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Think Muscle Newsletter #4August 14, 2000 Growth Hormone: The Controversy That Never Was by Bryan HaycockA funny thing happened to me this summer. One day I was checking my e-mail and I came across a message that appeared to be from a popular primetime news program. (I’m not looking to burn any bridges here so I will refrain from identifying them.) I get tons of junk e-mail so I was a bit incredulous as to its source. As I read, sure enough, it was the real thing from one of the big 3 networks. They were interested in contacting me after coming across an article on hGH I wrote for Mesomorphosis.com. Feeling as if I was about to experience my first taste of fame, I quickly called the cell number provided in the e-mail. Turns out they weren’t really interested in my article, or me for that matter. They were looking to dig up dirt on the hidden dangers of using hGH for anti-aging purposes. "Natural Bodybuilding": A Modern Oxymoron? Part III by Rick Collins and Krista Scott-DixonThe many health supplements sold by health food stores raise other interesting issues, further complicating the evaluation of what is "natural." Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is sold as a natural food supplement. But is it "natural" to ingest Vitamin C not by the ingestion of various fruits and foods, but by swallowing it whole in processed tablet form? Further, how can anyone argue that it’s "natural" to take two, four or even more grams of Vitamin C daily – so-called "megadoses" – when nobody could possibly consume such quantities by eating food? Another example is creatine monohydrate, a substance that has recently been widely marketed as a supplement for building muscle. Red meat contains small quantities of creatine. But is it "natural" to consume five, ten or (during so-called "loading phases") up to a whopping thirty grams of creatine daily, when such amounts could only be consumed through artificially manufactured products? And yet, these wildly "un-natural" quantities are routinely consumed by many so-called "natural" athletes. |
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