Amanda Cerny has a massive following on social media, including YouTube. As a popular model she gets tons of opportunities to review clothes, including workout gear. Here’s a helpful and funny video of Amanda trying on and giving her impressions of workout gear for women from various brands.

Where is the bottled water you’re drinking come from?

Has it been tested for contaminants, and has it been purified?

Has it purified?

The Environmental Working Group (EWG) decided to find the answers to the above basic questions. According to the EWG, nine out of the top ten best-selling brands of bottled water fail to provide answers to all three. Only one of the 173 bottled water products surveyed, Nestlé’s Pure Life Purified Water, discloses this information right on the label, and provides information for requesting a water quality test report. 18 percent of bottled waters do not tell you where their water comes from, and 32 percent do not disclose anything about the treatment or the purity of the water.

In all, only three bottled water products received a good rating for transparency from the EWG:
*Nestlé’s Pure Life Purified Water
*Gerber Pure Purified Water
*Penta Ultra-Purified Water

Why are these companies so secretive about the water their selling? Could it be the ridiculous price they charge for what many brands of bottled water amount to, tap water?

To see the full report go HERE.

HMB has been widely publicized and has been one of the more popular supplements for over a decade. HMB is a metabolite of the branch chained amino acid leucine. With claims like increased strength, muscle size, recovery and fat oxidation, it sounds too good to be true. In fact, a publisher of a very successful magazine referred to using HMB akin to using the anabolic steroid deca durabolin. Unfortunately, the claims made about HMB don’t seem to hold up in the research.

A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning, performed a met-analysis of 9 studies. The analysis was comprised of 394 subjects between the ages of 21 and 25. Some of the subjects had training experience and some didn’t.

The major findings of this meta-analysis are that HMB supplementation results in a small, beneficial increase to overall strength in untrained lifters but has a negligible effect on trained lifters. Furthermore, in untrained lifters, HMB results in a small to possibly moderate increase in lower-body strength, but it has only a negligible effect on upper-body strength. In contrast, all strength outcomes are insignificant in trained lifters. In both trained and untrained lifters, the effect of HMB supplementation on body composition is negligible.

In my view HMB is a waste of money. The only gains made were small strength gains in untrained individuals? Why would any researchers analyzing a supplement, looking for strength or lean body mass gains, use untrained individuals? They are going to make gains, especially in the first few months, just by working out. I’m amazed at how so many studies are poorly performed and yet, are still published.

Pharmaceuticals used to treat male pattern baldness (MPB) like Proscar (finasteride), work by decreasing serum levels dihydrotestosterone (DHT). DHT has been called the most potent of all androgens (male sex hormones), and is the major factor in MPB.

The current theory is that DHT binds to the hair follicle and prevents ribonucleic acid (RNA) from functioning. RNA is responsible for protein synthesis. In a nut shell, if the RNA doesn’t function, the follicle cannot create protein and stunts hair growth. Decreasing DHT levels will prevent baldness, but is it worth the side effects?

A Study reported in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, conducted standardized interviews with 71 healthy men taking finasteride to prevent baldness. 94% of the participants developed low libido, 92% developed erectile dysfunction, 92% developed decreased arousal, and 69% developed problems with orgasm. So, if you’re willing to give up your sex life to have a full head of hair, go ahead and take Proscar.

Have you ever heard of glutathione (pronounced; gloota-thigh-own)? Neither has almost anyone else. Many researchers say it’s probably the most important substance we require to stay healthy. Many go as far to say it’s the secret to prevent aging. So where’s Oprah, and the rest of the media? A quick search of the term “glutathione” on PubMed.gov reveals 94,117 scholarly articles, reviews and abstracts.

Present in every cell of our body, glutathione levels just might be one of the best biochemical markers there is; the higher your glutathione levels are the healthier you will be. Glutathione deficiency is found in almost all patients with extreme illnesses, e.g., cancer, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, liver disease, diabetes and more. In fact, researchers are concluding glutathione deficiency may play a role in patients with schizophrenia. In cerebrospinal fluid of drug-free schizophrenic patients, a significant decrease in the level of total glutathione was observed as compared to controls. EJN

Glutathione’s importance to a properly functioning immune system has been shown in many studies. According to Dr. Gustavo Bounous, “The limiting factor for the proper activity and multiplication of our lymphocytes (white blood cells) is the availability of glutathione”.

Every day our bodies are exposed to stress, pollution, infection, drugs (illicit or licit) and alcohol, poor diet, infections and injury, which drain our bodies of glutathione; this depletion leaves our bodies susceptible to high levels of oxidative stress, which leads to aging, disease and eventual death. I predict that concern about glutathione levels will eventually be on par with other preventative health issues.