A tip for those with ?? about supplements

I'm not so keen on many of these studies, some are almost as worthless as the studies cited by the supplement manufacturers . My "evidence" is the recent study which indicated that HGH did not have any positive effect on athletic performance. Similar studies in the 80s and 90s indicated that there was no benefit to using steroids.

Agreed. Also, studies may not be able to show apprecable change, prevention or difference due to the tools and scope of the study. Then there is the evil side of medical science ($$$) I won't do into here.

Prescription for Nutritional Healing

http://www.redwingbooks.com/products/books/PreNutHea.cfm

This is one of THE books to have for this subject. I believe Amazon has it as well as any health food store worth its salt. It is a reference type of book.

So if we don't put stock in scientific evidence, what other kind is there? When purveyors of alternative medicine engage in medical/science conspiracy mongering, I am not sure what their evidence is. Science is a process, not an interest group.

As if "alternative medicine" doesn't have financial incentives. I'll put evidence-based medicine against alternative medicine any day in terms of ourcomes.

There was no recent study saying HGH didn't improve athletic performance. And there were no studies about steroids in the 80's/90's either. You are getting several things confused here. You are thinking of suppression of evidence wll before the 80's.

One study doesn't mean jack. 10 studies? 100 studies? That means something.

That's why creatine is just as important to a strength athlete as anything else he puts into his body. It's been the most studied and supported supplement of all time. There's another supplement, beta-alinine, that is stirring the same kind of noise but it has benefits for endurance athletes.

Alan

HGHer wrote:

I'm not so keen on many of these studies, some are almost as worthless as the studies cited by the supplement manufacturers . My "evidence" is the recent study which indicated that HGH did not have any positive effect on athletic performance. Similar studies in the 80s and 90s indicated that there was no benefit to using steroids.

The nice thing about scientific studies is that they have an entire section that details their methods and another entire section that gives results with no interpretation from the authors. Using these sections, you can see for yourself whether or not the experimental methods are sound and you can analyze the data for yourself. For example, if you read the HGH study that you refer to, you will see that it tests the affects of a relatively small amount of HGH over a fairly short time period. This study did not claim that athletes don't benefit from using large amounts of HGH over long time periods.

The problem is not with the studies themselves, but with the way that the results are interpreted and reported by mainstream media. A study o HGH shows that a specific dose of HGH given at specific intervals over a specific period of time does not produce statistically significant improvements in performance. Some clueless journalist gets ahold of the paper and reports that "a scientific study has shown that HGH doesn't help athletes."

I'm wondering if you read the paper that you are objecting to, or if you read a newspaper journalists interpretation. The two can be very different.

I'm not trying to dismiss science - far from it, but sometimes, the research methods are not very good and in some cases the study size and bias get in the way, in much the same manner as the supplement manufacturers and their research. Yes, scientists have a bias too - this will ignite some controversy, but if someone had legit evidence against the current "global warming consensus" - it would be ridiculed and the research, no matter how good the research methods and data would be looking for another job as a burger flipper because his "peer review" would review him out of a job.

Agree with Art, on the number of studies.

Thought of the day:

100 years ago, it was actually written in the British Medical Journal that if a woman who was menstruating touched a ham, it would turn rancid.

Brian wrote: So if we don't put stock in scientific evidence, what other kind is there? ... There was no recent study saying HGH didn't improve athletic performance.

If you're happy with your scientific fundamentalism, Brian, you go right ahead.

But in fact you ought to look up the HGH thing, 'twas quite recent. I'd imagine google news ought to unearth it for you in short order.

See also the reams of study results churned out by the world of exercise physiology. You want to assemble your training regimen entirely from the writings of Owen Anderson and his ilk, giving that 100% credence because it's been sanctified as (cue the Thomas Dolby) SCIENCE and laugh off the lore of Lydiard et al and the experiences of millions of runners as superstitious unverified hokum, don't let anyone stand in your way there either. But do let us know how that works out for you.

Me, I wouldn't knock the scientific method. That's stood the test of time, no doubt, and I wouldn't want to be without it. But as long as we have humans conceiving and executing these studies and - especially - interpreting the results and extrapolating prescriptive advice from them, I'll take individual studies with a little salt too, and not completely discard out of hand all other observations which haven't been measured by some machine, quantified, statistically analyzed, and peer reviewed.

Curious about one thing, maybe you can help me out here. Do any scientific fundamentalists enjoy wine? If so, how do they discern which ones to buy? I'm thinking that since human observation is so notoriously unreliable, maybe your little community publishes lists which rank all the available wines by percentages of sugar, alcohol, and dozens or hundreds of other chemicals. Maybe a quantification of sediment, and a chart showing absorption spectrum (color). Is this available free online, or by subscription only?

i tend to do my own balance of reading research on supplements with sources such as pubmed, combined with claims of other less scholarly reviews. also, message boards are good sources of anecdotal evidence. this method seems to be good when the pub med info comes back inconclusive. when i see "no effect" from both pub med and message boards, then i don't bother.

Also, by the time someone gets around to publishing a study on a supplement it has already been in effective use for a few years. The best evidence is that which is done in the training room.

Before Atkins and before the current push for the rational that a higher protein diet will lead to fat loss compared to the USRDA's flawed high carb diet body builders and other athletes that needed to get lean (wrestlers, fighters, etc) have all used a high protein, moderate carb, moderate fat eating regime to get lean. Eat 6 small meals, increase lean protein, decrease bulk carbs for weight loss. That has been around for eons and just now they are really starting to look at it.

Alan