Muscle-building supplements with creatine flunk tests

Muscle-building supplements, a staple of the sports nutrition industry, are common choices of athletes and those in high-intensity sports. But recent tests from an independent laboratory show some of them as, in essence, 98 lb. weaklings: ineffective because they contain minuscule or incorrect amounts of muscle-enhancing ingredients.

ConsumerLab.com, a provider of information and evaluations of products that affect health and nutrition, tested 13 popular supplements and found quality problems with three, a nearly 1 in 4 ratio.

One supplement, the liquid DiMaxx Muscle Creatine Plus, was contaminated with 32 mg of creatinine, a by-product formed when creatine is absorbed and metabolized in the body. The creatinine initially present in the bottle amounted to 7% of the amount of actual creatine, many times higher than the 0.1% ConsumerLab recommends.

The other supplement with inadequate levels of creatine, Muscle Marketing USA's ATP Creatine Serum, claimed to contain 250mg of a proprietary creatine phosphate serum complex per 5ml serving. But it did not disclose the actual amount of creatine. Testing found a mere 20.7 mg of creatine in the product, also sold in liquid form, or less than 10% of the amount of the complex.