Originally Posted by AChappell
"Hi Layne I posted this question on the supplement discussion board but I'd be quite interested in your input.
What do you think of arginine NOS supplements? Do You think they actually work? or do you you think it's possible to build the same amount of muscle or more without taking them? At present I'm not currently aware of any research involving Arginine and increases in CSA as a result of a prolonged supplementation so this would be interesting also if someone could bridge that gap.
Personally Im still sitting on the fence at the effectiveness of such supplements. nitric oxide (NO) is produced from the conversion of arginine to citruline by three different NO synthase enzymes iNOS (inducible or immune system NOS) eNOS (endothelial NOS) and nNOS (neural NOS). So there are three different pathways by which the nitric oxygen species can be activated. eNOS and nNOS can simply be be stiumulated by a calcium influx and mechanical stress. However iNOS requires activation predominately by transcription factors mediated by a increase in NfKB that leads to increases in inflammation.
If eNOS and nNOS are stimulated by an excess of arginine then do we get the sample inflammatory induced response stimulated by regular exercise and a recruitment of inflammatory factors? Especially when you consider that majority of RONS damage will predominately be in the vascular system rather than the skeletal muscle tissue.
Secondly my understanding has always been that muscle hypertrophy is the result of tissue remodelling via satellite cell recruitment in response to exercise induced stress. Thus leading to a upregulation in protein synthesis If your ability to train a muscle is limited by the pump induced by such a supplement then surely there is a failure to recruit as many motor units and fibres. Someone with information on any EMG studies would be useful here.
Anyway this was something I was musing over recently, so feel free to correct me and come in with your insights."
str8flexed (Layne Norton):
there is no evidence to suggest arginine has any anabolic effect
