Supplements That Don't Work
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration DOES NOT strictly regulate herbs and supplements. Please re-read the first sentence. This means that any supplement you are taking for “health” and “fitness” could be doing the exact opposite. Because the field is so unregulated there are no guarantees of strength, purity, or safety of the products. WORD OF CAUTION: There is no research on the long-term safety outcomes of any supplement. Here is a list of a few popular supplements that have NOT been proven effective.
Glutamine plays an important role in protein synthesis and can reduce the levels of inflammatory biomarkers. BUT, the body of research does not support the idea that glutamine enhances exercise recovery. Studies have shown that it does no better than a placebo for increasing power or reducing markers of muscle soreness.
L-Arginine has proven benefits for people with reduced endothelial nitric oxide production, including those with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hypertension. Its through it’s clinical uses that the theory of increasing Nitric Oxide levels would produce more vasodilatation, thus increasing oxygen and energy substrates to skeletal muscle during resistance exercise. BUT studies have failed to find an increase in vasodilatation and blood flow to working musculature with L-Arginine supplementation. Research suggests there is no real benefit of supplementing with L-Arginine in a healthy exercising population.
Beta Alanine(BA) is an amino acid that binds with histidine to create carnosine. BA supplementation is taken to minimize the effect of acidosis (the burn in your muscles) in exercise. BA has been shown to increase time to exhaustion in exercise bouts lasting 60-240 seconds, but have no effect on exercise capacity in bouts lasting less than 60 seconds. This means that BA can help with bouts of exercise lasting 1-4 minutes but wont have too much effect on anything less than 60 seconds.
In conclusion, you shouldn't be taking anything that isn't recommended by your doctor.
Have questions on something your taking?? Leave a comment below or message us! Subscribe to our mailing list to stay up to date on our blog!
#supplements #glutamine #larginine #betaalanine #usfda #regulate #herbs
