Product Review:Muscle Enhancers (Creatine and Branched-Chain Amino Acids)
How Products were Selected: Products were selected to represent those commonly sold and/or available nationally in the U.S. ConsumerLab.com purchased products on the open market through retail stores, on-line retailers, catalogues, or multi-level marketing companies. Products were not accepted directly from manufacturers.
Testing Method: Creatine: Creatine products were tested for their amount of creatine and potential contamination with creatinine and dicyandiamide. All creatine products were subjected to High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) to analyze for creatine as well as for creatinine and dicyandiamide. The HPLC methods employed are widely used in the industry and were internally verified.
Branched-chain Amino Acids:
Quantitative analyses for amino acids were performed before and after hydrolysis by an Amino Acid Analyzer.
Disintegration of non-chewable, non-capsule, non-enteric coated and non-time-release formulations were analyzed utilizing USP (United States Pharmacopeia) <2040> recommendations entitled "Disintegration and Dissolution of Nutritional Supplements."
Any product that did not pass the testing was sent to another independent laboratory to repeat testing for at least one of the criteria on which it did not pass. The identities of the products were not disclosed to the laboratories performing the testing.
Passing Score: * To pass testing, a product had to meet the following criteria:
All products had to meet recommended USP parameters for disintegration (excluding capsule, enteric coated, chewable and time-release products) and meet all FDA labeling requirements.
Creatine:
Must contain not less than 99.9% of the claimed amount of creatine monohydrate, malate or phosphate.
The combined weights of creatinine and dicyandiamide found in the product could not represent more than 0.1% of the measured amount of the creatine (calculated as the labeled form).
Branched-chain Amino Acids:
Must contain at least 100%, and not more than 150% of the claimed amount of individual and total amino acids.
A "Pass" was based on passing each criterion in any one of the analyses or laboratories.
* Passing scores allow for specific margins of technical error associated with each analysis. ConsumerLab.com reserves the right to disqualify a product at any time from passing its testing if it considers such product to present a safety risk or to provide misleading or inaccurate information in its labeling.
