From: young@serum.kodak.com
Subject: Re: Another question about bulking up for veggies
Originator: young@sasquatch
Reply-To: young@serum.kodak.com
Organization: Clinical Diagnostics Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 18:15:15 GMT

   The following might be of some interest in this thread.  Or it might not,
   but I'll post it anyway.

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   From the TUFTS DIET AND NUTRITION LETTER: Vol. 10, No. 8, October 1992:

        "Ferocious fuel for animals on the prowl"..."Outperforms anything
        legal"..."The most potent alternatives to anabolic steroids legally
        available".  That's a sampling of claims for nutritional supplements
        advertised in health and body-building magazines.

        "Conch grass"..."Adrenal gland concentrate"..."Insect hormone".  That's
        a sampling of the ingredients contained in those supplements.  And
        those are the relatively safe ones!

        Among the magazines that carry the ads for the products are BETTER
        NUTRITION FOR TODAY'S LIVING, DIET AND LIFESTYLE, FLEX, IRONMAN,
        MUSCLE AND FITNESS, NATURAL PHYSIQUE, and WOMEN'S PHYSIQUE WORLD.
        And they carry a lot of them.  When researchers in the Division of
        Environmental Hazards and Health Effects at the federal Centers
        for Disease Control reviewed 12 popular fitness publications, they
        found that each contained a mean of 26 pitches for alleged body-
        building, muscle-enhancing, and/or energy-releasing products.  A
        total of 311 products was counted, with 235 unique ingredients
        listed under 89 brands.  At their most benign, such tablets, capsules,
        and powders are simply worthless, except, of course, to their
        manufacturers.  A bottle of 150 capsules of something called "Dynamic
        Life Essence," for instance, retails in Boston for $24.95.

        As for their effect on consumers, "virtually none of the products
        found by the Centers for Disease Control scientists have any potential
        benefit in increasing strength or muscle size," says William Evans,
        Ph.D., chief of the Human Physiology Laboratory at the Human Nutrition
        Research Center at Tufts University.  Consider that more than one out
        of three list amino acids as ingredients, perhaps because amino acids
        are the building blocks of protein and many people equate large
        amounts of protein with large muscles.  But most Americans consume
        far more protein than they need: twice the RDA.  Extra amounts of
        protein components cannot make muscles bigger or stronger, even if
        they are marketed under the serious-sounding names of free-form
        amino acids, predigested amino acids, peptide-bond amino acids, or
        branched-chain amino acids -- terms manufacturers often use to
        make people think they work better than the protein components in
        food.  The only way exercise physiologists recommend enlarging
        muscles is through exercise that challenges them to work harder.

        Unfortunately, the amino acids in the supplements are not just
        useless; they're also potentially harmful.  Supplementation with
        amino acids in doses much greater than those found in foods has
        never been tested in humans, so a safe limit is unknown.  It is
        conceivable that large, unregulated doses of various amino acids
        could lead to physiological imbalances among them that might inter-
        fere with the body's proper functioning.

        One magazine ad the researchers came across talked about a product
        containing tryptophan, an amino acid that should have come off the
        supplement market three years ago.  That's because some people who
        took tryptophan tablets came down with a rare blood disorder called
        eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome, the symptoms of which include severe
        muscle and joint pain, swelling of the arms and legs, high fevers,
        and shortness of breath.  It's not that tryptophan itself presents
        a danger; it's the fact that some tryptophan supplements were
        improperly formulated -- that is, manufactured with impurities that
        turned out to be quite harmful.  The FDA recalled all tryptophan
        supplements in 1989, but to date they have been linked to more than
        1,500 cases of eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome, 38 of which resulted
        in death.

        Another ad listed as an ingredient the potent prescription drug
        levodopa, which is often prescribed for people with Parkinson's
        disease and can cause depression, abnormal thinking, involuntary
        movements, heart rhythm disturbance, and blood cell abnormalities.

        Yet another supplement was marketed as having 10 milligrams of folic
        acid, or 25 times the RDA.  But the government calls anything above
        one milligram of folic acid a drug because high levels of that
        nutrient may maks symptoms of pernicious anemia, a disorder that
        could lead to irreversible neurologic damage if left unchecked.

        That anyone would choose to subject himself to such potential
        dangers is ironic as well as unfortunate; all an athlete or body-
        builder needs to swallow to perform at his or her best is exactly
        the same thing everyone else needs: a good diet.  "It is extremely
        rare for anyone to require a nutritional supplement if he or she
        consumes a good diet from all the major food groups," says Centers
        for Disease Control researcher Rossanne Philen, M.D.  Tuft's Dr. Evans,
        who also serves as the nutrition and fitness consultant for the
        Boston Bruins, echoes her words: "While there is a great desire on
        the part of all athletes to improve performance," he explains, "only
        a good, healthful diet will take care of dietary needs.  If those
        supplements in magazines had any benefit, you can be sure I'd be
        recommending them to the team."


-Rich Young (These are not Kodak's opinions.)