Brian Rowley, MS

Looking for your magic bullet? M&F Hers examines the top nine supplements for fat-burning, performance and health.

Here we discuss nine of the top supplements for active women. When deciding what's best for you, consider your lifestyle and your diet, and check out "Pantry Raid" on page 58 for tips on what certain women do and don't need. Then remember: Eat right. Even the best supplements can't make up for a poor diet.

For Fat Loss

Ephedrine-Caffeine (EC)
The combination of ephedrine and caffeine, two well-researched over-the-counter drugs, has been shown in numerous studies to cause about an extra pound per week of fat loss in overweight women. Furthermore, this celebrated thermogenic cocktail helps dieters preserve muscle while losing fat. Consider the results of one group of 50 obese women who lost less lean mass (0.8 pound of muscle mass per week) as a result of taking EC. That's 6 pounds of muscle saved over an eight-week period that would otherwise have been lost to dieting. This is good news for women trying to lose fat, especially since EC has been found to boost metabolism in lean women, too. In addition to its thermogenic effects, EC curbs appetite, which explains as much as 75% of its fat-loss benefit.

The usual dose is 20 mg of ephedrine (or ephedrine equivalents like ephedra or mahuang extract) together with 200 mg of caffeine (from guarana extract, Vivarin, No-Doz, cola, coffee, etc.) three times per day. Unfortunately, these doses initially cause side effects, so you should start out taking one-third or less of the usual dose as a test before jumping into the full-strength regimen. If you have high blood pressure or other health conditions, check with your physician before taking ephedrine. Exceeding the recommended dose of ephedrine can be dangerous, even deadly. You shouldn't take EC in an on-again/off-again way, nor take the combo with drugs used to treat mood disorders like depression. Initially, too much ephedrine-caffeine raises your blood pressure and causes nausea, insomnia and/or the jitters.

Only after obese people are on these agents for many months do they experience benefits including fat loss, a rise in HDL ("good") cholesterol and a gradual lowering of blood pressure, most of which are effects of cutting back on calories. Unfortunately, that's a long time to be taking pills three times a day, especially when you consider that withdrawal causes headaches and grogginess. Yet EC is definitely effective for fat loss in overweight individuals when used as directed for many months.

Green Tea Extract
As well as being relaxing (due to its content of l-theanine) and full of beneficial antioxidants, a cup of green tea before bed also keeps your metabolism humming. For example, an extract of green tea standardized to 90 mg of the active ingredient epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) was found to stimulate metabolism and increase energy expenditure by about 4%. The effect was probably due to EGCG's ability to block the enzyme catechol-O-methyl transferase and keep levels of the thermogenic hormone norepinephrine high. As a whole, research on green tea suggests it has a fat-loss effect without the "buzz" of EC, and is likely to reduce your chance of getting many different types of cancer.

For Sports Performance

Creatine
One old standby that has been repeatedly found to have performance-enhancing effects is creatine monohydrate. For example, the supplement improves your ability to perform high-intensity exercise over a number of intermittent sets, probably by boosting stores of high-energy phosphate in your muscles. So it should help you squeeze out that extra rep in the gym, which should improve the intensity and therefore benefit of your workouts. It has no effect on aerobic performance.

Although you aren't looking to build monster mass like a Mr. Olympia, you probably want the optimum amount of muscle fullness for an athletic, fit woman. Creatine monohydrate can cause about 2-3 pounds of lean muscle gain in as little as a week due to its muscle cell volumizing effect. When creatine is moved into muscle, water follows and you get a better pump. Luckily, this isn't the same thing as getting a bloat, which is unattractive water retention under the skin or elsewhere. Weight gained from taking creatine is simply the result of better muscle cell hydration.

Work done at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, suggests that creatine supplementation in conjunction with a heavy resistance-training program nearly doubles the rate of size gains in muscle fibers compared to training plus a placebo - a 30%-35% gain in muscle fiber cross-sectional area vs. just a 15% gain with placebo. Creatine may also have a genuine muscle-building effect, although this is still being explored.

About 3 grams per day of creatine for 28 days has been found to be enough to saturate muscle, after which only 2 grams per day maintains creatine stores at optimal levels. Many top experts have gone on record to report that creatine is safe when used as directed, but you should drink plenty of water when taking it.

Mark Tarnopolsky, MD, PhD, professor in the department of kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, has presented evidence to suggest that taking creatine has no effect on either blood pressure or kidney function in healthy men or women.

Glutamine
When the body is under great stress, vital organs seemingly eat glutamine for breakfast just to stay alive - and muscle is often the body's only source for this amino acid. Doctors have used glutamine for years to help burn patients hang onto muscle and stay healthy. Athletes' bodies aren't under the same kind of stress, but their need for glutamine still increases as their physical and psychological stress levels go up.

Studies suggest that 8-20 grams per day of supplemental glutamine can fill the need, letting muscle off the hook and bolstering exercise recovery. "During recovery from trauma and infection, muscle glutamine stores are depleted, leading to muscle wasting," says John A. Rathmacher, PhD, collaborating assistant professor at Iowa State University in Ames. "Glutamine supplementation can be used to maintain muscle levels during these situations, which helps keep protein synthesis moving along."

Similarly, glutamine's ability to keep blood acid levels in check may offer some protection for muscle and bone as you age. If your body retains more acid than it excretes (metabolic acidosis), you lose muscle and bone. Glutamine - along with a healthy supply of fruits and vegetables - seems to counteract this problem by increasing blood bicarbonate and urinary nitrogen levels.8 Glutamine powder dissolves easily in beverages and is nearly tasteless, so you can get the active dose of about 10 grams without swallowing multiple capsules or tablets. Interestingly, some of the benefit may be achieved with lower doses. As little as 2 grams of glutamine has been found to cause the release of growth hormone, which supports repair and maintenance of muscle connective tissue, tendons and ligaments.

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