Cyclone kills...

Ignorance kills quicker.

WHIP IT! wrote: »

I'd go for Aliens..... and I'd open the door and frisbee Smokin Aces at the first traffic warden I see while I'm at it...

ROFL Ok, so it isn't the best movie in the world but Ryan Reynolds looks hawt in it.

crotalus667 wrote: »

People people please ,
now g'em what about a good book

I know, I know, this has gone completely OT, but I'm just so sick and tired of all the skewed media reports of supplements and their legality. I'll have a read of it over breakfast and see what the dealio is and maybe I can actually give an informed opinion on the article then.

Oh and I've just finished reading "The Princess Bride". Fantastic and highly recommended!

WHEN 20-year-old Colin Murphy played rugby for Belvedere College . . . today facing St Mary's College in the Leinster Schools Senior Cup final . . . he claims supplement use was the norm.
"It was not unusual for students to be taking shakes and other supplements after training. Maxi Muscle Cyclone is quite popular because of the advertising, " he said.
Murphy described how a fellow student missed training because of illness and tried to bulk up quickly with creatine.
"He became very bloated, which can happen when it's not correctly taken. He probably had overloaded on the amount taken. I tried to look into it and take the stuff that was safe. Most people take stuff without second guessing it, or checking up. If they hear that people are using it, then it's usually good enough for them."
The Sunday Tribune spoke with several former rugby schools players, some from different rugby provinces, most of them now playing at under-20 college level. Many students taking supplements admit to being unconcerned about potential side-effects.
Although mild side-effects are common, some share rumours of more serious side-effects, such as severe headaches and heart palpitations, among other rugby playing students.
Mark Hurst (20) a former schools rugby player from Enniskillen, said Maxi Muscle Cyclone is probably the most common supplement in schools rugby.
"I have used it [Maxi Muscle Cyclone] sparingly for a month. It didn't really have any great effect on me and it was widely used within the school. I would say that Maxi Muscle Cyclone is used by at least 80% of rugby students who are taking supplements.
The advertising on products like Maxi Muscle Cyclone is very strong and appears in a lot of popular health magazines so I don't think potential side-effects are something students worry about."
One current schools rugby player who spoke to the Sunday Tribune asked to be identified only by his first name, Stephen. He says he began to experience heart problems while using a combination of Maxi Muscle Cyclone and another product called BSN Cell Mass. Under advice from his doctor he stopped using both products.
When questioned by the Sunday Tribune about possible long-term effects of such products he maintained it was "necessary" among his peers to bulk up. He now uses only pure protein supplements to increase muscle mass.
James Kelly was playing rugby for a Munster school when he began to experience discomfort while using Maxi Muscle Thermobol, a popular slimming product containing high levels of vitamin B12 which is not authorised for sale without prescription by the Irish Medicines Board.
"It started to speed up my heart and I became a bit concerned about this. Sometimes I had a tightening in my chest which was a bit uncomfortable. I started to realise that this probably wasn't normal and I stopped using it."
Kelly is acutely aware of the pressure within the schools rugby system. "There can be great pressure on players within schools rugby. The level of training is like that of a professional athlete and there can be a lot of pressure on schools for success so the desire is there on the part of students to get an extra edge which a supplement can offer. Rugby has become a professional game and this is something which rival sports like the GAA don't offer."

Dara Kernan (21) who has played rugby for 13 years, began to experience heart palpitations with a popular sports supplement, BSN Nitrix.
"This supplement [Nitrix] is the only supplement I've experienced any problems with, and it was only for a short while when I started taking it. I started getting heart palpitations and very short spells of dizziness to the point where I was going to almost black out.
"The palpitations were very short but were quite intense.
It did say on the bottle that some side-effects might happen."
Dara also became concerned about the number of capsules the product recommended he should take.

"I became concerned about the dosage. It says that for my body weight I should take four tablets three times a day, but after getting heart palpitations, there was no way I was going to start putting 12 tablets into my body."

Death of Jamie Quinn Jamie Quinn, like most men in their early 20s, led an active sporting life; he played soccer and GAA and was a coach at underage soccer level. He was about to start playing golf the day after he died.

On 2 October 2004, while out enjoying himself with friends at a nightclub in his local town of Edenderry, Co Offaly, Quinn collapsed on the dance floor and died after attempts to revive him failed.

The coroner's inquest last November revealed Quinn died due to asphyxia, which resulted from a combination of moderate to high alcohol levels, steroids and creatine. The level of alcohol was not considered unusual for a young man of his age.

Quinn had been using a muscle-building creatine product called Cell-Tech. His mother remembers Quinn started to feel unwell when he began taking it.

"He initially thought he had diabetes and he spoke to some people about this, but he seemed fine again a while after this. Using supplements was just something new that he had started to get into, just like other sports."

Traces of anabolic steroids were found in the postmortem analysis, giving rise to worrying concerns given what the Sunday Tribune found to be contained in supplements sold in many shops in Ireland.

Medical concerns Dr Martin Henman of the school of pharmacy at Trinity College Dublin said of the product Maxi Muscle Cyclone, which contains beta-ecdysterone, that it should be on sale by prescription only.

"Beta-ecdysterone was labelled an anabolic steroid by the Irish Medicines Board, " he said. He also said the level of vitamin B12 in Maxi Muscle Thermobol meant it should also be available only with a prescription.

Dr Conor O'Brien, former chairperson of the Irish-Anti Doping Committee and former committee member of the World Anti-doping Agency, said legislation was called for.

"We need a structure and legislation and it's a very grey area. It is now a concern with young men dropping dead as a result of sudden cardiac arrest, showing that this could be also caused by contaminated supplements as anabolic androgenic steroids which can cause direct cardiac damage. Heart muscle hypertrophy, elevation in blood pressure and interference with the normal rhythm and conductivity of the heart have been reported."

O'Brien began lecturing to schools on the issue as long as 10 years ago, but admits the problem is now growing, "While supplements may indeed improve your performance in sport, you may well be taking something that will cause long-term damage to your health, " he said.

The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) is also concerned at the use of supplements in rugby-playing schools, and recently issued guidelines to schools advising against the use of supplements such as creatine.

A Croke Park spokesperson yesterday said: "The GAA would not not encourage the use of creatine-like supplements for its players."
Speaking to the Sunday Tribune earlier this year, Brendan Buckley of the Irish Sports Council said: "There are one or two schools who have adopted good preventative policies, but these schools generally aren't the ones with the winning teams. . . I would be extremely concerned that a blind eye is being turned to this problem by the schools when in fact it is their duty to show leadership."
The facts Substances such as ephedra, once widely used in slimming products, were banned some years ago due to health concerns. This brought about a move within the billion-dollar supplements industry to replicate ephedra-like ingredients which many believe may be just as harmful.
Many of them are now using bitter orange, an ingredient common in weightloss supplements that are often marketed as 'ephedra free'. This substance is contained in concentrated form in Maxi Muscle Thermobol.
Bitter orange is a stimulant derived from a citrus fruit which contains related chemicals that, like ephedra, may raise blood pressure and disturb heart rhythms. Ephedra's active ingredient is ephedrine, while the active ingredient in bitter orange is synephrine;
both act as adrenaline-like stimulants that affect the heart and nervous system.
While synephrine is not included on the World Antidoping Agency's list of prohibited substances, which came into effect in January of this year, a spokeswoman for the Food and Drugs Administration in the US has previously said synephrine is associated with seven deaths and 85 adverse reactions.

The Sunday Tribune was unable to contact Maximuscle Ltd, manufacturers of Cyclone and Thermobol.

Internationally, concerns have been raised over the ingredients and safety of BSN products. The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) of Australia recently recalled BSN Cell Mass, along with several other products from different manufactures.

TGA, Australia's medicines regulator, labelled the supplement Cell Mass as a class-one defect . . . "potentially threatening or could cause a serious risk to health". It maintained BSN Cell Mass contained traces of coumarin, a prescription drug used to prevent blood clots. Possible side-effects associated with drugs such as coumarin can include excessive bleeding and coumarin should not be used in combination with certain medications, including antibiotics.
Reply With Quote

In fairness over-use of supplements [reletive to schools rugby] isn't going to kill you, it would be a gradual decline in health over a period of years, more a loss in quality of life than a resultant death that the reporter was stating his/her concern for.

As for the paper comparing the number of cocaine deaths to alcohol deaths - comparing the amount of deaths from cocaine to the amount of deaths from alcohol is foolish because people can afford to die from alcohol. Your average addictive personality cant afford to become addicted to cocaine because its so expensive. So they get their hands on less expensive drugs like alcohol, nicotine, and cheaper illegal drugs. But the number of deaths from cocaine is newsworthy because is has risen, and effected people in the public-eye, just comparing coke and alcohol isn't fair.

Also the demopgraphic of people who take cocaine is socially different, your average cocaine user would not have the same history of addiction in their family as say the average [overt] alcohol/heroine addict. They are more likely to be able to afford treatment/better-treatment and more likely to has a strong family support system around them.

Saying you cant overload on creatine? you can overload on anything. Excess of anything is unhealthy. Overloading on creatine might not kill you or damage you in the short term but taking hell of alot of anything in the long term is not entirely healthy.

Quick question, if you took the supplement in question regularly for six months, competed in the olympics and were drug tested, would you pass?

g'em wrote: »

absolutely, that's what I was trying to point out! The scaremongering is so misinformed that it demonises products unnecessarily. Whey is equated with steroids without realising that whey is commonplace in our daily food intake.


Ah but that would be the logical and intelligent way of looking at it - there's no room for the voice of reason in the media!!!

@Pen1987 - neither creatine or beta-ecdysterone are on the WADA list iirc so taking both would allow you to pass a drug-test no probs. I take creatine pre-comp and pass drug tests no problem anyway...

isnt creatine naturally occuring in many food stuffs anyway, like there is a high level of it in red meat so it cant be
tested for in drugs tests becuase you can take "naturally",

as much as the scaremongering is mis-informed, the products that are being sold are not giving a massive amount of information either.

what is WADA?