Hi all


I will keep my reply brief because of Will's assessment of the state of
"frantically busy" that I am operating under. I will also say that the
comments I am about to make are mine and not those of my place of work


1. Black box research.

I think there are cases for doing both black box "top down" as well as
"bottom up" research. Both have their places and their frustrations. Of
course, the justification for the top down approach is that if a product is
commercially available and popular, you need to study it as it appears to
the user. Of course, once you find that something is a worthwhile treatment
it would then be useful to find out which components alone or in combination
are responsible for what you see. I wouldn't like it to be the only way to
do research, since the market is flooded with products that have "a bitta
this, a bitta that, a lotta claims" and it could be distracting to chase
after all of these possibilities. However, when something is fantastically
popular, or is a combination of other things that are known to work
individually and might work together well, then there is some merit in
giving them a black box investigation.


So Will, I am on your side that some reviewers and readers of research are
confused about what merits publication.


2. Does research on multi-nutrient supplements generate a doping
mentality?

I have to laugh at this. I have read more studies of multi-nutrient and
single-nutrient supplementation that most people I know, and I haven't yet
been tempted to dope myself during any of my fun runs or marathons. In any
case, from memory the same issue of that journal had a paper on EPO and its
mechanism of performance enhancement. Methinks this paper might be more
likely to promote doping (at least if anyone who isn't doping can be
persuaded by reading a journal).

As for not doing caffeine research because it might promote the use of a
monitored substance by athletes.. An overwhelming majority of the adult
population consumes caffeine to enhance the performance of their everyday
lives. It now appears that the low-moderate doses of caffeine which are
part of an everyday diet are able to enhance sports performance, and it
probably doesn't get better if you take more. If more research can convince
athletes in many sports that they don't need to dose up on huge amounts of
caffeine to achieve a benefit, bring it on.


3. Does this research encourage a long term use that might be harmful.

It would be good if we could all keep our morals/ethics/prejudices out of
our research. Me included. Your data can only say so much. The rest is
your soapbox.

Enough

Louise

Professor Louise Burke
Head, Dept of Sports Nutrition
Australian Institute of Sport
PO Box 176, Belconnen, 2616)
(Leverrier Crescent, Bruce 2617)
ACT
Australia
ph 61 2 6214 1351
fax 61 2 6214 1603
louise.burke@...
website: www.ais.org.au/nutrition