Bodybuilding supplements number in the thousands. However, the most important one of all, based on published scientific research, is HMB. Out of all the HMB products available, HMB Plus is the best. Here is why.

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HMB Plus by Pure Encapsulations

Order HMB Plus Here:

Boost HMB muscle building supplements for youth and senior fitness. See: Mix Your Own Bodybuilding Supplements Formula.

With the best of the best bodybuilding supplements,

Dr. D
(FitScientist)

Workout routines for muscle building workouts are grossly inefficient. The only thing they add is time in the gym, not more muscle. Here is the research that shows you what to do instead.

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Workout Routines – The Dogma

I’ve succumbed to this dogma about muscle building exercises because it is what I’ve been told, since forever,by coaches, trainers, fitness experts, physical therapists, and all manner of specialists. It was drummed into me. I still see it being drummed into clients in my local gym, by trainers who should know better. It goes like this…

To build bigger, stronger muscles most efficiently, you must:

• Workout each muscle group three times per week
• At each session, do 3-4 sets of 10-12 reps
• Use weights that take you to muscle failure by the end of each set

Guess what … each and every bit of advice in this list is WRONG!

I will cite research supporting this claim, addressing each point one at a time, in this and future posts. Suffice it for now to say that you don’t need to workout three times per week. In fact, that is too destructive. You don’t need to do 3-4 sets of any predetermined number of reps. And you don’t need to select one weight for any set.

The bit of dogma that I want to address in this post is the one about the number of sets. If you are still getting (or giving) advice about doing multiple sets, then you are at least 15 years out of date. Your approach has been obsolete for that long!

Example Research

Here are a couple of abstracts from studies that were published in professional journals in 1997 and 1998 (that means the research was done 2-3 years before that).

Study 1

Study 2

My Comments

I’ve highlighted the main points in blue for take-home lessons from these articles.

Study 1 is an example of experimental research, where the rubber meets the road, so to speak. There are many studies like this one, with the same results. Indeed, Study 2 is a comparison of multiple studies, what we call a review of the literature. The authors of this article found that, in 45 out of 47 studies surveyed, performing multiple sets brought absolutely no additional benefits when compared with single-set workout routines. The other two studies showed marginal benefit for doing multiple sets.

Pretty interesting, isn’t it? Now, quit wasting your time in the gym and inject some efficiency into your muscle building workouts – with one set per session!

Blowing up workout routines dogma,

Dr. D
(FitScientist)

How much glucose (sugar) do you have in your muscle building supplements cocktail? You may not have enough. If your formula includes the best supplement of all – HMB – then here is some odd research that you might want to know about.

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Glucose

Glucose is ordinary blood sugar. In the diet it comes from the breakdown of starch (a glucose polymer) and of table sugar (a disaccharide of glucose and fructose) and other disaccharides (e.g., maltose, lactose). Because it is standard blood sugar, muscle and other tissues have receptors for it, co-transporters that help get it into cells, and special enzymes for breaking it down throughout the body to harvest metabolic energy from it.

One of its actions seems to involve an interaction with L-leucine and probably other BCAAs for getting fuel into muscle tissue. It seems logical that HMB (beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate), which a metabolite of L-leucine and is the best of the muscle building supplements on the market, also has a potential role in fueling muscle cells.

With that brief background, you may understand why the recent research study that I cite below was directed at finding out more about the potentially interdependent roles of HMB and glucose in a combined supplement formula. Before I get started on that research, though, I recommend that you review my post on HMB formulas that can be boosted with creatine and L-arginine, here: Mix Your Own Bodybuilding Supplements Formula.

Note that the formula I describe there is based on solid research, and it also involves a boosting effect from glucose.

Odd Research

You may not realize how expensive it is to conduct a research study involving human subjects. Well, it is very expensive. That is why two consistent flaws characterize most human studies: 1) too few subjects; and, 2) they do not do dose-dependent evaluations (i.e., how much of what causes what … I hope that is at least a little clear). They use a small group of people and one dosage level of the treatment variable.

This is exactly what the following study did. I have highlighted, in bold blue italics, where the key details are regarding dosage. You are, of course, welcome to read the entire abstract from this journal article if you wish. That is why I duplicate it here:

75 Grams of Glucose!

That is a lot of glucose. If I weigh out a heaping teaspoon of glucose powder in my kitchen, it comes to 7.8 grams. Picture this: 75 grams is more than 9.5 teaspoons.

Furthermore, the ratio of glucose to HMB is 25:1. That is a lot of glucose.

You can see the results regarding the peak amount of HMB with and without glucose, and the time it remains in plasma (expressed as its half-life). This is all good.

It is just too much glucose. (Compare the amount here, 75 grams, with the amount of sugar in a 12 oz can of Coca Cola, which is about 45 grams – wow!)

I guess I have made myself clear about how astounded I am about the huge amount of glucose used in Study 2. Without dose-dependent evaluation, we have no idea whether that amount is necessary to elicit the reported results. It may be overkill and it may not.

I tend to think it is overkill, though. That is partly because similar studies using creatine, which also influences and is influenced by glucose when taken orally, show a beneficial ratio of about 5:1 (glucose to creatine). That is what I talk about and refer to in the post linked above (Mix Your Own Bodybuilding Supplements Formula and other links therein).

Ah, the oddities of scientific research!

Updating weird muscle building supplements,

Dr. D
(FitScientist)

Bodybuilding supplements are often too complicated and expensive to be cost-effective. Scientific research shows clinical dosages of the best three ingredients. It is a simple matter of mixing them into your own formula.
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Top Ingredients for Bodybuilding Supplements

Here is the list of the most important ingredients that I have discovered from digging into the published medical research literature at the National Institutes of Health (PubMed):

L-Arginine

This is the classic amino acid that bodybuilders start with for amino acid stacking. Its effects are primarily to induce the release of growth hormone (hGH), thereby enhancing strength and recovery from muscle building exercises. By itself, L-arginine offers benefits in doses from 2 to 10 grams daily. The drawback is that at higher dosages it tends to have a laxative effect.

These two posts provide more detail on this ingredient.

L-Arginine Boosts HGH Growth Hormone Naturally If You Use It Right

Boost Muscle Building Exercises With HGH Supplements

The dose-response curve for L-arginine appears to be age-related. Higher doses are required for older adults. The limit is unknown. However, regardless of dosage, the benefits of L-arginine as a stand-alone supplement for boosting hGH levels apparently do not accrue beyond a certain age. This discovery, of course, came as a big disappointment for me, which I posted on here:

When Arginine Fails As A Growth Hormone Releaser

The good news for me and other ‘mature’ fitness nuts is that L-arginine can still be beneficial when combined with creatine and HMB (see below).

Creatine

Creatine is the classic ingredient for bodybuilding supplements because it goes directly into muscle tissue and serves as a source of phosphate for boosting ATP levels (i.e., the primary energy molecule in all cells). Research shows that the benefits of creatine supplementation can be hastened with a 5-6 day loading phase of 20 grams per day, followed by 3-5 grams per day thereafter. The loading phase is not necessary, though.

Further explanation on the dosages and the research on creatine were the subject of an earlier post here:

How To Improve Muscle Building Exercises With Creatine

The missing ingredient regarding the use of creatine is often absent from commercial products. This ingredient is ordinary glucose (dextrose), which stimulates the anabolic effects of insulin, thereby driving the uptake of creatine into muscle cells. Research shows that adding glucose to the creatine formula, in a ratio of 5 grams of glucose to every gram of creatine, can lead to a 60 percent increase in phosphocreatine levels in muscle.

I presented summaries of the basic research on the boosting effects of glucose with creatine here:

Boosting Creatine For Better Muscle Building Exercises

The challenge for me was finding purified glucose. It is not available as a supplement, and no other carbohydrate is as good as glucose for boosting creatine. I finally got the bright idea to look for it at a local brewing supply store, where I found it to be only 7 dollars for five pounds. No supplements are that cheap!

HMB

HMB (beta-hydroxy-beta-methylglutarate – quite a mouthful, huh?) is the relative new kid on the block. However, it seems to provide the best overall benefits for increasing lean body mass. In a review of published research on several of the top bodybuilding supplements, HMB was the best, followed by creatine. No other supplement had statistically significant effects over placebo.

This is fascinating research, which I encourage you to at least take a look at in this post:

Research Shows Top Two Bodybuilding Supplements

BONUS! Finding out about HMB turned out to be very exciting for me. That’s because, not only does HMB have an excellent track record in the research literature, its benefits are also independent of age. Indeed, supplementing with HMB and a short amino acid stack of L-arginine and L-lysine has significant positive effects on strength, fat free mass, and protein synthesis in elderly women, even in the absence of exercise.

Hey…if this formula works that well in elderly women who don’t even work out, then it will be at least that good for me. Probably better. In case you are curious about the research on this formula, I’ve posted a summary of it here:

Muscle Building Supplements For Senior Fitness

An Example Formula

Taking all the research into consideration, I decided that the most effective dosages for me are the following:

Twice per day, preferably on an empty stomach. Ideal times are an hour before a workout, an hour before a meal, or at bedtime.

3 capsules of HMB Plus by Pure Encapsulations
(1500 mg calcium-HMB, 500 mg Kre-Alkyn creatine, 50 mg alpha lipoic acid)

1/2 scoop of Creatine Monohydrate powder (i.e., 2 grams)

5 capsules of Growth Hormone Support by Pure Encapsulations
(2500 mg L-arginine-HCl, 1250 mg ornithine alpha-ketoglutarate [OKG])

1 gram of L-lysine-HCl*

1-2 tsp. glucose powder (5-10 grams)
(Get it super inexpensively at any brewmaker’s supply store)

*I take extra lysine because in the past an imbalance in my arginine/lysine ratio has led to an outbreak of shingles. Not fun. That’s another story.

I like the addition of OKG in Growth Hormone Support, because it further boosts the effectiveness that I expect from L-arginine. Here is a little explanation of why:

Boost Human Growth Hormone With Ornithine And OKG

All of these ingredients are commonly available in nutrition stores, with the exception of glucose that I mentioned above. You can get powders of pure L-arginine-HCl and pure creatine monohydrate inexpensively. I prefer Pure Encapsulations products because I can get them easily, although these are made for health practitioners and are not routinely available in nutrition stores.

The rub regarding expense is HMB. It is a patented and licensed ingredient in a handful of products. The supply is controlled to keep the prices up, so I know of no inexpensive source. You can probably find calcium HMB at around $55 for 180 capsules. The product that I use, HMB Plus by Pure Encapsulations, currently retails for $63.80. This company controls their prices online, so you should not be able to get discounted HMB Plus at the usual online discount stores.

Where to Get HMB

The manufacturers that make HMB formulas offer various mixtures, some including creatine and other ingredients to boost results. The best online supplier with a wide variety of products, routinely offering the best prices and even coupons, is SupplementsToGo.com. For your convenience, I have listed links to all of their HMB products, along with a link to HMB Plus, at this page: Top Bodybuilding Supplements.

Enjoying my own bodybuilding supplements formula,

FitScientist
(Dennis)

Sprint interval training may have its limits. Maybe I shouldn’t have gone into my finishing kick at the halfway point of the Lost Dutchman Half-Marathon. Had no gas left in the tank at mile 9, with 4 miles to go.

I found out what my endurance limit was, based on several months of sprint interval training — i.e., running 10 sprint intervals once a week. The wall hit me at mile 9. Hard. I finished the race anyway, more or less shuffling for the final 4 miles, questioning my sanity all the way to the end.

Goals Met

1. Finish the race. Check
2. Don’t finish last. Check
3. Finish ahead of runners pushing baby strollers. Check (didn’t see any)
4. Find endurance limits of sprint interval training. Check – and how!

Goal Not Met

1. Finish better than 2:45. No check – approx. time was 3:03

Thanks to my friends at Susavion Biosciences for supplying the T-shirt for this race!

The Next Experiment

So far what I know is that I can train exclusively using a barefoot running style and sprint interval training for endurance. Earlier this running season I had discovered that this combination served me well for a 10k race (see: Woo-Hoo! New PR at the Phoenix 10K!.

I was curious to see how far my endurance might extent beyond a 10k, so I got the wild idea to simply double the distance — i.e., do a half marathon. My friend Karl Schnell at Longevity Personal Training in Phoenix has often told me about how cool the Lost Dutchman race is, and he was right. Sunday (Feb. 19) was a beautiful day for running, and the scenery heading into and back from the Superstition Mountains was spectacular.

Well, now I know my limits.

The questions I now have are about what variables of my training I can change, to see what is possible for building more endurance. The Big 3 variables are always: 1) frequency; 2) intensity; and, 3) duration. I’d add my fourth: 4) style. The style — barefoot running — is solid, so I won’t change that. I don’t yet know how I will change the other variables. One thing is for sure: I’m still not willing to revert back to the old days of long-torture training runs.

Maybe my body has reached its limit. Who knows? Before I give up, I’ll have to dig into Tim Ferriss’ book, The 4-Hour Body, and reread what he says about burst training for endurance. I know there are some brave souls who train this way for iron-man triathlons. I just have to find out what they do and see what it takes to duplicate it.

This is fun!

Sprint interval training updates,

FitScientist
(Dennis)

Muscle building supplements are often useless for senior fitness. Research is either absent or shows weak results for seniors. One exception is a mixture of three commonly available supplements.
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Good Muscle Building Supplements Hard to Find for Senior Fitness

Muscle mass drops quickly after about age 50. Muscle loss becomes a health concern starting after age 60. Unfortunately, the vast majority of supplements for enhancing lean body mass are directed at younger people. Research studies on their use for seniors is either absent or shows weak results.

Typical examples include growth hormone (hGH) secretagogues, supplements that increase hGH release from the pituituary gland. HGH spikes are very valuable for counteracting muscle loss. The most commonly researched supplement for this purpose is L-arginine. The bad news that I discovered for my age group (mid-60s), though, is that it fails for us seniors (see When Arginine Fails As A Growth Hormone Releaser).

The best that commercial industry has to offer is a product called Ensure Muscle Health. I wouldn’t put that crap in my body on a dare. Just take a look at the ingredients below, followed by my comments. If you are really interested, you can see all of the details about this and other Ensure products here: Ensure.com. Just don’t buy them. There are much better muscle building supplements for senior fitness, which I discovered in the medical research literature and will tell you about later in this post.

Taking a quick look at the Nutrition Facts shows that this is mostly sugar water – the first two ingredients are water and sugar – with a few grams of protein, mostly from casein, the cheapest protein on the market. To be at least a little positive, you get 13 grams of protein to go with your 22 grams of sugar (part of 32 grams of carbohydrate overall).

That is way too much sugar! For comparison, one small, 8 oz bottle provides almost 2.5 times the amount of sugar as a 12 oz can of Coca Cola. Wow!

If anything, the best ingredient in this product for building or retaining muscle mass is hidden in the ingredients list: beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate (aka, HMB). You know what that is, right? Right…it’s a common supplement that everyone knows about – NOT. This is actually a fantastic ingredient for muscle building supplements, especially for senior fitness, which I have written about in an earlier post here: HMB Best Of Muscle Building Supplements For Senior Fitness.

The good news about HMB is twofold: 1) It is available in products other than Ensure Muscle Health; and, 2) It can be combined with two common amino acids, in reasonable doses, that have been shown to provide significant benefits in as few as 12 weeks. And it works in some the weakest seniors in our ‘mature’ population: elderly women. Take a look at the research on this below…it is phenomenal.

Great News for Senior Men and Women

My view is that, if something works well in elderly women, even in the absence of an exercise program, then it certainly will help me. Here are the details – i.e., the full reference citation and the published abstract from a study that blew me away (in a positive sense).

The nice thing about research studies like this is that, even if the scientific jargon is a little complicated, the conclusions are very clear. Let me also point out that the daily dosages used in this study correspond to reasonable amounts of these supplements: 2 grams of HMB, 5 grams of arginine, and 1.5 grams of lysine. In fact, supplements are now widely available that provide the right amount of HMB, and supplements have been widely available for a long time that provide the right amounts of arginine and lysine.

It may seem as though the benefits are a little understated here. As a career-long research scientist, I will just say that I’m not really into marketing hype. I think the research speaks for itself. A more telling comment is this: I am sufficiently impressed by this study that I have added these ingredients to my own daily supplement regimen. I recommend them for everyone, especially for us ‘mature’ folks who want (and expect) to stay fit for many years to come.

Updating muscle building supplements for senior fitness,

(Mature) FitScientist
(Dennis)

Bodybuilding supplements are rarely known to provide additive benefits. Creatine and HMB are an exception. Here is what research shows.
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Creatine and HMB as Bodybuilding Supplements

Research reviews of studies on bodybuilding supplements show that the top two are creatine and HMB (beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate). (See this earlier post: Research Shows Top Two Bodybuilding Supplements.) Wouldn’t it be nice to know whether these two could provide additive results in combination with one another? This is exactly the question of interest in the study by HMB research pioneer, Prof. Steve Nissen at Iowa State University, and his colleagues at the Academy of Physical Education in Warsaw, Poland.

These scientists also set up their experimental design to determine whether creatine and HMB interact with each other. The purpose for this aspect of the study was to find out whether these two supplements might have the same or different mechanisms of action.

Aha! – Additive Results!

As you can see from the results and conclusions below, creatine and HMB do, indeed, have an additive effect on gains in lean body mass and in strength from resistance exercise. Furthermore, even if you don’t understand the statistics (what fun they are!), note that the authors found a lack of interaction between creatine and HMB, suggesting that they act by different mechanisms of action.

Here are the citation data and the published abstract of this study:

My Comments

Scientists rarely examine the potential interactions between supplements, so this study represents a bonus. I am pleased to know that my two favorite bodybuilding supplements at least have the potential to boost my results when taken together. The only concern that I have about the experimental design is the very high levels of creatine used in the study: 20 grams per day for the first 10 days, followed by 10 grams per day for the next 14 days.

According to prior research on creatine supplementation (see: How To Improve Muscle Building Exercises With Creatine, dosages should entail a loading phase of 20 grams per day for 5-6 days, followed by long-term maintenance with 3-4 grams per day.

I would also like to know whether boosting creatine by adding glucose to the creatine-HMB combination would further enhance their results together. Earlier research shows the addition of glucose to drive the uptake of creatine into muscle cells (see: Boosting Creatine For Better Muscle Building Exercises).

It is no surprise that the authors suggest a different mechanism of action between creatine and HMB. HMB has a muscle-sparing effect, although its mechanism is still unclear. And creatine mostly drives the hydration of muscle cells and enhances the availability of phosphate for ATP synthesis — i.e., for faster synthesis of this core molecule of cellular energy.

Further updates of research on bodybuilding supplements,

FitScientist
(Dennis)

]]> http://personalfitnessresearch.com/bodybuilding-supplements-boost-with-creatine-plus-hmb/feed/ 1 http://personalfitnessresearch.com/research-shows-top-two-bodybuilding-supplements/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://personalfitnessresearch.com/research-shows-top-two-bodybuilding-supplements/#comments Wed, 15 Feb 2012 19:24:50 +0000 FitScientist http://personalfitnessresearch.com/?p=4452

How can you know which of the thousands of bodybuilding supplements are the best? Scientific research suggests an answer. These are the top two so far.
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Bodybuilding Supplements Research

The vast majority of bodybuilding supplements either have no research behind them at all or have weak evidence to support them. Selecting supplements for review, based the scientific literature, therefore narrows the possibilities considerably. There only a few that stand out. Among the more than 250 candidates, only 6 fit the criteria of the published review whose abstract is presented below. These are: creatine, HMB (beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate), chromium, DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), androstenedione, and protein.

As you can see below, two supplements came out as clear winners:

Don’t you just love statistics? If you, like me, would rather see a graph of what all that mumbo jumbo really means, here is the summary of the key comparisons in Figure 2 from that review study. I have added blue arrows to highlight where the statistically significant results are in the graph.

Note that the “meta-analysis” here is a popular approach for comparing multiple studies at one time. Statisticians pull their hair out and cringe about whether this kind of comparison is statistically valid. That is an open question subject to unending argument. Nevertheless, meta-analyses are here to stay, and this one shows the comparative benefits of HMB and creatine over four other well-studied bodybuilding supplements.

Recommendations

If you have to be selective in choosing bodybuilding supplements, for cost or other reasons, HMB and creatine seem to be the best two to start with. These are what I use, since I already knew about the primary research showing how good they are. You can see what I’ve discovered about research on HMB and on creatine in these two posts:

Bodybuilding Supplements – HMB For More Muscle

Boosting Creatine For Better Muscle Building Exercises

I also still use protein supplements and DHEA, for other reasons, so I recommend that you stick with them like I do if you wish.

Updating bodybuilding supplements research,

FitScientist
(Dennis)

]]> http://personalfitnessresearch.com/research-shows-top-two-bodybuilding-supplements/feed/ 0 http://personalfitnessresearch.com/hmb-best-of-muscle-building-supplements-for-senior-fitness/#utm_source=feed&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=feed http://personalfitnessresearch.com/hmb-best-of-muscle-building-supplements-for-senior-fitness/#comments Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:39:16 +0000 FitScientist http://personalfitnessresearch.com/?p=4429

Muscle building supplements often fail to work as well in older adults as they do in 20-somethings. HMB is the exception for senior fitness, and good scientific research provides the evidence for it.

Muscle Building Supplements for Seniors

Very few muscle building supplements are developed with seniors in mind. Bodybuilding sites focus on the young and overly muscled. Experts also promote supplements as if they are effective regardless of age. The often ignored issue of age-related limitations on supplements hit home for me when I did some research on amino acid stacking as it relates to boosting growth hormone levels: When Arginine Fails As A Growth Hormone Releaser.

This trend also seems to be the case with the increasingly popular use of branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) as muscle building supplements. However, a key metabolite of leucine, which is one of the BCAAs, is turning out to be an exception. This metabolite, beta-hydroxy-beta-methylbutyrate (HMB) does, indeed, have a comparable effect for building muscle mass in older vs. younger adults.

Key Research on HMB

The seminal research on HMB in human studies was a topic in an earlier post here: Bodybuilding Supplements – HMB For More Muscle. The following study was published subsequent to that research, addressing the effects of this supplement in 70-year old adults. Here are the reference details and published abstract of this study:

Summary of Main Results

This is what the graph looks like that summarizes the main results of this study. Note that the asterisk above the HMB-treated group indicates a statistically significant difference between it and the placebo group. Moreover, as expected, the HMB-treated group shows an upward trend in percent Fat Free Mass over time.

However, it is somewhat curious to see that the placebo group trended downward from Week 4 to Week 8 – i.e., actually lost Fat Free Mass. I would be very interested to see whether this trend might have continued and, if so, whether it became statistically significant (no such comparison was made in the study) over time. Wouldn’t it be tremendously disappointing to know that, as you age, exercise leads to loss of Fat Free Mass?

Key Age Comparison for Senior Fitness

The authors of this study provided a comparison that is often missing in published studies. It is one thing to say that results have been comparable across several studies. This graph, however, shows what this means visually.

All of the studies in this comparison showed a net weekly increase in percent Fat Free Mass with HMB supplements. The current study shows that 70-year olds might even expect a little bit better than average increase in comparison with the 20-somethings.

That, dear readers, is a rarity regarding aging. And quite a pleasant one for me as I approach that milestone in the next few years.

Updating muscle building supplements for seniors,

FitScientist
(Dennis)

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Bodybuilding supplements are rarely as well-supported by real scientific research as HMB. It might be the most important all-natural muscle building ingredient that you can take. Here is why.
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Bodybuilding Supplements Research

All the hullaballoo about supplementing with BCAAs (branched chain amino acids) can trace its roots to a seemingly insignificant metabolite of the amino acid leucine. Leucine, which is one of the three BCAAs in all proteins, changes in the body to a substance called HMB (beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyric acid). Just a little preliminary research on HMB in Wikipedia gives a small hint of how this substance might help in muscle building, as a supplement to what we normally make or get in our diet on a daily basis. The Wikipedia entry on HMB is:

HMB – The Science

Prof. Steven L. Nissen, in the Dept. of Animal Science at Iowa State University, got the ball rolling with his discovery of HMB and how it works, first in lab animals and then in humans. His signature publication, referred to in the Wikipedia article on HMB above, is summarized in this abstract:

Fortunately, the Journal of Applied Physiology has made this entire article available for free to the public, which allowed me to take a look at the key graph that pinpoints the main conclusion of the article. You can read the entire article yourself if you wish, at this link: Nissen article in Journal of Applied Physiology. Here is the graph that speaks a thousand words.

The original work by the Nissen group was followed up with this study four years later, which validated and expanded on the first study. Here is the full abstract from that article in the journal, Nutrition:

HMB – The Patent

Universities encourage their faculty to develop products that can be patented and exploited for financial gain for the institution. Speaking from personal experience, this is a boon to the faculty. Once the “Technology Transfer” office at a university (i.e., where all the patent attorneys work) deems a discovery to be of enough potential for further development, they do all the work and pay all the fees necessary to secure a patent on that discovery.

This is what happened with Nissen’s discovery for the use of HMB. You might not find it easily at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office online (USPTO.gov), because the title seems a little obtuse: “Method of promoting nitrogen retention in humans”, patent number 5,348,979. However, the application was filed in 1992 and the patent was awarded in 1994:

HMB – The Product

Of course, a patent isn’t worth its salt unless someone is interested in putting money into developing a product. Universities don’t do this. However, the patent assignees (i.e., Iowa State University Foundation and Vanderbilt University) can license out the rights to the patent to companies that want to create a formula to contain the patented product. GNC has done so. Their product, cleverly named ‘HMB Dietary Supplement’ is now on the market.

GNC is not one of my favorite companies, since most of the stuff in their stores is pretty crappy (just my opinion). Nevertheless, when examining the label of their HMB product, I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not adulterated with a lot of unnecessary ingredients. Here is the label that shows you what I mean:

Recommendations

As far as fulfilling the criteria for good bodybuilding supplements – research, patent, clean product – it looks to me that the HMB product at GNC fills the bill nicely. I also love the results of subsequent research on HMB that shows it to be just as effective in 70-year old adults as in younger people.

So much research on bodybuilding supplements is devoted to younger people than me that I almost never know what to expect for my 64-year old body. The new research on older adults is therefore really exciting for me. I will write a separate post on this research, for all my fellow senior fitness buffs very soon. Stay tuned!

My recommendation is to do what I plan to do: Buy the product and see how I can benefit from it myself.

Updating bodybuilding supplements research,

FitScientist
(Dennis)

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