For the strength-endurance reports, what would be great is to get tested on VO-Max both before and after supplementing with C60oo. Otherwise, with some reporting dramatic results and others not, I am afraid the evil and powerful placebo effect could be at work. The one effect of C60oo that seems legit (at this point) is the hair re-growth. I am fairly certain that the placebo effect would not affect hair growth much at all.
As far as banning the substance goes. It depends on how effective C60oo truly is. If it really keeps people healthy, then the FDA will be certain to ban it or harshly regulate it (or at least try). If it increases strength as well, then there is even a higher likelihood it will be banned world-wide. The tyrants in the U.S. congress are uniquely fixated on making sure no one ever breaks the baseball home run record - health and longevity be damned.
I wonder if there has been any research on placebo effect vs. skepticism. My rationalization is that a skeptic would be less prone to placebo than someone who is expecting a result. Of course, even having the seed of an expected result planted in your thoughts may counter the skepticism. Hmm... Could placebo effect cause me to crank out 3-4 more reps before failure than I was ever able to previously do before? Or in the case of the ab exercise I logged, 15 reps. Could the placebo affect cause my heart to beat slower under specific load that it ever has before? Placebo *is* powerful.
I do find my initial results interesting because I was expecting nothing. In fact, I was expecting to be able to make a smug report that it did nothing for me
as a counterpoint to all the claims that it did. It wasn't a strength increase that I really noticed though, it was an increase in endurance under load. My first exercise in the muscle group didn't really show anything special that couldn't easily be explained away as a normal gain. Different story though with the second and third exercise. Anyone that has been lifting weights for a long time knows that 4 rep gains in an experienced lifter just don't happen between one lifting session and the next. Don't get me wrong it 'can' happen in a one off scenario if the baseline was performed during injury, stress, sickness, lack of sleep, etc. I made a point of ruling this out by logging several sessions worth, including normal post recovery 'gains' if any.
Anyways my 'endurance' result so far was reinforced by my heart rate under load. Sure, heart rate can vary under load due to a lot of different things. I am just not so sure 6-8 bpm is within the 'normal' variance as this is outside of my area of expertise or knowledge at the moment. It sure would play right into some of the theory crafting that has been going on about C60 and lung function or oxygen utilization though, or to the endurance increase reports in general regardless of actual cause.
Hi Mike. Sure I think it's possible that you experienced some increase in endurance-I'm just not completely convinced yet. It seems that most people who get the C60-oo cough(which I believe is genuine) are more likely to report increases in endurance, or other types of positve biological/physiological reactions.
By C60 cough, are you referring to a general feeling of malaise as a whole that some people are reporting?