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Pitfall No.
1: It's on the label, but
it's not in the can. Does this come as a surprise? A lot of supplement
companies have trouble meeting label claims. That means that what you pay
for is not always what you get. Now, this is not as prevalent as it was
just a few years ago.
Pitfall No.2:
Basing your buying decisions on cost alone. Some supplement companies
offer ridiculously low prices on generic supplements containing expensive
ingredients but they can because they conveniently leave them out or only
include a token amount. The FDA and our government can only do so much to
police products and, being understaffed, there's no way that they can
catch every unscrupulous supplement marketer.
Pitfall No. 3:
Paper science: The ad doesn't give you all of the details of the study
they are quoting, just the details that support the company's specific
claims for the product. For example, a few years ago, some supplement
companies were touting the metal, "boron" as a way to raise testosterone
levels. They cited a scientific study to back up their claims. But, of
course, they conveniently forgot to tell you, the consumer, that the study
was done on post-menopausal women and that boron was practically worthless
for raising testosterone in healthy males.
Pitfall No.4:
Leaps of Faith: Sometimes supplement marketers will rely on what I call
"leaps of faith." For instance, one prominent supplement marketer is
promoting alpha lipoic acid (ALA) in their creatine product as an
ingredient that is supposed to increase the uptake of creatine. To the
best of my knowledge, there is no study in existence that shows ALA to
increase the uptake of creatine. There are studies that support the use of
ALA in the area of insulin sensitivity, but nothing that shows a direct
link between ALA and uptake of creatine. As far as I know, ALA is
completely worthless in increasing the uptake of creatine into
muscle.
Pitfall No.5:
Making exaggerated unsubstantiated claims for a product. Some companies
take the attitude - "We're going to exaggerate and even lie in our ads in
order to sell you this product and we're going to keep doing it until the
FTC shuts us down!" This mentality is common in smaller, less well-known
supplement companies, which are not as heavily policed by the Federal
Trade Commission as their larger, more visible
counterparts.
However, I have seen a disturbing trend of late
as very large, very well known companies make exaggerated claims. For
instance, one purveyor of a proprietary creatine product claims that its
creatine product is hundreds of percents more effective than plain
creatine. If you know which company I'm talking about, call them up and
ask them for a copy of their study. If they are willing to send you a copy
of their study, (which I'm sure they won't) check the particulars out and
ask them how they arrived at their claim. I think what we have a case of
here is what George Bush would call "fuzzy math" and artistic
license.
Pitfall No. 6:
If it is legal, it is not a banned substance. There are several
different substances that are legally sold, but which are banned by
several, if not most national and international sports groups (i.e.,
guarana contains caffeine, ma huang contains ephedrine, androstenedione
may give a positive test
for nandrolone, and the list
goes on).
Pitfall No. 7:
Deceptive labeling combined with deceptive advertising. There are several
companies currently running multi-page ads for products that are
deceptively labeled. For instance, one company touts methoxyisoflavone as
an active ingredient in their product. Creatine is never mentioned in the
ad for the product. But if you examine the label of this product closely,
you will see it listed there as "N-Methyl-N-Guanylglycine. Wow! What a
fancy chemical name!
Why didn't they just call out "creatine"? Could
they be hiding the fact that this product contains so much creatine that
users experiencing rapid weight are really experiencing the benefits of
creatine and not methoxyisoflavone? It makes you wonder. Read labels and
ask questions.
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