Crap on the Web
by: The Ironmag Editorial Staff
Issue 7, 2002 © Iron Magazine Online L.L.C.
To even the most casual bodybuilder the Internet is a great source of information. There are many quality sites which turn out excellent information on training, supplementation, dieting and anabolics. However, with the good, comes the bad. For every great article written by a well versed writer, there are five articles that are so factually incorrect that they are embarrassing to the whole genre of bodybuilding journalism. This column will hopefully help eliminate such "crap" by exposing them for what they are. Each update will feature an article that has no business being online and correct the myths, half-truths and outright misinformation they contain.
Our first entry comes from a new publication. It seems this "magazine" was started last August during our hiatus with the hopes of being another Ironmag. In fact the editor/owner of the site even had the audacity of using the name "IronMagazine" and even "Ironmag" throughout his site (yeah like he thought of that name!). Perhaps he hoped he could cash in on the wealth of information Ironmag.com contains and make a name for himself in the process by luring our readers over to his site. Unfortunately, Ironmagazine.com is a poor imitation of Ironmag, and in fact we're embarrassed that he even chose to use our name for his third-world magazine.
The article we'd like to expose today is located here: http://www.ironmagazine.com/nutrition1.htm
It's basically an article on two of the main three macronutrients. Protein and Carbohydrates. We're not really sure about the purpose of it; perhaps it was meant as a primer for a beginner, or written by a beginner for beginners.
Whoever the pumpkin head is who edited this article and let it go to print as is, should hang their heads in shame! It's terrible; but we'll clear up some things that are completely wrong in this piece.
Let's get started. {To help you out, the writer's (in this case some poor fool named Justin Leonard) words will be in bold, and the truth will be in regular text.}
"A BV is used to measure the amount of nitrogen absorbed by the body. The lowest BV number is 0. The highest is 159."
Biological value is a relative measurement of a protein's nutritional value, and thus of how it can function to maintain and aid in the growth of an individual's body tissues. True nitrogen balance is calculated assuming integumental and miscellaneous losses of 5 mg N/kg/day. The true digestibility of protein is calculated using 12 mg N/kg/day for obligatory fecal losses. Use this formula: BV = [N intake - (Faecal N - MFN) - (Urinary N - EUN)] / N intake - (Faecal N - MFN). So in truth the BV of a protein is given as "the amount of nitrogen retained in the body divided by the amount of nitrogen absorbed from that protein." The amount of nitrogen in the body is not measured by BV.
Of course it's also a physical impossibility to have a BV of 159. This would imply that 1.59 grams of nitrogen were stored for every 1 gram of nitrogen consumed. This is thermodynamically impossible and the body cannot store more nitrogen than was ingested, therefore a BV of 159 is equally impossible. Even the most casual research in writing this article would find this. Some old ads and article may state a BV of 159, but this is due to a research error and not fact. Most companies will not use the BV 159 claim, unless they are as misinformed as this writer is.
"There are 3 families of carbs: the complex, the simple, and the fibrous carb."
Funny how the "fibrous" carb has suddenly become it's own form of carbohydrates. In the real world however, there are five classes of carbohydrates. They are:
Monosaccharides
Disaccharides
Oligosaccharides
Polysaccharides
Nucleotides
In short, the word monosaccharide is derived from mono, meaning "one", and saccharide, meaning "sugar". The common monosaccharides are glucose, fructose, and galactose.
Disaccharides, meaning "two sugars", are commonly found in nature as sucrose, lactose and maltose.
The above two can be summed up as "simple carbohydrates".
Carbohydrates that contain more than two simple sugars are called oligosaccharides or polysaccharides, depending upon the length of the structure. Oligosaccharides usually have between three and ten sugar units while polysaccharides can have more than three thousand units. These are more commonly known as "complex carbohydrates".
The fifth type of carbohydrate is found in nucleotides such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA). Both RNA and DNA are five sided cyclic sugars; however, RNA has one more hydroxyl group than DNA. Glucose-6-phosphate, an intermediate in the breakdown of glucose for energy, can be used for the synthesis of these compounds.
"Complex carbs ideal when taken after a workout because they help to replenish lost energy as a result of exercise."
This is a huge error. Post-workout nutrition is extremely important. One of the "cardinal" rules of bodybuilding is to supply the body with some form of quickly digested carbohydrate and protein immediately after training. It is imperative to recovery, repair and growth that you replenish muscle glycogen as quickly as possible. Only certain types will replenish muscle glycogen quickly, and yes you guessed it, they're simple carbohydrates - preferably monosaccharides like glucose.
"Complex carbs can have an undesired effect on someone wanting to lose weight if they're taken in excess. They can actually cause you to gain weight and produce fat. Be careful not to take this nutrient in excess if you're trying to lose weight!"
When dieting, it's complex carbohydrates that you do want to eat. They are used by the body over a longer period of time and unlike simple sugars do not cause as rapid a rise in blood sugar levels. Managing insulin levels is extremely important when trying to lose fat. For most dieting bodybuilders, complex carbohydrates should be the only source of carbs you eat, except post workout (see above).
"The fibrous carb is needed to breakdown complex carbs and protein."
Somebody should tell this guy that dropping out of school is a bad thing. "Fibrous" carbs are not required to breakdown protein and complex carbohydrates. We'll teach Justin and Ironmagazine.com a new word: Enzyme. Digestive enzymes are enzymes which help break down food substances into forms that can be absorbed and assimilated by the body.
Amylase, also called ptyalin, is an enzyme that aids the breakdown of starches. It is secreted in the saliva and the pancreatic juices. Protease, an enzyme that helps the breakdown of protein, is also secreted by the pancreas. Enzymes that breakdown proteins are known as proteolytic enzymes. Pepsin is an enzyme released in the stomach that also helps with the breakdown of protein.
To further punctuate the false statement above; humans do not breakdown "fibrous carbs" very well at all. Cellulase is the enzyme that breaks down cellulose, the carbohydrate that is the main part of the cell walls of plants (the source of "fibrous carbs"). Cellulose is nondigestible by humans because we do not produce the enzyme cellulase. Anyone who has eaten corn will tell you that.
...
The article pretty much ends there. What a joke. Perhaps a bit of research should have gone into this article before it was published. Small time magazines like Ironmagazine.com however, will publish just about anything to keep their readers coming back, even if it means printing crap like the article above. To have the audacity to name the magazine so closely to Ironmag that people might confuse the two makes matters even worse for a new internet bodybuilder who is unfamiliar with what magazines are trustworthy or not. That website gets worse, but we'll save some other articles for future editions of Crap on the Web!
http://www.ironmag.com/archive/ironmag/2002_ironmag_crap_on_the_web01.htm
