Dangerous supplements

In  misguided attempts to quickly get bulky muscles, a large section of India's urban youth is falling prey to the lure of dangerous supplements like “Creatine”.

Here's what you need to know about the potential risks and life-threatening side effects associated with the unregulated consumption of supplements like Creatine. Creatine supplement abuse is rampant in the fitness world. Enthusiasts often take them without considering the health ramifications or consulting trusted medical professionals. Relevant scientific studies warn of the harmful effects of creatine monohydrate on the kidneys of healthy youth, who consume large amounts of such supplements to create well-defined muscles (in tandem with physical workouts like weight lifting in Gymnasiums). The doctors get baffled to see otherwise healthy, young males hospitalised for an avoidable emergency, brought about by unregulated creatine use without medical expert’s supervision & monitoring.

 I consider the hoax of bodybuilding very similar to the illusion that happens with most pro sports. The sales of gear, supplements, training methods, etc. aimed at giving you the possibility (with enough work of course) that you could reach the pro level. It takes advantage of a culture that is obsessed with merit and hard work and spreads the false notion that with enough effort, you can get there. Moreover, that extreme effort was what got the pros where they are.

I won’t discount the amount of hard work that is required for a gifted athlete to break into that level, but the billion dollar industries out there are operating on the premise that all it takes is heart, work, and the right products.

The fact of the matter is that genetics is a limiting factor, and likely the biggest factor in what allows people to excel at these levels, and it is a fucking biological lottery.

The genetics possessed by professional bodybuilders represent a minute portion of the population. They will sell you protein, and other powders, and myriad pills all while telling you to bust your ass, the premise for your purchase being getting “big like such and such guy”.

For 99.99% of us, we will never achieve those results. Not with twice the amount of work, or twice the amount of protein intake. The use of steroids makes the whole charade even worse, because it compounds the dishonesty. We could take twice the amount of steroids as these guys do on top of everything else, and we still wouldn’t achieve the same results.

Everything that we do (exercise, diet, supplementation, and steroid use) is all acting on a given genetic framework activated by cell signalling. There is a limit. A personal optimum that we can achieve, but this reality is mangled by the industry to keep you purchasing the next miracle product.

Working out like Michael Phelps won’t ever make you look or swim like him. Buying Jordan’s won’t improve how you play basketball. Eating and supplementing like Jay Cutler won’t ever make you look like Cutler. Just like buying that fine line reducing makeup won’t ever make a 50 year old woman look like Cindy Crawford does at 50.

The game is the same: take an anomaly, an outlier, or genetic freak and use them as an example of what is possible, with the help of whatever it is you are trying to sell. Make money.