Supplements. What are they? Who takes them? Why do they take them? What do they take them with? Who were the druids, and what were they doing?

Okay, sorry, just love that moment in Spinal Tap...the pause before "What they were doing" is brilliant, Chris, brilliant!

Interesting theme in the meeediar lately on the topic of supples. First, this one from the NY Times...

Some athletes avoid such stimulants. Stacey Zimmerman, 25, an advertising account executive and avid runner in New York, consumes protein bars, electrolyte replacement gels but avoids products with creatine and nitric oxide. "I don’t like the idea of taking things when I don’t know how they will affect my body," she said...

On the other side of this issue is Michael Deutsch, a 23-year-old accounting associate from Bethesda , Md., who begins his morning by taking N.O.-Xplode for a pre-workout pump-up. "It definitely gives me energy," he said. "It is mentally addictive, kind of like caffeine." (Which it is.)

Mr. Deutsch then goes to the gym, lifts weights, drinks a whey protein shake, then eats a meal. At the end of his day, he drinks a second whey protein shake. He likes the results he sees in the mirror. Before taking supplements, he said, "it was tough to improve at the rate that I wanted to."

...Before he goes to the gym, he takes a pill called Arimatest meant to raise testosterone levels. "It gives me that edge to push myself harder," he said. Before, during and after his workout, he drinks a branch-chain amino acid powder mixed in water to hasten muscle recovery. And he caps his gym visits with a whey protein shake.

... "I don’t want people to spend their hard-earned money on bogus products," Mr. [Gunnar] Peterson [trainer to the stars!] said.

But he did say there could be a positive placebo effect to taking fitness supplements. "It allows people to hold onto the magic pill dream," he said. "It’s like putting jumper cables on motivation."

Then this one, by Chris Shugart of TMuscle...

Despite the dire warnings against pills and powders by your doctor or run-of-the-mill dietitians, supps can do things that whole foods just can't.

Prime examples include creatine, fish oils, CLA, Vitamin D, and things like resveratrol which you simply can't get enough of from whole foods to have a medicinal or physique-enhancing impact. Even protein powders are now seen by the scientific community as having strategic advantages over whole foods.

Compliance plays a big role here too. So while there's lots of advantages to eating tons of organic green vegetables and exotic berries a day, in reality you're probably going to be more compliant just taking your Superfood. It just saves time and money.

But when taken in context, Mother Nature is a wise, wise broad, and she knows more than we do about the magical marriage of phytochemicals and human physiology. So is Dr. Lowery saying to replace your whole foods with supplements? Not at all.

But he is saying that sometimes supplements have clear advantages over whole foods.
The science and research community are catching on, too. That means lagging health practitioners, and even the guvment will catch on in, oh, about 15 to 20 years. Until then, eat your whole foods and take your pills and powders.

To top it off, Lou Schuler sent me an email discussing this issue in which he basically said no one is free of bias here; indeed, virtually every fitness publication out there--TMuscle included--is owned by a supplement company, which wants its slice of the 2.7 billion-a-year industry. Many such publications consult smart people, but even they seem to know where their bread is buttered, and typically tip their hats to the house labels whenever they get the chance. I can't blame 'em, I'm just sayin.'

Since no one pays me zip to say nice things about them--leastwise not in this space--I will come right out and say that very few supplements seem worth the time and money. I have a great deal of respect for Alan Aragon, who is a research hound and, as far as I can tell, in bed with no one on this matter, and, much to the chagrin of the supplement industry, he typically says things  like "Fish twice a week will cover all the Omega-3's you need." This to an industry which recommends around a dozen fish-oil pills a day.

I personally think things are pretty out of hand when there's a GNC on every block practically, and the place is floor-to-ceiling with stuff that's pretty much been proven to be useless. Can I get a caveat emptor, anyone? Unlike virtually every other industry on earth, the supplement industry is under no obligation to substantiate any claims they make on their products. Call it "The Snake Oil Clause."

Drink your green tea, eat fish and vegetables, and--if you must--get a good whey protein powder and, if you really must, some high-quality creatine. And then run, don't walk, to the nearest exit.