious).

Yes, some vitamins begin to breakdown after picking and I'm sure that fruit and veg traveling from spain/israel/NZ have certainly lost more of their vitamin content, not to mention taste and overall quality, on their journey to Ireland and sitting about in shops until their bought.

However, I think the point that most people miss is that minerals don't degrade as such. The iron in spinach is there even when the spinach is wilted and well past eating. Same goes for calcium, phorphorus, selenium and so forth. Vitamins are chemical compounds too and as such they have a particular shelf life that is longer (usually) than the produce they're in. Look at the best before date of your multivits. How are the vits there stable for over a year?? Yes, there is degradation of some (we're talking very specific..vitamin C in particular) vitamins, but by and large they're quite stable and unless the fruit/veg has begun to noticeable degrade or rot, the loss of vitamins is minimal. Processing of any kind speeds up the degradation of vitamins though, which is why whole fruits and veg are better than processed ones. Also, vitamins are inherently more stable in root vegetables than they are in others and fruits.

I still think a vitamin C supplement is valuable, unless you eat a rake load of fruit and veg with high vitamin C. A broad spectrum multivit/mineral is also not going to do you any harm and will certainly be beneficial to those giving their body a real pounding in the gym or with sport.

g'em

Lovely stuff hardtrainer, I appreciate you taking the time to answer so thoroughly. It's funny that you refer to the rose-tinted view of nutrition of our parents', grandparents' and beyond generations; I was only having a discussion with my Mum about this very recently.

It's true that there was less processed foods avaliable to them, but to try and pretend that their diets' were cleaner than a sterilised pin is stretching the truth ever so slightly. Much of the time their diets were very restricted, foods that we take for granted now (exotic fruits, nuts and seeds - don't forget foods like avocadoes were unheard of until relatively recently - a massive variety of veg and even out-of-season veg we can buy year-round) provide a greateer likelihood of maintaining a balance of required vitamins and minerals.

These days it's actually a lot easier to have a great diet, but many people are too lazy to make good use of the opportunity.

Jimmy Bottlehead

just had a look through... although there was some good stuff, there were some woeful mistakes... I didn't think Cheese and ham sandwiches, and Bananas and custard were wholesome healthy meals! But I'm open to correction there.
Also, they say "For example, a pint of milk contains as much protein as a single serving of a standard protein supplement." - I call BS on that! I drink pints of milk, and they come in around 15g of protein. Supps are around 23g, and then I'd add milk on top of that!

hardtrainer

G'em, I agree completely. There is definitely this idea floating about that the less processed diets of yesteryear were so much healthier and better for people. This point of view doesn't take into account the very restricted diet, as you mentioned. For those that grew their own, the seasons and the success of the summer or autumn dictated their diet. For those that didn't, simple availability did and the quality varied widely.

I am not a fan of the homogenisation of farmed produce, all apples the same size and every carrot the same length etc, but to suggest that the varied diets we have access to these days (avocados, where would we be without these?? not to mention sweet potatos) are not as healthy is ridiculous. And, it's not even so long ago that coffee wasn't readily available (other than specialist cafés) in Ireland. The only coffee you could find was coffee essence with chickory and thats just back as far as the 60's and 70's.

And you're dead right, many people are too lazy to make use of the superb ingredients available to them. I have friends who'se staple diet is still potato and meat based, with very little willingness to try 'strange' foods like mange tout, peppers and mango, let alone sushi or tapas!!


Edit:
Ignore my ramblings here. I was hungry when posting this, hence the coffee, sushi etc tangents!!

ali.c

Since the inception of agriculture plants has been the subject of breeding programs. Initially this was to increase yield and develop crops with a better disease and pest resistance. So much so the domestic cultivars are now very different to their wild relatives. More recently in the food for supply of the developed world there has been an increased focus on the aesthetics of the produce and the production on new cultivars has accelerated dramatically in speed. There has also been work done on improving the nutritional quality of grains (specifically to increase protein content) for cultivation in the developing world. The problem with breeding programs is that traditionally the focus was on certain characteristics at the expense of others this has lead for example crops that require high agrochemical inputs as their disease resistance is greatly diminished. So for the consumer there are no guarantees that this is not also affecting the nutritional profile of the food. Personally my biggest problem with all this (aside for the erosion of the genetic base for many of the worlds staple food crops) is that fact that I am not wholly convinced that there is a full understanding of the long term impacts of the actions of the food technology industry.

Currently we have malnourishment in both the developed and the developing worlds and if the diet of the generations gone by was in fact so superior to ours how come our life expectancy is significantly higher. There may have been a decrease in the quality of fruit and veg but as has already been pointed out this is more than cancelled out by the variety and quantities now available. To me the obesity epidemic is caused solely by the amount of highly processed high sugar and (bad) fat food being consumed.

colmconn

g'em wrote: »

There's also fat-burners which claim to encourage your body to literally burn fat (via lipogenesis) such as Yohimbe.

I think you mean lipolysis not lipogenesis.

g'em

colmconn wrote: »

I think you mean lipolysis not lipogenesis.

Ooops, well spotted!

EdgarAllenPoo

hardtrainer wrote: »

Thermogenics/fat burners - variable. Some definitely work while others I'm not so sure about. I took two different types about 2 years apart. The first lot I wasn't sure if they did anything, might have been just placebo. The second lot definitely did work. Interestingly, cinnamon and chillies also have the same effect for me.

That was a very good, detailed post but I'd be interested to know the name of the Thermogenics/fat burners that actually worked. I know people who've taken several different brands/types and all they did was increase their heart rate and give them headaches.

Froot

I was having a chat with the owner of my local supplement store and when I asked if he had any of *insert multiple product names here* he said no because they were all recently banned in Ireland because of the B vitamin content etc.

Yet I can go to holland and barret and buy a tub of pills with 10-50 times the B vitamin concentration in them...

I don't believe in taking something because it is simply good for you (ie taking vitamin c tablets for the sake of it. I believe in vitamins, minerals and supplements but I need to justify why I should take them before I do and every new supplement I try I only touch after I have read up on it.

They are called supplements, ie supplementary to your existing diet, I think that a lot of people who have a problem with them are using them as a replacement instead of a supplement.

maxi-twist

GDM wrote: »

That was a very good, detailed post but I'd be interested to know the name of the Thermogenics/fat burners that actually worked. I know people who've taken several different brands/types and all they did was increase their heart rate and give them headaches.

Venom by ALRI. Certainly worked for me, maybe a bit too well. I was only looking to lose a stone but i lost 2. That was combined with a pretty ferocious diet though. Had really thermogenic effects if you took 2 a day, i kept on getting ridiculously hot and its a reasonably good appetite supressant. It gives you a lot of energy. They put me in a really good mood aswell, constantly chatting and very hyper. I will accept that some of this was a placebo effect and that some if not most of the weight/fat loss was down to my diet, but i really feel it was necissary to take these in order to stay on the diet for the 2/3 months or so that i did.

There probably banned in irelad now due to excessive vit B