90 days of supplementation with beta-alanine improved the physical fitness of elderly men and women by about 30%
I think the more relevant question is what happens to these people when they go off the beta-alanine? That is, do they lose their gains abruptly and suffer a drawback period? Or do they stay at peak performance, just not getting any better?
The likely answer is that they will suffer a drawback in performance. Given that I, in my early 20s, noticed this effect after just a few weeks of beta-alanine use and had to fight to keep myself from not quitting workouts prematurely due to not being on the beta-alanine anymore, I would say an old person would experience this effect even more. This would probably not be good… and I wouldn’t suggest old people take beta-alanine unless they are already in great shape to begin with.
There are also potential issues with the increased heart rate that beta-alanine can cause in elderly people with diminishing cardiovascular function.
RB, what a way you have of holding people back that need every bit of help they can get.
If they aren’t already in great shape to begin with, screw them! They shouldn’t get something that gives them enough improvement to make exercise practical for them instead of beyond reach.
Why? Because, after all, they might stop using the stuff that helped them, and somehow this would be worse than never having been helped.
And the anti-glycation benefits, of even more important to the elderly than anyone else, if they’re not already in great shape, screw 'em, they don’t need those benefits either.
On your stated concern on the hearts of the elderly taking beta-alanine: Can you provide support for this? I’m unaware of anything substantial in that respect (not counting things such as injecting beta-alanine into rats and observing given effects to prove any point such as you are raising: there are those kinds of things though.)
I notice my heart gets pumping faster more easily when I take beta-alanine. Seems like something elder people might not cope well with, especially if they are out of shape to begin with. Ever hear of a heart attack? Maybe we should just run more experiments at higher doses with more out of shape subjects and see what happens to them? I wouldn’t want to be the one running that study I can tell you that much.
And where do you get that exercising without beta-alanine is beyond reach for these people? Why do they need the supplement? Why not start with something simpler like a protein supplement? Do you really need a designer supplement to get into shape if you are 70 or 80 years old?
Then, is it right to get an old person hooked on beta-alanine so they can have better workouts? Are they supposed to take it until they die? As I stated before, what happens when they go off?
Have you tried it yourself?
Man I’m not trying to be a dick here, just realistic.
[quote]Rusty Barbell wrote:
I notice my heart gets pumping faster more easily when I take beta-alanine.[/quote]
Neither I or anyone else I’ve ever spoken with has reported this.
[quote]Rusty Barbell wrote:
And where do you get that exercising without beta-alanine is beyond reach for these people? Why do they need the supplement? Why not start with something simpler like a protein supplement? Do you really need a designer supplement to get into shape if you are 70 or 80 years old? [/quote]
I believe Bill’s point is that the elderly can/should use everything at their disposal to improve their physical abilities and thus their quality of life.
By the way, I’ve gone through quite a few Beta-7 cycles and have never noticed any negative effects after cycling off. Sure, I gradually lose benefit I gained from it, but that’s expected.
I take my beta alanine before every lifting session. It easily adds three to four reps to every single one of my work sets. The only side effect I notice is some crazy itchyness for about five minutes. I wonder if 400 and 800 meter runners use it? I would think it would help them quite a bit.
[quote]HK24719 wrote:
I believe Bill’s point is that the elderly can/should use everything at their disposal to improve their physical abilities and thus their quality of life.[/quote]
Yes.
It is an all-too-real and very serious problem that at some time sooner or later, many or most of the elderly reach a point where their ability to perform exercise becomes insufficient to do enough exercise to even maintain where they are at. The decline from that point becomes even more severe and soon results in physical decrepitude and hastened death.
Besides this there are the quality of life issues. It’s sad when an elderly lady that lives alone, when getting home from the supermarket, has to make a number of slow, difficult trips from the car to the house because she cannot carry even one lightly loaded bag of groceries anymore, but has to bring in just a very light amount each time. It’s sad when an elderly person can’t go to the second floor of their own home anymore, or can’t go to the basement anymore, not because of some severe injury but because of severely declined strength.
Dr. Darden gave a sad quote on this from the director of some facility for the elderly: “Walking is great exercise for them. It almost maintains their ability to walk.”
If something as simple as a nutritional supplement can enhance their exercise capacity to where now walking CAN maintain their ability to walk, now they can do a little very light weight training to where they can still bring in a light bag of groceries, etc, a good thing?
Oh wait they might become DEPENDENT on that supplement. Better just for them to rot in the first place, than be “dependent” like that!
Considering they did no excercise that’s bloody impressive