There are two pieces to the marketing success of pyruvate. The first is, of course, the false claims made for it. The second is that it can be made very cheaply from glucose. Even though it is a "natural" substance, it is synthetically made. Now, the pill makers have a winning formula: ultra cheap to produce, lots of sexy metabolic claims, and a huge markup. So why is pyruvate yet another nutritional hustle?

The "logic" goes something like this:
Glucose is broken down into pyruvate (a true statement), which is then (nearly) ready to be burned "aerobically" (another true statement). Therefore, if I take pyruvate directly, I will get more direct energy and burn more fat--which is a false statement, and would not follow from the antecedent even if it were true.

But there is more to the story. You are indeed ingesting a "natural" substance, but you are introducing it to your body in a highly unnatural way: pyruvate is not meant to be ingested. Why? Because it is made within body cells to be used immediately, and not meant to float around in the blood. The proof? Blood levels of glucose are ballpark about 100 mg per 100 ml of blood; pyruvate is about 1.0mg. When taking gram upon gram of pyruvate (you need about 30 grams/day to demonstrate a small amount of fat loss), it is absorbed through the intestine, into the blood stream. Thirty grams of pyruvate will yield a post-absorption blood concentration 600 times that of normal blood! And 30 grams is not really a lot. Dannon "fruit on the bottom" yogurt has 45 gms (!!) of sugar, which is converted to pyruvate, as are all sugars.

Pyruvate is acidic, and chronic acidic loads in the blood are linked to osteoporosis--ditto the phosphoric acid in Coke and Pepsi, whose effects are even stronger in the bodies of small children. But it gets more interesting: Every time you exercise enough, you produce too much pyruvate for the body to handle, and is then converted it to lactic acid, resulting in a burning sensation in the muscle, the so-called "lactic acid burn". This is not at all a bad thing, but rather just the body apprising you of what is going on.

If pyruvate indeed works, weightlifters should have very low body fat, by dint of their frequent lifting to the point of muscle fatigue or lactic acid burn (excess pyruvate). But this is not the case at all. On the other hand, marathon runners, whose training is specifically geared to avoid pyruvate buildup, do have very low body fat.

So you could even argue (falsely) that pyruvate impedes fat burning!

The additional false logic is that anything that is already produced by the body ("natural") is therefore safe and beneficial when taken dietetically. Well, this is clearly false in the case of hormones, and less-clearly false with the "friendlier" intermediary metabolites such as pyruvate, NAD, creatine, etc. Why, then, would ingesting something the body already makes be more dangerous that ingesting nutrients the body does not make (vitamins, minerals, etc)? The reason is we have evolved to handle extreme variations in dietary nutrients, from feast to famine, while the intermediary metabolites, hormones, etc. are exquisitely regulated. Dumping the latter into the body via the diet bypasses that demand for regulation, which in normal people is almost always a bad thing to do.

Thus, we have Hogg's Law:
Never take body metabolic products (pyruvate, hormones, etc.) as a supplement. It is at least a total waste of money, and possibly extraordinarily dangerous, as in the case of hormones.

The pyruvate issue is resolved thusly:
We have absolutely no problem producing pyruvate. Too often we produce too much pyruvate! The "problem" is utilizing the pyruvate we produce, which is what aerobic training is all about.

Does swamping the body with pyruvate cause the loss of even a little fat? If it does so at all, it probably does it by forcing the body to rectify a toxic situation, much as pathogens cause weight loss in illness--and the fat loss is essentially insignificant, even at 30 grams/day. At about $1 per gram, this is about $900/month--a little pricey in my book, especially when you consider that with a reasonable diet/exercise regimen (which have many health benefits beyond simple fat loss), you would have saved money in food, and lost weight healthfully.

Kristofer Hogg holds degrees in physics, chemistry, and nutrition, is a Registered Dietitian, and has an extensive background in machining and manufacturing processes. He did PhD research in Enzyme Kinetics, and developed the HoloBarre Fitness/Rehab/Stretching System, which should be available through physical therapists, personal fitness trainers, and dance schools by the end of 2001. You can email him questions/comments on health/nutrition/fitness as well as other inquiries to: physical@erols.com