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Marketing Myostatin Inhibitors with Fake Science by Jeffrey Tomkins, Ph.D. * Body builders and other athletes use nutritional supplements to increasingly exploit the muscular mass-building benefits of reducing the levels of a protein in the body called "myostatin." While these products may be helpful and effective, the evolutionary sales pitch used to promote these supplements is defective and unscientific. Myostatin, also known as "growth differentiation factor 8" (GDF-8), is a protein in humans that circulates in the blood system and acts on muscle tissue by binding a receptor on the muscle-cell surface. This limits and regulates cell growth and differentiation.1...

Somewhere in Germany is a baby Superman, born in Berlin with bulging arm and leg muscles. Not yet 5, he can hold seven-pound weights with arms extended, something many adults cannot do. He has muscles twice the size of other kids his age and half their body fat. DNA testing showed why: The boy has a genetic mutation that boosts muscle growth. The discovery, reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, represents the first documented human case of such a mutation. Many scientists believe the find could eventually lead to drugs for treating people with muscular dystrophy and other...