Lauren’s super little system
Victoria athlete packs pill that’s said to ease stress and boost endurance
Olympic athletes groaning under the weight of overstuffed suitcases may envy Victoria’s Lauren Groves when she arrives in Beijing this week for the triathlon.
Groves will be lighter on her feet than rival triathletes who have crammed dozens of bottles of vitamins and minerals in their bags to see them through their gruelling event.
Groves, 26, avoided supplement angst by finding pretty much everything she wants in a new product called 7systems.
Aspire Sports Supplements, the company behind 7systems, has promoted the endurance sports supplement as a way to blunt the impact of Beijing smog by goosing athletes’ immune systems.
But 7systems’ long-term mainstream appeal may lie less in any smog-easing properties and more in its stress-busting simplicity.
"When we started, we targeted the endurance sports market but it’s really for anybody whose life involves excess amounts of stress," says Aspire co-founder Jasper Blake, also of Victoria.
"It’s a potent multi-vitamin, multi-mineral, multi-nutrient product designed to cover all your bases."
Blake and Aspire co-founders Stefan Timms and Martin Rydlo know something about athletes’ nutrition anxiety.
Timms and Rydlo are former professional triathletes, and remain active in the sport.
At 34, Blake is still pro. The 2006 Ironman Canada champion is training for the 2008 Ironman Canada in Penticton on Aug. 24 and for the Ironman world championship in Hawaii in October.
The three friends saw a gap in the supplements market for a cost-effective and comprehensive product to help endurance athletes handle the stress of training and racing.
After 18 months of research, tests and consultations with health professionals, the three arrived at a blend of more than 60 ingredients.
The result can be ordered over the web at www.7systems.ca. So far, only one store — Frontrunners in Victoria — stocks the product.
"Our longer-term goal is really to have a strong presence in the retail sector," Blake says.
At $87 for a month’s supply, a potential customer might wonder whether the supplement is really cost effective. Blake insists it is when you compare the hundreds of dollars all the individual ingredients would cost.
And Aspire will send you two months free supply of 7systems if you buy the ingredients for less.
The seven systems the supplement targets are muscular, immune, respiratory, digestive, nervous, skeletal and cardiovascular.
Aspire elected to deliver the product in the form of a packet of nine pills taken daily.
The company hired Gianni Parise, an assistant professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, to review the formula. Parise, who works in Mac’s departments of kinesiology and medical physics and applied radiation science, checked scientific data to ensure the product would do what it’s supposed to.
At first glance, 7systems appears to be a supercharged vitamin-mineral-nutrient supplement, Parise says. It goes a step beyond run-of-the-mill supplements by including key ingredients such as glutamine, Coenzyme Q10 and glucosamine, he says.
The product, which is suitable for the general public, functions like a safety net for people whose stressful professional lives or training schedules may leave them with less than well-balanced diets, Parise says.
"You won’t take a supplement like this and become an Olympian overnight. The training is 90 per cent of it," Parise says. "It will help athletes, particularly in track and field, recover and prevent damage."
There have been conflicting scientific findings regarding the effectiveness of some of 7systems’ ingredients, Parise says. But research to date indicates they are all safe, he says.
Dr. Lloyd Oppel is less certain. Dr. Oppel, who chairs the B.C. Medical Association’s council on health promotion, says the "buyer beware" rule applies to natural health products given the absence of rigorous screening by Health Canada.
"The agency is, unfortunately, operating under rules of engagement that do not effectively protect consumers in ensuring that health products are effective or that they’re safe," Dr. Oppel says.
Certain herbal remedies long used in traditional medicine have shown serious side effects when closely studied, Dr. Oppel says.
Caveats aside, 7systems has won praise from many athletes.
Groves says she has more energy, recovers faster and is able to train harder since she began taking the supplement last November.
"I can’t say I’ve noticed a difference in racing," she says.
"It’s more about getting to the starting line healthy and fit, with a strong immune system."
On a trip to a recent event in South Korea, the supplement gave Groves nutritional peace of mind after she found herself staying clear of "unrecognizable veggies and mystery meats."
Douglas Laboratories, the supplement’s manufacturer, guarantees that 7systems has been exposed to no banned substances during production.
Douglas does not guarantee that 7system pills will taste wonderfully yummy if an over-eager user accidentally chews one.
"It’s not candy," Blake says. "We thought we would have to spend another five years trying to make it taste good."
