Supplements to Avoid
The following was going to appear in my upcoming project "Your Naked Nutrition Guide" but I decided to leave it out and instead wanted to share it with you now. Enjoy!!
Arginine / Nitric Oxide Supplements – If you have opened a fitness magazine anytime in the past several years then I am sure that you have come across these products that claim to
enhance nitric oxide production…
which increases blood flow to your muscles…
resulting in greater nutrient delivery…
and eventually greater muscle growth.
While that is a nice story it just doesn’t work that way. The main ingredient in most of these products is arginine or some arginine derivative. If you were to open a biochemistry text book you would see that yes arginine is a precursor for the production of nitric oxide so theoretically arginine would be a good amino acid to supplement with, theoretically. But it just doesn’t pan out in the real world. There are a couple problems here. The first problem is that when ingested arginine can go to all kinds of places in the body and be used for a myriad of different functions other than nitric oxide production. The second problem is that in research has shown that in order to get an appreciable increase in nitric oxide production a person would need to continually consume an inordinate amount of arginine throughout the day. This is a problem because excessive arginine consumption (the kind needed to see increases in nitric oxide production) lead to terrible gastrointestinal complications.
So if these products truly don’t work then why are the consistently on the best sellers list of sports supplements? I have know idea. It must be really clever marketing. But please don’t be fooled. Nitric Oxide supplements can cost up to $60 a month to use. This stuff is truly snake oil. Save you money for basic or performance enhancing supplements…or even better – real food!
Note: In "Your Naked Nutrition Guide" I outline what I consider to be basic and performance enhancing supplements.
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