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I try to avoid conflict of interest on this channel by refusing to take endorsement or
sponsor deals with any nutrition companies.
The money simply isn’t worth risking the one thing that I greatly fight to preserve
in this channel, and that’s integrity.
Integrity for the sciences and integrity for giving you, the viewers, the most honest and
objective information I possibly can.
Additionally, it allows me to criticize supplements as openly as possible.
Case in point, my multivitamin video.
But now, let’s set the target to a category that runs rampantly uncontrolled with unsubstantiated
products: the muscle building supplement industry.
To help some of you save money while risking essentially zero of your gains, here are three
supplements that is simply not worth the purchase.
Number 1, Branched-chain amino acids, aka BCAAs
BCAAs ARE crucial to helping you build muscle.
They are, in fact, essential amino acids your body cannot self-produce.
The BCAA leucine is especially important for its role in activating the mTor signaling
pathway, another important growth factor.
But the point of supplements is to, well, “supplement,” or make up for deficiencies
in your diet.
The thing is, that’s hardly the case for BCAAs.
Think of it as someone giving you pills filled with water and said, “Hey, take these!
It’s going to help with hydration and preventing…
death.”
Certainly, it’s true, but it’s not exactly necessary in pill form.
Same thing applies to BCAAs.
Research on BCAAs show that, unless subjects were eating inefficient protein, supplementation
is unnecessary.
Hardly will you need to supplement since you’re already getting plenty in your food, even
at the minimum amount of 0.8 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight.
A single, 8-ounce chicken breast or a cup of roasted peanuts contains roughly 9 grams
of BCAAs, or almost two servings of your standard BCAA supplement.
And even if you were to supplement, whey protein is a much better option since one, a quarter
of it are BCAAs, two, it contains all other essential amino acids, and three, it typically
cost less on a gram-to-gram basis.
The focus shouldn’t be on a handful of amino acids, but on total protein intake.
Number 2, b-hydroxy b-methylbutyrate, aka HMB.
HMB is actually a metabolite of the BCAA leucine.
The claim is that HMB supplementation can reduce the rate of muscle degradation as well
as reduce muscle soreness.
Since only 5% of leucine is converted into HMB, supplementation was deemed important
to maximize HMB’s preserving effects.
Unfortunately, the research falls completely flat.
HMB failed to outperform placebos in net muscle gains in both regular and athletic populations.
It also performed worse than leucine on a gram-to-gram basis in overall growth.
But, one meta-analysis responsible for HMB’s popularity found that, out of 250 supplements,
HMB was able to increase lean mass just as well as the proven supplement Creatine.
However, reviewers of the meta-analysis noticed something a bit sketchy: Almost all of papers
on HMB shared either common authors or research institutions.
Some of the papers were also authored by the very same people conducting the meta-analysis
(a and b).
And worse yet, they were backed by institutions or corporations that have patents or licenses
on HMB.
This opens up a huge potential for publication bias.
When we look at the two, unrelated studies, both of them did not find any statistical
significant effects with HMB supplementation.
And the same goes for studies on soreness.
At best, HMB supplementation still requires extensive research.
But until then, given the current data, it’s just not worth your money.
And number 3, Glutamine!
Just like BCAAs, glutamine is undoubtedly important for health.
In fact, there is plenty of research showing its importance to gut health as fuel.
However, in terms of muscle growth, again, the keyword here is supplementation.
Yes, glutamine is important for muscle growth but we simply don’t need to supplement it.
Multiple studies adamantly show that supplementing glutamine has zero effect on, muscle strength,
lean mass, and muscle catabolism when pitted against a placebo.
There’s simply plenty in all our protein sources.
The only time it was beneficial was during long-endurance events, in which it improved
muscle recovery.
Fitness-related?
Yes.
Muscle Building-related?
Not so much.
Again, as long as you’re healthy and eating at least the bare minimum of protein, glutamine
supplementation is effectively useless.