Found this on another forum and thought it was good info. we have had several threads and questions on this lately also!
A Warning about Universal Animal Products
Due to the influx of recent questions regarding Universal Animal products, I thought I would right out a specific thread detailing the problems with their products. I assume a lot of people ask about them, because of how much they are advertised. But since I don't read muscle mags, I wouldn't know. But, I still thought I would address the main points with the problems of these products.
I also want to point out that I don't feel that there is a problem with the quality of the ingredients in the products, just the choice of the ingredients and amounts, or other Universal products (although I haven't looked over their complete line). Since I couldn't find a site with their updated ingredients, I have attatched the ingredients as a graphic to the bottom of each post. You may have to zoom in to read them properly, this should be available in most graphic viewers. If not, you can download Irfan View for free which has a zoom feature.
Animal Pak
Rating: Okay product, fine to use - still cheaper products available
Animal Pak is their multivitamin product. It comes in packets and you take two a day. For the most part, this looks pretty decent. Their new blend looks better to me than their old one. They do have some strange stuff in here though, such as Smilax and Ginseng. They have low dose L-Carnitine, which does no good and low Chromium Picolinate. They also include Colostrum in a dose of 25mg which is absolutely worthless, and an essential fatty acid complex, which is too low of a dose to be sufficient.
Everything else with this product looks okay. I'm not entirely impressed with it, but there would be nothing wrong with taking it.
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10-15-2003 12:00 AM
pogue
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Registered: Aug 2002
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Animal Max
Animal Max
Rating: Okay product, fine to use - still cheaper products available
Animal Max is their protein product. It is kind of on scale with Nitrotech in that its protein, creatine and glutamine and some other stuff all inclusive. It's pretty pricey for the price, and you could easily buy the ingredients separately and mix them together yourself and save money. Their protein is a blend of whey concentrate, casein peptides, egg white, whey isolate and hydrolyzed whey. Not a bad blend if you ask me. Still, probably better stuff available.
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10-15-2003 12:01 AM
pogue
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Posts: 4330
Animal M-Stak
Animal M-Stak
Rating: Worthless product. Don't waste your money
Animal M-Stak is Universal's alternative to their Animal Stak product. They claim this to be a non-hormonal mass builder. The ingredients include 100mg of methoxy, 100mg of ipriflavone and 100mg of ecdysterone as their main ingredients. It should be no new news to most of you that this stuff doesn't work. Even for the die hard methoxy and ecdy lovers out there, you can surely see that there isn't sufficient amounts present to even warrant its use. These are all best used in levels of a gram or more daily, if at all.
The second problem is they also include 250mg of tribulus, 250mg of ALCAR and then 50mg of Carnitine. These are still insignificant amounts to even do anything. Both ALCAR and L-Carnitine are good supplements, tribulus being questionable, but again - still the amounts are much too low to warrant its use.
Listed under anti-aromatese inhibitors (does that mean that it doesn't inhibit aromatise?) is Chrysin and some isoflavone extract. Chrysin has been shown to have no effect on estrogen, and the isoflavones would also be very mild in their estrogen suppressing effects, if they don't induce them themselves. These ingredients are worthless.
Under DHT blockers we finally have some worthwhile stuff. Saw Palmetto extract at 200mg, Beta-Sitosterol at 250mg and Pygeum extract at 50mg. While these aren't technically "DHT Blockers" they work great if you have pre existing prostate issues. If you don't, then you don't need to use them.
Under Insulin Potentiators we have ALA at 10mg and Chromium at 100mcg. Again, much too low to have any effects at all.
Listed under Metabolic Energy Complex we have guarana at 500mg, synephrine at 4% extract, and cordyceps. I believe they throw this in to give you the "feeling" that its actually doing something. Otherwise, why would it warrant having caffeine and synephrine in a product that is supposed to help build muscle?
Finally, under liver detoxifiying we have lecithin at 50mg and milk thistle SEED at 75mg. Milk thistle should be standardized for silymarin, not from the seed, so thats worthless. I have no data on lecithin, but I betcha that 50mg isn't enough.
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10-15-2003 12:02 AM
pogue
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Animal Stak
Animal Stak
Rating: Dangerous product for anyone to use. Stay away from this
Animal Stak. This has to be one of the worst products of all time. This is years behind in development and should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about supplements. I will go over in detail the problems with this and why no one should take it.
Starting first, under Prohormone Complex, we have andro at 100mg, nor-5-andro at 50mg, something they call 5-androxydiol at 50mg, and DHEA at 50mg. Universal really screwed up here. They took out the only two good diol hormones in there and replaced them with worthless diones, including 5AD, and DHEA. This is gyno in a pill. Nor-5-andro has been shown in studies to be an estrogen agonist, along with 5AD. Do not use this product without Nolvadex, ever. In fact, don't use it at all.
Under LH Boosters we have the same thing as M-Stak, which is tribulus and carnitine. Again, too little if it has any effects at all.
Under "Growth Hormone Secretagogues" we have arginine at 2.5g, Ornithine at 1.3g, Taurine at 750mg and Colostrum at 250mg. First off, studies have shown that these amino acids together have no effect on growth hormone release. In fact, they can blunt in. Further, even if it was effective at releasing growth hormone, it would be best taken before bed. Growth hormone has shown to have no effect on increased muscle mass, and has a half life of about 15 minutes. Again, worthless ingredients in large amounts as tablet filler.
We also have the same "Anti-Aromatise Inhibitors" and DHT blockers in the same amounts as in M-Stak. Why it would be in M-stak is beyond me, since it wouldn't have an effect on hormone levels. In here, it makes since, even though its very ineffective.
We also have similar ingredients listed under Thermogenic blend, except here with have 50mg of standardized forskolin.
The same Liver Detoxification ingredients are here as in M-Stak.
This is one bad product. There is no way in hell anyone should ever use this product under any circumstances.
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10-15-2003 12:03 AM
pogue
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Animal Test
Animal Test
Rating: Worthless Product. Don't waste your money
This is basically Universal's new 1-test product. The gimmick looks like to me is that they are trying to make this the "Sustanon" of 1-test products. They have a proprietary blend of 325mg of 1-test THP ether, 1-test undecanote, 1-test base and 1,4andro. There is no point to this except to make beginners think that there is something special about using all 3 1-test hormones together. But, all of this wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that its in a cyclodextrin complex. Now, cyclodextrin's are okay, except for the fact that they want you to swallow this. Secondly, if you were to dissolve it under your tongue, most of it wouldn't get absorbed. First of all, cyclodextrins are supposed to be sublignual. Secondly, the most you can get out of a hormone sublingually at a time is 25mg. So, its worthless. Swallowing it will probably yield some ingredients, but still its pointless in this manner. They also have a few other ingredients with are not worth mentioning, but needless to say - there is no point to this product.
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10-15-2003 12:05 AM
pogue
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Animal Cuts Ephedra Free
Animal Cuts Ephedra Free
Rating: Worthless. Don't waste your money
Animal Cuts Ephedra Free is Universal's fat loss product that I assume they designed after all the ephedra controversy and the fact that no one can afford the insurance to keep an ephedra product on the market. So we have yet another concoction of ingredients that would be favorable probably in higher doses. I checked and found that Universal no longer makes Animal Cuts w/ ephedra
First, under Thermogenic Complex we have a proprietary blend of Synephrine (standardized?) Octopamine, Tyramine, ECGC, L-Theanine and Forskolin. Despite the fact that we hae no idea how much of each is in here, and despite the fact that we have no idea if these ingredients are standardized, it isn't a bad choice. Still, obviously, the ingredients are not high enough to warrant use.
Next, we have a Lipotropic complex which is 75mg of a few things too low in dose and not worth mentioning, followed by a whooping 900mg of Gaurana and L-Carnitine. I bet that theres more caffeine than L-Carnitine.
Following next in our list we have a Diuretic Complex of Dandelion extract and Uva Ursi coming in at 750mg. These will probably wash the water out of you, and I expect that and a caffeine buzz will be all you get from this product.
Next, we have a Thyroid Complex of Guggul and Soy isoflavones at 175mg. Worthless. Again, too little.
Finally we have Insulin Potentiators ALA, and two kinds of Chromium at 100mg. Still too little of either to have any significant impact on insulin or fat loss. Nucleotide Regulators is the last in the list with a couple other things not worth mentioning.
All in all, this is another pretty weak product.
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