[Closed] PSA - Panorama tonight, Do sports products work? 20.00 BBC1

So we have an hours program and the answer is;

I do fear 59 and a half minutes of padding around a relatively simple conclusion.

I'm not sure any programme has ever had so many PSAs. 🙂

I wonder how many STWers hope that the answer is "No".

EDIT: And as usual, some have already made their minds up without even seeing the programme.

I suspect the answer will be

No, well sort of, maybe, sometimes

errm, have you read the article that was linked to?
[i]
concluding: "In this case, the quality of the evidence is poor, the size of the effect is often miniscule and it certainly doesn't apply to the population at large who are buying these products.

"Basically, when you look at the evidence in the general population, it does not say that exercise is improved [or that] performance is improved by carbohydrate drinks."[/i]

and

[i]"The evidence does not stack up and the quality of the evidence does not allow us to say these do improve in performance or recovery and should be used as a product widely."[/i]

and

[i]Puma declined to provide his research team with any studies to prove that their shoes can deliver on those claims.[/i]

It looks like 'probably, no' to me?

Back to pork pies and beer it is then.

errm, have you read the article that was linked to?

No, I'll probably record and watch the programme this evening though.

No need - it's on the BBC News website today. Naturally in the spirit of STW I've not read it.

Prof Lean said the market for supplements is "yet another fashion accessory for exercise… and a rather expensive way of getting a bit of milk."

"In this case, the quality of the evidence is poor, the size of the effect is often miniscule and it certainly doesn't apply to the population at large who are buying these products.

Or put another way

yet another fashion accessory for exercise for the population at large who are buying these products

We all know they sell there proper supplements under the counter and you need something to blame when you get reet quick

I'll probably be sticking with orange juice during ride, chocolate milk for post ride recovery, and beer for post ride re-hydration.

Do sports products work?

What are they defining as "sports products"?
Lucozade, powerbars etc all the way through to whey protein and creatine?

What are they defining as "sports products"?
Lucozade, powerbars etc all the way through to whey protein and creatine?

that and stuff like running shoes too

that and stuff like running shoes too

To be honest I'm doubtful of the benefits of eating running shoes. The have tongues. Boak.

To be honest I've been doubtful of the benefits of eating running shoes too

They'd probably do you as much good as some of the snake oil that gets hyped to hell

[img] [/img]

Just a nice bit of pre-Olympic waffle by the beeb - dumbed down science by second rate academics bitter because they never got a slice of the "sports products" pie.

If people feel that hi-tech shoes/equipment/snacks may improve their performance then most likely they will.
If people find motivation to exercise in buying new trainers, clothing or products with famous athletes endorsements then what's wrong with that. ?

Is that sports products "working"....

.....maybe - just not in the way that many assume they will

Interesting that they've gone after GSK.

Is that sports products "working"....

.....maybe - just not in the way that many assume they will

Indeed, just like power balance bands.
I guess the bottom line is -
If a deception makes people feel better, is that a bad thing?

IanMunro - Member
Indeed, just like power balance bands.
I guess the bottom line is -
If a deception makes people feel better, is that a bad thing?

It's a good question - when does deception become applied psychology ?

Is a deceived person who then starts to improve their lifestyle and becomes healthier and more motivated worse/better of than an enlightened person slobbing out with a bucket of chips in front of the TV/PS3/internet........

...I would put "power bands" further down the scale of rip-off then sports food however 😉

I got as far as PSA... Is this about Peanut Butter Chunky Kit-Kats being available again?

Just a nice bit of pre-Olympic waffle by the beeb

Sums it up pretty well.

..I would put "power bands" further down the scale of rip-off then sports food however

Me too 😀
But yup it's an interesting question as to what's morally acceptable and what isn't.
I look forward to not listening to it on the Moral Maze 😀

Interesting that they've gone after GSK.

Why's that?

I was looking at the vending machine at work the other night, so called "energy drinks" £1.30 to £1.85, milk 60p, no wonder the farmers can't make any money if stupid people are prepared to pay twice the price for flavoured fizzy water. 😯

Won't the conclusion be, yes to and extent, but the same benefits can be obtained very easily and at considerably lower cost than falling for the manufacturers' BS. Start with electrolyte drinks!!!!

I was looking at the vending machine at work the other night, so called "energy drinks" £1.30 to £1.85, milk 60p, no wonder the farmers can't make any money if stupid people are prepared to pay twice the price for flavoured fizzy water.

I'd think it's 'Yes, but only for people who are actually fit. If your fat your [i]waisting[/i] your time'.

Boom, tish !

(but took a couple of seconds to register!)

Why's that?

I think GSK are/is the official laboratories supplier to the limpics innit.

I think it's worth remembering that Alf Tupper, Britain's best runner ever, lived mostly on fish and chips.

[img] [/img]

"Milk has got a lotta bottle, nice cold, ice cold, milk"

Blimey, that dates me. That was in the days before lactate intolerance was invented, sorry, discovered. Funny how all those school kids survived their daily bottles!?!?

Trying to remember where I heard that the best recovery meal was two pints of Guinness and a bag of chips.

Thank you, I'm here all week. Literally.

So the science is all about de-bunking mass-market products. Any programme that covers nutrition products to running shoes is covering too broad an area.

Media knocking copy again. We had the Telegraph looking for stuff on "all the gear no idea" cyclists at work recently. I pointed out that we didn't operate in the field they were examining, I'm hardly likely to bite the hand that feeds me.

I think the Wiggins description is apt about such low-life

It amazes me that anyone over the age of 12 would drink redbull or monster.

"Red bull, it gives you wings." ....and funny coloured vomit.

However using some electrolyte containing drinks to deliver energy and rehydrate is not a bad idea.

perhaps it's more about society wanting something as they have paid money but still can't run like Bolt etc.

Or it's lazy journalism taking a swing at a big corp knowing they are saying just enough for headlines but not enough to get sued

"Red bull, it gives you wings."

But so do Always and they can get you roller skating too!

IIRC Channel 4 did an experiment a few years back where they took a big bunch of atheletes, split them into groups and gave each group their own different supplements - creatine, protein, steroids, caffeine, placebos etc. Big bunch of tests at the start to establish the starting point then tests repeated again after a few weeks on the supplements. I believe the caffeine group showed the biggest improvements, followed by the placebo mob.

From personal experience, which means little, sports drinks don't appear to do anything. In fact I rarely find I can drink while exercising unless it's really hot. I have, however, found that with repeated heavy exercise day on day, a protein drink shortens recovery time a bit so I feel the next day I can do it again rather than having to wait a day. But even then that was only a fairly minimal effect and only when I was pushing myself hard for 2.5 hours a day, every day.

I run nearly everyday, anything from 20 mins if I'm doing intervals to 2 hrs or more on long lazy runs at the weekend, I'll have a bit of flapjack on long runs occasionally, and just started running with a hand held bottle but that's just water.

Did use flat trainers for a bit, but I couldnt get used to them, and I'm back on regular trainers.

I don't like flavoured drinks so Maxim original which is a pure complex carb is the only one I have any experience with. I used to use it when I raced and I think it helped for the longer races and rides, but I see little point these days as I can stop and eat proper food.

Big glass of milk shortly after hard exersise in the "protein window" was reccomended to me by a few trainers to aid recovery. Bung a raw egg and a banana in for a extra salmonella and tasty burps.

I think the isotonic thing is pretty much BS and all an energy drink should be doing is putting carbs into your stomach for your body to process into energy...

I'll not be watching the program as I suspect I'll learn little and end up "shouting at the TV".

dumbed down science by second rate academics bitter because they never got a slice of the "sports products" pie.

Think it's based on these.

[url= http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e4797 ]Forty years of sports performance research and little insight gained[/url]

[url= http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e4848 ]Mythbusting sports and exercise products[/url]

Maybe you should let the BMJ know they're wrong?

White bread roll with peanut butter and honey, that'll keep ya moving.

I do find caffeine gels to be effective though

Terry Wrist - Member
Maybe you should let the BMJ know they're wrong?

BMJ, you mean that journal where medics pretend to be scientists 😆

If the medical profession were as concerend about the validity of the studies that go into the pills they prescribe I'd perhaps be slightly more impressed, 'til then if you ever find a medic recommending something that's not on a 'script be sure to let me know....

It amazes me that anyone over the age of 12 would [s]drink redbull or monster[/s] choose to watch Panorama.

Panorama - programming for those who find the Take-a-Break crossword too intellectually taxing.

It amazes me that anyone over the age of 12 would drink redbull or monster.

"Red bull, it gives you wings." ....and funny coloured vomit.

and superpowers if consumed in large quantities.. but only if mixed with the correct ratio of tequila..

i've gone right off the bbc and its production of "fact" based programs.
the last panaroma i watched was about 'the myths of exercise' (or was it HORIZON?)
after an hour of drivel that could be compressed into a 3min program, it was concluded that actually there is no substitute for exercise and doing these 'revolutionary 3 min 20 second intervals 3 times a week' did not boost fitness, health, vo2 max, lower fat levels, or mean you could run a marathon. all it showed was fat in the blood was less than not doing them, indeed going for a brisk walk reduced fat in the blood.

at the end of the day , if they get people out on the bike/walk/run who cares!!!! its better than not doing that, we choose the drink at the vending machine, its still our choice.
and why sports drinks? how is that different than say the cost of a BMW compared to a Skoda ? they both do the same thing, but BMW imply theres is better,quicker,safer, higher quality, better engineered etc etc - wheres that evidence?

they seems to enjoy pulling up/tearing down "fads" rather then actually investigating real problems of the decade, like long term welfare state dependencies, forced subjugation/marriage of women in certain sectors of british society, the boys club that run the financies of this country and politicians who seem to do what the hell they want...until they get caught...
perhaps they need a boost in license fee to do any kind of proper investigative journalism these days

I agree with you that most BBC fact based programmes seem pretty rubbish now.
What I can't decide whether they've actually got worse, or my expectations have risen.
I suspect mostly the former. The BBC has to chase audience figures to justify it's existence now, which pretty much rules out a lot of stuff which requires thought or attention.
I don't know what the answer is. In the golden days you could effectively force people to watch educational output because they didn't have much choice in the matter. But I think the current wealth of choice may of led to a less informed public.

teamhurtmore - Member
"Milk has got a lotta bottle, nice cold, ice cold, milk"

Blimey, that dates me. That was in the days before lactate intolerance was invented, sorry, discovered. Funny how all those school kids survived their daily bottles!?!?

Ain't that the truth!
It's bizarre how no-one ever had a problem with lactose intolerance and other such pseudo-medical b***ocks until the past few years.

As someone else on here has already said, no wonder farmers don't have a pot to pee in when they struggle to get 60p for a pint of milk but half a pint of fluorescent fizzy stuff costs 2 or 3 times that and probably has pretty much the same effect.

BMJ, you mean that journal where medics pretend to be scientists

You're certainly not the first person I've heard snorting with derision at that. Plenty of people, from statisticians to physicists, I've seen read articles from the BMJ and have shaken their heads with disbelief. Worrying really.

I do find caffeine gels to be effective though

Don't use sports stuff on most rides just take what's easy to eat and carry and tastes nice, pies pasties and cakes then 🙂 I think the "sports" 90% of us do won't benefit from this high tech stuff. Reckon it's on the fringes where there [i]may[/i] be a little improvement, to the pros 1 or 0.5% improvement is a big thing, not so much for us.

caffeine gels are a great pick me up when you've bonked tho, always keep one in my pack just in case.

and superpowers if consumed in large quantities.. but only if mixed with the correct ratio of [s]tequila[/s] vodka..

I'm waiting for this to come out

or

😯

no wonder farmers don't have a pot to pee in when they struggle to get 60p for a pint of milk

The farmers are lucky to get 24p.

"Red bull, it gives you wings."

But so do Always and they can get you roller skating too!

BMJ, you mean that journal where medics pretend to be scientists

If the medical profession were as concerend about the validity of the studies that go into the pills they prescribe I'd perhaps be slightly more impressed, 'til then if you ever find a medic recommending something that's not on a 'script be sure to let me know....

You're certainly not the first person I've heard snorting with derision at that. Plenty of people, from statisticians to physicists, I've seen read articles from the BMJ and have shaken their heads with disbelief. Worrying really.

Articles are there, have a read. Let us know what you think. Author details are on it, you could let them know too.

Terry Wrist - Member
Articles are there, have a read. Let us know what you think. Author details are on it, you could let them know too.

Skimmed the articles, like much of BMJ stuff they're just metareviews.
Concluisons seem to be:
not enough in depth studies carried out, may or may not offer any performance gain, may or may not offer any benefits over "conventional" foodstuffs.

Essentially here's how "it works"....

...mid ranking medic needs publications to boost career, can't do any hard science due to clinical workload, can't publish anything controverisal in "their field" for political reasons so what to do....

...pick a high profile, media friendly subject - typically something that will get lots of citations.
Get junior members of team to do massive PubMed serach on the subject, cut'n'paste all data sets from lit search and post on to tame statistician/epidemiologist or similar number cruncher who will use their expertise to come up with a meta-analysis of the data sets.
Add some non-commital but highly readable prose, send to the chaps at BMJ - bingo......

trouble is, the stats people don't know that the datasets sent to them are either comparable or accurate & the Publishing author doesn't have the science riffs to look beyond the numbers and is too canny to include any studies that might compromise his career prospects.

End result, pseudo science in a nice media friendly form - highly quotable by "high brow" journos, wikiwizards and googlephiles so rapidly becomes "accepted wisdom"

I've no "beef" with medics, statisticans, epidemiologists etc, but hey - let's stick to what we're good at and respect each others specialities eh.........

"sports science" "academic discipline" LOL.

I blame Google.

Sports drinks, protein shakes, etc, can be an excellent displacement activity. I've seen lots of people at the gym with techno-drinks whose workout seems to consist largely of standing around or sitting at machines with an intense look on their faces.

they've uncovered a massive revelation: sports drinks contain... wait for it.... sugar! OMG!!!
this is guff.

Lol just watching it now ........interesting .... Drink when thirsty ....who'd a thought eh

I have to ask, are people really that dim that they couldn't figure out 90% of what was in that program for themselves?

they've uncovered a massive revelation: sports drinks contain... wait for it.... sugar! OMG!!!

I was pretty impressed by the revelation that some sports drinks are apparently sugar free.

Marketing init ....bullshit baffles brains

With such insight into the powers of marketing and sporting knowledge I can't believe that this is the same site that harbours people who promote the latest bling-bling and 160mm forked, doubly suspended cycling creations.
Quite an interesting program and that Obree bloke is a bit of a star.

some sports drinks are apparently sugar free.

the experts reaction to that revelation was choice.
laughter.

I have to ask, are people really that dim that they couldn't figure out 90% of what was in that program for themselves?

Start a thread on supplements? There are plenty of big fans of energy drinks and protein shakes. I've always assumed that this means there are plenty of highly trained endurance athletes on here.

I've no "beef" with medics, statisticans, epidemiologists etc, but hey - let's stick to what we're good at and respect each others specialities eh.........

So you just 'know' that they do work?

I think it's reasonable to assume there is a massive amount of BS involved in the sports products industry. I suppose there may be a few grains of truth in there as well.

It's bizarre how no-one ever had a problem with lactose intolerance and other such pseudo-medical b***ocks until the past few years.

nothing to do with medical and scientific gains in the last 40 years?

still visting the GP and him offering you a cigarette? no, didnt think so,

[img] [/img]

what a load of horseshit

Eat malt-bread & chocolate, drink milk

Or drink powdered chocolate milk with malt extract

The choice is yours

Its just product marketing, whats the problem?

If people feel that hi-tech shoes/equipment/snacks may improve their performance then most likely they will.
If people find motivation to exercise in buying new trainers, clothing or products with famous athletes endorsements then what's wrong with that. ?

with STW big hitter endorsements then what's wrong with that. ?

[url= http://www.nhs.uk/news/2012/07July/Pages/Gym-and-tonic.aspx ]NHS review of the story[/url]

Look, I just get annoyed with these programs that go, "Hey, companies are going to tell you what you want to hear to get you to buy stuff stuff from them. Oh, and guess what? Sugar is a carbohydrate. Who would have thought it?" for 60 minutes.

It's hardly groundbreaking stuff in this day and age. The BBC needs to up its game. Drink some energy drinks or something.

The Original Big Hitter, eh?

😎

Oh and good for you torsoinalake, not everyone is as well informed as you.

Go big or go home.

In reply to your edit, yes, just got on a bit of a rant there. I've calmed down now.

I thought this was worth highlighting in the NHS link above (emphasis mine).

The study highlights doubts over sports drinks in particular. The drinks are often marketed as having advantages over water, yet one of the study’s authors is reported in the papers as saying that [b]some of these products contain so many calories that they encourage weight gain and for most people they cancel out the benefits of exercise.[/b]

Terrible programme. Just awful.