I was browsing a supplement store which is located in the city where I live, and I found a section on something called “Ribose” – there were only a couple of different items, from two manufacturers, but the site is in german, and I don’t speak german.
Curious about this “wonder chemical” that according to my limited german skills it was, I googled a bit (albeit filtering results to only T-Nation.com), and came up with a slew of references to Ribose, but most from 1999 or so. Even found an article about Ribose-C a Biotest product.
Now, my natural assumption is that Ribose was something which seemed very good for some time, but then turned out to have side effects, or simply was vastly overshadower by other things. But, I’m still curious what exactly is the low down on this supplement?
Anyone here able to tell me something about Ribose?
[quote]steinnes wrote:
I was browsing a supplement store which is located in the city where I live, and I found a section on something called “Ribose” – there were only a couple of different items, from two manufacturers, but the site is in german, and I don’t speak german.
Curious about this “wonder chemical” that according to my limited german skills it was, I googled a bit (albeit filtering results to only T-Nation.com), and came up with a slew of references to Ribose, but most from 1999 or so. Even found an article about Ribose-C a Biotest product.
Now, my natural assumption is that Ribose was something which seemed very good for some time, but then turned out to have side effects, or simply was vastly overshadower by other things. But, I’m still curious what exactly is the low down on this supplement?
Anyone here able to tell me something about Ribose? :-)[/quote]
Just like the myostatin blockers and a few years from now, the NO boosters…Ribose fell to the side because it failed to deliver. As it’s said a lot, theory and practice are not the same thing. While it’s true the powerful effects ribose has in the body, it doesn’t mean direct supplementation of ribose will increase those benefits.
I see thanks a lot… I think this supplement store just kinda sucks… They also have a special section for Vanadyl… which afaik has been disproven completely and may even have nasty gastrointestinal side effects…
[quote]AllTraps wrote:Just like the myostatin blockers and a few years from now, the NO boosters…Ribose fell to the side because it failed to deliver. As it’s said a lot, theory and practice are not the same thing. While it’s true the powerful effects ribose has in the body, it doesn’t mean direct supplementation of ribose will increase those benefits.
Pass on Ribose[/quote]
I couldn’t disagree more. D-Ribose is one of the more effective supplements I’ve used to enhance performance.
I believe the reason it fell off the supplement map is because of poor marketing. After all, the supplement industry is driven by marketing. Crappy NO products are pushed hard and as a result are one of the top selling products in the sports supplement industry. It has very little to do with whether they are actually effective.
[quote]ChrisKing wrote:
AllTraps wrote:Just like the myostatin blockers and a few years from now, the NO boosters…Ribose fell to the side because it failed to deliver. As it’s said a lot, theory and practice are not the same thing. While it’s true the powerful effects ribose has in the body, it doesn’t mean direct supplementation of ribose will increase those benefits.
Pass on Ribose
I couldn’t disagree more. D-Ribose is one of the more effective supplements I’ve used to enhance performance.
I believe the reason it fell off the supplement map is because of poor marketing. After all, the supplement industry is driven by marketing. Crappy NO products are pushed hard and as a result are one of the top selling products in the sports supplement industry. It has very little to do with whether they are actually effective.
[/quote]
You want performance enhancement - go beta-alanine instead of D-Ribose.
BETA-7 is a great product and runs circles around any ribose product on the market.
I find it a moderately effective supplement and as for that site’s claim that they analyzed that it supposedly doesn’t work in practice, well there’s solid research that it does have significant though modest effect at 20 grams per day, besides personal findings.
As you mentioned, Biotest used to sell it actually; the specific product was called Ribose-C and was a liquid that also had creatine. Many users did have good results from it, moreso than simply the creatine.
There was no problem with any sort of adverse effect or problem of any kind.
The problem with it is that the benefit, while real, doesn’t prove enough for the cost to be remotely a “bang for the buck” situation. Really not worth the money to those who put an average value to money. When this was realized, it was discontinued.
If money is little object, it’s a reasonable thing to add to a program. I use it sometimes but it’s a low priority item for me. I don’t bother if workout volume is average, as I can’t tell the difference then, but tend to add it in when volume increases. However, I wouldn’t recommend it even then if it’s at the cost of not using each of several other effective things, and certainly not if taking away from anything at all important in other areas.
Not to hijack, but very eerie. I was just thinking of posting to ask if Bill Roberts or Brian Batchledor (sp) were still around and working on anything new in delivery strategies.
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
I find it a moderately effective supplement and as for that site’s claim that they analyzed that it supposedly doesn’t work in practice, well there’s solid research that it does have significant though modest effect at 20 grams per day, besides personal findings.
As you mentioned, Biotest used to sell it actually; the specific product was called Ribose-C and was a liquid that also had creatine. Many users did have good results from it, moreso than simply the creatine.
There was no problem with any sort of adverse effect or problem of any kind.
The problem with it is that the benefit, while real, doesn’t prove enough for the cost to be remotely a “bang for the buck” situation. Really not worth the money to those who put an average value to money. When this was realized, it was discontinued.
If money is little object, it’s a reasonable thing to add to a program. I use it sometimes but it’s a low priority item for me. I don’t bother if workout volume is average, as I can’t tell the difference then, but tend to add it in when volume increases. However, I wouldn’t recommend it even then if it’s at the cost of not using each of several other effective things, and certainly not if taking away from anything at all important in other areas.[/quote]
Thank you for a detailed and highly informative answer. And thanks to the rest of you guys who’ve chimed in
So according to what I’ve seen so far, this is a supplement I’d be willing to try, expecting some moderate results, if I had already tried most of the other interesting supps, many of which would provide better results for their price.
