Arginine

The supplement that gets my vote for biggest come back of the decade is arginine.

A decade ago it had a brief day in the lime light with athletes as a supplement that

might stimulate growth hormone.

However, its use as a GH releaser never materialized into new muscles for users,

so it quickly fell out of favor. Recently however, there has been a resurgence of

interest in arginine by athletes and supplement companies. This is due to recent

findings showing a long list of possible uses with arginine, ranging from possible

protection from heart disease, reducing cholesterol, to increasing blood flow.

The reason for this surge of interest in arginine by researchers is its connection to a molecule called nitric oxide (NO). NO is the new super star molecule with

researchers as it appears to play a role directly or indirectly in almost every aspect of human physiology.

Arginine is a key component of the NO production pathway (arginine serves as the

substrates for the nitric oxide synthase enzyme, which produces citrulline and NO

from arginine) which is essential for a cascade of reactions involved in

vasodilation and cardiovascular function.

Recent data suggests arginine may have some legitimate uses regarding health and

well being. For example, the lining of artery walls called the endothelium needs to

dilate and contract effectively. NO is essential to this function and several studies

have found arginine supplements at 8-20 grams per day restored endothelial

vasodilation in the coronary arteries and may improves overall blood flow which is

important for people suffering from ischemic issues.

Another study suggested that arginine supplementation greatly improved penile

function in men with penile dysfunction as NO is essential for blood flow involved

in getting an erection.

Arginine has shown a very good safety profile to date and appears to have virtually

no toxic effects. From an athletic/muscle building point of view, things become

much less clear. Early studies suggested arginine could increase growth hormone

levels, but in truth

(a) these effects were found using very high doses and wereintravenous and

(b) short lived spikes in GH don't appear to have any positive effects on muscle mass or performance in healthy athletes anyway. Also, NO is a

messenger molecule related to virtually just about every pathway in the human

body one way or another.

Therefore, simply raising NO will have both positive and negative effects, most of

which are not known at this time. It may be shown that the improved blood flow

might increase oxygen saturation of tissues making it a good candidate for

endurance athletes or a pre workout supplement for bodybuilders, but that has yet

to be proven.

Unfortunately the data that has examined effects in athletes is lacking and some

supplement companies are far overstating arginine's potential role in muscle

growth or performance. From a health perspective, arginine may have some real

direct uses for people with high cholesterol, coronary artery disease, ischemic

(meaning a reduced blood flow and oxygen delivery to tissues) and even men with

erectile dysfunction. As for athletes, the jury is still out but arginine is one of those supplements to keep a close eye on for sure. At this time, I would not recommend it to athletes however for increasing either muscle mass or performance. For that use, it gets a thumb's down.

BCAA's

In the world of amino acids, the structural "building blocks" of proteins, there are

several classes and types of aminos. For example, we have the essential amino

acids, the non-essential amino acids, the conditionally essential amino acids and

the branch chain amino acids (BCAA).

The essential amino acids are deemed as such because the body cannot manufacture them and they must be supplied by the diet. The non-essential amino acids can be made from the essential amino acids, and thus don't have to be supplied by the diet for survival, though many non-essential amino acids play essential roles in health and metabolism in their own right.

The conditionally essential amino acids, so named because during certain periods,

such as infancy or certain metabolic states, can be considered essential for that

period of time. The branch chain amino acids (so named because they branch off

another chain of atoms rather than form a straight line as other amino acids do) are

leucine, valine and iso-leucine.

The BCAA’s are the amino acids that are primarily used (oxidized) during exercise

and make up to one third of the amino acids in muscle tissue. It has been known

for a long time that BCAA’s play a critical role in the turn over of lean body

tissues (muscle) and is muscle sparing (i.e. anti-catabolic) in a variety of muscles

wasting states. Of the three BCAA, L-leucine appears to be the most important to

preserving hard earned muscle mass; intense exercise and certain disease states

have been shown to eat up a great deal of L-leucine.

So far so good! On the research front, some studies have found the consumption of

BCAA before endurance exercise may decrease the rate of protein degradation and

may have a sparing effect on muscle glycogen degradation and depletion of muscle

glycogen stores.

However, leucine supplementation at 200 mg per kg of bodyweight prior to

anaerobic running exercise (sprinting) did not improve performance.

Truth is, research to date with BCAA’s and performance has been contradictory at

best. One of the major drawbacks of the BCAA’s as a supplement is dosage. It

takes very high doses to see any ergogenic effect, assuming there are any

ergogenic effects to be had, as studies are still limited and or contradictory.

Although BCAA’s supplementation may or may not be effective, it is cost

prohibitive when one factors in the amounts needed. The good news however is

that proteins, in particular whey protein, is very high in BCAA’s and this may be

yet another reason whey is the so popular with athletes and so impressive in the

research.

As amino acids relating to the functions they play in the body, they get a thumb's

up from me, but as a supplement they get a thumb's down at this time. It’s far more

cost effective to use a high BCAA content protein supplement than take BCAA’s

supplements in capsule form due to the high doses needed.

Creatine

There is almost no one on the planet that has not heard of Creatine at this point. Yet it’s surprising that so much confusion, misinformation and disinformation still exists.

What is Creatine? During short maximal bouts of exercise such as weight training or sprinting, stored adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the dominant energy source. However, stored ATP is depleted rapidly. To give energy, ATP loses a phosphate and

becomes adenosine diphosphate (ADP). At this point the ADP must be converted

back to ATP to derive energy from this energy producing system.

Creatine is stored in the human body as Creatine phosphate (CP) also called phosphoCreatine. When ATP is depleted, it can be recharged by Creatine phosphate. That is, the CP donates a phosphate to the ADP making it ATP again.

An increased pool of CP means faster and greater recharging of ATP and therefore

more work can be performed for a short duration, such as sprinting, weight lifting

and other explosive anaerobic endeavors.

The above was of course an immensely over simplified review of an exceptionally

complex system, but the basic explanation is correct. To date, research has shown

ingesting Creatine can increase the total body pool of CP which leads to greater

generation of force with anaerobic forms of exercise, such as weight training,

sprinting, etc.

Other effects of Creatine may be increases in protein synthesis and increased cell

hydration, though researchers are still elucidating the effects.

Creatine is formed in the human body from the amino acids methionine, glycine

and arginine. Certain foods such as beef, herring and salmon, are fairly high in

Creatine but a person would have to eat pounds of these foods daily to equal what

can be found in one teaspoon of powdered Creatine from a supplement. The

average person’s body contains approximately 120 grams of Creatine stored as

Creatine and Creatine phosphate.

Early research with Creatine showed it can increase lean body mass and improve

performance in sports that require high intensity intermittent exercise such as

sprinting, weight lifting, football, etc.

Creatine has had spotty results in research that examined its effects on endurance

oriented sports such as swimming, rowing and long distance running, with some

studies showing no positive effects on performance with endurance athletes.

Whether or not the failure of Creatine to improve performance with endurance

athletes was due to the nature of the sport or the design of the studies is still being debated. But one thing is for sure; the research is stronger in the high intensity short duration sports.

Creatine can be found in the form of Creatine monohydrate, Creatine citrate,

Creatine phosphate, Creatine-magnesium kelate and even liquid versions.

However, the vast majority of research to date showing Creatine to have an effect

on muscle mass and performance used the monohydrate form and most Creatine

found in supplements is in the monohydrate form.

Recent findings with Creatine have confirmed previous research showing it’s a

safe and effective supplement. More recent research has focused on exactly how it

works, and has looked deeper into its potential medical uses.

Several studies have shown it can reduce cholesterol by up to 15% thus may be of

use in with wasting syndromes such as HIV. It has also been shown to correct

certain inborn errors of metabolism, such people born without the enzyme(s)

responsible for making Creatine. Creatine is also being looked at as a supplement

that may help with diseases affecting the neuromuscular system, such as muscular

dystrophy (MS) and others.

A plethora of recent studies suggest Creatine may have therapeutic applications in

aging populations, muscle atrophy, fatigue, gyrate atrophy, Parkinson’s disease,

Huntington’s disease and other mitochondrial cytopathies, neuropathic disorders,

dystrophies, myopathies and brain pathologies.

As for safety, some have suggested that Creatine might increase the need for extra

fluid intake to avoid potential dehydration and muscle pulls. Still, Creatine has not

been shown to increase either dehydration or muscle pulls in the research. In some

people, Creatine may increase a byproduct of Creatine metabolism called creatinine, which is a crude indicator, but not a cause of kidney problems.

Some doctors have mistakenly thought that high creatinine levels (in athletes using

Creatine) are a sign of kidney problems, but that is not the case.

Creatinine is not toxic to the kidneys and most doctors are not aware that Creatine

may raise creatinine levels with no toxicity to the kidneys. People with pre-existing

kidney problems might want to avoid Creatine due to the effects it can have on this

test, though Creatine supplementation has never been shown to be toxic to the kidneys and the vast number if studies to date have found Creatine to be

exceedingly safe.

It’s interesting to note that there has been a concerted effort by many groups and

ignorant medical professionals to portray Creatine as being some how poorly

researched (flatly untrue) and unsafe for long term use.

They systematically ignore the dozens of studies that exist showing it’s both safe

and effective, and even more bizarre; ignore the recent studies that are finding

Creatine may help literally thousands of people with the aforementioned diseases.

This is unscientific, unethical and just plain immoral in my view. One question that often comes up regarding Creatine is whether or not the loading phase is required. Originally the advice for getting optimal results was to load up on Creatine followed by a maintenance dose there after. This advice was based on the fact that the human body already contains approximately 120 grams of Creatine (as Creatine and Creatine phosphate) stored in tissues and to increase total Creatine stores, one had to load for several days in order to increase those stores above those levels.

The idea also seemed to work well in practice with people noticing considerable

increases in strength and weight during the loading phase. All was not perfect

however as many people found the loading phase to be a problem, with gastrointestinal upset, diarrhea and other problems. At the very least, loading was

inconvenient and potentially expensive.

The need for a loading phase was a long held belief, but is it really needed to

derive the benefits of Creatine? The answer appears to be no as both research and

real world experience have found the loading phase may not be needed after all. A

1996 study compared a loading phase vs. no loading phase 31 male subjects.

The subjects loaded for 6 days using 20 g/day and a maintenance dose 2 g/day for

a further 30 days. As expected, tissue Creatine levels went up approximately 20%

and the participants got stronger and gained lean mass. Nothing new there! And,

not surprisingly, without a maintenance dose Creatine levels went back to normal

after 30 days.

Then the group was given 3g of Creatine without a loading dose. The study found

a similar – but more gradual – increase in muscle Creatine concentrations over a

period of 28 days. The researchers concluded, "a rapid way to Creatine load human

skeletal muscle is to ingest 20 g of Creatine for 6 days.

This elevated tissue concentration can then be maintained by ingestion of 2 g/day

thereafter. The ingestion of 3 g Creatine/day is in the long term likely to be as

effective at raising tissue levels as this higher dose."

A more recent study done in 1999 found that 5g of Creatine per day without a

loading phase in 16 athletes significantly increased measures of strength, power,

and increased body mass without a change in body fat levels (whereas the placebo

group showed no significant changes).

The researcher of this 1999 study concluded, "these data also indicate that lower

doses of Creatine monohydrate may be ingested (5 g/d), without a short-term,

large-dose loading phase (20 g/d), for an extended period to achieve significant

performance enhancement."

So, if you have suffered through the loading phase in the past thinking it was the

only way to maximize the effects of your Creatine supplement, it appears you can

rest assured you don’t have to go through all that hassle. A 3-5gram per day dose

over and extended period of time will probably do the same thing.

For increases in strength, LBM, and performance, Creatine gets an enthusiastic

thumb's up.