Aren’t Reporters Supposed to Check Their Facts?

Posted By elissa on Dec 6, 2009 | 3 comments

Aarrrgh… when “health” columnists apparently run out of topics, they can always turn to the usual handwringing about student athletes taking – gasp! – creatine, and other supplements.  But  this “Julie’s Health Club” column in the Chicago Tribune takes fearmongering to a whole new level.

Mikey Santini (left) was in junior high when he started taking creatine and protein supplements to build muscle and enhance his athletic abilities.

By his junior year at Stevenson High School, he had moved on to nitric oxide “energy igniters” such as N.O.-Xplode and so-called “legal anabolic” products such as Mass FX, which claims to boost strength, aggression and testosterone levels.

“You can get fabulous results,” said Santini, 19, of Buffalo Grove, who played soccer and ran cross country. But he acknowledges the products have a potentially dangerous downside. “It involves taking a lot of other stuff for your liver and prostate and rebalancing your testosterone levels so you don’t get side effects.”

All I can wonder is where Mikey got the money to buy creatine and protein supps while in junior high school.  I seriously doubt he was taking them in a vacuum at that point… it’s a dead lock his parents were completely aware, and most likely supportive, so the dark lede pretty much evaporates upon examination.

And “MassFX” isn’t a “so-called ‘legal anabolic'” – it IS a completely legal supp.  It’s obvious Ms. Deardorff never bothered to check the label.  Unlike the prohormones and modified steroid products that require on-cycle support and post-cycle therapy (i.e., the milk thistle, etc.), MassFX is fairly innocuous… it contains only purified plant compounds or standardized extracts.  Heck, I’ve trialed it – and experienced exactly ZERO side effects (which would definitely NOT be true, if it had any strong hormonal activity).

But the name “MassFX” certainly sounds sinister, so why bother looking? 

But that’s par for the course, for columns like this, where even demonstrably safe products can be “spun” to appear frightening.  For example, here’s Julie on creatine:

The long-term health effects of commonly used products such as creatine aren’t known, but children often mix products or take more than the recommended amounts, and most of the safety research has been done on adults.

Here’s the International Society of Sports Nutrition on the same subject…

Another anecdotal complaint about supplemental creatine is that the long-term effects are not known. Widespread use of CM began in the 1990’s. Over the last few years a number of researchers have begun to release results of long-term safety trials. So far, no long-term side effects have been observed in athletes (up to 5 years), infants with creatine synthesis deficiency (up to 3 years), or in clinical patient populations (up to 5 years) [4,5,18,75,76]. One cohort of patients taking 1.5 – 3 grams/day of CM has been monitored since 1981 with no significant side effects [77,78]. In addition, research has demonstrated a number of potentially helpful clinical uses of CM in heart patients, infants and patients with creatine synthesis deficiency, patients suffering orthopedic injury, and patients with various neuromuscular diseases.

…Opponents of creatine supplementation have claimed that it is not safe for children and adolescents[1]. While fewer investigations have been conducted in using younger participants, no study has shown CM to have adverse effects in children. In fact, long-term CM supplementation (e.g., 4 – 8 grams/day for up to 3 years) has been used as an adjunctive therapy for a number of creatine synthesis deficiencies and neuromuscular disorders in children. Clinical trials are also being conducted in children with Duschenne muscular dystrophy [87,88]. However, as less is known about the effects of supplemental creatine on children and adolescents, it is the view of the ISSN that younger athletes should consider a creatine supplement only if the following conditions are met [19]:

1. The athlete is past puberty and is involved in serious/competitive training that may benefit from creatine supplementation;

2. The athlete is eating a well-balanced, performance-enhancing diet;

3. The athlete and his/her parents understand the truth concerning the effects of creatine supplementation;

4. The athlete’s parents approve that their child takes supplemental creatine;

5. Creatine supplementation can be supervised by the athletes parents, trainers, coaches, and/or physician;

6. Quality supplements are used; and,

7. The athlete does not exceed recommended dosages.

If these conditions are met, then it would seem reasonable that high school athletes should be able to take a creatine supplement. Doing so may actually provide a safe nutritional alternative to illegal anabolic steroids or other potentially harmful drugs.

So much for scary creatine (which is also, predictably, referred to as a “gateway drug” later in the article – lol).

I had a hard time wrapping my brain around this gem…

Protein, for example, is relatively safe. But some products may contain multiple sources of protein, said personal trainer Erin Palinski, a registered dietitian who specializes in adolescent athletes.

OH NOES!!! Some products may contain MULTIPLE SOURCES OF PROTEIN??? How scary is THAT!?

I hope you can tell I’m being sarcastic here… after all, a cheeseburger contains “multiple sources of protein” too: beef, milk (cheese) and wheat.  So what?

And there’s more…

Supplements marketed as prohormones or testosterone-boosters such as DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), meanwhile, have been linked to prostate cancer; side effects include male breast development, heart problems and hormonal changes in both men and women.

DHEA is a testosterone-booster?  Most guys on the boards would laugh at at that one, and for good reason… while DHEA can be converted to testosterone, studies have demonstrated no significant T increases  from supplementing with it. And I am unaware of ANY human or animal studies that link DHEA supplementation to prostate cancer or heart problems.

It would not, however, be the least bit surprising to see “hormonal changes” from ingesting a hormone/prohormone, however.  If you take DHEA, for example, your levels of DHEA-S will rise.  That’s a “hormone change”. Birth control pills cause “hormonal changes” too.  Hell, life causes “hormonal changes”… this is not an automatically bad thing.

Sigh…  

Sure, there have been some genuinely questionable supps on the market. And some kids have taken them.  But it shouldn’t be difficult to write an accurate report about it.  Reporters like Julie Deardorff are paid good money to pose as authorities.  Is it really too much to ask that they check their facts, first?