HOW ACCURATE ARE THE RESULTS?

Although we make every effort to minimize the variables and provide accurate results, keep in mind these are REAL-WORLD tests. Our volunteers do not live in a laboratory. They have real lives and are affected by numerous influences inside and outside their body. When reviewing our test results, please keep in mind the following factors that can affect the results:

PLACEBO EFFECT: Most scientific studies are conducted using the double-blind method. We don’t. The double-blind method means the volunteer testing the product and the person giving the test don’t know if they are getting the actual product or a placebo (i.e., sugar pill). It is sometimes believed that if someone thought they were taking the real deal, even though they weren’t, this would trigger something in their body that would cause the desired effect. Well, that’s all fine in the scientific world, but this is the real world. As we have said before, we do not care about the mechanism or science behind why a supplement is supposed to work. All we care about are results. If you take a supplement (all other variables limited) and put on 5 lb. of lean muscle and your bench press goes from ten reps to eighteen reps, who cares if it was caused by the supplement itself or the shinny label on the outside of the bottle?

NUMBER OF TESTS: The more tests you do on a particular supplement, the better the conclusions you can make about that supplement. We have not yet done a large number of tests on each supplement. However, that doesn’t mean the tests we have completed have no value. How often do people choose a supplement based on a recommendation from a friend or the biased supplement sales person? We believe our tests have much more value than that. Hang with us. We continue to test products we have already tested. Our numbers keep growing and growing.

WEIGHT: Your weight can be affected by the food and water you have recently consumed and where you are in your excretory cycle. A women’s weight can also be affected by her menstrual cycle. These factors will not only affect the reading on the scale, it will also affect the calculations of body fat and lean body mass.

CALIPERS: We are currently using digital body fat calipers to measure body fat. Calipers are not exact. You could test someone three times in a row and get a slightly different reading each time. We do the caliper test two to four times and take an average reading.

CHANGES IN DIET AND WORKOUT: Although we have our volunteers sign contracts saying that they will not significantly alter their diet and workout during the test cycle, small changes can affect the results. Your diet and workout can be affected by injury, sickness, mood, and an infinite number of outside influences. If we feel a volunteer has made significant changes in their diet or workouts, we do not include his/her results in our posted data.

DISHONESTY: It’s always possible that our volunteers lie to us about their qualifications and whether they have followed the rules of the test. We have a good rapport with our volunteers and believe they are basically honest. However, the possibility of dishonesty exists.